Reader’s Links, Aug. 21, 2018

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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, Aug. 21, 2018”

  4. Reporting by the naive to the naive:
    TENS of thousands of Muslims have made a symbolic pledge to promote peace and harmony in society. Known as the Bai’at pledge of allegiance, the stirring move came as more than 38,000 worshippers united for the Jalsa Salana convention. The three-day annual event – the UK’s largest and longest-running Muslim convention – took place at Hadeeqatul Mahdi in Alton, Hampshire, at the beginning of the month. Among those who attended was Basira Ajmal from Havant, who recently spoke out against Tory MP Boris Johnson, following controversial comments he made about the burka. The Bai’at, she said, was ‘solemn, uplifting and soul-stirring’. She said: ‘On the Sunday afternoon, thousands of Ahmadi Muslims at Hadeeqatul Mahdi formed a human chain leading to the Khalifa (Caliph), His Holiness, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, head of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
    ‘The participants and millions more around the world through live broadcast then repeated the words of pledge in unison behind the Caliph. ‘This pledge of allegiance committed us to abide by the peaceful teachings of Islam, which obligates us to live a life where no other living being suffers by our actions, words or any other means.’
    Those there to witness the feat were not just Muslim, but came from multi-faith, multi-cultural backgrounds – with a number of non-Ahmadi attendees and non-Muslim guests present. Concluding his address during the Bai’at, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad instructed and encouraged members of community to assess their own moral compass and act as role models for a better society. He said: ‘It is a believer’s distinction that he stops others from evil and unnecessary speech. ‘But before stopping others, it is necessary that he make his own state so pure that he influences others towards righteousness. ‘He or she must improve their own moral state before guiding others. A person can only wield influence over others when he or she sets a positive example for them to follow.’ Worshippers were also urged to pray for world peace and harmony as the Jalsa Salana drew to a close.
    Read more at: https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/portsmouth-muslims-unite-with-38-000-others-to-make-pledge-of-peace-and-kindness-1-8601390

  6. “Mir Mohammad-Hossein Mir-Esmaili, a journalist for the Jahan-e Sanat daily, was arrested while trying to leave the country in April 2017.

    It followed a Twitter post in which he said Imam Reza, one of the 12 revered figures in Iran’s dominant strand of Shiite Islam, was ‘one of us’, implying that he would have allowed young people to enjoy themselves.”
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6078597/10-years-Iran-journalist-insulted-imam-Twitter.html

    Give it time for Socialist “boarderless” nations to catch up with this.

  7. I don’t remember if I already posted this, if so here it is again?

    Investigators Need Aussie Help To Break ISLAMIC Terror Case

  8. Protesters topple Silent Sam Confederate statue at UNC

    By Jane Stancill

    CHAPEL HILL

    Protesters toppled the Silent Sam Confederate statue on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill on Monday night.

    The monument was ripped down after 9:15 p.m. Earlier in the evening, protesters covered the statue with tall, gray banners, erecting “an alternative monument” that said, in part, “For a world without white supremacy.”

    Protesters were apparently working behind the covering with ropes to bring the statue down, which happened more than two hours into a rally. It fell with a loud clanging sound, and the crowd erupted in cheers.

    After Silent Sam tumbled to the ground, people darted in and out of the crowd through a haze from smoke bombs. Atop the statue someone placed a black cap that said, “Do It Like Durham,” an apparent reference to the toppling of a Confederate statue there a year ago.

    Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article217035815.html#storylink=cpy

    https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article217035815.html

  9. Israel eases gun controls following lone-wolf attacks

    JERUSALEM (AFP) –

    Israel has changed its gun regulations to enable hundreds of thousands more civilians to apply for licences, a move authorities say will increase security but others argue will stoke violence.

    The shift in policy, announced by the public security ministry late Monday, means that up to 600,000 Israelis could apply for gun licences, a dramatic increase on the current 140,000 civilians with permits.

    A source in the public security ministry, however, estimated that only 35,000 people will be interested in applying for gun licences under the new regulations.

    https://www.france24.com/en/20180821-israel-eases-gun-controls-following-lone-wolf-attacks

    • An Israeli paper put the estimate at 100.000+.

