Reader’s Links for June 26, 2018

Daily Links Post graphic

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

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

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

About Eeyore

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

132 Replies to “Reader’s Links for June 26, 2018”

  1. Supreme Court rules law requiring pro-life centers to promote abortion is illegal

    By Alex Swoyer and Bradford Richardson – The Washington Times – Tuesday, June 26, 2018

    The Supreme Court said Monday the state of California can’t require pro-life pregnancy centers to promote abortion as a health care option, ruling it would violate the First Amendment for the government to force that kind of speech onto the centers.

    “By requiring petitioners to inform women how they can obtain state-subsidized abortions — at the same time petitioners try to dissuade women from choosing that option — the licensed notice plainly ‘alters the content’ of petitioners’ speech,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas, who delivered the majority opinion in the 5-4 ruling.

    The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates sued the state of California after it enacted a law requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to post notices for clients about an abortion possibility through the state’s free or low-cost reproductive health care options.

    The law also required the centers to provide disclaimers about the lack of medical professionals on staff, among other requirements, which the centers said impeded their ability to advertise as well as violated their First Amendment rights.

    http://www.gopusa.com/?p=48911&preview=true?omhide=true

      • If PT can put one more strict constructionist on SCOTUS this will ensure a fair amount of confidence that freedom will survive. If he can put two or three more this will transform the nation back to a free nation, not over night but in 5 to 10 years. Combine this with the lower court Judges he is putting in place and things are starting to look good for the future.

  2. The Media Accuses Trump of its Own Crimes
    If the media wants to investigate enemy collusion, it can look in the mirror.
    June 26, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    On Tom LoBianco’s LinkedIn profile, the former Associated Press reporter self-identifies as a “White House reporter covering Trump Russia probes.” At CNN, LoBianco writes that he “covered the 2016 presidential race and the Russia probes.”

    Now LoBianco is in trouble for reasons having nothing and everything to do with the Russia probe.

    Earlier this year, Elliot Broidy, a Trump ally and Republican fundraiser, was targeted by Qatari hackers. Broidy had been sharply critical of the terror state which has been linked to everything from 9/11 to Iran. And his emails were quickly peddled to media figures who spun them into pro-Qatari hit pieces.

    When Broidy struck back with a lawsuit targeting Qatar and its lobbyists, phone records showed that LoBianco had spoken three dozen times to a registered foreign agent of the Islamic terror state.

    LoBianco’s stories were nakedly hostile to Broidy, the Saudis and the UAE to the extent that they were hard to distinguish from Qatari propaganda. And they were aimed at what LoBianco and his collaborator deemed a “secret campaign” to “alter U.S. foreign policy and punish Qatar.” LoBianco’s story accused Broidy of not registering as a foreign agent, but he was the one allegedly colluding with a Qatari agent.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270554/media-accuses-trump-its-own-crimes-daniel-greenfield

  3. California Faces an Internet Censorship Bill
    June 26, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    California’s leftist ruling class is starting to run low on more insane initiatives. And it’s moving into blatantly unconstitutional territory. But since the Brown regime has been operating as a secessionist entity, why not violate the First Amendment and adopt the best practices of China, Russia, Cuba and North Korea?

    SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – California is considering creating a “fake news” advisory group in order to monitor information posted and spread on social media.

    Senate Bill 1424 would require the California Attorney General to create the advisory committee by April 1, 2019. It would need to consist of at least one person from the Department of Justice, representatives from social media providers, civil liberties advocates, and First Amendment scholars.

    The advisory group would be required to study how false information is spread online and come up with a plan for social media platforms to fix the problem. The Attorney General would then need to present that plan to the Legislature by December 31, 2019. The group would also need to come up with criteria establishing what is “fake news” versus what is inflammatory or one-sided.

    If the ACLU were still in the free speech business (as opposed to the ‘Elect Democrats’ business), the drums would be beating.

