Reader’s Links on July 2, 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

142 Replies to “Reader’s Links on July 2, 2018”

  1. Now this seems curious. A company files a patent application for a system that it never intends to use. Why bother? Facebook, the company that filed, has its reasons but first let us see what the patent is all about. Facebook filed to patent a system that can remotely activate the mic on your smartphone using inaudible signals broadcast via a television.

    The patent is about software to allow the smartphones to begin recording when hearing messages hidden in TV ads, said Rachel England, Engadget. Ambient noise could impart information on what you are watching and reactions to ads.

    Facebook submitted the patent application (filed in late 2016) to turn on your smartphone mic to record “ambient audio” and send that back to Facebook. “What this essentially does is provide Facebook a recording of your response when a particular ad comes on the TV,” said Adnan Farooqui in Ubergizmo. “If you have no audible response to the ad it will also be evident from the ambient audio recorded.”

    https://techxplore.com/news/2018-07-facebook-patent-ambient-audio.html

    • A company files a patent application for a system that it never intends to use. Why bother?

      Without spending upwards of an hour fossicking through this mess, just permit me to mention that PLENTY of “companies” make gazillions as “Patent Trolls.” (Look it up.)

      Much akin to website (or URL) “squatters”, they clog the arteries of honest Free-Market business and deserve being routered out with a diamond-bit drill.

  2. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) is an eleven-term member of Congress,
    representing California’s 35th congressional district. She is a senior member of the House
    Financial Services Committee. Rep. Waters’ ethics issues stem from a meeting she arranged
    between officials at the Department of Treasury and OneUnited Bank, a bank with which she has
    financial ties.
    In August 2010, an investigative subcommittee of the House Ethics Committee issued a
    Statement of Alleged Violation charging Rep. Waters with three counts of violating House rules
    and ethics regulations in connection with her actions regarding OneUnited. Later that year,
    however, the committee indefinitely postponed a scheduled ethics trial, citing the discovery of
    new evidence.
    1 In addition, news reports raised other questions about the conduct of the
    committee and its investigators during the Waters investigation, prompting an internal
    investigation that is still ongoing.2 Rep. Waters was included in CREW’s 2005 and 2006
    congressional corruption reports for unrelated matters, an

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/storage.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/20022703/Waters%2C%20Maxine.pdf

    • Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA)

      Representative Maxine ‘Incontinent‘ Waters (D-CA)

      There, fixed that!

      PS: During an informal interview, her “husband” was asked whether she wore ordinary panties or ruffled “granny shorts”. His one-word reply was: “Depends.”

      (Hat Tip: The Tonight Show – Pre-2000)

  3. The death toll of last weekend’s massacre of Nigerian Christians by militant Muslim Fulani herdsmen has risen to at least 200, according to a report released Friday by Open Doors, an organization that monitors Christian persecution.
    As Breitbart News reported earlier this week, heavily armed gunmen recognized as Fulani herdsmen opened fire on Christians in a number of villages in Plateau State of central Nigeria last weekend, killing scores and injuring hundreds more, as well as burning some 50 homes to the ground. Most of the victims were returning home from the funeral of the father of a local Christian minister.

    Despite the evidently religious nature of the slaughter, mainstream media chose to downplay the militant Islamism behind the attacks, preferring to attribute the violence to “ethnic tensions,” a “battle for land and resources,” or even “climate change.”

    Meanwhile, two local Catholic bishops have called out the violence for what it was: a “clear agenda for Islamizing the Nigerian Middle Belt” by using Fulani shepherds.

    https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/06/30/christian-death-toll-rises-to-200-in-4-day-muslim-killing-spree-in-nigeria/

  4. BERLIN (AP) – German authorities say they have arrested a 27-year-old German woman suspected of being part of the Islamic State group’s “morality police” in Iraq.
    Federal prosecutors said Monday that Jennifer W. traveled to Iraq via Turkey and Syria in September 2014, where she joined the extremist group.

    In a statement, prosecutors said she patrolled parks in Fallujah and Mosul, ensuring that women adhered to the dress and behavior codes imposed by IS.

    https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/alleged-islamic-state-morality-police-female-enforcer-arrested-in-germany/

    • In a statement, prosecutors said she patrolled parks in Fallujah and Mosul, ensuring that women adhered to the dress and behavior codes imposed by IS.