      Plus soldiers will be able to take their service arms with them when they are discharged from the army. First responders and a slew of others are eligible for training and license to carry.

      Makes a whole lot of sense to me.

  10. South Africa begins seizing white-owned farms

    SOUTH Africa has targeted the first two farms for unilateral seizure after the owners refused an offer of one-tenth of the land’s value.
    Frank Chung@franks_chung

    THE South African government has begun the process of seizing land from white farmers.

    Local newspaper City Press reports two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo are the first to be targeted for unilateral seizure after negotiations with the owners to purchase the properties stalled.

    While the government says it intends to pay, owners Akkerland Boerdery wanted 200 million rand ($18.7 million) for the land — they’re being offered just 20 million rand ($1.87 million).

    “Notice is hereby given that a terrain inspection will be held on the farms on April 5, 2018 at 10am in order to conduct an audit of the assets and a handover of the farm’s keys to the state,” a letter sent to the owners earlier this year said.

    Akkerland Boerdery obtained an urgent injunction to prevent eviction until a court had ruled on the issue, but the Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs is opposing the application.

    “What makes the Akkerland case unique is that they apparently were not given the opportunity to first dispute the claim in court, as the law requires,” AgriSA union spokeswoman Annelize Crosby told the paper.

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/south-africa-begins-seizing-whiteowned-farms/news-story/8937f899bd3f131bfc4ffb648ea5c53b

    • South Africa farm seizures BEGIN: Chaos as first expropriation of white-owned farms starts

      For the past 10 years, I have reported on the systematic racism and dehumanization of whites in South Africa. To speak of such things was heresy. And yet here we are —

      South Africa farm seizures BEGIN: Chaos as first expropriation of white-owned farms starts
      SOUTH AFRICA’s government has begun seizing land from white farmers, targeting two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo after talks with the owners to buy the properties collapsed.
      By Paul Withers, Express, Aug 20, 2018:
      President Cyril Ramaphosa on land expropriation proposals

      Johannesburg-based newspaper City Press reported owners Akkerland Boerdery wanted 200 million rand (£16.7m) for the land, but that the country’s government were willing to offer them just a tenth of that at 20 million rand (£1.67m).

      A letter sent to the owners earlier this year had said: “Notice is hereby given that a terrain inspection will be held on the farms on April 5, 2018 at 10am in order to conduct an audit of the assets and a handover of the farm’s keys to the state.”

      https://gellerreport.com/2018/08/south-africa-expropriation-whitefarms.html/

  11. White farmers try to offload land in South Africa before it is seized from them ‘as government tries to grab first two hunting reserves without paying’

    White farmers in South Africa are trying to flog their land as fears grow that the government is about to start a widespread campaign of seizures.

    Union bosses say a record number of properties are for sale but nobody is buying, making the properties effectively worthless.

    Agri SA union, which represents mainly white commercial farmers, has warned that such seizures will deter investment, cause job losses, and may rob South Africa of the ability to feed itself.

    Meanwhile two farms in the north of the country have reportedly become the first targets for seizures after talks between the government and owners about buying the land broke down.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6078157/White-farmers-try-offload-land-South-Africa-seized.html

  12. South African White Farmers’ Land to Be Seized in Controversial Land Redistribution Claim

    The South African government has begun the process of seizing land from owners in cases where the negotiation for compensation has stalled. Two game farms in Limpopo province are being targeted after the government offered the owners one-tenth of the asking price.

    The process moved forward after negotiations with the white owners of the properties stalled, according to South Africa’s City Press newspaper. Akkerland Boerdery, the company of property owners Johan Steenkamp and Arnold Cloete, demanded 200 million rand ($13.7 million) for the land, but is being offered just 20 million rand ($1.37 million).

    Earlier this year, Akkerland Boerdery was sent notice that an inspection of the properties would be held in order to audit their value before being handed over to the state.

    Steenkamp told Newsweek that the decision was delivered on very short notice during a long weekend of South African public holidays in March. The notice demanded that the keys to the farm be handed over within seven days, forcing them to seek legal representation and file an urgent application to the courts.

    https://www.newsweek.com/south-africa-begins-seizure-land-game-farmers-1081286

  13. Racist South African Political Leader Julius Malema: “Go After the White Man… We Are Cutting the Throat of Whiteness”

    In 2011 South Africa youth leader Julius Malema told his supporters that the white farmer’s land must be shared by all black Africans.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/03/racist-south-african-political-leader-julius-malema-go-white-man-cutting-throat-whiteness/

    Notable Highlights from EFF Julius Malema Voter Registration Campaign.

