Reader’s links on January 23, 2018

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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.

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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

109 Replies to “Reader’s links on January 23, 2018”

    • Pay attention to how many flops like this are occurring in the Chinese projects, they pay attention to the reports about how weak the Chinese economy really is. China can’t afford to keep their big expansion going much longer, the problem they face is that if they withdraw they will give their internal opponents enough ammo to cause the Chinese government to collapse. Considering the environmental damage they have done to China this needs to happen soon. I don’t know where the money is going to come from to reverse the massive damage but we will have to find it somewhere.

      • China can’t afford to keep their big expansion going much longer…

        Agreed (in spades), Richard. All the same, Red China hasn’t been able to afford keeping, “their big expansion going [on] much longer”, for the last few decades.

        Beijing’s Mandarins have been living on (both ideological and economic) “borrowed time” ever since the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”, much less back in 1947.

        The notion that this towering house-of-cards can continue for even a few more decades years is beyond absurd.

        All that has prevented the Politburo’s prior implosion is Beijing’s lavish outlays on idiot projects like those “Ghost Cities” and other ridiculous make-work mega-projects which have pumped up domestic wages without the slightest concern for sustainable earnings.

        As noted in other comments of mine, the CCP’s Command Economy cannot possibly overcome its many ultimately dysfunctional policies (like “ghost city” construction) and, especially, their disastrous “One Family, One Child” program that—through its encouragement of widespread female infanticide—has guaranteed that China will never become wealthy before it “goes grey”.

        The ability of CCP brass hats to ensure such catastrophic outcomes represents one of the most significant evils since the USSR’s evasion of punitive measures for its “Gulag Archipelago“.

        And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.

        — Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

        Still—without (however legitimate) abortion arguments that might apply—the “One Family, One Child” program is one of human history’s most egregious crimes. Particularly tragic is how (cooperating or not) the Chinese people will pay a fatal price for Beijing’s filthy mandates.

        That this once-noble global culture should experience such an abrupt (and forcible) decline into horrible destitution is a Crime Against Humanity which merits war criminal trials—along with all the summary executions that this sort of limitless evil so richly deserves.

        Will this happen?

  1. FYI:

    A tsunami Warning is now in effect which includes the coastal areas of British Columbia and Alaska from The Wash./BC Border to Attu, Alaska. – Event details: Preliminary magnitude 8.0 (Mwp) earthquake / Lat: 55.955, Lon: -149.227 at 2018-01-23T09:31:41 UTC Tsunami warnings mean that a tsunami with significant inundation is expected or occurring. Warnings indicate that widespread dangerous coastal flooding accompanied by powerful currents are possible and may continue for several hours after the initial wave arrival.

    https://www.google.org/publicalerts/alert?aid=658a001203e08d87&a=43b367e3&hl=en&gl=US

  2. This is a free country where people from diverse backgrounds are more than welcomed, but not if that comes at the expense of the safety and well-being of the American people. There is no room for those who frown upon our principles and refuse to fit in.

    Despite all these deviant acts, Obama continually kept on pushing towards the Muslim community. It’s nothing strange that he is still trying to get Americans to assimilate to Islam, even now that he is no longer a president, and no longer has the authority to do so.

    His newest undertaking is a project of a giant library that bears an awful resemblance to a mosque. This little issue arose many questions.

    Why exactly does an American library look like that? Is Obama truing to project the Muslim culture on to the people with this kind of architecture?

    According to the Daily Caller :
    The plans for the future Obama presidential library have just been released, and they are quite progressive, to say the least.

    The library is scheduled to be built in Chicago, Illinois and will be within a stone’s throw of the University of Chicago, Jackson Park and the South Shore Cultural Center. The design includes three buildings: a museum, library and forum.

    The library’s design and location has been a source of controversy itself within the Chicago community. The new 3D renderings for the park — released Wednesday — will only throw fuel on that fire.

    http://freshdosenews.com/2018/01/obamas-presidential-library-went-full-islam-holy-crap/#.WmcG06inHIU

    • Thank you, Xanthippa, for keeping the spotlight focused on this supremely treacherous bastard. 0bama’s clear-cut willingness to cause the USA unbelievable harm challenges most of regular American beliefs when it comes to considering how or why a holder of high political office would (for whatever reason) inflict grievous injury upon this nation’s people.

      Between 0bama and Hillary, the damage that’s been done is simply incalculable. Just these two shameless criminals have discredited our nation’s reputation and caused allies to distrust us in ways that will take decades to repair.

      Repairing this damage will require a squandering of assets that completely overshadows anything remotely related to US–Israeli relations.

      Where is Mossad when we really need them!?!

    • O….M….G. Some days I just can’t take it in anymore and just feel like puking. Today is one of those days.

      • Today is one of those days.

        If there’s any room left in the barf-bag, please let me join you, Miss Piggy.

        People who think that “immigration” (legal or otherwise) is the only threat to Western Civilization are in for a shock electro-shock treatment when they finally realize that “chain migration” or “family reunion policies” will result in 10X, 100X, or 1,000X increased migration numbers.

        How or why these loons ever thought that anything else would happen is an ultimate tribute to the “it’ll-be-all-right” buncha wankers.

  3. JAKARTA, Indonesia – A strong quake rattled Indonesia Tuesday, sparking panic in the capital Jakarta and ripping roads apart in the countryside.

    Office workers rushed outside as buildings began swaying, while riders were thrown off their motorbikes by the force of the 6.0 magnitude rumble.

    Footage broadcast on Indonesian television showed trucks swaying violently from side to side at a port in Banten province on the northwestern tip of Java. Pictures posted to social media showed huge cracks splitting roads and minor damage to vehicles and buildings.

    http://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/01/23/18/strong-quake-sparks-panic-in-indonesia

      • Is a Mohammadan ipso facto non-white?