      Let’s have this Muslima vaginal-cavity come and visit some Western “Game Parks”.

  5. HE SURVIVED NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS – HE HAS A MESSAGE FOR THOSE WHO THINK AMERICA RUNS ITS OWN
    9:12 PM 07/01/2018
    Benny Johnson | Reporter At Large

    High-profile members of America’s media and political circles have used amplified, irresponsible rhetoric to describe President Trump’s immigration detainment policies. Terminology from Nazi Germany is now regularly used to describe American immigration policy in the public arena. Many have likened illegal alien detainment facilities on the Southern border to “concentration camps,” referred to Trump as a “Nazi” or “Hitler” and call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents the “Gestapo.”

    Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal likened America’s zero tolerance immigration policy to the “cattle cars of Nazi Germany.” Many pundits and politicians have echoed the sentiment.

    http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/01/nazi-concentration-camp-survivor-message-for-america/

  6. Judicial Watch sent a hand-delivered letter Monday to the chairman and co-chairman of the House Office of Congressional Ethics calling for an investigation into whether Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., violated House ethics rules by encouraging violence against Trump administration Cabinet members.

    The Office of Congressional Ethics describes itself on its website as “an independent, non-partisan entity charged with reviewing allegations of misconduct against Members, officers, and staff of the U.S. House of Representatives and, when appropriate, referring matters to the House Committee on Ethics.”

    Waters addressed a rally in Los Angeles on Saturday and told a crowd: “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them! And you tell them that they are not welcome, anymore, anywhere.”

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/06/26/tom-fitton-maxine-waters-should-investigated-for-encouraging-violence-against-trump-officials.html

  7. Democratic IT aide Imran Awan solicited a bribe from an IT vendor in exchange for work with then-Rep. Gwen Graham, the vendor said.
    The Department of Justice knows about the vendor, but hasn’t been contacted.
    The vendor said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz would encourage newly elected members to hire Imran or his relatives.
    Democratic IT aide Imran Awan solicited a bribe from an IT vendor in exchange for contracting opportunities with the office of then-Rep. Gwen Graham, the vendor alleged to The Daily Caller News Foundation, adding that Imran spoke to him in detail about his alleged financial fraud schemes in the House.

    The Department of Justice knows of the source — the longtime owner of a major House IT company — and what he is prepared to testify, a high-level official in Jeff Sessions’ DOJ with knowledge of the investigation confirmed. But the vendor said no law enforcement ever even tried to interview them.

    http://dailycaller.com/2018/06/28/awan-graham-bribe/

  8. Trudeau Government Stiffs Canada’s Steel Industry, Builds New Navy Supply Ships With US Steel Instead
    MONEYSPENCERFERNANDOJUNE 27, 201815
    Trudeau Ignores Canadian Steel Industry
    And the shipyard where it’s being constructed is owned by a US company.
    As I’ve said many times before, Canada must have a much stronger homegrown defence industry in order for our nation to be truly independent.

    That has been made extremely clear after a new Ottawa Citizen report which notes that Canada’s new navy supply ships are being built with American steel, not Canadian Steel.

    https://www.spencerfernando.com/2018/06/27/trudeau-government-stiffs-canadas-steel-industry-builds-new-navy-supply-ships-with-us-steel-instead/

  9. A Chinese company claims to have created a laser-powered rifle somewhat similar looking to an AK-47 that emits an invisible frequency.

    Named the ZKZM-500 after the company that allegedly produced it, the firearm can supposedly produce an energy beam that can’t be seen by the naked eye, but can burn through human skin and other materials, and travel roughly half a mile away, according to a Sunday report from the South China Morning Post. Still, it’s reportedly being called “non-lethal” because the company and government seem to believe it doesn’t have the same effects as a normal gun.

    China says it is ready to be mass-produced and eventually used by the country’s military and police, but not by normal citizens. The researchers who supposedly worked on the project claim it not only emits an invisible frequency, and thus can’t be naturally viewed, but it also doesn’t make a sound.

    “Nobody will know where the attack came from,” one involved researcher said, according to the South China Morning Post. “It will look like an accident.”

    “The pain will be beyond endurance,” another asserted.

    http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/02/china-laser-gun-half-mile/

    • The modern air-rifle.

      These weapons will have “bendable” barrels and optics that will allow them to aim and shoot around corners. The technology is more than a decade old.

