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.

Hi Eeyore and readers of vladtepesblog,
There is still hope for Europa and France.
Marion Marechal-Le Pen’s remarkable rise in French politics.
http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/marion-marechalle-pens-remarkable-rise-in-french-politics/news-story/ca3e5454563bd7bd23987e86ae44d700
Thank You.
The END GAME: WHY the WEST is LOST
Black Pigeon Speaks
Black Pigeon Speaks
If I didn’t have original (Hardbound) editions of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead in my library you would hear shrieks of horror from this corner.
Instead, you will continue to witness an unrelenting stream of profane objections from this scientific and logical oppositional wired-@ss.
Take that as you may.
A friend just told me her daughter’s going to Cuba to donate toys to poor children. To help their economy, promote tourism. My friend was speechless – arguments on a hair-trigger.
How will the wars to come change this brainwashed generation? Will they become anything close to what we would recognize as “normal” today? Something entirely different?
Some will go both ways, in the end those who return to tribalism will be the ones that end up controlling the various nations.
Well, that was my sad for Monday morning. I think I’ll go outside and work in my garden now. It’s a beautiful day and getting dirty is cathartic.
Babs out.
“ It’s a beautiful day and getting dirty is cathartic.”
Actually, working with the soil releases Mycobacterium vaccae, a known mood elevator.
From the link: “Mycobacterium vaccae is commonly found in soil, and has been proven to activate the release of brain serotonin, according to reports. The chemical serotonin together with dopamine boost immune systems and keep people happy.“
“If you want to be happy for a month, get married. If you want to be happy for a year, have children. If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, tend your garden.”
-Old Chinese proverb.
Now I know why.
They are my garden.
– Branch Proverb
JE SUIS
FLOODED
the water is now 3 feet high in the basement
and behind the house the garden is a big brown lake
earlier today someone uploaded a video of the area where I live :
Canada flood damage worsens but heavy rains subsiding
Stay safe, Martin.
Thanks —
if they don’t cut the electricity on my street I will be alright —
Hope you’re ok…
Since the Socialist/Marxist economic policies of the Western nations are coming home to roost with a very large economic collapse in the fairly near future. (I know me and others have been predicting one for many years but there is going to come a time when the printing press money that has no backing is going to collapse) possibly maybe even probably during the massive war that is starting to go Kinetic.
Tribalism is returning and will be the cultural system of the new Dark Age.
This video fits well together with the what the Black Pigeon is saying.
More proof:
Students claim they managed to pass off a pineapple they bought for £1 at a supermarket as a work of art, after leaving it in the middle of an exhibition at their university,
Ruairi Gray, a business information technology student at Robert Gordon University in Scotland, and his friend Lloyd Jack, reportedly left the fruit at the Look Again exhibition at RGU’s Sir Ian Wood building, hoping that it might be mistaken for art.
When they returned four days later he found that the pineapple had been put inside its own glass display case at the event.
Gray, 22, told the MailOnline: “I saw an empty art display stand and decided to see how long it would stay there for or if people would believe it was art.
“I came in later and it had been put in a glass case – it’s the funniest thing that has happened all year. My honours supervisor saw it and asked an art lecturer if it was real because he could not believe it.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/pineapple-art-exhibition-scotland-robert-gordon-university-ruairi-gray-lloyd-jack-a7723516.html
Everyone can thank Marcel Duchamp for this sort of nonsense.
If some real hilarity is desired, I present to you Chinese performance art duo Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi.
Bless this beautiful young woman for mentioning Yuri Bezmenov.
Few more accurate pictures of Western civilization’s future ever have been described in the precise terms of this ex-KGB agent.
https://pjmedia.com/election/2017/05/07/what-happened-in-france/
I would guess most readers of this site are familiar with this author, Bruce Bauer.
If not, google his bio. He has written at least two very interesting books on the state of Europe and its interaction with islam.
ISIS Infiltrates the Rukban Refugee Camp at Jordan-Syria Border
AL RUKBAN REFUGEE CAMP — Some 80,000 people are trapped in a scrub land of hopelessness in a forgotten corner of the Middle East.
Huddling in the wind, walled in by desert sandbanks, they have been driven there by war. Abandoned by governments, they are preyed on by the very ISIS gunmen and suicide bombers they fled their homelands to escape.
NBC News was given unique access to the area where Rukban straddles a rocky, arid no man’s land along the border linking Syria and Jordan — an important American ally, and a key member of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-uncovered/isis-infiltrates-rukban-refugee-camp-jordan-syria-border-n750206
Remedial ISIS Tutorial Steers Jihadists Toward Heavier, Deadlier Truck Attacks
The Islamic State just published a remedial step-by-step pictorial for lone jihadists on how to use a heavy vehicle to kill, walking would-be terrorists through how to acquire a vehicle and which targets to strike.
ISIS’ monthly Rumiyah magazine, which publishes online in 10 languages including English, last covered vehicle attacks in their November issue “Just Terror Tactics” segment, using Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who plowed a cargo truck through a crowd of Bastille Day revelers in Nice, France, last summer, as their key example.
In that article, ISIS encouraged shying away from budget sedans and “off-roaders, SUVs, and four-wheel drive vehicles” that “lack the necessary attributes required for causing a blood bath” as “smaller vehicles lack the weight and wheel span required for crushing many victims.” They recommended trucks with double wheels for “giving victims less of a chance to escape being crushed by the vehicle’s tires.” Long semi trucks were discouraged because of the possibility of jack-knifing.
https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/05/05/remedial-isis-tutorial-steers-jihadists-toward-heavier-deadlier-truck-attacks/
In France and Germany, a big weekend for the EU
By J.E. Dyer May 7, 2017
On Sunday evening, the vote tally in France had Emmanuel Macron up by about 30 points over Marine Le Pen, an even bigger gap than suggested by the last-minute polls a couple of days ago. With most of the votes counted, Macron is cruising to a super-majority victory with over 65% of the total, to Le Pen’s 34.5%.
I’m surprised by the spread, if not by the result. It’s hard to say if the strikingly pattern-ish “massive hacking” story that burst on Friday had anything to do with it. Macron’s campaign emails were reportedly hacked, and a 9-gig trove of them released by an anonymous source via a pastebin site. Once again, we are supposed to believe that Russians working for Putin did this, because the perpetrators decorated their work with (I am not making this up here) throbbing neon evidence in Cyrillic characters.
Yes, the Russians are psycho, diabolical, the world’s smartest hackers, and yet so blitheringly moronic that they go around typing things in Cyrillic into the metadata of altered documents, so we’ll be sure to know it’s them.
http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/05/07/france-germany-big-weekend-eu/
Richard: She is pointing out that this is people in Europe trying to prop up the status quo, they don’t realize (as she points out) that the status quo has no substance to prop up it is a house of cards waiting for a stray breeze to knock it down. This stray breeze is probably going to be an earthquake of massive size known as unlimited immigration of Islamic fighters into Europe. This will collapse the already overloaded welfare and (so called) criminal justice systems of the European nations.
Chicago police say members of La Raza shot officers with AR-style rifle
By LU Staff May 7, 2017
Chicago Police believe members of the notorious Mexican street gang La Raza used an AR-style rifle to carry out a brazen attack on Tuesday that left two plainclothes officers wounded and touched off a citywide manhunt.