        According to just about every Liberal capable of drawing breath, yes. Of course, we both know that nothing of the sort is true. None of which has prevented the global spread of this specious and fatally toxic meme.

        Otherwise, their entire over-hyped Liberal mythos of “Islam as a race” would have (appropriately) fallen apart well-over a decade ago.

        Crucial to this timeline is that—if such a de-structuring of this idiotic Liberal legend had happened back in the mid-naughties (i.e., middle years of the 2000 decade)—evil, anti-Western hags like Angela Merkel and her dark familiars never would have gained enough traction to cause the unimaginable harm that they’ve managed to inflict.

        May all of this misleading rubbish rot in everlasting hell.

    • POLICE forces across Europe have been put on alert amid fears a truck, believed to be carrying around 34,000 litres of bomb-making chemicals, has been stolen…

      And here we encounter a pluperfect proof of Einstein’s brilliant “thought experiments”. Put before us (in a typically binary format) are the only viable alternatives:

      A.) Ensure that all future movements of such potentially dangerous cargo is escorted by ruinously expensive security teams.

      B.) Expel any and all similarly, ideologically inclined individuals such as criminals, terrorists, thugs, gangsters, collaborators, jihadists, enforcers, accessories (before or after the fact), facilitators, inciters, conspirators, exhorters, financiers, organizers, fundraisers, spies, infiltrators, overseers, handlers, saboteurs, agents, embezzlers, tax cheats, ideologues, imbeciles, loons, morons, inbred geeks, zealots, and run-of-the-mill rectal cavities.

      Usually, the shorter description would be far more appealing. Yet, in a way that is almost unique to Islam (and not in any complimentary manner), Plan B is, by far, a more promising approach when it comes to permanently halting all Muslim predation upon the West.

      Regardless of harsh judgements or sneering accusations being directed at other measures for their “cost effectiveness”, nonetheless, there will remain a, “Plan C.“. All the same, its astounding—neutron-based—energy efficiency is unlikely to garner much in the way of general approval … at least not until Pakistan and North Korea prove how useful this particular approach happens to be.

  4. BELGIUM BACKLASH: Thousands protest over harsh migration stance and police raids (express, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/908315/Belgium-Theo-Francken-migration-protests-Brussels-Sudan

    “THE Belgian government has faced a backlash over its harsh stance on illegal migrants and 2,000 people have protested planned raids by federal police.

    Campaigners have been protesting the planned arrests of migrants by the federal government and certain police forces in the city of Brussels have refused to participate in the federal police operation.

    The protests come amid soaring tensions in Belgium as many locals are concerned the government is being too tough on migrants amid reports 100 people were deported back to Sudan were tortured on their return…”

  5. Bosnia: Sweden Is the Largest Market for Illegal Balkan Weapons (breitbart, Jan 23, 2018)
    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/01/23/bosnian-prosecutor-sweden-largest-market-illegal-balkan-weapons/

    “Bosnian prosecutor Goran Glamocanin has claimed that Sweden is the number one market in Europe for illegal weapons from the Balkan region after yet another explosion occurred in Malmö over the weekend.

    The Bosnian prosecutor, who is currently involved with the prosecution of 20 people who are alleged to have attempted to traffick illegal military grade arms out of the country, said almost all of the weapons were headed to Sweden, Aftonbladet reports.

    “According to the information we have now, the Swedish market is the most attractive in Europe. It is because of the high demand,” said Glamocanin.

    Several sources told Aftonbladet that “everyone is armed” in the Swedish criminal underworld as the number of grenade attacks and shootings continues to increase in the country…”

  6. Facebook let a terror suspect, 31, ‘post ISIS videos glorifying executions and violence just because he repeatedly asked the site to reactivate his page’, court hears (dailymailm, Jan 23, 2018)
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5300471/Facebook-let-terror-suspect-31-post-ISIS-videos.html

    “A terror suspect was allowed to post ISIS videos on Facebook after repeatedly persuading the website to re-enable his account, a court has heard.

    Abdulrahman Alcharbati, 31, is accused of posted several propaganda videos, including those of executions and children being brainwashed to fight.

    One clip encouraged attacks against Westerners and urged jihadists ‘wack them with a rock, cut his throat with a knife or crush him with a car’.

    Newcastle Crown Court heard that the posts were taken down by Facebook administrators for breaching user guidelines.

    However they were regularly reinstated after Alcharbati ‘persuaded Facebook to re-enable his account and ­carried on posting the same material’.

    When the 31-year-old was arrested at his home in Sunderland in May, he told officials that he was ‘just posting the news’.

    Prosecutor Dan Pawson-Pounds told the court: ‘Officers, looking at this material, took the view the posts demonstrated the defendant supported the aims of ISIS.

    ‘He wished to encourage others to support his view and commit terrorist acts in the name of IS or for other motives similar.’

    A trained civil engineer originally from Syria, he graduated from Sunderland University in 2016…”

  7. Iranian woman who bravely stood on a pillar box in Tehran waving her hijab is ‘missing’ and feared arrested, lawyer says (dailymail, Jan 23, 2018)
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5297849/Iran-lawyer-raises-concern-missing-hijab-protester.html

    “The Iranian woman who protested the country’s ‘modesty’ dress code by standing on a pillar box in Tehran and waving a hijab, is missing and feared to have been arrested.

    She had taken off her white headscarf and tied it to a stick in an apparent reference to the ‘White Wednesday’ protests against clothing restrictions on women in Iran.

    Not covering your hair in public is a punishable offense for Iranian women, and the unnamed protester, a 31-year-old mother-of-one, is believed to have been arrested by police.

    The woman has not been seen since the video of her standing on the pillar box on one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, without a headscarf or long coat as required under Islamic law, went viral…”

    • Not covering your hair in public is a punishable offense for Iranian women..