    It’s not the role of government to decide what speech should exist. Nor should it be laying out “plans” to fix a problem consisting of speech it doesn’t like. There’s a straightforward term for that, censorship.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/270566/california-faces-internet-censorship-bill-daniel-greenfield

  4. Forget Civility! The Left Embraces Political Terrorism
    June 26, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    There’s a significant distinction between political protest and political terrorism.

    It’s not just violence.

    Political protest is meant to register and rally opposition. Political terrorism is designed to threaten, intimidate and harass.

    Protest seeks to build a consensus against a policy. Terrorism wants to intimidate people into abandoning it.

    The latest round of lefty harassment, targeting individuals, whether it’s Trump administration members threatened, harassed and doxxed by, among others, Univision’s Splinter, or ICE personnel being doxxed by the left, is political terrorism.

    It generally hasn’t turned as violent as the James Hodgkinson shootings. But that’s the trajectory. And anyone who denies that is kidding themselves.

    The phony outrage is being mobilized to overturn political norms. The next stage after direct harassment is violence. That violence may begin with fake bomb threats, then real bombs accompanied by warnings, as the gradual stages before full on terrorism. But if the left remains on the course it’s on, we are headed there. And that’s why some Democrat leaders are panicking.

    The split between those on the left who want to gain power politically through the system and those who want to violently attack in in a direct fashion is out in the open.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/270565/forget-civility-left-embraces-political-terrorism-daniel-greenfield

  5. Poking the bear: US Air Force builds in Russia’s backyard
    By: Joe Gould and Valerie Insinna ?

    WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Defense Department expands its presence in Europe, the Air Force has quietly ramped up investments that would enable it to deploy to allied bases in Eastern Europe and operate close to Russia’s western flank.

    The Trump administration wants to spend $828 million in 2019 to build up military infrastructure in Europe as part of an ongoing initiative to deter Russian aggression and reinforce allies. Almost half of that construction funding would go toward U.S. Air Force projects.

    The request would more than double military construction funding under the European Deterrence Initiative, or EDI, from the 2018 request — when not so long ago, the U.S. military was shrinking its Cold War-era footprint in Europe.

    https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nato-priorities/2018/06/25/poking-the-bear-us-air-force-builds-in-russias-backyard/

  6. EU will ‘IMPLODE’ if Brussels fails to face up to migrant crisis, warns Paris mayor

    Correction. It is imploding.

    The mayor of Paris ought to tell it to Macron. President Emmanuel Macron favors financial sanctions for European Union countries that refuse migrants with proven asylum status — deepening the divide between union members over the migrant crisis.

    https://gellerreport.com/2018/06/eu-implode-migrant-crisis.html/

  7. Florida Democrat Arrested For Threatening to Murder Republican Congressman’s Children

    A Florida man was arrested on Tuesday after he reportedly threatened to kill Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) and his three minor children.

    Police say Laurence Key of Stuart, Florida, called Congressman Mast’s DC office out of anger regarding President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, and told the office intern, “If you are going to separate kids at the border, I’m going to kill his kids.”

    Along with making death threats against the Congressman and his children, documents filed in the US District Court reveal that Key placed 478 phone calls to Mast’s office.

    According to the Federal Complaint that was filed, while being questioned by an FBI investigator, Key said, “Mast should be separated from his kids” for supporting Trump’s immigration policy.

    https://bigleaguepolitics.com/florida-democrat-arrested-for-threatening-to-murder-republican-congressmans-children/

  8. Home Sweet Home: Obama Secretly Returns To Kenya Ahead of Planned Trip

    Barack Obama is escaping the heat of the IG Report and has reportedly made a secret trip to his homeland of Kenya ahead of a separate planned trip in July.

    On Sunday, New York Magazine published an article titled, “Where is Barack Obama”, which elaborated on how Obama has essentially disappeared from the public eye since leaving with White House. Well, Big League Politics can confirm he is in Kenya.