  10. Parents at a posh private school are unhappy over an administrator’s plan to continue allegedly segregating students by race.

    The Little Red School House in New York’s West Village, which has tuition fees of $45,485 per year, told parents last month that non-white middle school students will be placed in the same homeroom in the fall, the New York Post reported.

    They learned that the race-based placement, implemented by Director Philip Kassen, already had been in effect for seventh and eighth graders during the 2017-18 school year.

    The historically progressive school reportedly counts the children of celebrities including David Schwimmer and Christy Turlington Burns among its student body.

    Kassen did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

    The New York Post reports that each grade, which has approximately 40 students, has two homerooms. Students remain with their homeroom groups for 30 percent of the school day.

    “My daughter who is 11 was like, ‘Wow, this is crazy. They are talking about separating by color,’” one father, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Post.

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/07/01/45000-per-year-private-school-in-uproar-over-plan-to-segregate-students-by-race.html

  11. Update: It appears James O’Keefe’s findings have upset the establishment…

    James O’Keefe
    @JamesOKeefeIII
    WOW! @FoxNews just canceled my appearance. Are these publically traded media corporations afraid of @TheJusticeDept reprisals / retaliation?

    4:58 PM – Oct 17, 2016
    6,332
    7,766 people are talking about this
    Twitter Ads info and privacy

    * * *

    As we detailed earlier:

    In this explosive new video from Project Veritas Action, a Democratic dirty tricks operative unwittingly provides a dark money trail to the DNC and Clinton campaign.

    The video documents violence at Trump rallies that is traced to the Clinton campaign and the DNC through a process called “bird-dogging.”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-17/caught-tape-clinton-funded-democrat-operatives-inciting-anarchy-trump-rallies

  12. An Iranian diplomat was one of four people arrested in an alleged plot to bomb a rally of Iranian dissidents.

    Two suspects were arrested in Belgium over the weekend carrying 500 grams of triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an explosive chemical used in suicide bombs and improvised explosive devices. Police also found a detonator in the suspects’ car.

    The suspects were identified as Amir S., 38 and Nasimeh N., 33. They were charged with attempted terrorist murder and preparation of a terrorist act, according to Belgian prosecutors and intelligence services.

    Another suspect was arrested in France.

    An official at the Iranian embassy in Vienna, Austria was arrested in Germany for alleged involvement in the bombing plot.

    The suspects targeted a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Paris Saturday. The rally, which drew thousands of people was attended by US President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/248325

  13. Gay rights groups and activists pressed ahead with the Istanbul Pride parade on Sunday despite Turkish authorities banning the event for a fourth year in a row.

    Around 1,000 people gathered near the city’s famous Istiklal Avenue and Taksim Square where organisers had wanted to originally hold the parade.

    The activists unfolded a large rainbow flag while a press statement was read out amid heavy security in the area.

    But police then warned activists to disperse and used rubber bullets against some who tried to access Istiklal Avenue.

    Amnesty International in Turkey later said on Twitter that 11 people had been detained as it called on police to “immediately” release them. The human rights group also said tear gas had been used against some activists.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/02/istanbul-gay-pride-march-hit-tear-gas-turkish-police-try-enforce/

  14. Fox News – Obama administration granted citizenship to 2,500 Iranians during nuclear deal: Iran official

    The Obama administration granted citizenship to 2,500 Iranians, including family members of government officials, while negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, a senior cleric and member of parliament has claimed.

    Hojjat al-Islam Mojtaba Zolnour, who is chairman of Iran’s parliamentary nuclear committee and a member of its national security and foreign affairs committee, made the allegations during an interview with the country’s Etemad newspaper, cited by the country’s Fars News agency.

    He claimed it was done as a favor to senior Iranian officials linked to President Hassan Rouhani, and he alleged the move sparked a competition among Iranian officials over whose children would benefit from the scheme.

    He claimed that the deal was made during negotiations for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was reached in July 2015. President Trump announced in May that the U.S. would withdraw from the agreement.

    “When Obama, during the negotiations about the JCPOA, decided to do a favor to these men, he granted citizenship to 2,500 Iranians and some officials started a competition over whose children could be part of these 2,500 Iranians,” he claimed.

    “If today these Iranians get deported from America, it will become clear who is complicit and sells the national interest like he is selling candies to America.”