      Which places Iran squarely in stone age. They should be so proud.

  8. COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio man who admitted he plotted to kill U.S. military members after receiving training in Syria apologized to his family and adopted country Monday before a federal judge sentenced him to 22 years in prison.

    After returning to the U.S., Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud planned to fly to Texas and attack the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth in an attempt to free Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist convicted of shooting at two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, Judge Michael Watson said as he outlined the allegations against Mohamud.

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/21/ohio-man-accused-plotting-us-attacks-to-be-sentenced.html

    • …22 years in prison.

      Plenty of time for this lucky boy to become an obedient little “prison wife”.

  9. Pentagon Chief Slams Ankara’s Op in Syria Amid US-Turkey Row Over Kurds (sputniknews, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201801231060991599-turkey-operation-distract-daesh-defeat/

    “US Defense Secretary James Mattis on Tuesday urged Turkey to demonstrate restraint in its operation against Kurdish militia in Syria’s Afrin.

    “The violence in Afrin disrupts what was a relatively stable area in Syria and distracts from the international effort to defeat Daesh,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him in Indonesia ona the secretary’s tour of Asia.

    Although, the Pentagon’s chief said that the US understands Ankara’s security concerns, provided that it has an active Kurdish insurgency on its territory, he also warned that violence in the Afrin region could be exploited by Daesh terrorists in Syria.

    “We urge Turkey to exercise restraint in the military action and the rhetoric,” Mattis added.

    Turkey’s operation in Afrin comes amid mounting tensions between Turkey and the US which has recently begun to form a new security force on the Syrian border which will include Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters affiliated with the YPG.

    Turkey has repeatedly raised concerns over Washington’s support for the YPG militias, with the US promising to halt arms supplies to the Kurds.”

  10. Starting on April 1, 2018, illegal aliens in California who have recently obtained state driver’s licenses legally, or obtained them previously by lying about their immigration status, will automatically be registered to vote. Since January 2015, according to the California DMV, A.B. 60, a law passed by the California Assembly, “allows illegal immigrants to the United States to apply for a California driver’s license with the CA Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)” [emphasis original]. As of December 2016, more than 800,000 California driver’s licenses were issued to illegal aliens under the A.B. 60 law. Additional thousands of illegals may have been granted licenses prior to 2015 because they lied on their driver’s license application forms and claimed they were in the country legally. (No proof of legal residence has been required by the California DMV in recent years.)

    https://web.archive.org/web/20180123114117/http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/01/illegals_in_california_with_drivers_licenses_eligible_to_vote_after_april_1.html

  11. Turkey Reportedly Shells Kurdish Village in Northern Syria (sputniknews, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201801231060991472-turkey-syria-shell-settlement/

    “The start of Ankara’s ground operation in the region of Afrin against armed groups of Syrian Kurds which Turkey regards as terrorists has prompted strong condemnation from Syria, with Damascus calling it an assault on Syria’s sovereignty.

    Kurdish village al-Hilalia near the Syrian city of Qamishli, which borders with Turkey in the north-east, was shelled on Tuesday by Turkish artillery, the television channel Al-Mayadin reports.

    According to the media, shells were fired from heavy artillery guns. There were no immediate reports on the injury toll among civilians or the material damage.

    The Turkish side hasn’t yet commented on the information…”

  12. Abu Dhabi Plans to Punish Drivers for Praying While Behind the Wheel – Reports (sputniknews, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201801231060985878-motorists-uae-prayers-danger-fine/

    “Pulling over to the side of the road to pray is not uncommon among bus drivers and other motorists in the United Arab Emirates. Now, however, they will most likely think twice before doing so in the nation’s capital.

    Abu Dhabi Police have announced that drivers who stop their vehicles in undesignated places on the highways to pray will face a fine of Dh1,000 (about $272), according to Gulf News newspaper.

    The measure is part of a campaign launched by the General Directorate of Abu Dhabi Police to raise awareness among motorists about the danger of offering prayers in undesignated places…”

    • Abu Dhabi Police have announced that drivers who stop their vehicles in undesignated places on the highways to pray will face a fine of Dh1,000 (about $272), according to Gulf News newspaper.

      There’s ZERO mystery involved here. These devout automatons will serve Allah jihad far better by showing (their butts) up at the local mosque indoctrination center instead of meandering off to whatever random roadside rest stop.

  13. Turkey says seeks no clash with U.S., Russia, but will pursue Syria goals (reuters, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey/turkey-says-seeks-no-clash-with-u-s-russia-but-will-pursue-syria-goals-idUKKBN1FC11H?rpc=401&

    “Turkey seeks to avoid any clash with U.S., Russian or Syrian forces but will take any steps needed for its security, a Turkish minister said on Tuesday, the fourth day of an air and ground offensive against Kurdish forces in northwest Syria…”

  14. Houthi attack on Yemen’s Taiz base kills 11 (memo, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180123-houthi-attack-on-yemens-taiz-base-kills-11/

    “11 were killed by the Houthis in southern Taiz, Anadolu Agency reported today, in a shelling attack on a military base which Major General Ali Naser Lakhshaa, Yemen’s deputy interior minister, narrowly survived.

    “Eleven people were killed and dozens injured in the attack”, medical representative Moaz Mahyub said.

    The pro-Houthi Al-Masira television, citing a military source, confirmed the attack, saying the barracks were hit by a ballistic missile…”

  15. Egyptian accused of killing army officer executed (memo, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180123-egyptian-accused-of-killing-army-officer-executed/

    “Egyptian prison authorities have executed an Egyptian man sentenced to death on charges of killing an Egyptian army officer in the Ismailia province.