Gunmen shot up an unmarked police van with a handgun and a .223 caliber rifle, most likely an AR-15, department sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Police say both officers were shot with a “high-powered weapon” — one in the hip and arm and the other in the back. The officers were released from Stroger Hospital on Wednesday after receiving treatment for non-life threatening wounds.
“It’s a miracle the officers are still alive,” said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
The pair were investigating a prior gang-related shooting in the city’s Back of The Yards neighborhood on Tuesday night when two cars pulled up alongside the police van, according to police. Without warning, occupants of those vehicles fired “indiscriminately” into the van before speeding away.
http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/05/07/chicago-police-say-members-la-raza-shot-officers-ar-style-rifle/
Richard: FYI AR means Armilite Rifle, Armilite was the company that designed and originally marketed the AR10 and AR15. The take down 22 that is used in the James Bond movie From Russia With Love is an AR1.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-31491723
Can Jewish people walk the streets of Paris in peace?
That’s the question Zvika Klein – a journalist at an Israeli news website – says he set out to answer. He borrowed the “10 hours in….” YouTube format, in which a hidden camera is used to show what it’s like to walk a city’s streets. It first appeared back in October, when hidden camera footage of a woman facing sexist abuse as she walked the streets of New York was watched almost 40 million times. It spawned a raft of of copycat videos.
Klein’s version takes place in the French capital. In the film he dons a kippah – the traditional Jewish skullcap – in front of the Eiffel Tower, and wanders the streets of the city. He appears to face significant abuse as he walks around.
“It is certain that Jesus, a Jew residing in the land of Israel in the first century, did not wear a kippah (skullcap).
The custom of wearing a kippah arose in Babylonia between the third and fifth centuries C.E. among the non-Jewish residents—Jewish residents of Babylonia had not yet adopted this custom, as the Dura-Europos frescoes show—and passed from there to the Jewish community of Europe.”
https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/2632/
A custom, not a law. My father wore it only for prayers.
Palestinians: Abbas’s “Culture of Peace”
by Bassam Tawil
May 8, 2017 at 5:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10311/palestinians-abbas-peace
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas may soon be known for his sense of humor. Like many Palestinians, Abbas believes that Westerners will swallow his lies wholesale. Abbas, for instance, ended his May 3 meeting with US President Donald Trump with the following whopper: “We are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace.”
Abbas did not provide further details about the “culture of peace” upon which Palestinian children are being raised. Nor did anyone bother to ask Abbas or any member of his entourage to provide examples of the “culture of peace” in Palestinian society. Yet major Western media outlets were quick to publish Abbas’s unmistakable lie.
“Abbas did not provide further details about the “culture of peace” upon which Palestinian children are being raised.”
Whenever you hear “peace” mentioned by a Muslim, think “peace of the grave”. Islam will allow no other form of peace for us unbelievers.
More Lies from the UN
by Maria Polizoidou
May 8, 2017 at 4:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10312/un-lies
You can run away from history, but you cannot hide from it. History does not care about your religious beliefs, your political beliefs or your political correctness. History records facts, regardless of how you feel about them.
UNESCO’s latest resolution about Jerusalem, which denies the Jews’ and Israel’s legacy over its historical capital, Jerusalem, is yet another proof of the UN’s corrupt decline. It not only offends the historical truth and archeology of the Jewish people. It also offends the Greek people, and all Christians, who for thousands of years have also had ties with the area and the nation of Jews. As it also offends the foundations of Greek Orthodox Christianity, the Greek government — to is honor — voted against this hallucinatory UNESCO resolution.
Here are more facts: The King of Sparta, Arius I, who lived between 309-267 B.C., sent a letter to Onias the First, the High Priest of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem:
Those who teach their children we’re descended from apes and pigs aren’t entitled to revise our history as a people.
They shouldn’t be allowed to raise children.
Nailed it.
What to expect from Monday’s 4th Circuit travel ban hearing (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/expect-mondays-4th-circuit-travel-ban-hearing/story?id=47240437
“President Donald Trump’s second executive order limiting travel from some Middle Eastern and African countries faces another legal challenge on Monday. The ban was already halted temporarily on two occasions by federal judges in March, but Monday will mark the first time an argument on the revised order reaches a court of appeals.
Lawyers will argue their case “en banc” before a panel of all active and eligible judges of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals — which covers Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Each side gets half an hour to argue its case, but the judges can extend that time for questioning.
There are 15 active judges on the Fourth Circuit and it will be announced early Monday morning whether any of the 15 will recuse themselves.
According to the Fourth Circuit’s clerk, it’s “very rare” that an initial hearing is heard “en banc” in the circuit. Typically, cases are first heard by a three-judge panel. An “en banc” hearing is only granted when a majority of active judges determine that the proceedings involve a question of “exceptional importance” or to “maintain uniformity of the court’s decisions.”
It is highly unlikely that the judges would issue a ruling on Monday, but a decision could come in the next few weeks…”
TEL AVIV – While the international community and news media focus on North Korean missile tests and the country’s nuclear program, one expert warned on Sunday that North Korea may be secretly assembling the capability to take out significant parts of the U.S. homeland via an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry is executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and is the chief of staff of the Congressional EMP Commission.
Speaking on this reporter’s talk radio program, Pry pointed to two North Korean satellites that are currently orbiting the U.S. at trajectories he says are optimized for a surprised EMP attack. “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” is broadcast on terrestrial radio on New York’s AM 970 The Answer and NewsTalk 990 AM in Philadelphia and online.
http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/05/08/exclusive-congressional-expert-north-korea-prepping-emp-warfare-aimed-u-s-homefront/
“Pry pointed to two North Korean satellites that are currently orbiting the U.S. at trajectories he says are optimized for a surprised EMP attack.”
Why those objects are still in the sky merits a group court martial for the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Ain't that the truth!If NORK uses them the emp pulse will not only take out North America but also a lot of other satellites.
Former US prisoner now leading Iraq’s Interior ministry (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-prisoner-now-leading-iraqs-interior-ministry-47268640
“Just over 10 years ago, Qasim al-Araji was being arrested a second time by American forces in Iraq. The charges were serious: smuggling arms used to attack U.S. troops and involvement in an assassination cell at the height of sectarian violence that engulfed Iraq following the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Now, he heads of one of Iraq’s most powerful ministries.
With credentials that include training from Iranian special operators known as the Quds force and time spent as a guerrilla and militia commander, Iraq’s Interior Minister al-Araji is now trumpeting his respect for human rights and support for the U.S.-led coalition in the fight against the Islamic State group. But the forces he now commands have a long history of Shiite domination and abuse, factors that partially contributed to the rise in support for IS in Iraq.
Back in 2007, al-Araji was held by the United States for 23 months. He spent most of his captivity at Bucca prison, including long periods in solitary confinement.
Today, at the head of one of Iraq’s most powerful ministries, al-Araji laughs off questions about lingering hostility toward U.S. forces.
“That’s life,” he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press, his manner boisterous and unpolished as he shuttled between meetings at a small Interior Ministry office inside Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone. “I was their prisoner and now I meet with their ambassador.”…”
Iran warns Saudi prince for bringing ‘battle’ to Iran remark (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/iran-warns-saudi-prince-bringing-battle-iran-remark-47268472
“Iran’s defense minister on Monday lashed back at Saudi Arabia, slamming the kingdom’s deputy crown prince over belligerent comments last week that underscored the deep rivalries between the Sunni and Shiite power.