  16. Mystery gunman shooting at luxury Upper East Side apartment building: police

    UPPER EAST SIDE — Residents of a luxury high-rise building on the Upper East Side are living in fear after a mystery gunman fired shots into the building’s windows twice in the last week.

    Two residents had their windows shattered after shots were fired into their One East River Place apartments, police sources tell PIX11 News. Residents of the high-rise building, located on 72nd Street between York Avenue and FDR Drive, are now using plywood to shield their apartments from incoming bullets.

    https://pix11.com/2018/08/21/mystery-gunman-shooting-at-luxury-upper-east-side-apartment-building-police/

  17. Who needs democracy when you have data?
    Here’s how China rules using data, AI, and internet surveillance.

    In 1955, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story about an experiment in “electronic democracy,” in which a single citizen, selected to represent an entire population, responded to questions generated by a computer named Multivac. The machine took this data and calculated the results of an election that therefore never needed to happen. Asimov’s story was set in Bloomington, Indiana, but today an approximation of Multivac is being built in China.

    For any authoritarian regime, “there is a basic problem for the center of figuring out what’s going on at lower levels and across society,” says Deborah Seligsohn, a political scientist and China expert at Villanova University in Philadelphia. How do you effectively govern a country that’s home to one in five people on the planet, with an increasingly complex economy and society, if you don’t allow public debate, civil activism, and electoral feedback? How do you gather enough information to actually make decisions? And how does a government that doesn’t invite its citizens to participate still engender trust and bend public behavior without putting police on every doorstep?

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611815/who-needs-democracy-when-you-have-data/

  18. Josh Rogin: Pentagon resources can’t fund Confucius Institutes on U.S. campuses

    Concern about Chinese influence operations on American campuses hit a new high this year after officials at Arizona State University bragged about mixing the school’s Pentagon-funded Chinese language programs and its Chinese Communist Party-funded Confucius Institute. Now, all schools may have to choose between Washington or Beijing paying for its students to learn Chinese.

    Tucked inside the $716 billion John McCain 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that President Donald Trump signed Aug. 13 is a provision barring any U.S. university from using Pentagon resources for any program involving Confucius Institutes, Chinese government-funded language schools embedded inside U.S. colleges. In the future, any universities that have Pentagon-funded and Chinese government-funded Chinese language programs will have to secure a Pentagon waiver if they want to keep both.

    Sen. Ted Cruz R-Texas, who sponsored the legislative language, told me Confucius Institutes are a threat to academic freedom and national security. Confucius Institutes are connected to the Chinese Communist Party’s “united front” influence efforts abroad. There are more than 100 Confucius Institutes on American campuses and more than 500 worldwide.

    https://www.omaha.com/opinion/josh-rogin-pentagon-resources-can-t-fund-confucius-institutes-on/article_9e75ac7f-0c66-599d-8e8d-8a01b6549c80.html

  19. https://www.omaha.com/opinion/josh-rogin-pentagon-resources-can-t-fund-confucius-institutes-on/article_9e75ac7f-0c66-599d-8e8d-8a01b6549c80.html

    At 2:30 on February 14, David Hogg was not yet a spokesperson for radicalized young America or a renowned media savant or a resistance fighter or, to some, the encapsulation of everything terrifying about where the country is going, but a high-school senior crouched in a dark classroom while a gunman with an AR-15 ranged beyond the walls of his hiding place, slaughtering 17 people in six minutes. In the quiet aftermath, when the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had stopped but before the SWAT team had given the all clear, the 17-year-old debate geek did what first came to mind: He detached himself from the situation by turning on his phone’s video recorder and, in a perfect simulation of the news correspondents he had watched in his bedroom for years, narrated the events that had just taken place. To an imaginary audience, Hogg explained that he, like many of his classmates in Parkland, Florida, had initially thought the massacre was a drill. “And then we heard more gunshots,” he said somberly, still in a crouch, his face in shadow, “and that was when we realized, This was not a drill.”