    A military court sentenced Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Abu Sarie to death after his conviction in case 297 in 2013 of killing 35-year-old Armed Forces officer Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Farouq Mandour. Abu Sarie was accused of shooting Abu Sarie with an automatic weapon, according to Egyptian newspapers.

    Social media activists said that another prisoner, 26-year-old Ahmed Ayati Abdel Wahhab, was also transported from Tora Liman prison to be executed after he was sentenced to death in military case 16. Abdel Wahhab was convicted of killing pilot, Lieutenant Hamed Mohammed Mahmoud, by opening fire on him with an automatic weapon. Egyptian authorities have not confirmed this.

    During the month of December Egyptian authorities executed 15 civilians who were sentenced to death after they were accused of attacking a security checkpoint. According to activists this is the largest number of executions carried out in Egypt’s history.

    A week later four others were executed after being charged for their involvement in planting a bomb near a stadium in the Kafr El-Sheikh governorate in 2015.”

  16. Turkish actions in Syria distract from efforts to defeat ISIS – US defense secretary (RT, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://www.rt.com/news/416732-mattis-isis-turkey-syria/

    “Turkey’s operations in Syria are distracting from efforts to ensure the defeat of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and risk “exacerbating the humanitarian crisis” in the country, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said.

    He noted that Ankara’s operation against Kurdish fighters in Afrin, northern Syria, also risks worsening the humanitarian crisis in the area, as well as in other parts of the country.

    He urged Turkey to exercise restraint, stating that it has already disrupted the peaceful return of refugees and could be seen as an opportunity for Al-Qaeda and IS…”

  17. Claim: Page and Strzok Referenced FBI ‘Secret Society’ that Met the Day After the Election

    There is serious talk on Capitol Hill about the appointment of a second special counsel amid several new bombshell revelations swirling around the Trump/Russia probe. First, there are the allegations of shocking and substantial government surveillance abuses under President Obama outlined in the FISA abuse memo. Secondly, the FBI lost five months of key text messages between the anti-Trump/pro-Clinton FBI officials Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page. And now there’s talk of a “secret society” of officials within the FBI that apparently met the day after the election of Donald J. Trump to plot against the president-elect.

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/page-strzok-referenced-fbi-secret-society-met-day-election/

  18. Turkey detains 91, including politicians, journalists, over Syria comments (reuters, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-security/turkey-detains-91-including-politicians-journalists-over-syria-comments-idUSKBN1FC0WQ?il=0

    ” Turkey arrested dozens of people overnight for “spreading terrorist propaganda” about its Syrian incursion, state media said on Tuesday, raising to nearly 100 the number of such detainees, including politicians, journalists and activists.

    The latest police raids focused on the western province of Izmir, but people have been detained across Turkey over their social media posts since Operation Olive Branch began in Syria’s Afrin region at the weekend, state-run Anadolu agency said.

    The incursion targets the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG, viewed by Ankara as a terrorist group and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought an insurgency in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast since 1984.

    Among those detained were the provincial heads in the cities of Izmir and Aydin of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the second biggest opposition party in parliament. Ankara accuses the HDP of being linked to the PKK, a charge it denies.

    HDP spokesman Ayhan Bilgen named four journalists among those arrested in the investigation into social media postings. He said the probe was targeting “those who side with peace”.

    “Journalists are having their doors rammed down without anyone knocking and they are being detained as if there were an army or ammunition inside,” he told a news conference.

    “This shows how people are afraid of keyboards, pens, words and writing,” he said.

    “BLACK PROPAGANDA”

    Anadolu said 91 people had been detained so far in raids against “black propaganda” across 13 provinces, with 17 detained in southeast Turkey’s Diyarbakir province. Three of the detainees have been remanded in custody pending trial, it added.

    Six of the 23 suspects arrested in Izmir were accused of spreading propaganda on the streets, which amounted to “harassing people”, the agency said, adding that they were planning to hold a protest in a park.

    Among the detainees was Leyla Guven, co-leader of the pro-Kurdish NGO Democratic Society Congress, said HDP lawmaker Bedia Ozgokce Ertan, adding that other HDP officials and senior members of the IHD human rights association were also held.

    Ankara has enforced a crackdown since a failed coup in 2016 that critics say has unjustly targeted pro-Kurdish politicians. Some HDP lawmakers have been jailed on terrorism charges, which they deny.

    In total, more than 50,000 people have been jailed and face trial since the attempted putsch and 150,000 have been sacked or suspended from their jobs. The government says the moves were necessary given the security threats Turkey faces.

    On Monday, authorities in the capital Ankara banned all rallies, protests, meetings and concerts in the city for as long as the Afrin operation in Syria continues.”

  19. Turkey says seeks no clash with U.S., Russia, but will pursue Syria goals

    ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Turkey seeks to avoid any clash with U.S., Russian or Syrian forces but will take any steps needed for its security, a Turkish minister said on Tuesday, the fourth day of an air and ground offensive against Kurdish forces in northwest Syria.

    The United States and Russia both have military forces in Syria and have urged Turkey to show restraint in its campaign, Operation Olive Branch, to crush the U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG in the Afrin region on Turkey’s southern border.

    The operation has opened a new front in Syria’s multi-sided civil war and could threaten U.S. plans to stabilize and rebuild a large area of northeast Syria – beyond President Bashar al-Assad’s control – where the United States helped the YPG drive out Islamic State fighters.

    Turkey’s military, the second largest in NATO, has conducted air strikes and artillery barrages against targets in Afrin, and its soldiers and allied Syrian rebels have tried to push into the Kurdish-held district from west, north and eastern flanks.

    http://www.oann.com/turkey-seeks-no-clash-with-russia-syria-u-s-but-will-pursue-syria-goals-minister/

  20. Watchdog group seeks records on likely ‘thousands’ of non-citizen voters in Texas
    By LU Staff January 22, 2018

    A right-leaning legal nonprofit says it will sue Texas’ largest county if it doesn’t produce records in connection with thousands of noncitizens who somehow made it on to the county’s voter rolls.