    While Obama’s trip to Kenya is scheduled to take place from July 15-16, sources on the ground in Kenya have informed Big League Politics that Obama is currently in Kenya, and has been there since Sunday night.

    It is unknown why Obama is being deceptive about the time of his future trip to Kenya, but it may have something to do with his suspicious family history and controversy surrounding the legitimacy of his birth certificate and country of birth.

    https://bigleaguepolitics.com/home-sweet-home-obama-secretly-returns-to-kenya-ahead-of-planned-trip/

  9. 7 FARM ATTACKS and 3 MURDERS in 24 hours | The BRUTAL TRUTH ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA

  10. CBC – International security expert explains the challenges of Canada’s peacekeeping mission in Mali

    [Extended Interview] Is Canada joining an unwinnable fight in Mali? CBC’s David Common talks to international security expert, Aisha Ahmad, about the challenges the Canadian military and the UN face as they try to bring security and stability to the African country.

    • The Age of Heroes | Aisha Ahmad

      Looking at the headlines from Aleppo to Jubba, it might seem as though our world is falling apart.

      As a security specialist, I’ve travelled to some of the most war-torn countries on the globe.

      But far from being a cynic, however, I believe we are living in an unprecedented golden age of human freedom.

      Our modern international order is a strikingly new phenomenon that has built a more peaceful and just world than ever before.

      This is an epic moment in the long history of our human species. But it now hangs in the balance. As our international system heads into an era of uncertainty, will our hard-won freedoms survive? What is the price we must pay for a more just world?

      Aisha Ahmad is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, and the Director of the Islam and Politics Initiative and a Senior Researcher at the Global Justice Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs. She has conducted extensive fieldwork on conflict dynamics in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Kenya, Lebanon, and Mali.

      Her forthcoming book with Oxford University Press, titled “Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power” explores the economic drivers of these complex security crises.

  11. Wow! This
    is somewhat amazing as, according to this article, Germany has no intention of providing for its own defense. As I read it, the US is the bully for wanting European nations to pay 2% of their GDP to defense. Germany seems to have no intention of doing so and therefor the US is the antagonist for asking…
    As a United States taxpayer that pays my taxes every year to much chagrin, I ask the people of Germany why we should continue to defend you?
    If the country of Poland wants to pay us 1 billion plus to move our operations there I say let’s do it!
    Other than Ramstein base and hospital, a complex hard to replicate elsewhere, I would be all in on removing our troops from Germany.
    Look on the bright side, Germany could use our vacated bases for refugees!

      • That may be why we are repairing and upgrading bases in Poland and possibly Hungry, PT may be planning a move.

        When de Gaulle pulled out of NATO we moved everthing (including the wiring, plumbing pipes and greens from the golf courses) in one or two months. If we don’t care about the condition of the buildings you can strip them real quick.

      • Personally I like the idea of pulling our troops out, right now they are in what is enemy country and can’t shoot back. Moving to a safe nation which can be used to invade Western Europe when necessary is a real good idea. In WWII we used Britain as the unsinkable aircraft carrier and supply dumb for the invasion of Europe, in WWIII we might as well use Poland for that purpose, it will be easier then mounting a cross Atlantic invasion.

  12. Protests in Iran prove Trump is getting it right

    While Team Trump is divided over Iran policy — some say negotiate, others advocate pressure aimed at regime change — defiant Iranians taking to the streets of the capital are resolving that dispute decisively in favor of the latter.

    Tehran’s grand bazaar was shut down Monday as merchants joined street protests and thousands defied thuggish regime riot police trying to quell the rebellion. Other big cities joined Tehran as well.

    Protesters carried signs like “Leave Syria alone, think of us.” Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the Houthis — all proxy arms of the Islamic Republic’s strategy of spreading its version of the “Islamic revolution” across the region — weren’t spared protesters’ ire either.