In a wide-ranging interview, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman said there was no space for dialogue with rival Iran due to its Shiite ambitions “to control the Islamic world.” Framing the tensions with Iran in sectarian terms, the prince said the Saudis would not sit and wait for war but would “work so that it becomes a battle for them in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia.”
On Monday, Iran’s defense minister Gen. Hossein Dehghan was quoted as saying that Iran would advise against “such a stupidity” because in that case, nothing would be “left in Saudi Arabia except Mecca and Medina,” the two holy cities.
Dehghan spoke to Al-Manar TV, owned by the Lebanese Shiite militant Hezbollah group. The remarks were published on Iranian state television’s website.
Referring to a possible Saudi attack or invasion of Iran, he said he doesn’t “understand how they would attempt to do something like that … they must imagine they have a powerful air force to do so.”…”
Saudi Arabia will be razed except for Mecca & Medina if it attacks Iran – defense minister (RT, May 8, 2017)
https://www.rt.com/news/387557-iran-saudi-attack-threat/
“Responding to Saudi Arabia’s latest threats to take their conflict inside Iran, Tehran said it will leave nothing standing in the kingdom except for Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina if the Saudis do anything “ignorant,” Al-Manar reports.
“We warn them against doing anything ignorant, but if they do something ignorant, we will leave nowhere untouched apart from Mecca and Medina,” Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan told Arabic-speaking Al-Manar channel, as cited by Reuters.
“They think they can do something because they have an air force,” he added in an apparent reference to Riyadh’s bombing of Yemen, where Iran-affiliated Houthi forces are being routinely targeted by the Saudi Air Force.
Dehghan’s comment followed unusually blunt remarks by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said on Tuesday that any struggle for influence between Riyadh and Tehran would take place “inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia.”
In a rare interview broadcast on multiple Saudi TV channels, the 31-year-old prince, who was named in 2015 by his father, King Salman, as successor to the throne, outlined his vision of modern-day Iran.
Making use of sectarian terms, Prince Salman said Iran is eager “to control the Islamic world” and to spread its Shiite doctrine, according to AP.
When asked if there is a mere possibility to mend ties with Iran, the prince said: “How can I come to an understanding with someone, or a regime, that has an anchoring belief built on extremist ideology?”
The prince, who is also in charge of the Sunni kingdom’s economy, argued that the predominantly-Shiite Iran aims to reach Mecca – the holiest site for all Muslims.
“We will not wait until the fight is inside Saudi Arabia and we will work so that the battle is on their side, inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia,” he threatened without elaborating…”
Google “Why Arabs Lose Wars”.
This was written 15 years ago but still remains relevant.
Have you wondered why after billions of dollars of weapons have been funneled to KSA and extensive American military training has been disposed, why KSA is unable to take out a rebel group?
The American military and its associated western counterparts would have pacified this region in two weeks.
Why can’t the Saudis do it?
My son was in USN flight school with them. He did not think favorably of them.
Why Arabs Lose Wars
As pertinent now as it was when it was first written.
Here is an audio book version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZk4Yu42g0I
Also worth watching: (What’s Holding the Arab World Back?)
What’s Holding the Arab World Back?
PragerU
PragerU
They win by losing.
So all the Saudis have to do is put all their rockets into Mecca and Medina and fire from there. (At least it stop placing women and children around them).
“Saudi Arabia will be razed except for Mecca & Medina if it attacks Iran”
Promises … promises …
A mixed mosque opens in California
A mosque opens in Berkeley, near San Francisco, where men and unclean women can pray together. The founder of the mosque says “they should have never been separated”.
Doms and Subs
Dykes and Femmes
Replicants faking
Man-woman memes.
All Submit
Endure Heavens
The pleasures aroused
In caged hens.
Almost, perfect !
– [except the last line].
Then freely amend! Refine and share!
I’m only passing on my phone.
And noticed no men in the shrine.
(Look… give me a bone).
When the soul is staked to a line,
The spirit in a Safe Space alone..
Then sex numbs that subhuman mind
Until the way out is shown.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=industrial+chicken+coop&tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSlwEJ4tmlEjMnrhMaiwELEKjU2AQaBAgACAMMCxCwjKcIGmIKYAgDEii7DaENog2KFbwNlBjnFMsM5hSqGIU_1-yKpK_1cisDmZP6wrhD-qK_1YiGjAINIW4UhTrl2flArM2FIWqQzAcZSr76Es2EnPWLh7ISZjCfTSzjvufuu0mPZRzWQUgBAwLEI6u_1ggaCgoICAESBAfCB8MM&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjO9fK5nuHTAhWBDZoKHdyhCpMQwg4IGSgA&biw=684&bih=332&dpr=2.63#imgrc=rX71Av4vHhG5QM:
It’s too profound for me; I can’t capture it.
My talent is to recognize talent. All I can offer is an occasional scan fix, a mere syllable change.
Perfect pitch doesn’t make the musician. It just makes a very hard to please listener.
The soul prophesies. It sees past, present, future.
A line of Holy Sacred Scripture.
Nails it to a fixture.
The spirit soars. It is the Spirit of G_d.
Put it in a guilded box.
Then you have sealed the doors.
That’s good.
Deep, too.
Soaring spirits don’t take well to nailing. Doesn’t matter if their prison is gilded or gem-encrusted.
Scripture -the physical written document- can be useful if the substance speaks to the soul. Put the message in a box, nail the box to your door as a tangible reminder of the message.
The Mezuzah
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-mezuzah
Swalwell: Classified intel suggests collusion
House Intel Committee Member Eric Swalwell (D-CA) tells CNN’s John Berman and Poppy Harlow that he has seen classified information that strongly suggests collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
CNN – Clapper: Putin sought to advantage Trump
Crapper on the CAN.
Uh, uh.
I am with you Yucki, I don’t trust any of the Dems in DC. They have been caught lying too often and as the past 8 years prove they put party loyalty above the best interest of the US, they place it above the survival of the US.
Clapper: I did make unmasking request
Yates: I told White House Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail
Clapper Says Russia Now Emboldened To Interfere
MSNBC Exclusive – President Obama Warned Then President-Elect Trump Against Hiring
FOX News – Report: Obama said to have warned Trump about Flynn
Iran makes veiled threat against Pakistan, despite agreement (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/iran-makes-veiled-threat-pakistan-agreement-47269873
“Iran is making veiled threat against neighboring Pakistan despite their recent agreement to work together to boost border security in the wake of a border attack that killed 10 Iranian guards.
Iranian state TV is quoting the army’s chief-of-staff, Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, as saying on Monday that Iranian soldiers will attack “terrorists wherever they are,” suggesting they could cross into Pakistan to target militants there. The Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl claimed the April assault.
Bagheri says that Pakistan to go after militant hideouts on its soil, but if there are “continued attacks, the terrorists’ safe havens will be targeted and crushed, wherever they are.”
The porous Iran-Pakistan frontier has long been used by drug smugglers and Sunni militants, both of whom occasionally clash with Iranian security forces.”