    The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an Indiana-based law firm that focuses on election integrity issues, sent Monday a notice to the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector threatening a federal lawsuit if officials continue to withhold documents the group had requested about voters who had not met citizenship requirements for registration.

    In December, PILF asked Harris County officials to turn over certain voter information, part of a broader campaign to investigate the improper registration of noncitizens in jurisdictions across the country. County officials denied the request, asserting that voter registration records were exempt from Texas open records laws.

    PILF has countered that Harris County is obligated to provide voter registration records under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allows private citizens to inspect “records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.”

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/01/22/watchdog-group-seeks-records-likely-thousands-non-citizen-voters-texas/

  21. No one is really offended by Sh*tholegate, not even Democrats
    By Benny Huang January 23, 2018

    Will someone please get Cory Booker a tissue? The senator from New Jersey claims that President Trump’s alleged “sh*thole countries” remark made him cry.

    Yes, cry. This one-time All-American high school football star was so butthurt over a completely uncontroversial statement that he actually shed tears. Then he choked up again while recounting his first bout of weeping.

    “I hurt,” whined Booker before pounding his fists on the bench like a small child. “When Dick Durbin called me I had tears of rage when I heard about this experience in this meeting.”

    Booker was referring to the ultraliberal Illinois senator who claims to have been in a meeting with President Trump when Trump said that America doesn’t need any more immigrants from “sh*thole countries” such as Haiti and El Salvador, and the entirety of Africa. He allegedly said that he would prefer Norwegians instead.

    This set off a round of denials and counteraccusations. President Trump, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, and two Republican senators have denied that Trump made the remarks while Durbin doubled down on his previous accusation.

    On the one hand it sounds like something Trump would say, particularly if he were speaking off the record, while on the other hand liberal Democrats are constantly manufacturing incidents of faux outrage so that they can virtue signal to their base. Liberals need to be seen as vigilant warriors, fighting a never-ending battle against “hate,” which requires an endless stream of outrages. It’s really tiresome.

    Of course when the Democrats are in outrage mode so too are the news media — likely because there’s no clear demarcation line between the two. In the 24-hour period after Sh*tholegate broke, CNN used the term on air 195 times. That’s an average of more than eight times per hour. Wasn’t there any other news to cover?

    It should be noted that this whole story may still be apocryphal. The fact that the news media present it as truth is a classic case of media bias. One Democrat is to be believed because he’s a Democrat. Four Republicans are not to be believed because they’re Republicans.

    But if the president didn’t say what Durbin claims he said then I’ll say it for him. Haiti is a “sh*thole,” and everyone knows it — even Dick Durbin, Cory Booker, and all their whiny reporter friends over at CNN. El Salvador is also a “sh*thole.” So is every African nation without exception.

    That may be an impolitic thing to say, but that doesn’t make it any less true. If we intend to craft a reality-based immigration policy, we must retain the ability to speak candidly about the world as it actually exists — particularly in closed door meetings for cripe’s sake! That’s what closed door meetings are for. We can’t have candid conversations if little Dicky Durbin is going to tattle to the media every time he feels a case of the butthurt coming on.

    Even liberals know that Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa are “sh*tholes.” In fact, it seems to be their recurring argument for why we need to prioritize citizens of those nations in our immigration policy. Turning away people who are fleeing the kind of violence, corruption, and disease found in such places would be heartless and frankly un-American!

    Then they react with righteous indignation if anyone calls them “sh*thole countries.” Seriously? If they’re not sh*tholes, then their residents have no special case to plead.

    But Haitians receive preferential treatment under our immigration policy precisely because their homeland is a shambles — and anyone who tries to end this preferential treatment gets his hand slapped by the liberal media.

    In June of last year, President Trump openly considered ending the “temporary” refugee status of some 50,000 Haitians who were allowed to stay in the U.S. after that country’s 2010 earthquake.

    A staff editorial from the Washington Post explained:

    The Haitians in question have been allowed to stay in the United States … as beneficiaries of a U.S. government program called Temporary Protected Status. TPS extends humanitarian relief to people from impoverished, war-torn or disaster-wracked countries who are already in the United States when calamity strikes their homelands. [Emphasis added.]

    Sounds like “sh*tholes” to me!

    The editorial went on to bemoan the cruelty of the Trump administration for daring to send 50,000 people back to a country that is, by their description, “a special hardship case.” That’s a diplomatic way of saying that it’s a sh*thole.

    The Post also admitted that Haiti will be a “special hardship case” for years to come:

    It’s fair to wonder whether there will ever be, in the foreseeable future, a right time to send more than 50,000 Haitians back to a country so beset with chronic problems. The honest answer is no. …

    For once the Post said something that makes sense. Haiti will almost certainly remain the pity of the world for as long as my unborn grandchildren’s unborn grandchildren are alive and would still be even if there had never been an earthquake. For that matter, the nation has been a “special hardship case” since its birth in 1804 and probably before that too. Haiti was, is, and ever shall be a horrible place filled with despotism, disease, and grinding poverty.

    In other words, it’s a “sh*thole.” Saying that makes liberals nervous, of course, because it implies that not all cultures are equal, from which they draw their own racial conclusions. But it’s the truth.

    Let’s look at infant mortality rates. Besides Afghanistan which has the world’s highest infant mortality rate, the top 24 highest infant mortality rates can all be found in African nations. The top 35 nations are all African except four. Then comes Haiti at number 36. El Salvador is number 96. Norway by contrast is number 221.