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/david-hogg-is-taking-his-gap-year-at-the-barricades.html

  20. Chief al-Qaeda bomb maker ‘killed in Yemen strike’ – US reports (BBC, Aug 21, 2018)
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45257631

    “US officials are confident that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s suspected chief bomb maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, has been killed, reports say.

    US media cited sources as saying they believed the Saudi militant died in a US drone strike in Yemen last year.

    Asiri is alleged to have been behind the 2009 underwear bomb plot and made devices found on cargo planes in 2010.

    Intelligence suggesting he was working on a bomb hidden in a laptop or tablet led the US to ban them on some flights.

    A UN report published last week, which also said Asiri might have been killed, said his death would represent “a serious blow” to AQAP’s operational capability.

    A Yemeni tribal leader told the Associated Press on Friday that Asiri was killed in a missile strike, along with two or four associates, in Marib province.

    AQAP has not commented on the reports or published a eulogy for Asiri, as it has done for other leaders and field commanders killed by the US and its allies…”

  21. Nightmare in Disneyland Paris as hotel pool poisons guests

    Twenty-two people were intoxicated by a bad batch of bleach and sulphuric acid added to the swimming pool tank of one of Disneyland Paris’s hotels.

    Guests at Disneyland Paris’s New York Hotel were quickly warned to stay away from the hotel pool on Friday after a number of holidaymakers and staff started to feel unwell and experience respiratory problems.

    Firefighters and emergency services were quickly called to the scene to care for the intoxicated people, four of whom had to be taken to hospital due to the severity of their symptoms.

    The pool area was cordoned off and hotel rooms facing the pool were evacuated.

    https://www.thelocal.fr/20180820/nightmare-in-disneyland-paris-as-hotel-pool-poisons-guests

  22. ‘Potentially thousands’ of child slaves forced to work on illegal London cannabis farms

    Children are being trafficked from Vietnam and other countries to perform slave labour on hundreds of cannabis farms across London, experts have warned.

    New figures released on Monday expose the scale of illegal cannabis farming in the British capital, where police said they had found 314 farms since 2016 — the equivalent of one every two days — according to Scotland Yard data obtained by the London Evening Standard.

    https://www.rt.com/uk/436424-child-slaves-london-cannabis/

  23. U.S. Officials Claim a Top Al-Qaeda Bomb Maker was Killed During Drone a Strike in Yemen

    OAN Newsroom
    UPDATED 6:33 AM PT — Tues. August 21, 2018

    New information is suggesting a notorious bomb maker for al-Qaeda may have been killed by U.S. forces over a year ago.

    On Monday, a senior U.S. official confirmed Ibrahim al-Asiri was among those killed during a 2017 drone strike in Yemen.

    http://www.oann.com/u-s-officials-claim-a-top-al-qaeda-bomb-maker-was-killed-during-drone-a-strike/

  26. The birds and bees will never be the same: Introducing Healthline’s ‘LGBTQIA Safe Sex Guide’
    By LU Staff August 21, 2018

    Healthline, for those unacquainted with the site, strives to be your one-stop shop for “medical information and health advice you can trust.”

    Healthline is geared to users of all ages, as a glimpse of some of the currently featured headlines reveals: “Spotlight: The Best Natural and Gluten-Free Wine and Beer,” “12 Tips Sexologists Share for Reigniting Better Midlife Sex,” and “Another Study Shows Tdap Vaccine Not Linked to Autism Risk.”

    Some of the topics explored on Healthline, and especially those aimed at young people, address sensitive issues — the sorts of things adolescents are reluctant to discuss with their parents. Take sex and sexuality. To ease the burden of learning about the birds and bees, Healthline offers a guide to safe sex.

    But this is not any old safe sex guide. This is an LGBTQIA safe sex guide. From the intro:

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/08/21/the-birds-and-bees-will-never-be-the-same-introducing-healthlines-lgbtqia-safe-sex-guide/

  27. Q.E.D.: America can’t talk about security clearances without acting like a bunch of big babies
    By J.E. Dyer August 21, 2018

    I was disappointed in Chris Wallace this weekend (on Fox News Sunday) for characterizing the Brennan security clearance flap as a case of Trump punishing a critic, by wielding the power of the security clearance over him. The implication was that this was a petty and personal move by Trump. The further implication was that it would have an intimidating effect on the speech of those whose priority is to keep their clearances.