    The conservative Zolnour, who is in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s inner circle, added: “It should be stated exactly which children of which authorities live in the United States and have received citizenship or residency.”

    He estimated that between 30 and 60 were studying in the U.S. while the rest of them were working in the country “against our national interests.”

    Though Zolnour did not mention anyone by name during the interview, several children of current and former Iranian officials live in the United States, including Ali Fereydoun, whose father Hossein Fereydoun is the brother of and special aide to Rouhani; and Fatemeh Ardeshir Larijani, whose father Ali Larijani is speaker of parliament.

    There is no suggestion either of these people received citizenship in the wake of the Iranian nuclear deal. It’s also unclear if Zolnour meant citizenship or a green card.

    In 2015, 13,114 people born in Iran were issued green cards, while 13,298 were issued one in 2016, according to figures from the Department for Homeland Security. In 2015, 10,344 Iranians became naturalized, with a further 9,507 in 2016.

    Asked about the cleric’s claim, a State Department spokesperson said: “We’re not going to comment on every statement by an Iranian official.”

    Fox News analyst and former Obama State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf was dubious of the Iranian official’s allegation. “This sounds like totally made up BS,” she said.

    The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment. A representative for Obama Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson also could not be reached for comment.

    The cleric’s claim could, in the U.S., fuel Republican complaints about the concessions made by the Obama administration during that period — including not just sanctions relief, but the $1.7 billion payment supposedly tied to a legal settlement that coincided with the 2016 release of American prisoners.

    And in Iran, they could fuel resentment toward Tehran’s elite.

    “Many ordinary Iranians are surprised and feel betrayed that children of the regime officials live and work in the U.S.,” Saeed Ghasseminejad, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based research institute, told Fox News. “The regime officials chant death to America but send their children to the U.S., away from the hell they have created in Iran over the past four decades.”

    Ghasseminejad said some Iranians have called for their deportation from America: “Iranians don’t understand why the U.S. government allows the offspring of the regime officials to live in the U.S., while the U.S. has introduced a travel ban for ordinary Iranian citizens and many Americans are imprisoned in Iran. That is why many Iranians on social media have been urging the U.S. government to deport the children of the regime officials.”

    Iran is one of seven countries included in Trump’s travel ban, upheld last week by the Supreme Court.

    The country has been beset by a series of economic protests in recent days as the country’s currency, the rial, crashes.

    Since the U.S. withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal on May 8, the value of the rial has plunged to 90,000 against the dollar – double the government rate of 42,000 rials to the dollar.

    The protests have hit Iranian commercial areas, including the historic Grand Bazaar in Tehran, the home of conservative merchants who backed the 1979 Islamic Revolution and overthrow of the Shah.

    Rouhani has warned the country that it faces an “economic war” with the U.S., but analysts have warned that hard-liners are likely behind the protests seeking to challenge the more moderate president.

    Rouhani is under pressure since the nuclear deal agreed with the Obama administration was torn up by Trump. As a result, international firms and oil companies have backed away from billion-dollar deals with the Islamic republic.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/07/02/obama-administration-granted-citizenship-to-2500-iranians-during-nuclear-deal-iran-official.html

    • Channel 4 – Obama speechwriter on Trump’s “healthy regard for dictators”

      ( 24 min 51 )

      Ben Rhodes played a key role in crafting both the Iran deal and the historic thawing in relations between the US and Cuba – and was by Obama’s side on all but one of his overseas trips. Here he gives his views on the world after Obama.

      Rhodes was deputy foreign policy advisor and speechwriter for the Obama administration, joining the Obama campaign as a speechwriter when he was just 29 years old. Rhodes stayed on for the full eight years of his term, tasked with the role of interpreting and explaining Obama’s vision for the world.

      In a new book, he reveals that after the election of Donald Trump, Obama wondered whether his presidency came too early, for a world that wasn’t ready.

  15. The Obama administration granted citizenship to 2,500 Iranians, including family members of government officials, while negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, a senior cleric and member of parliament has claimed.

    Hojjat al-Islam Mojtaba Zolnour, who is chairman of Iran’s parliamentary nuclear committee and a member of its national security and foreign affairs committee, made the allegations during an interview with the country’s Etemad newspaper, cited by the country’s Fars News agency.