Syrian FM: No international force for Syria safe zones (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/syrian-rebels-families-start-leaving-damascus-neighborhood-47269338
“Syria’s foreign minister on Monday dismissed the idea of foreign forces patrolling four safe zones that are to be established under a deal struck by Russia, Iran and Turkey, suggesting Damascus would only settle for Russian “military police” who are already on the ground in the so-called de-escalation zones.
Damascus would abide by the agreement signed in the Kazakh capital of Astana last week, Walid al-Moallem told reporters at a news conference in the Syrian capital, but cautioned it was “premature” to tell whether the deal would succeed.
“There will be no presence by any international forces supervised by the United Nations, al-Moallem said. “The Russian guarantor has clarified that there will be military police and observation centers.”
Though he did not specify who the military police would be, he appeared to be inferring to Russian observers already in Syria…”
Mattis: US reviewing Syria safe zones but has many questions (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mattis-us-reviewing-syria-safe-zones-questions-47270927
“Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the U.S. owes it to the people of Syria to take a close look at the Russian proposal to create several “safe zones” in Syria. But Mattis also said the plan poses many unanswered questions, including whether it would be effective.
Speaking to reporters traveling with him to Copenhagen, Mattis said the borders of the proposed cease-fire areas are still being worked out, although the general locations are “well understood.” And he suggested that it’s still not yet clear what impact the plan could have on the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State militants.
“It’s all in process right now,” said Mattis, who was offering some of the first extensive public U.S. comments on the agreement reached Friday by Russia, Turkey and Iran. “Who is going to be ensuring they’re safe? Who is signing up for it? Who is specifically to be kept out of them? All these details are to be worked out and we’re engaged.”
According to activists in Syria, there already have been skirmishes on the edge of a large cease-fire zone in the northwest portion of the country. Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed to enforce a cease-fire between Syrian government and opposition forces in four locations, but Russia says map details won’t be published until early June.
The U.S. is not part of the agreement, and the Syrian government and the opposition haven’t signed on to the deal. The plan, however, does not cover areas controlled by Islamic State group militants and U.S.-backed Kurdish groups.
That leaves the U.S. and its allies free to continue the campaign to retake IS-held territory. It doesn’t, however, prevent frictions between Turkish troops and their Syrian allies from clashing or going after the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds…”
The Latest: Syrian FM describes Kurdish role as ‘legitimate’ (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latest-syrian-fm-foreign-troops-ground-47270009
“Syria’s foreign minister is describing the role of U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds fighting the Islamic State group in Syria as “legitimate.”
The comment at a news conference in Damascus on Monday is one of the strongest signs of support yet for Syria’s Kurds and a stab at Turkey, which deems Syrian Kurdish militias as “terrorists.”
A Kurdish-led Syrian force known as the Syrian Democratic Force has been the most effective fighting IS in Syria. The SDF is often criticized by other Syrian rebel factions of being too close to the Syrian government.
Al-Moallem, using the Arabic acronym for IS, says: “I think that what the Syrian Kurds are doing in fighting Daesh is legitimate in the framework of their keenness on preserving the unity and integrity of Syrian territories.””
Afghan air force pounds area after death of IS commander (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/afghan-air-force-pounds-area-death-commander-47269544
“Afghanistan’s air force has pounded Islamic State targets in an eastern province where an Afghan and U.S. military raid last month killed the militant group’s top commander, the government said on Monday.
The Interior Ministry said the airstrikes killed at least 34 IS fighters over the past 24 hours and destroyed an insurgent-controlled radio station in Nangarhar province. The casualty toll could not be independently confirmed as the area is off-limits to reporters.
The ministry also said that the strikes targeted IS hideouts in Nazyan and Achin districts. It said the radio station had been illegally broadcasting IS messages across the eastern province and was therefore a threat to the people and the government.
The government statement came after Pentagon announced on Sunday night that a military raid last month killed Abdul Haseeb Logari, the IS chief in Nangarhar…”
2 Islamic State suspects arrested in Spain, 1 in Morocco (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/islamic-state-suspects-arrested-spain-morocco-47272312
“Spain’s Interior Ministry says police in Spain and Morocco have arrested three suspected members of the Islamic State group.
A ministry statement Monday said the three worked to recruit Islamic State followers and spread propaganda and encouraged jihadi attacks via the internet. It said they had ties with senior IS members in Syria and Iraq and planned to travel to the zone to fight.
The ministry said two Moroccans were arrested in the northeastern Spanish towns of Salou and Badalona and a third cell member was arrested in the northern Moroccan port city of Tangier.
The statement said Spanish police have been involved in the arrests of 162 suspected jihadi activists since the country raised its security alert to one step below the maximum in June 2015.”
Indonesia to disband hard-line Islamic group Hizbut (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indonesia-disband-hard-line-islamic-group-hizbut-47269542
“The top Indonesian security minister said Monday the country’s president has ordered the dissolution of a hard-line Islamic group that seeks a global caliphate for Muslim nations and was behind massive blasphemy protests in Jakarta.
Wiranto, who goes by one name, announced the action against Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia at a brief news conference and said it was ordered by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
Wiranto, who is the coordinating minister for politics, law and security, said the “activities of HTI are strongly indicated to be running against Pancasila (Indonesia’s pluralistic state ideology) and the constitution.”
The move comes after Jokowi’s government was shaken by massive protests in the past six months by conservative Muslim groups against the minority Christian governor of Jakarta, who is accused of blaspheming the Quran.
Wiranto said HTI’s activities “have clearly caused conflict in society” and threaten the integrity of the state. He said dissolution of the group would be achieved through the courts.
Hizbut was one of several hard-line groups behind the Jakarta protests that undermined Indonesia’s reputation abroad for practicing a moderate form of Islam. It is active in dozens of countries despite being banned in some of them and began expanding in Asia several years ago.
Hizbut wants to unite all Muslim countries in a globe-spanning bloc ruled by strict Shariah law. It has a record of targeting university students and professionals, working within countries to try to persuade people to overthrow their secular governments. Some experts see it as an incubator of radicalism that leads to terrorist attacks.
The group said it deeply regretted the government’s decision and noted that it has been conducting religious activities in Indonesia for more than 20 years.
“We operate legally, orderly, peacefully and almost never caused any legal problems,” spokesman Ismail Yusanto said on the group’s website. “HTI will take the needed steps to reject its dissolution.”…”
Eastern Libya general’s troops push into central Benghazi (abcnews, May 8, 2017)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/eastern-libya-generals-troops-push-central-benghazi-47274192
“A spokesman for troops loyal to Libya’s eastern strongman says they are pushing into central parts of Benghazi, clearing out the final areas held by Islamists and their allies in the eastern city.
Raith al-Shahiebi of the special forces media office says troops fighting for the Libyan National Army of Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter entered the Souq al-Hout and Sabri areas on Monday. One soldier was killed in the fighting.
Hifter is allied with the internationally recognized parliament in eastern Libya.
Libya plunged into chaos after the 2011 ouster and killing of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Benghazi has been the scene of some of the worst fighting in the past three years between Hifter’s forces and Islamic militants and former rebels. Hifter’s Dignity operation has been ongoing for three years.”
Germany to build centers in Morocco to deport underage refugees – report (RT, May 8, 2017)
https://www.rt.com/news/387540-germany-refugee-minors-morocco/
“The German Federal Agency for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) plans to establish two reception centers in Morocco to which it can deport unaccompanied refugee minors that commit crimes in Germany, a German daily reports.