    Or we could examine per capita GDP. Haiti’s is a mere $1,800, which makes it number 209 of 230 countries and the lowest in the Americas. Of the 21 countries that rank below Haiti, two are small Pacific island nations and one is North Korea. All the rest are African. Norway is the thirteenth highest.

    So why all the weeping and fist-pounding about some nations being called “sh*tholes?” The short answer is that liberals prioritize their feelings above all else. Cory Booker, for example, might be a little sensitive about the term “sh*thole” because it’s often associated with the state he represents in the U.S. Senate. New Jersey has a certain reputation as a toxic waste dump with syringe-strewn beaches.

    I wouldn’t make that argument, of course, because I know that only part of the state fits that description. The entire Garden State isn’t like the really dumpy sections found across the Hudson from Manhattan in places like East Rutherford, Irvington, and Newark.

    Say, wasn’t Cory Booker once the mayor of Newark? Yes, he was.

    Newark also has a significant population of Haitian immigrants. Remember the ’90s hip hop ensemble the Fugees? Two of its three members were Haitian refugees who settled in the Newark area. Newark also has a good-sized population of Salvadorans. The Archdiocese of Newark estimates that forty thousand Salvadorans live within its jurisdictional bounds.

    But is Newark a “sh*thole” because of its Haitian and Salvadoran populations? Not necessarily. Newark has never been a nice place to live — not even before waves of Haitian and Salvadoran immigrants arrived. Still, they haven’t done much to spruce the place up.

    A better explanation would be that the Haitians and Salvadorans landed in Newark because they were priced out of nicer communities. They then settled right into the urban Democratic wasteland. Politicians like Cory Booker pander to them and try to buy their votes with promises of government goodies. These politicians never solve their problems, of course, but that’s to be expected. If they did, what would they run on next time?

    In short, if Cory Booker is offended at all by Trump’s alleged comments, it’s because they strike a nerve — not because they’re untrue. As the former mayor of a “sh*thole” city, filled with constituents who hail from some of the “sh*thole” countries Trump allegedly named, Booker takes the remarks as a personal insult.

    Or at least he pretends to. In reality he secretly agrees with the remarks; he just has to feign overwrought outrage publicly for the sake of Newark’s and New Jersey’s sacred honor.

    But the rest of us have no obligation to pretend that Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa are nice places. They’re not. Anyone who believes that they are can prove his sincerity by taking his next vacation in beautiful, sunny Port-au-Prince. All others can quit the histrionics.

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    Posted in: Media, PoliticsTagged: Cory Booker, immigration, racism, sh*thole
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    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/01/23/no-one-really-offended-shtholegate-not-even-democrats/

    • Let’s go ahead and see if Cory Booker could live in Haiti or Nigeria for more than six weeks minutes without once uttering the word “shithole”.

      These useless, pampered, brain dead little wannabe poverty pimps really need to experience being homeless or hungry at least ONCE in their lives before they start trying to act like invincible Social Justice Warriors.

  22. A new way to ensure protection for blacks against racism? Claim ‘being black’ is a disability
    By Ben Bowles January 22, 2018

    t’s actually pretty damned clever — which is not say it’s not also idiotic. Kimani Paul-Emile, a law professor at Fordham University, published an article in December in Fordham Law News that argues that being black “is disabling in a myriad of specific ways”:

    To be Black means facing increased likelihood, relative to Whites, of living in poverty, attending failing schools, experiencing discrimination in housing, being denied a job interview, being stopped by the police, being killed during a routine police encounter, receiving inferior medical care, living in substandard conditions and in dangerous and/or polluted environments, being un- or underemployed, receiving longer prison sentences, and having a lower life expectancy. These increased risks are not fully explained by income: Blackness in the United States has an independent disabling effect distinct from the effects of socioeconomic status.

    Neither “race-focused civil rights laws” or “the Supreme Court’s equal protection jurisprudence,” she goes on to submit, have been effective in addressing race discrimination. Why? Because they fail to “combat the predominant forms of discrimination that now harm minority populations: unconscious bias, stereotyping, and … inequities rooted within social systems and institutions that create inequality in the absence of intentional discrimination.”

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/01/22/new-way-guarantee-protection-blacks-racism-claim-black-disability/

    • The so called anti racists are working hard to create true racism with a revival of the old racists groups, we aren’t far from this now and the left is pushing us to that goal much faster.

    • A non means-tested Black Person’s Allowance?

      It might be substantially cheaper than enforcing Positive Discrimination, or quotas – to the economy as a whole.

      “Equality From Birth.” Has a good ring to it. A sliding Kinsey Scale from White to Black, so that those also who think or act Black, will be paid the same Disability Benefit, because they too are at a considerable disadvantage.

      But it has to be strictly monitored. For there will be some feigning, with ideas of leaving the plantation. These ‘coconuts,’ who are white on the inside are then discovered to have a job and family. This a despicable abuse of the Welfare System. It’s either Work or family. No one employed should raise a family.

      And the second weapon for a fairer society is to add a JIZYA, (Job Immobility to Zero Your Advantage).

      No, ridiculous; what kind of people who would make up color bands?

  23. Was Lynch coordinating with Comey in the Clinton investigation?

    Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch knew well in advance of FBI Director James Comey’s 2016 press conference that he would recommend against charging Hillary Clinton, according to information turned over to the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Friday.

    The revelation was included in 384 pages of text messages exchanged between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and it significantly diminishes the credibility of Lynch’s earlier commitment to accept Comey’s recommendation — a commitment she made under the pretense that the two were not coordinating with each other.

    And it gets worse. Comey and Lynch reportedly knew that Clinton would never face charges even before the FBI conducted its three-hour interview with Clinton, which was supposedly meant to gather more information into her mishandling of classified information.