    (On behalf of thousands of mid-level intelligence professionals past and present, I will insert here one brisk “Boo-fricking-hoo.”)

    A few pundits have done reasonably well by the topic. But most are missing the mark by focusing on whether it damages Brennan’s marketability on the punditry circuit. Some commentators say, correctly, “Too bad for Brennan.” His right to free political speech is unaffected by whether he has a security clearance or not, after all. And his right to free political speech is what the Constitution protects. There is no constitutional right to hold a security clearance.

    But that’s not really what matters here.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/08/21/q-e-d-america-cant-talk-about-security-clearances-without-acting-like-a-bunch-of-big-babies/

    • I see no reason for most of the former officials to keep their security clearances, and it they are hired to be talking heads on news shows, any news shows there is a major pressing need to remove their security clearances. For the most part the talking heads are all crying because a news source has lost his security clearance. Why should any news commentator have a security clearance? All of the uproar is lib is screaming about Trump doing something, we all know they do this when he does anything.

  28. The wit and wisdom of David Hogg revealed in one New York magazine tribute
    By Ben Bowles August 21, 2018

    Although many wish the balloonheaded high school graduate known as David Hogg would just go away already, the phenom lingers like a bad cough.

    Now enjoying the 256th extension on his Warholian fifteen minutes, Hogg is the subject of an hilarious tribute in New York magazine. The piece provides a wealth of new Hoggisms that will keep the Hogg enthusiast busy for hours.

    The introduction, by Lisa Miller, is pretty funny all by itself:

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/08/21/the-wit-and-wisdom-of-david-hogg-revealed-in-one-new-york-magazine-tribute/

    Richard: I wonder how much it is costing Soros to keep the4 liuttle turd in the lime light? He sees and out and out communist (who has an IQ even lower then the little turds) as a future President. He sees himself as a future politician. While I would like to think there is no chance of his ever getting elected we have Pelosi, Waters and Finstein as examples proving that brains are needed to become a Democrat Politician.

  29. Woman who complained about noisy mosque jailed for blasphemy (independent, Aug 21, 2018)
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indonesia-blasphemy-woman-jailed-insulting-islam-mosuqe-buddhist-meiliana-a8501191.html

    “Prosecutors allege she committed blasphemy against Islam by complaining the Muslim call to prayer was being played too loudly near her home.

    An Indonesian court has sentenced a Buddhist woman to 18 months in prison for blasphemy after she was accused of insulting Islam.

    Meiliana, a 44-year-old ethnic Chinese woman, had complained the Muslim call to prayer, which is repeated five times a day, was being played too loudly at the mosque near her house in North Sumatra.

    She burst into tears as the presiding judge, Wahyu Prasetyo Wibowo announced her sentence on Tuesday and she was taken from the court in handcuffs…”

  31. euronews – Rome refuses to let migrants rescued by its own coastguard onto Italian soil

    «…..many are believed to be bona fide refugees from Eritrea and Somalia, which were once Italian colonies….»

    • euronews -Italy refuses to let refugees and migrants disembark after coastguard ship, Diciotti docks in Sicily

      + comments on the YT page

  32. VICE News – Migrant Tomato Workers Are Dying Under Mafia-Like Control

    Sixteen migrant farm laborers died this month in two separate road crashes within 48 hours of each other in Italy, sparking the workers to stage a mass walkout by the workers that has drawn international attention to the dire conditions endured by seasonal tomato pickers.

    The crashes occurred close to the southern city of Foggia, which hosts half a dozen makeshift camps for illegal workers. Both accidents involved overcrowded vans carrying migrant laborers home from long shifts in the region’s tomato fields.

    The vans are often operated by illicit gang members, known as the Caporali, who act as middlemen in Italy’s $3.5 billion tomato industry, supplying farm owners with cheap labor and taking a cut of the workers’ wages.

    That leaves workers like Mohamed Doumbé Keita, an undocumented migrant from Guinea, earning less than $30 for a shift that can last up to 15 hours in scorching heat.