    He claimed it was done as a favor to senior Iranian officials linked to President Hassan Rouhani, and he alleged the move sparked a competition among Iranian officials over whose children would benefit from the scheme.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/07/02/obama-administration-granted-citizenship-to-2500-iranians-during-nuclear-deal-iran-official.html

  16. Prime Minister David Cameron asked Barack Obama to claim Brexit would put the UK at the “back of the queue” for a trade deal with the U.S. to help scare and deter the British people from voting to leave the European Union (EU), it has been confirmed.
    Former White House staffer Ben Rhodes suggested in a book last month that advisers to the former Tory Prime Minister asked the then U.S. President to use a “form of” these words publically.

    Now, speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Monday, he confirmed Mr Cameron’s team pushed for the statement — which was widely perceived as part of the anti-Brexit “project fear” — to be said publicly.

    https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/confirmed-cameron-obama-brexit-britain-be-back-queue/

  17. Belgian police foiled a planned terrorist attack in France, Ginrich and Giuliani may have been among targets:
    https://www.thelocal.fr/20180702/belgium-charges-two-over-plot-to-attack-iran-opposition-rally-in-france

    Belgium on Monday charged a husband and wife over a plot to bomb a weekend rally by an exiled Iranian opposition group in France where close Donald Trump ally Rudy Giuliani was in attendance. Three arrests were also made in France.
    Amir S., 38, and Nasimeh N., 33, both Belgian nationals, “are suspected of having attempted to carry out a bomb attack” on Saturday in the Paris suburb of Villepinte, during a conference organised by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a statement from the Belgian federal prosecutor said.

    The couple, described by prosecutors as being “of Iranian origin”, were carrying 500 grams (about a pound) of the volatile explosive TATP along with a detonation device when an elite police squad stopped them in a residential district of Brussels.

    Belgian prosecutors said an alleged accomplice was under arrest in France, while two others were released after questioning by French police.

    Three people were also being held in France on Monday, a legal source told AFP.

    “The investigations aim to determine the relations they might have with the suspects arrested in Belgium” on Monday.

    The Belgian statement said that an Iranian diplomat at the Austrian embassy in Vienna, a contact of the couple, was also arrested in Germany.

    Police carried out five raids across Belgium on Saturday linked to the affair, authorities said, though they refused to detail any results of the operation.

    Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran accused Tehran of being behind the alleged plot.

    “The terrorists from the Mullahs’ regime in Belgium assisted by its terrorist-diplomats planned this attack,” said a statement sent to AFP.

    The developments came on the day Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived to Switzerland for a trip Tehran said was of “crucial importance” for cooperation between the Islamic Republic and Europe after the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement.

    President Rouhani is also due to visit Austria, the country holding the six-monthly presidency of the EU.

    At the rally, Trump allies Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani urged regime change in Iran, saying the prospect was closer than ever after the Islamic Republic was hit by a wave of strikes and protests.

  18. WIFE OF JAILED SAUDI DISSIDENT WANTS BURQA BANNED IN ONTARIO
    3:42 PM 07/02/2018
    David Krayden | Ottawa Bureau Chief

    A woman who fled Saudi Arabia and became a new Canadian citizen on Sunday has asked the incoming Ontario Conservative government to ban the burqa and niqab.

    As Global News reports, Ensaf Haider, whose husband Raif Badawi remains in a Saudi jail for “insulting Islam through electronic channels,” says the new Doug Ford administration should learn from the example of neighboring Quebec and ban Islamic face coverings in public.

    The Quebec law targets face covering in general without using the terms burqa or niqab but is currently under suspension after being declared unconstitutional by a provincial judge. Under the legislation, people cannot receive any government services when their faces are covered.

    (RELATED: Bill Banning Muslim Face Coverings Would Be The First In North America)

    Badawi is serving a 10-year sentence for his crime of blasphemy and also received a public flogging of 50 lashes.

    http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/02/wife-jailed-saudi-burqa-banned-in-ontario/

    • The thing that Bongino is ignoring is that the “Democratic Socialism” aka big nanny state government leads to full fledged Socialism/Communism this is what the kids have to learn, big nanny governments ends up with the government owning everything and the economy ending up failing with people starving.

  19. Europe: “The Vision is an Islamic State”

    by Judith Bergman
    July 2, 2018 at 5:00 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12619/europe-islamic-state

    A Dutch government report published in June showed that Muslims in the Netherlands are becoming more religious. The report, based on information from 2006-2015, is a study of more than 7,249 Dutch nationals with Moroccan and Turkish roots. Two thirds of the Muslims in the Netherlands are from Turkey or Morocco.