    In a modification of the regime’s “death to Israel” staple, some merchants raised “death to Palestine” signs on Monday. And worse, from the regime’s point of view: “Death to the dictator.”

    https://nypost.com/2018/06/25/protests-in-iran-prove-trump-is-getting-it-right/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons&utm_source=reddit.com

  13. The House Judiciary Committee approved for the first time a resolution Tuesday demanding that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein turn over all requested documents regarding the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation during the presidential election after seven days or face possible impeachment or contempt.

    The decision to move forward with the resolution came after a year of battles with the Justice Department and FBI to turn over requested documents. The committee voted on party lines 15-11 to pass the resolution directing Rosenstein to comply within the next seven days or face the consequences.

    Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who has been one of the lawmakers at the frontlines of the committee’s investigation, said the resolution is the result of the frustration felt among lawmakers conducting oversight. He noted that it will be up to House Republican leaders to decide whether or not to take it to the full House for a vote.

    “If we don’t get that information entitled to us, everybody knows that we’ll do what we have to do to get it done…”
    Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)

    https://saraacarter.com/house-approves-resolution-demanding-doj-fbi-docs/

  14. As former top FBI official Peter Strzok faces congressional requests to testify, it’s worth examining who he is.

    Strzok is the subject of what I see as one of the most damaging conclusions in the Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general report: As the nation’s top FBI counterespionage official, he indicated “a willingness to take official action to impact [Donald Trump’s] electoral prospects.”

    Specifically, while working on the Hillary Clinton classified email investigation in August 2016, Strzok wrote that he and unnamed others would “stop” Trump from getting elected. He shared his intentions with at least one other FBI official, attorney Lisa Page.

    Strzok isn’t just any rank-and-file guy spouting off in one ill-advised email. His fingerprints were on every FBI investigation that stood to impact Clinton’s presidential candidacy or to hurt Trump before and after the 2016 election.

    http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/393857-what-did-peter-strzok-do

  15. A Washington university is shelling out big bucks to settle a dispute with a Republican student group that filed a lawsuit alleging the school discriminated against it by charging exorbitant security fees for speaker events.

    The University of Washington settled with the university’s College Republicans Monday, agreeing to pay $122,500 to make the lawsuit go away. The settlement comes after the campus group filed a lawsuit claiming that UW’s speaker policies “unconstitutionally infringed upon the [University of Washington College Republicans’] First Amendment freedom of speech by making it unaffordable and therefore impractical to host events likely to invite violent protests,” Campus Reform reported.

    dcnf-logo

    Filed by Freedom X, a group dedicated to protecting student rights and free speech rights on campus, UW’s College Republicans wrote in the suit that it was pushing back against the university after the school informed the group that its upcoming Patriot Prayer rally on Feb. 10 would cost the group $17,000 in security fees.

    https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/06/21/university-settles-lawsuit-after-discriminating-against-republicans/

  16. Teams of cartel gunmen executed two mayoral candidates in less than 24 hours in the Mexican state of Michoacan, making the current electoral cycle one of the bloodiest in history. In 10 months, Mexico saw more than 115 murders of political candidates.
    The most recent murder took place in Ocampo, Michoacan, when a team of three gunmen in tactical clothing barged into the home of Fernando Angeles Juarez and killed him. Officials have not revealed details about motive, however, in less than a week, Michoacan witnessed three political candidates’ executions.

    http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/06/22/two-mexican-mayoral-candidates-executed-in-day/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_content=links&utm_campaign=20180622

  17. How To Know You’re In a Mass Hysteria Bubble
    Posted August 17, 2017

    History is full of examples of Mass Hysterias. They happen fairly often. The cool thing about mass hysterias is that you don’t know when you are in one. But sometimes the people who are not experiencing the mass hysteria can recognize when others are experiencing one, if they know what to look for.

    I’ll teach you what to look for.

    http://blog.dilbert.com/2017/08/17/how-to-know-youre-in-a-mass-hysteria-bubble/

  18. Throughout Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s massive report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation are lots of strange things. One of the weirdest is the extent to which the FBI went to make up words and phrases to disguise reality.