Each of the first two centers would have the capacity to host up to 100 underage refugees and provide them with necessary medical care, as well as offer schooling and some vocational training, the German Die Tageszeitung (taz) daily reports, citing a leaked BAMF program document that outlines various aspects of the project.
The paper says the project is still in the “early stages” of development, but notes that the construction of the centers is planned to start later in 2017. The project will remain in a “testing phase” until 2020. The construction and maintenance of each center will cost German taxpayers €960,000 ($1.05 million) per year, taz reports.
The German migration agency also plans to find some “appropriate NGOs” to run both Moroccan centers, which would develop “individual assistance plans” for each underage refugee sent to the facilities in cooperation with the BAMF.
The centers are also expected to accept homeless Moroccan minors to “give them an opportunity to stay [in Morocco] and to prevent potential illegal immigration to Europe.” Unaccompanied underage asylum seekers that wish to leave Germany voluntarily would also be sent to the centers.
At the same time, details regarding the criterion for deporting unaccompanied underage refugee offenders from Germany to these centers remains unclear.
It is yet unknown what particular offenses would prompt Germany’s immigration authorities to deport underage migrants or whether it would be a form of punishment.
According to the document, Germany also plans to ask some “appropriate EU countries” to take part in financing the project. So far, Sweden has been mentioned as a potential partner. Germany’s federal authorities are already working with the regional government of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on this matter, the paper adds.
While the BAMF refused to respond to taz’s and Deutsche Welle’s requests for comment, it referred them to the German Interior Ministry, which had already confirmed that there are plans to build centers for refugee minors in Morocco.
During a parliamentary inquiry in March, the ministry said the project was aimed at offering “some future prospects for minors who live in unfavorable conditions,” adding that the centers could be “potentially used” to host “unaccompanied underage Moroccans, who should be deported from Germany.”
According to the Interior Ministry, an NGO supported by Germany’s immigration authorities would run the centers for three years. After that, the facilities would be handed over to the Moroccan government, as reported by Die Zeit daily.
‘Irresponsible’ initiative & ‘dangerous precedent’
The project has already provoked a wave of criticism from a number of opposition politicians and refugee rights activists. Green Party MP Luise Amtsberg, who was behind the parliamentary inquiry in March, called the initiative “irresponsible.”
“The key issues concerning how it will be done and to whom, exactly, it will be applied, as well as if it takes into account children’s welfare, remain unclear,” she said, as cited by taz. The MP added that development aid projects should not be linked to migrant deportation…”
Monday May 08 2017 -0bama in Milan Italy –
DAILY MAIL – Barack Obama plays it cool as he jets into the home of fashion: Former President wears an open-necked shirt and shades in Milan a day after desperate plea to Congress to save Obamacare
Former President Barack Obama arrived in Milan, Italy for a two-day trip on Monday
Mr Obama will meet with former Italian PM Matteo Renzi this afternoon, followed by a dinner hosted by the Institute for International Political Studies
On Tuesday, he will give a speech on climate change at the annual Seeds and Chips conference
Mr Obama arrived in Milan the morning after accepting the John F. Kennedy ‘Profile in Courage’ Award in Boston
In his speech at the JFK Presidential Library, Mr Obama denounced House Republicans who recently passed a bill to end Obamacare
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4484940/President-Obama-arrives-Italy-climate-change-speech.html
Obama parla a Milano (850 euro per ascoltarlo)
http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/obama-parla-milano-850-euro-ascoltarlo-1394000.html
Italy: 500 Syrian refugees taken to Catania by Italian coastguard
Around 500 Syrian refugees were rescued off the shore of Catania before disembarking at the Sicilian port, Monday.
SOT, Medea Savary, United Nations refugee agency UNHCR representative (Italian): “As for today’s disembarkation in Catania, around 500
FRANCE – CLICHY – May 05 2017
Un riverain excédé par la prière de rue.
WaPo- EPA dismisses half of key board’s scientific advisers; Interior suspends more than 200 advisory panels
Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department are overhauling a slew of outside advisory boards that inform how their agencies assess the science underpinning policies, the first step in a broader effort by Republicans to change the way the federal government evaluates the scientific basis for its regulations.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, while Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is “reviewing the charter and charge” of more than 200 advisory boards, committees and other entities both within and outside his department. EPA and Interior officials began informing current members of the move Friday, and notifications continued over the weekend.
Pruitt’s move could significantly change the makeup of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), which advises EPA’s prime scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity. All of the people being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated.
EPA spokesman J.P. Freire said in an email that “no one has been fired or terminated” and that Pruitt had simply decided to bring in fresh advisers. The agency informed the outside academics on Friday that their terms would not be renewed.
“We’re not going to rubber-stamp the last administration’s appointees. Instead, they should participate in the same open competitive process as the rest of the applicant pool,” Freire said. “This approach is what was always intended for the board, and we’re making a clean break with the last administration’s approach.”
Separately, Zinke has postponed all outside committees as he reviews their composition and work. The review will effectively freeze the work of the Bureau of Land Management’s 38 resource advisory councils, along with other panels focused on a range of issues, from one assessing the threat of invasive species to the science technical advisory panel for Alaska’s North Slope.
“The Secretary is committed to restoring trust in the Department’s decision-making and that begins with institutionalizing state and local input and ongoing collaboration, particularly in communities surrounding public lands,” Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said by email Monday. “As the Department concludes its review in the weeks ahead, agencies will notice future meetings to ensure that the Department continues to get the benefit of the views of local communities in all decision-making on public land management.”
Greg Zimmerman, deputy director of the non-partisan advocacy group Center for Western Priorities, said in an interview that “it just doesn’t make any sense they would be canceling meetings as they do this analysis” of everything from which large national monuments should be preserved to how to manage public lands more broadly. BLM’s regional advisory councils include officials from the energy and outdoor recreation industry as well as scientists and conservationists, Zimmerman added.
“The only reasonable explanation is they don’t want to be hearing from these folks,” he said.
These moves came as a surprise to the agencies’ outside advisers, with several of them taking to Twitter to announce their suspensions.
John Peter Thompson, who chairs Interior’s Invasive Species Advisory Panel, tweeted Monday that he had been notified that “all activities are suspended subject to review by Depart of Interior.”
Members of EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors had been informed twice — in January, before President Barack Obama left office, and then more recently by EPA career staff members — that they would be kept on for another term, adding to their confusion.
“I was kind of shocked to receive this news,” Robert Richardson, an ecological economist and an associate professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Community Sustainability, said in an interview Sunday.
Richardson, who on Saturday tweeted, “Today, I was Trumped,” said that he was at the end of an initial three-year term but that members traditionally have served two such stints. “I’ve never heard of any circumstance where someone didn’t serve two consecutive terms,” he said, adding that the dismissals gave him “great concern that objective science is being marginalized in this administration.”
Courtney Flint, a professor of natural resource sociology at Utah State University who had served one term on the board, said in an email that she was also surprised to learn that her term would not be renewed, “particularly since I was told that such a renewal was expected.” But she added, “In the broader view, I suppose it is the prerogative of this administration to set the goals of federal agencies and to appoint members to advisory boards.”
Ryan Jackson, Pruitt’s chief of staff, noted in an email that all the board members whose terms are not being renewed could reapply for their positions. “I’m not quite sure why some EPA career staff simply get angry by us opening up the process,” he said. “It seems unprofessional to me.”