    According to the report, 78% of Moroccan Muslims pray five times a day, as do 33% of Turkish Muslims. Approximately 40% of both groups visit a mosque at least once a week. More young Moroccan women wear a headscarf (up from 64% in 2006 to 78% in 2015) and large majorities of both groups eat halal (93% of Moroccan Muslims and 80% of Turkish Muslims). 96% of Moroccan Muslims say that faith is a very important part of their lives, whereas the number is 89% for Turkish Muslims. The number of Dutch Moroccan Muslims who can be described as strictly adhering to Islam has increased from 77% in 2006, to 84% in 2015. For Turkish Muslims, the numbers have increased from 37% to 45%. There are few secular Muslims — 7% among Turkish Muslims, 2% among Moroccan Muslims.

    In Denmark, the trend of Muslims becoming more religious was apparent as early as 2004, when a poll showed that Muslims were becoming more religious than their parents, especially “young, well-educated and well-integrated women”. At the time, Professor Viggo Mortensen said, “The growing religiousness is not an expression of marginalization. We are talking about people who are well-integrated, but who want to be religious”.

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12619/europe-islamic-state

  20. Is Turkey Playing a Double Game with NATO?

    by Debalina Ghoshal
    July 2, 2018 at 4:30 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12620/turkey-nato-double-game

    In January, 2018 Turkey reportedly awarded an 18-month contract for a study on the development and production of a long-range air- and missile-defense system to France and Italy, showing — ostensibly — Turkey’s ongoing commitment to NATO. The study, contracted between the EUROSAM consortium and Turkey’s Aselsan and Roketsan companies, was agreed upon in Paris, on the sidelines of a meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    The contract for the study came on the heels of a deal between Ankara and Moscow, according to which Turkey would purchase the S-400 missile defense system — one of the most sophisticated on the global market — from Russia. The question is: Why would Turkey first order a Russian defense system and then turn around and make a cooperation agreement with Europe for the same purpose?

    The answer is likely that Ankara is trying to pretend that it is still loyal to NATO, at a time when its strategic inclinations seem to indicate otherwise.

    As Turkey is a member of NATO, its decision to opt for the S-400, a non-NATO missile-defense system, has been the subject of speculation and controversy. NATO has adopted the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA), according to which the United States plans to deploy its missile-defense systems in various parts of Europe, to protect its forces and those of other NATO members from Iranian missile attacks. Turkey’s move appears to run counter to the EPAA.

  21. Why Turkey Will Not Be Another Iran

    by Amir Taheri
    July 2, 2018 at 4:00 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12628/turkey-iran-islamism

    Is Turkey going to be another Iran? With President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest electoral victory the question is making the rounds in Western political circles. Despite the fact that Sunday’s election gives Erdogan immense new powers, my short answer to the question is a firm: no!

    In analyzing the nature of political power in any form the first question to ask concerns the provenance of that power. For where does power comes from determines where it may go.

    In Iran in 1979 power was like a box of jewels thrown in the street, ready for anyone to pick up. The Shah had left the country and most members of the Council of Monarchy he had appointed were in the French Riviera, while the army Top Brass had declared “neutrality” which meant the military wouldn’t stop anyone from picking up the box of jewels in the street.

    By a fluke of fate and a combination of bizarre circumstances, it was Ayatollah Khomeini who had the nerve and the imagination to pick up the box after the Shah’s last Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar had also gone into hiding waiting to be spirited out of Tehran to Paris.

    However, Erdogan, unlike Khomeini has obtained his box of jewels in the form of 52 per cent of the votes cast in an election boasting one of the highest turnouts in Turkish history. Even if we make allowances for abstentions and real or alleged irregularities in the process, none could deny that Erdogan enjoys a solid support base from at least 32 per cent of the Turkish electorate.

    • The terms of comparison are off altogether. Looks more neo-Ottoman, Hitler-ish modern.

      Erdo-Turk is a far bigger threat to the West than Khomenei ever was. Taheri’s thinking in terms of the Middle East, _not_ Europe or NATO.

      Khomenei was a disaster for his region. Regression to fundamentalism in response to challenges from more advanced civilizations is a regular feature of Islamic history.