    An early draft of the 2016 FBI report on the email scandal was reportedly subjected to linguistic surgery to exonerate the former secretary of state, who at the time was the Democratic nominee for president. Clinton was originally found to be “grossly negligent” in using an illegal email server. That legalistic phrase is used by prosecutors to indict for violation of laws governing the wrongful transmission of confidential government documents.

    Yet the very thought of a likely President Hillary Clinton in court so worried the chief investigator, FBI Director James Comey, that he watered down “grossly negligent” to the mere “extremely careless.”

    FBI investigators also had concluded that it was “reasonably likely” foreign nations had read Clinton’s unsecured emails. Comey intervened to mask such a likelihood by substituting the more neutral word “possible.”

    Former President Barack Obama was found to have improperly communicated with Clinton over her illegal server while she was in a foreign country. Obama had denied that fact by falsely claiming that he never knew of her server until much later, after it was publicized.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-hanson-hillary-obama-comey-email-scandal-fbi-obama-20180621-story.html

  19. Why Democrats Hear a Secret Racist Dog Whistle and Republicans Don’t
    Posted June 10, 2018

    One of the biggest misconceptions about Trump supporters is that they see President Trump the same way his critics see him, and yet they like him anyway. The implication of that belief is that all Trump supporters are racists because they damn-well-know they support a leader who is one. Hardly a day goes by without some stranger on Twitter telling me in ominous tones that I will someday pay dearly for being a racist “apologist.” They assume I see President Trump the same way they see him.

    In my book Win Bigly, I describe how the public is watching two movies on one screen. In Movie 1, Trump is a monster with many flaws, racism being at the top of the list. In Movie 2, President Trump ran on a platform of being a Republican who disdains political correctness, and the predictable outcome of that is non-stop accusations of racism. As a public service, I compiled some of the plot differences in the two movies, roughly in the order they happened, so you can compare the two scripts. I won’t try to convince you to switch movies. I’m only making the point that Trump supporters literally don’t see what anti-Trumpers regard as obvious.

    http://blog.dilbert.com/2018/06/10/why-democrats-hear-a-secret-racist-dog-whistle-and-republicans-dont/

  20. Tortured maids arrive in Bangladesh after fleeing Saudi Arabia (mee, Jun 26, 2018)
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/Tortured-maids-continue-leave-Saudi-Arabia-Bangladesh-1546593302

    “At least 22 Bangladeshi women returned to their home country on Tuesday after escaping abusive employers in Saudi Arabia – as hundreds of other female workers remain in immigration centres inside the country awaiting repatriation.

    The returnees told aid workers that Saudi bosses inflicted physical and sexual abuse, which drove them all to run away.

    Many of the women coming back to Bangladesh have returned home with the help of NGO BRAC’s migration programme and waited months to go back. The organisation helps Bangladeshi female and male overseas workers escape their abusive employers.

    “Several women we spoke to said the abuse began after demanding unpaid wages,” Noyon al-Amin, a caseworker for BRAC, told Middle East Eye.

    “The women said their bosses slapped or hit them with belts. One woman from this group of returnees said she was also sexually harassed.”

    Earlier this month, 26 female workers came back to Bangladesh from Saudi Arabia in similar circumstances.

    In May more than 100 Bangladeshi women returned home over two days from Saudi Arabia. Images seen by Middle East Eye showed the maids appearing to have suffered bruising, puncture wounds, and burns.

    The vast majority of the women going to work in Saudi Arabia come from Bangladesh’s rural areas, where poverty is rife.

    Many returned home after escaping to Bangladeshi government shelters in Riyadh and detention centres across Saudi Arabia.

    The vast majority waited months for repatriation back to Bangladesh, while some had reportedly waited years, according to NGOs.

    A total of 5,000 female workers have returned to Bangladesh in the last three years, according to BRAC.