Terry F. Yosie, who directed EPA’s Science Advisory Board from 1981 to 1988, noted in an email that the Board of Scientific Counselors does not report directly to the administrator or his office. “It’s quite extraordinary that such a body would receive this level of attention by the Administrator’s office,” he said.
Pruitt is planning a much broader overhaul of how the agency conducts its scientific analysis, said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Pruitt has been meeting with academics to talk about the matter and putting thought into which areas of investigation warrant attention from the agency’s scientific advisers.
The agency may consider industry scientific experts for some of the board positions as long as these appointments do not pose a conflict of interest, Freire said.
Conservatives have complained for years about EPA’s approach to science, including the input it receives from outside scientific bodies. Both the Board of Scientific Counselors and the 47-member Scientific Advisory Board have come under criticism for bolstering the cause for greater federal regulation.
A majority of the members of the Board of Scientific Counselors have terms expiring this fiscal year, along with the terms of 12 members of the Scientific Advisory Board. GOP lawmakers have frequently criticized the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC)—a committee within the Scientific Advisory Board—for its recommendation that the EPA impose much stricter curbs on smog-forming ozone. The seven-person panel, which is charged under the Clean Air Act to review the scientific basis of all ambient air quality standards, is legally required to have a medical doctor and a member of the National Academy of Sciences as members.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who questions the link between human activity and climate change and has several former aides now working for Pruitt, said in an interview earlier this year that under the new administration, “they’re going to have to start dealing with science, and not rigged science.”
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) held a hearing on the issue in February, arguing that the Scientific Advisory Board should be expanded to include more non-academics. The panel, which was established in 1978, is primarily made up of academic scientists and other experts who review EPA’s research to ensure that the regulations the agency undertakes have a sound scientific basis.
“The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government,” Smith said at the time. “The conflict of interest here is clear.”
In a budget proposal obtained by The Washington Post last month, the panel’s operating budget is slated for an 84 percent cut — or $542,000 — for fiscal 2018. That money typically covers travel and other expenses for outside experts who attend the board’s public meetings.
The document said the budget cut reflects “an anticipated lower number of peer reviews.”
Joe Arvai, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board who directs the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, said in an email that Pruitt and his colleagues should keep in mind that the board’s membership, just like its standing and ad hoc panels, “already includes credible scientists from industry” and that its “work on agency rulemaking is open to public viewing and comment. So, if diversity of thought and transparency are the administrator’s concerns, his worries are misplaced because the SAB already has these bases covered.
“So, if you ask me, his moves over the weekend — as well as the House bill to reform the SAB — are attempts to use the SAB as a political toy,” Arvai said. “By making these moves, the administrator and members of the House can pander to the president’s base by looking like they’re getting tough on all those pesky ‘liberal scientists.’ But, all else being equal, nothing fundamentally changes about how the SAB operates.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/07/epa-dismisses-half-of-its-scientific-advisers-on-key-board-citing-clean-break-with-obama-administration/
One small step in the right direction.
People get a little touchy when their rice bowls are overturned…
Former Obama DHS Official On ISIS Slaughtering Egyptian Christians: ‘What Goes Around, Comes Around’
A former Obama administration official at the Department of Homeland Security said Sunday that when it comes to the Islamic State slaughtering Egyptian Christians, “what goes around, comes around.”
In a tweet posted Sunday, Mohamed Elibiary, who formerly served as senior member of the DHS’ Homeland Security Advisory Council, stated, “Reading ISIS’s latest mag ‘otherizing’ Egypt’s Copts. Subhanallah how what goes around comes around. Coptic ldrs did same to MB Egyptians.”
“Subhanallah” is Arabic for “Glory to Allah,” and so in this tweet, Elibiary is expressing praise to Allah for the fact that ISIS is killing Egyptian Christians as apparent retribution for Coptic leaders doing the same to members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
n early May, ISIS published issue 9 of its magazine “Rumiyah,” which is the publication Elibiary is referencing in his tweet.
The first article in the new issue is titled “The Ruling on the Belligerent Christians,” and explicitly praises the recent ISIS terror attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt, also calling for more deadly attacks against Christians and their property. Elibiary referred to this call and other contents in the article as “otherizing” in his tweet.
“From among these blessed deeds were the successive attacks which the soldiers of the Islamic State in Misr1 and Sinai carried out against the Christians in those lands, targeting them with killings and assassinations, and afflicting their churches with burning and explosions,” the article in Rumiyah states. “Thus, they brought upon them tremendous detriment and deepened their wounds. The last of the blessed attacks against them were the simultaneous explosions at two of their largest churches, one in northern Misr and the other in southern Misr, in the cities of Alexandria and Tanta on their holiday on the 12th of the month of Rajab in the year 1438.”
The Obama administration let Elibiary go from his position in September 2014. Elibiary has a long history of controversial remarks, including statements that the return of the Muslim caliphate is “inevitable,” and also that America is “an Islamic country with an Islamically compliant constitution.”
Regarding his Sunday tweet, Elibiary told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement: “It’s a shame Egypt & the Egyptian social fabric was destroyed to this degree by the entry of the military into politics & economics.”
http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/07/former-obama-dhs-official-on-isis-slaughtering-egyptian-christians-what-goes-around-comes-around/
Robert Spencer:
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Man in the White House</b
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/208267/muslim-brotherhoods-man-white-house-robert-spencer
Mohamed Elibiary, who formerly served as senior member of the DHS’ Homeland Security Advisory Council, stated, “Reading ISIS’s latest mag ‘otherizing’ Egypt’s Copts. Subhanallah how what goes around comes around. Coptic ldrs did same to MB Egyptians.”
This really is enough to turn my stomach. How this guy got even close to DHS says to me that the entire DHS is rife with islamic lunatics.
How did we allow our gov’t to be so subverted?
DHS should do the same thing that EPA just did. Fire all these assholes and drive them out of DC.
Disappointing that Trump’s not going to scrape out the MB filth.
“Homeland Security Adviser Mohamed Elibiary Goes on Hate-Filled Anti-Christian Rant, Attacks Jindal as ‘Bottom Feeder'” by Patrick Poole – January 28, 2015
https://pjmedia.com/blog/homeland-security-adviser-mohamed-elibiary-goes-on-hate-filled-anti-christian-rant-attacks-jindal-as-bottom-feeder/
“UTT Throwback Thursday: Bush Redo?”
by John Guandolo – February 2, 2017
https://counterjihadreport.com/2017/02/02/utt-throwback-thursday-bush-redo/
“Muslim Brotherhood an ‘incubator’ for U.S. terror”
by Leo Hohmann – May 1, 2017
https://counterjihadreport.com/2017/05/04/muslim-brotherhood-an-incubator-for-u-s-terror/
“Black Lives Matter: Hamas Pawn
Understanding the Threat – June 18, 2016
He might want to remember that when dealing with the US, the longer the Dems are out of power the more pay back we will carry out.
Macron Bests Le Pen in French Presidential Runoff Election
Don’t expect the populist tide to recede, however.