      Khomenei’s responsible for stimulating Gulf Arab sponsorship of global, hardcore tard factories. The resulting harm to us – immense – is nonetheless indirect; the Saudis, et al., are fully culpable. The Sunnis worldwide took a wild leap backwards.

  22. VERBOTEN! Geller Report has been blocked and banned in Germany

    A number of my readers in Germany have emailed me in distress. The Geller Report has been banned in Germany. I do not know if this is a national ban or regional. I ask my German readers to advise me if they are experiencing the same difficulties. Here is what my German readers get when they try to access Geller Report.

    This is Chancellor Merkel’s response to the catastrophic consequences of her mass Muslim migration policies? Ban truth. Ban freedom of free speech and freedom of the press. It is evocative of another Chancellor of Germany (from 1933 to 1945) who also imposed bans on elemental freedoms. How long before the book burnings begin? Don’t kid yourself, this is exactly how it begins.

    https://gellerreport.com/2018/07/geller-report-german-ban.html/

  23. Young Jews fleeing France to escape Muslim Jew-hatred
    By Pamela Geller – on July 1, 2018

    What everyone knows but refuses to speak about is this vicious and violent Jew-hatred endemic in the Muslim world. It is a central tenet of Islam, and anywhere Muslim immigrate, Jew-hatred and jihad follow.

    https://gellerreport.com/2018/07/french-jews-flee.html/

  24. Sheriff Clarke: Victims of Dem Mobs Should Prepare To Address, Neutralize Threat

  25. Tech’s ‘Dirty Secret’: The App Developers Sifting Through Your Gmail

    Software developers scan hundreds of millions of emails of users who sign up for email-based services

    Google said a year ago it would stop its computers from scanning the inboxes of Gmail users for information to personalize advertisements, saying it wanted users to “remain confident that Google will keep privacy and security paramount.”

    But the internet giant continues to let hundreds of outside software developers scan the inboxes of millions of Gmail users who signed up for email-based services offering shopping price comparisons, automated travel-itinerary planners or other tools. Google does little to police those developers, who train their computers—and, in some cases, employees—to read their users’ emails, a Wall Street Journal examination has found.

    One of those companies is Return Path Inc., which collects data for marketers by scanning the inboxes of more than two million people who have signed up for one of the free apps in Return Path’s partner network using a Gmail, Microsoft Corp. or Yahoo email address. Computers normally do the scanning, analyzing about 100 million emails a day. At one point about two years ago, Return Path employees read about 8,000 unredacted emails to help train the company’s software, people familiar with the episode say.

    In another case, employees of Edison Software, another Gmail developer that makes a mobile app for reading and organizing email, personally reviewed the emails of hundreds of users to build a new feature, says Mikael Berner, the company’s CEO.

    Letting employees read user emails has become “common practice” for companies that collect this type of data, says Thede Loder, the former chief technology officer at eDataSource Inc., a rival to Return Path. He says engineers at eDataSource occasionally reviewed emails when building and improving software algorithms.

    “Some people might consider that to be a dirty secret,” says Mr. Loder. “It’s kind of reality.”

    Neither Return Path nor Edison asked users specifically whether it could read their emails. Both companies say the practice is covered by their user agreements, and that they used strict protocols for the employees who read emails. eDataSource says it previously allowed employees to read some email data but recently ended that practice to better protect user privacy.

    Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., GOOGL 1.14% says it provides data only to outside developers it has vetted and to whom users have explicitly granted permission to access email. Google’s own employees read emails only “in very specific cases where you ask us to and give consent, or where we need to for security purposes, such as investigating a bug or abuse,” the company said in a written statement.

    This examination of email data privacy is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former employees of email app makers and data companies. The latitude outside developers have in handling user data shows how even as Google and other tech giants have touted efforts to tighten privacy, they have left the door open to others with different oversight practices.

    How Data Miners See Your Email

    Email data collectors use software to scan millions of messages a day, looking for clues about consumers that they can sell to marketers, hedge funds and other businesses. Here are a few things they look for:

    more :

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/techs-dirty-secret-the-app-developers-sifting-through-your-gmail-1530544442

  26. Fox News – President Trump talks Supreme Court, tariffs and Russia in exclusive interview

    ( 28 min 03 )

    President Donald Trump sat down with FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo to discuss the Supreme Court pick, the debate over tariffs and phase two of his tax cuts