    “It’s like the return of slavery,” Mohamed told VICE News. “Life is tough here. There’s no medical care, and each man fends for himself. If you don’t put in ten hours a day, you won’t even make €20.”

    Though Italy’s previous government passed a new law to criminalize the Caporali as a mafia crime, it’s only now being enforced for the first time.

    But the legislation targets farmers rather than the middlemen themselves, threatening a jail term of up to eight years for landowners found to be hiring laborers through the Caporali, and imposing penalties for using illegal workers.

    That has angered some farmers, who feel their earnings are already squeezed by big retailers and consumer demand for cheap produce.

    VICE News went to Italy to see what the situation is really like.

  33. CNN – Microsoft: Russian hacking targeted Senate, conservative groups

    Microsoft announced it thwarted parts of an operation linked to Russian military intelligence targeting the US Senate and conservative think tanks.

    • France 24 – Microsoft uncovers several fake US political websites reportedly tied to Russian hackers

    • After Microsoft Reveals Russia Hacking, Menendez Questions Trump State Dept Officials

    • Moon of Alabama – Microsoft Promotes Russia Scare To Gain Insider Access To Campaign Information

      The software behemoth Microsoft Corp wants to gain an insider view on candidates and election campaigns at the federal, state and local level. The Seattle based company now offers a “special cybersecurity protection” to those candidates and campaigns that use its Office 365, Outlock or Hotmail cloud services. Those who take up the offer will put their emails, internal strategy papers and financial records onto Microsoft owned and administrated servers where Microsoft personal will have a special eye on them.

      […]Microsoft’s new data acquisition path for its corporate intelligence has its own marketing campaign. This uses the well established bogeyman of the “Russian threat”.

      […]Its public relation department held a press conference and managed to spin a scare story of a “Russian threat” around the seized domain names. It did not provide any evidence or explanation how the seized domain names might or might not be related to “Russia”. Journalists were pointed to a blog post by Microsoft’s president which includes some mumble about “Russia” and “elections” they could pick for quotes. After apparently scaring the bejesus out of the stenographing scribes, the company made sure to emphasize the offer that, if taken up, will give its strategic intelligence department valuable internal insights into election campaigns.

      Major U.S. news sites swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker.

      more :

      http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/08/microsoft-promotes-russia-scare-to-gain-insider-access-to-campaign-information.html

    • RT- Microsoft: We ‘stopped’ cyber attack by Russian hackers! (P.S. here’s our new product)

      With pre-midterm frenzy heating up, Microsoft said it thwarted a phishing attack by a group “widely associated” with Russia — and despite not providing much hard evidence, used the incident to advertise a new privacy product.

  34. the rebel -Justin Trudeau calls heckling grandmother a “racist”

    ( 22 min )

    Ezra Levant of The Rebel reports on Justin Trudeau calling a Quebec grandmother, questioning him about the cost of illegal immigration, a “racist”.

    • Ontario minister says Trudeau’s heckler response is fearmongering

      Ontario’s minister responsible for immigration, Lisa MacLeod, says Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is “debasing the debate” around irregular border crossers by accusing a heckler in Quebec of racism after he was questioned about “illegal immigrants.”

  36. Trump’s Character and Trump’s Presidency
    A question for Never Trumpers.
    August 21, 2018
    David Horowitz

    A few days ago, I had a dust-up on Twitter with National Review’s Jonah Goldberg. Our conflict was about Trump’s fitness to be president, a subject that has been broached millions of times on social media by other internet partisans. Twitchy posted the exchange and promoted it this way: “It’s On! Jonah Goldberg, David Horowitz Duke It Out Over Trump’s Character.” The donnybrook led to 500,000 impressions on my Twitter feed, including legions of anti-Trump zealots eager to demonstrate how creative they could be in devising insults to throw at me for defending Trump: beyond dumb, in need of psychiatric help, and probably receiving payments through offshore bank accounts.

    As it happens, I’ve known Jonah for more than 20 years, admired his wit and insights, promoted his books, and put him on my platforms. I was distressed when he joined the NeverTrump chorus, but never wrote a critical word about him—hoping, I guess, that as Trump systematically undid the damage that the Obama regime had inflicted on the country, Jonah would return to his senses.