    This latest group of returnees comes as pressure mounts on the Bangladeshi government to act…”

  21. Saudi website insults Erdogan after his victory (memo, Jun 26, 2018)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180626-saudi-website-insults-erdogan-after-his-victory/

    “A Saudi website published a poem that included unprecedented insults and pejorative descriptions of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after winning the early presidential elections. The poem, which was published in Ajel newspaper that is affiliated with the authorities, said:

    You! Manifesting a false sense of fear that will never shade your unbearable grudges
    Your deceitful methods will soon be unveiled, as the deception in your manners is clear to us
    Jerusalem is lost under your custody, and during the times of your rule vast lands were gone
    Spare Mecca and do not interfere in it, our kings are its best keepers
    Purge your country of notorious deeds, and protect it from sinners
    Stop flirting with the Jews, winking with your deceitful eyes
    Cut ties with the sinful Magi, who disrupted peace with their crimes
    Stay away from Hamdeen, we are fed up with your sneaky cunning
    Beware of the blinded and deafened Muslim Brotherhood
    They nurtured your arrogance saying caliphate is your inherited right So your greed grew hysterical,
    Waste not your ambitions, as the caliphate has never been a game, And leave us in peace, as we are in a safe ship whose passenger will never worry”

  22. UAE sets up new council to regulate Islamic fatwas (memo, Jun 26, 2018)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180626-uae-sets-up-new-council-to-regulate-islamic-fatwas/

    “Since passing a law imposing fines and a jail term on anyone holding religious lectures or teaching the memorisation of the Qur’an without prior government approval, the UAE Cabinet on Sunday set up a Fatwa Council to regulate religious views in the country. The council is now the sole authority granted permission by the government to give fatwas – an Islamic ruling – that are deemed moderate by Abu Dhabi’s absolute monarchy.

    In addition to preaching “moderate Islam” the council will seek to align fatwas and become the sole reference point for all religious views in the Emirates. Gulf News reported the council’s chairman, Dr Mohammad Matar Al-Ka’abi, praising the initiative saying that “unifying and regulating fatwa practices in the UAE will prevent personal or improvised fatwas and rebut extremist and terrorist fatwas, in keeping with the leading role played by the UAE in combating terrorism and radicalisation”.

    It’s the first step of its kind in the Middle East. No other country in the region has enacted a law that criminalises the belittling of religions and all forms of discrimination on the grounds of religion, caste, creed, doctrine, race, colour or ethnic origin.

    The move is likely to raise further concerns amongst rights groups. The UAE is already one of the most repressive states in the world. The lack of freedom of speech within the Emirates is regularly cited by the UN in their reports highlighting the poor state of human rights in the country. The Fatwa Council, in the eyes of its critics, is likely to fuel further concerns over the chilling effect it will have on political freedoms…”

  23. Over 5 million in absolute poverty in Italy – ISTAT (ansa, Jun 26, 2018)
    http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2018/06/26/over-5-million-in-absolute-poverty-in-italy-istat_9dcceaf9-0f80-4993-921c-691cd8425f87.html

    “National statistics agency ISTAT said Tuesday that over five million people were living in conditions of absolute poverty in Italy in 2017. The agency said this was the highest level since the start of the statistical series in 2005.

    It said 1.778 million households lived in absolute poverty last year.

    It said the incidence of households in poverty was 6.9%, up from 6.3% in 2016, while the incidence of individuals in poverty was 8.4%, compared to 7.9% the previous year.

    ISTAT said Tuesday that 11.4% of individuals in southern Italy and 10.3% of households were living in absolute poverty in 2017, compared to 9.8% and 8.5% respectively in 2016. The agency said the situation had deteriorated above all for people living in metropolitan areas, where the incidence went up from 5.8% to 10.1%. ISTAT said that 1.208 million minors were living in absolute poverty in Italy in 2017.

    The national statistics agency estimated that the poverty incidence was 12.1% last year, compared to 12.5% in 2016.

    It said poverty rates grew for big families – reaching 20.9% for those with three children or more.”