May 8, 2017
Joseph Klein
The two top finishers in the first round election for the French presidency faced each other again in the presidential runoff on May 7th. Emmanuel Macron, a pro-European Union former banker and member of the current Socialist French President Francois Hollande’s cabinet, handily beat the insurgent anti-globalist candidate, Marine Le Pen. Mr. Macron’s margin of victory was approximately 30 percent. According to initial estimates, he garnered between 65.5 percent and 66.1 percent of the votes cast. Ms. Le Pen captured between 33.9 percent and 34.5 percent of the vote. Globalists in Europe and the United States are breathing a sigh in relief. They are convinced that Ms. Le Pen’s landslide defeat has definitively rolled back the rising tide of populism and nationalism evidenced by the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory last year. They may be reading too much into these election results, however.
Mr. Macron did so well in part because of the candidate he was running against. Ms. Le Pen ran ahead of the rest of the field in the first round of the election two weeks ago, but never managed to broaden her appeal much beyond her core constituency.
Ms. Le Pen entered the race bearing the heavy baggage of her party’s anti-Semitic, xenophobic past. She tried mightily to move the National Front party she led beyond the racist, Holocaust-denying message her father had enunciated as the party’s founder. Her platform focused instead on a France-first, economic populist message that caught on with some voters disaffected with the political establishment. However, Ms. Le Pen could not entirely shake the negative image many French voters still held of the National Front party.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266641/macron-bests-le-pen-french-presidential-runoff-joseph-klein
The Turkey Trap
Erdogan thinks he can blackmail Trump.
May 8, 2017
Kenneth R. Timmerman
Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan is coming to Washington, DC, on May 16 loaded for bear.
He has an ambitious agenda and apparently feels he can achieve it all because he holds “trump” cards against the President of the United States.
Erdogan and his proxies have publicly said they want to convince the United States to jettison its budding alliance with the Syrian Democratic Union (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish group that has become the tip of the spear in the fight against ISIS in Syria.
On this point, they will encounter resistance from the U.S. military, which sent a U.S. Marines Stryker group into northern Syria recently to serve as a buffer between Turkish and Kurdish forces after the Turkish air force conducted air strikes that killed twenty of the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters.
Erdogan can be expected once again to trot out “evidence” that the Syrian Kurds and their Iranian allies, known as PJAK, are puppets of the PKK, the Kurdish group that waged war against the Turkish state for 15 years before entering into negotiations in 1999.
Both the United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organization, while recognizing that the Syrian and Iranian Kurds have separate command structures. Neither the YPG nor PJAK has joined the PKK in military operations inside Turkey.
But Erdogan has more on his agenda than Kurds and Syria. He is also seeking the extradition to Turkey of former ally-turned-arch political rival, Islamist cleric Fetullah Gulen, who fled Turkey for Pennsylvania in 1999.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266633/turkey-trap-kenneth-r-timmerman
Is It Racist, Xenophobic, and Imperialist to Criticize Islam?
What does it mean when former and current Muslims point to problems in the “Religion of Peace”?
May 8, 2017
Danusha V. Goska
“You may not criticize Islam. You do not speak Arabic. You don’t come from a Muslim society. You are a white supremacist, imperialist xenophobe and you don’t like foreign, brown people.” So Islam’s apologists insist.
Brooklyn activist Linda Sarsour epitomizes this strategy for suppressing critique of Islam. “My hijab is my hoodie,” she insisted, in a 2012 CNN op-ed. With the “hoodie” reference, Sarsour explicitly linked herself with Trayvon Martin, a young black male who scuffled with, and was shot by George Zimmerman in February, 2012. Sarsour’s implication is that white supremacy motivated Zimmerman’s shooting of Martin. By extension, Sarsour insists that white supremacists want to hurt her because she wears hijab. Sarsour also linked herself to Shaima Alawadi, an Iraqi-American who was beaten to death in her own home in March, 2012. Sarsour insisted that Alawadi’s murder was a hate crime committed by white supremacists who don’t like foreign, brown people.
Sarsour knows that Americans feel guilty and sad about slavery and Jim Crow, and that they tiptoe to avoid any racist comment. She knows that Americans fear being called “racist.” A parasite of unearned pity, Sarsour lifts the mantle of protection cast over speech about African Americans, and worms her way beneath it. Rachel Dolezal can only weep with envy at this Caucasian woman’s success at positioning herself as a victim of white racism. That Sarsour parades as the same kind of victim as the descendants of slaves is an extraordinary coup, given the outsize historical role of Arab Muslims in the enslavement of not just of Africans, but of Europeans and Americans as well, and given Arab racism against blacks, whom they label “abid,” or slave.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266613/it-racist-xenophobic-and-imperialist-criticize-danusha-v-goska
Italian police seize 37 tons of drugs designed for ISIS in Libya
Police in the northern Italian city of Genoa have intercepted a huge drug shipment bound for Libya. Tons of psychotropic medications, destined for Islamic State , were seized in cooperation with the Italian customs office.
The shipment contained 37.5 tons of tramadol – a synthetic opioid used in treating pain and also actively used across the Middle East as a narcotic substance. The haul also included Captagon, known as the “fighter drug” – an amphetamine-containing substance used by jihadists in several Middle Eastern war zones to enhance battle performance, the Italian La Repubblica newspaper reported citing investigators.
The drugs were stored in three freight containers that docked in Genoa from India and were bound for Libya. It was initially shipped from India to Sri Lanka, where it was “hidden,” Italian Ticino News broadcaster reports. The drugs were disguised as shampoo and synthetic fabrics.
The street value of the seized drugs is estimated to be around € 75 million ($ 81.96 million), the paper reports.The drug money would likely go on financing terrorist activities and particularly Islamic State, the investigators said.
The investigation and the seizure was led and coordinated by the district prosecuting attorney of the anti-terrorist department, Federico Manotti. From Libya, the drugs would be sent to other regions controlled by Islamic State, particularly to Mosul and some districts of Tobruk, according to the investigators.
The seizure has led investigators to suspect that some terrorist supporters involved in drug trafficking are now hiding somewhere in Italy, the Liguria Notizie media outlet reports.
In March, a maritime analytics firm Windward warned that cargo ships which ‘go dark’ in European waters could be involved in arms, drugs or human trafficking and eventually pose a terrorist threat.
Windward claims that vessels from other home ports went ‘dark’ on 2,850 occasions before entering European waters in January and February 2017. Some 300 ships reached European shores with invalid shipping documents.
https://www.rt.com/news/387612-italy-drugs-terrorists-libya/
No idea if this is a reputable source, so, please, do treat with caution.
Pictures Of Obama’s White House are particularly hard to come by and now we know why. These images, taken by a staff member who couldn’t stay silent about the private lives of the Obamas any longer, prove what everyone has said about them all along:
A closet off of the 3rd-floor guest bath was converted to house this “Wada,” a specialized sink for two that is used to wash before Muslim prayers. It allows the user to wash their feet and backside in accordance with Muslim law. There is no record of this item being installed or removed, but there is a record of a plumbing service at the mansion for 2 days immediately following the 2009 inauguration and another for 2 days just before they left. The closet is said to be a closet once again.
http://anews-24.com/2017/05/06/leaked-pictures-of-obamas-white-house-residence-will-make-you-sick/
Harvard’s Segregated 2017 Graduation
Massive anti-Macron protests in France:
https://twitter.com/marxistJorge/status/861579740536332289
BREAKING: Paris’ Gare du Nord EVACUATED as armed police storm train station (express, May 8, 2017)
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/802014/paris-gare-du-nord-train-station-evacuated-emmanuel-macron-french-president-election
“ARMED police have stormed Gare du Nord train station in Paris following reports of security concerns.