    On July 1, 2016, as the Lynch announcement became public, Page texted Strzok:

    http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/370019-was-lynch-coordinating-with-comey-in-the-clinton-investigation

  24. Child killed at German school, reportedly murdered by schoolmate

    A child has been killed at school in the western German town of Lünen, allegedly murdered by a fellow pupil. Police quickly arrested the attacker.

    […]Authorities declined to disclose further information or background on the incident. However, according to local reports, the victim was stabbed to death.

    http://www.dw.com/en/child-killed-at-german-school-reportedly-murdered-by-schoolmate/a-42266702
    ================================================
    BBC Germany school attack: Pupil ‘killed by classmate’ near Dortmund

    […]German media say both the victim and the suspect are German citizens, while the latter also has a Kazakh passport.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42788849
    =================================================
    Mirror – Pupil, 15, arrested for ‘stabbing classmate to death’ at German school near Dortmund

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    ============================================
    the local – <strongTeenager arrested over murder of classmate at school in western Germany

    […]According to Bild daily, the suspect stabbed the victim in the neck with a knife in front of his mother.

    https://www.thelocal.de/20180123/teenager-arrested-over-murder-of-classmate-at-school-in-western-germany

  25. Nine in Ten ‘Underage’ Moroccans in Sweden Caught Lying About Their Age (breitbart, Jan 23, 2018)
    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/01/23/nine-10-underage-moroccan-sweden-lying-age/

    “A new cooperation agreement between Sweden and Morocco to share their fingerprint databases has revealed that 90 per cent of “underage” Moroccan asylum seekers are really adults.

    Per Löwenberg, Group Head of the Swedish National Border Policy Division, commented on the new agreement, saying: “We have been given permission to work very well with Moroccan authorities, and have a working routine that we are very pleased with,” Sveriges Radio reports.

    Moroccan migrants who come to Sweden as asylum seekers are often rejected for asylum status and many end up living homeless or getting involved in organised crime. The new system will not only be able to identify those who are lying about their age but also help with the deportation of migrants without travel documents…”

  26. Greece: Thessaloniki in flames following antifa showdown with police

    Around 500 left-wing protesters clashed with police in city of Thessaloniki on Monday following the arson of the ‘Libertatia’ building a day earlier.

  27. CBC – Trudeau’s gender-equal budgeting challenge

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a challenge to develop a gender-equal budget that will help improve the lives of women. Both Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau are in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum and both will be bringing their message of gender equity and budgeting.

    Canada has some measures in place to support gender equality, but could look to Sweden for some unique and practical ways to include gender equity in its budgeting.

  28. VICE – Inside The Underground Network Helping Refugees Across Europe:

    Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war-torn Africa and the Middle East in search of safety are finding a new kind of hell in Europe, where countries are cracking down on border crossings. But in the midst of the chaos, an underground network has emerged to help the refugees.

    “There are a lot of people helping. I think that in the Roya Valley, there are more than 150 refugees living people’s homes,” said Cedric Herrou, a farmer from a French-Italian border village. He’s helped organize a small network of underground smugglers to help the migrants pass into France.

    The refugee crisis in Europe has reached unprecedented levels — over 65.6 million people worldwide have now been forcibly displaced from their homes. And that’s just counting those who reach their destination. In 2016, more refugees than ever were killed on the journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

    To stem the flow of refugees, authorities are cracking down on border crossings. After walking hundreds of miles in search of safety, many are forced back to the first country where they entered in Europe. And that’s where most of them remain, apparently indefinitely, as they wait for their claims to be processed.

    Even there, things are dire. Last October, the French government destroyed one of Europe’s largest and most notorious refugee camps, known as the Calais Jungle. It’s used as a jumping off point to enter the U.K., and the destruction displaced thousands of refugees, many of whom were unaccompanied minors.

    VICE News was in France when the government destroyed Calais Jungle. We followed hundreds of refugees attempting to cross the border into France, and met some of the people keeping the underground network alive.

  29. ‘A Night For Freedom’ Panel with Stefan Molyneux, Gavin McInnes, Owen Benjamin and Mike Cernovich

  30. For years those who asked questions were call: crazy, conspiracies’s idiots, uninformed, not informed, disinformed, racist, ect

    After 911, like most of people I was uniformed and misinformed. Then
    WMD in Iraq…I canceled my cable. Fox News become soft legal opposition and they were silenced about the usurper in 2008….
    I feel we are not crazy:
    https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2018/01/fbi-director-mueller-helped-cover-fla-9-11-probe-court-docs-show/

    • ????? ??????
      Thanks to all of you for all the information, translation.
      Sedition comes to mind.
      Stay safe

    • http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2004-04-08/news/0404080200_1_terrorists-mohammed-atta-gregg-chatterton Del Ray Librarian Kathleen Hensman still clearly remembers three of the terrorists using computers a few feet from her desk in the Delray library research room. She phoned police when their pictures made the newspapers.
      It still bothers her that the FBI impounded only two of the room’s computers.
      http://www.rodmacdonald.net/my_neighbors_in_delray.htm My Neighbors In Delray lyrics
      My neighbors in Delray went to the gym every day
      rented a condo, studied to be pilots
      they had rental cars, cell phones, used the library computers in town
      struck out with girls in local nightspots
      but my neighbors in Delray hated the American Way

      • http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/23/us/nation-challenged-questions-confidentiality-competing-principles-leave-some.html Ms. Hensman, the librarian, said she was well aware of the Florida law and of her professional responsibility, but she has no qualms about calling the police.
        ”People were murdered,” she said, ”and people have a right to know that terrorists were here in our library using our public facilities.” After Ms. Hensman called, the police in Delray Beach, between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, notified the F.B.I. Agents obtained a court order and seized two computers the suspects were thought to have used. Officials said they hoped to retrieve e-mail messages the hijackers sent and received.