The station, which is the busiest in Europe, has been evacuated as authorities attempt to deal with the situation.
Images on social media show armed officers positioned outside the station amid reports of a huge police presence inside the terminal.
More to follow…”
Large Police Operation, Evacuations, Reported at Paris’ Gare du Nord Station
Islamic state video in Russian –
beheading of a Russian spy –
graphic from the 11:00 mark
Full HD –
U.S. poised to expand military effort against Taliban in Afghanistan (wapo, May 8, 2017)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-poised-to-expand-military-effort-against-taliban-in-afghanistan/2017/05/08/356c4930-33fa-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html?utm_term=.447a59ae2676
“President Trump’s most senior military and foreign policy advisers have proposed a major shift in strategy in Afghanistan that would effectively put the United States back on a war footing with the Taliban.
The new plan, which still must be approved by the president, calls for expanding the U.S. military role as part of a broader effort to push an increasingly confident and resurgent Taliban back to the negotiating table, U.S. officials said.
The plan comes at the end of a sweeping policy review built around the president’s desire to reverse worsening security in Afghanistan and “start winning” again, said one U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The new strategy, which has the backing of top Cabinet officials, would authorize the Pentagon, not the White House, to set troop numbers in Afghanistan and give the military far broader authority to use airstrikes to target Taliban militants. It would also lift Obama-era restrictions that limited the mobility of U.S. military advisers on the battlefield.
The net result of the changes would be to reverse moves by President Barack Obama to steadily limit the U.S. military role in Afghanistan, along with the risk to American troops and the cost of the war effort, more than 15 years after U.S. forces first arrived there.
Trump is expected to make a final call on the strategy before a May 25 NATO summit in Brussels that he plans to attend…”
U.N. Survey: 3 Out of 4 Men and over Half of Women in Egypt Support FGM
Reason #35,132 why Islam has no place in a civilized world. From the link:
“Egypt scored the lowest on the report’s “Gender Equitable Men” scale and is the source of the most striking headlines. For example, CNS News reports that “70 percent of Egyptian men approve of female genital mutilation.” For that matter, 56 percent of Egyptian women also voiced approval for the hideous procedure, which is illegal but not unheard-of, in much of the world.
Egyptian men also supplied 90 percent agreement with the statement that “a man should have the final word about decisions in the home,” and 58.5 percent of Egyptian women agreed. Only 31 percent of Egyptian men thought married women have the same rights to work outside their homes as men. 93 percent of men thought a husband should “know where his wife is at all times.” 96 percent thought a wife should agree to sex whenever her husband desires it.
53.4 percent said “there are times when a woman deserves to be beaten.” 90 percent agreed that “a woman should tolerate violence to keep the family together.” Roughly 45 percent of Egyptian men said they had been violent to their wives.“
Tokyo cops arrest 2 Turks seeking refugee status in gang rape of woman
TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested two Turkish nationals currently applying for refugee status for allegedly raping a woman in Kita Ward, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Feb. 22).
At approximately 12:30 a.m. on December 27 of last year, Onder Pinarbasi, 22, and a 16-year-old boy allegedly took the woman, aged in her 30s, to a public toilet near JR Akabane Station and sexually assaulted her. The suspects also stole 9,000 yen in cash from the victim.
Pinarbasi, who has been charged with rape and robbery, claims the boy committed both crimes. The boy admits to onlyl the robbery charge. “I did not force myself upon her,” he is quoted by police in denying the rape accusation, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun (Feb. 22).
http://www.tokyoreporter.com/2016/02/22/tokyo-cops-arrest-turkish-asylum-seekers-in-gang-rape-of-woman/
Canadian senate passes bill that removes right to revoke citizenship from terrorists
Bill C-6 which proposes changes to the Citizenship Act, removes the right to revoke citizenship from dual nationals who are convicted terrorists; ends the obligation for new citizens 14 -18 and 55 -65 to know either English or French; reduces the number of days someone must spend in Canada before they are eligible for citizenship; minors can apply for citizenship independent of their parents.
I can only guess that the Canadian legislature felt it was under rather serious pressure to somehow outdo the French people’s election of Macron.
What’s next, what’s next, what’s next?
North Korea’s mystery islands: Man-made keys could be new nuclear launch sites
Artificial islands have been discovered surrounding Sohae Satellite Launching Station, a missile development and testing site roughly 70 miles northwest of Pyongyang. Satellite images suggest the islands are home to military installations and have been under development for at least five years.
While their purpose is unknown, suspicions are high that the islands could be used to launch missiles.
Why White People Have Brain AIDS
DOJ: One in Four Federal Inmates is Foreign-Born
Nearly a quarter of the inmates in federal prisons were born outside the U.S., and more than half of those have final deportation orders, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
The Justice Department published statistics on the prison population to comply with directives in President Donald Trump’s January executive order overhauling the immigration system.
The foreign-born prison population as of March 25 totals 45,493, or 24 percent of all federal inmates. Of that group, 3,939 now are American citizens. That leaves 41,554 inmates who remain citizens of foreign countries. Some 22,541 of them, or 54.4 percent, have final orders to be deported once they’ve completed their sentences. Another 33.4 percent, 13,886, are under investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for possible deportation.
Hat tip: American Renaissance
Trump’s Muslim Comments at Center of Case
A challenge to President Donald Trump’s travel ban appears to hinge on whether a federal appeals court agrees that his past anti-Muslim statements can be used against him. Activists and civil rights attorneys argued that the ban is unconstitutional.
Channel 4 – Trump’s wall: Meet the drug cartels and cowboys who will be affected
( 8 min )
UK Birmingham -Pub apology after Muslim customer was wrongly served pork in side dish
A pub has apologised after a Muslim diner was served pork in a dish of chilli chips.
Naz Ali, who had never eaten the meat in line with his faith, had gone to Farmer John’s in Streetly with family and friends.
The 39-year-old truck driver ordered a burger and the side of chilli cheese fries, which contained a meat he assumed was chicken.
But after eating about a quarter of the dish he checked with a waitress – who told him it was pork.
more on the page :
+ video
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/pub-apology-after-muslim-customer-13003507
Ah, Sally Yates. Defender of liberty and freedom and victim of an oppressive Trump regime. The poor lass had it rough, didn’t she?
She was the acting attorney general after Barack Obama left office and fought tooth and nail over the Travel Ban executive order currently being fought over in court. Liberals hailed her as a hero, when in all reality, she was a hack. Her testimony before Congress today just proves it.
Sally Yates admitted today in an exchange with Senator Cornyn that the Office of Legal Counsel reviewed Trump’s immigration EO and found it to be completely legal. Yet she had the audacity to overrule the Office of Legal Counsel and deem it unconstitutional.
She did what a few of the federal courts did that overruled it. She looked outside the language and detail of the actual order itself to Trump’s campaign statements in 2016 to deem it unconstitutional, which is only something a liberal hack would do.
Yates is no hero of liberty. She was and still is a partisan hack who played the victim in order to boost her own profile.
http://www.redstate.com/joesquire/2017/05/08/sally-yates-knew-travel-ban-legal-fought-anyway/
Migrants Celebrate Results Of French Election