        • [correcting NYT’s poor reporting]http://www.foxnews.com/story/2001/12/11/role-nation-libraries-in-terror-probe-not-closed-book.html Hensman in fact worked through the library, Callahan said, and neither she nor the library violated the state of Florida’s confidentiality regulations.
          “Florida law … says that you need a subpoena. The FBI got a subpoena in this case, so that was totally within the laws,” he said. “And the law does not cover the recollection of a librarian.”
          “They didn’t have library cards as far as I know, but for some reason their names stuck in the mind of the librarian,” library director John Callahan said. “We’re pretty sure they were in the library.”
          Among them, he said, was Marwan Al-Shehhi, 23, whom the U.S. government suspects of being the pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center.
          Hensman related her suspicions to Callahan, who contacted local police. The police in turn called the FBI, who got a subpoena, swooped down on the library and took away two of its computers for analysis.
          Callahan said the library doesn’t know what the three men had been using the computers for.
          But while the computers remained intact, the library’s reputation didn’t. Erroneous news reports said that the library had reprimanded Hensman for violating the privacy of library patrons.

  31. Afghan Pedophiles Get Free Pass From U.S. Military, Report Says (NYT, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/world/asia/afghanistan-military-abuse.htm

    “On 5,753 occasions from 2010 to 2016, the United States military reported accusations of “gross human rights abuses” by the Afghan military, including many examples of child sexual abuse. If true, American law required military aid to be cut off to the offending unit.

    Not once did that happen.

    That was among the findings in an investigation into child sexual abuse by the Afghan security forces and the supposed indifference of the American military to the problem, according to a report released on Monday by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, known as Sigar.

    The report, commissioned under the Obama administration, was considered so explosive that it was originally marked “Secret/ No Foreign,” with the recommendation that it remain classified until June 9, 2042. The report was finished in June 2017, but it appears to have included data only through 2016, before the Trump administration took office.

    The report released on Monday was heavily redacted, and at least in the public portions it did little to answer questions about how prevalent child sexual abuse was in the Afghan military, and how commonly the American military looked the other way at the widespread practice of bacha bazi, or “boy play,” in which some Afghan commanders keep underage boys as sex slaves.

    “Although DOD and State have taken steps to identify and investigate child sexual assault incidents, the full extent of these incidences may never be known,” the report said, referring to the departments of Defense and State.

    Sigar said it had opened an investigation into bacha bazi at the request of Congress and in response to a 2015 New York Times article that described the practice as “rampant.” The article said that American soldiers who complained had their careers ruined by their superiors, who had encouraged them to ignore the practice.

    “DOD and State only began efforts to address this issue after it was raised by The New York Times,” said John F. Sopko, the special inspector general. “And even after that story, the sufficiency of policies they’ve put in place and the resources they’ve committed seem questionable. When Congress passed the Leahy laws they prioritized the issue of gross human rights violations. As our report clearly shows, both agencies failed to live up to that task.”

    A former Special Forces officer, Capt. Dan Quinn, who beat up an Afghan commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave, said at the time that he had been relieved of his command as a result. “We were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did,” said Captain Quinn, who has since left the military…”l

  32. Double car bombing in Libya’s Benghazi kills at least 11 (reuters, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-libya-security/double-car-bombing-in-libyas-benghazi-kills-at-least-11-idUKKBN1FC2U0?rpc=401&amp;

    ” A double car bombing in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday left at least 11 people dead and others wounded, according to officials and a Reuters witness.

    The attack happened in Benghazi’s Al Salmani district as worshippers were leaving a mosque after prayers. It was not immediately clear who was responsible.

    The victims included both military personnel and civilians, officials said.

    Benghazi was the scene of more than three years of conflict from 2014 until late last year, as forces loyal to eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar battled Islamists and other opponents…”

  33. Turkey says killed at least 260 YPG, Islamic State militants in Syria’s Afrin (reuters, Jan 23, 2018)
    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-turkey-army-toll/turkey-says-killed-at-least-260-ypg-islamic-state-militants-in-syrias-afrin-idUKKBN1FC2U4?rpc=401&amp;

    “Turkish military said in a statement on Tuesday that at least 260 Syrian Kurdish YPG and Islamic State militants had been killed in its operation in Syria’s Afrin.

    The statement said the Turkish military intervention in the Syrian enclave of Afrin was continuing as planned on its fourth day.”

  34. Prison in France: Terrorism and Islamism

    by Yves Mamou
    January 23, 2018 at 7:00 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11787/france-prison-islam-terrorism

    French prison guards are on strike. In a period of less than 10 days, a number of guards in various prisons were attacked and wounded, mainly by Islamists incarcerated for terrorist offenses or petty criminals apparently on their way to becoming radical Islamists. In reaction, the guards have blocked the normal functioning of the majority of prisons.

    The wave of attacks began on January 11, 2018. Three guards of Vendin-le-Vieil’s prison, in the north of France, were lightly wounded in a knife attack committed by the Christian Gantzarski, a German convert to Islam who joined Al Qaeda and masterminded the bombing of a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, in 2002.

    On January 15, 2018, seven guards were attacked and injured by a “radicalized” inmate at Mont-de-Marsan prison, in the south of France.

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11787/france-prison-islam-terrorism

  35. The American Stake in the Czech Elections

    by Jiri Valenta
    January 23, 2018 at 4:30 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11786/czech-elections-us-interests

    The significance of the upcoming run-off of the presidential election in Czech Republic is largely underestimated in Washington. But its prevalent view of it as a not too significant event in a small European country is dead wrong.

    Contenders include the sitting President, outspoken and politically incorrect Milos Zeman, who garnered 39% of the vote in the first of a two-phase election. His rival is chemist Jiri Drahos, the correct, low key, former president of the Czech Academy of Sciences, who won 27%. A tight race is expected in the January 26-27 vote.