    Other NeverTrump conservatives, on the other hand, just jumped to the other side. Bill Kristol even went so far as to collude with the Brennan-instigated witch-hunt by spreading talking points from the Steele dossier. It was easy to write these renegades off, though still wondering how they rationalized the betrayal of their lifetime principles, or were able to deny that they were doing so.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271088/trumps-character-and-trumps-presidency-david-horowitz

    • Jonah Goldberg shames himself. It’s shocking to see the formerly respectable journalists who’ve become NeverTrumpers descend to the sewer the left inhabits. They can’t admit poor judgement in retrospect; they’re reduced to flinging their own excrement to cover their inadequacy.

      Maybe it’s the medium. Twitter seems to release the nasty playground bully. Bogus assertion defended by vulgar ad hominem, one-upmanship on display for an idiot’s chortle.

  37. Drugs Gang Jailed After Heroin Supply ‘Explosion’ in Khan’s London (breitbart, Aug 21, 2018)
    https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/21/drugs-gang-jailed-explosion-heroin/

    “Police have welcomed the jailing of a drugs gang behind an “awful explosion” of Class A drugs in Whitechapel as an “incredible result” which will “severely disrupt the supply”.

    Following an undercover operation in which detectives posed as drugs users, 16 men have been sentenced to a total of 49 years for charges including the supply of heroin and crack cocaine.

    At Snaresbrook Crown Court, the judge handed jail sentences of between two years and 56 months, though prisoners in Britain typically serve just half of their term, when the system paroles criminals automatically…”

  38. Twitter Censors David Horowitz for Calling Out Islamic Anti-Semitism
    Twitter isn’t removing hatred, it’s silencing dissent.
    August 21, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    One of the last things that David Horowitz was able to tweet before his account was locked was a link to an article, “How the Left is Outsourcing Censorship of the Internet.” The article described how the left is using tech companies to silence political dissent. Not long after, @horowitz39 was locked by Twitter.

    The censorship tweet wasn’t what triggered Twitter. But it does describe the great crisis we all face.

    Instead, David Horowitz was censored for tweeting, “But if you’re a Muslim, you might not want to be sworn in on a Judeo-Christian bible, since Islam has conducted a 1500 year war against Christians and Jews, is calling for death to Israel and has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Christians recently.”

    That was in response to a user who had accused him of having a “Zionist agenda”. Instead of sanctioning a bigot who had engaged in shameless Jew-baiting, Twitter censored Horowitz for telling the truth.

    Twitter accused David Horowitz of violating its rules against “hateful conduct”. And that’s on a site which not only allows Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, a violently racist hate group, to use its platform, but has turned a blind eye to his top tweet, “Thoroughly and completely unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan.” According to Twitter, there’s nothing hateful about that.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271101/twitter-censors-david-horowitz-calling-out-islamic-daniel-greenfield

  39. Bokhari: This Is What ‘Election Interference’ Actually Looks Like (breitbart, Aug 21, 2018)
    https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/20/bokhari-election-interference-actually-looks-like/

    “The purge of the right on social media was once a slow trickle, with high-profile bans happening only occasionally, and then subsiding. With just three months until the midterm elections, the Masters of the Universe in Silicon Valley have turned online censorship into a cascade.

    Earlier this month, Alex Jones was blacklisted on virtually every major social media service, including Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Facebook, and even Pinterest and Linkedin. Following pressure from CNN and Media Matters, Twitter eventually followed suit with a week-long suspension.

    A few days after the mass-purge of Jones’ accounts, Twitter permanently banned libertarian commentator Gavin McInnes, and the official accounts of his grassroots organization the Proud Boys, on bogus charges of “supporting violence.”

    A few days later, Patreon, which has been ramping up its censorship of right-wingers (usually based on unsupported accusations of violence-promotion similar to those used by Twitter), kicked off Islam critic Robert Spencer, founder of Jihad Watch. It later emerged that Mastercard had pressured Patreon into making the call.

    Then, last night, Twitter went on another mass-purge of right-wingers, with multiple conservative personalities reporting that their follower count had dropped by hundreds overnight. Among those purged was the account of Vey, a graphics designer who previously produced artwork for Breitbart News. He provided Breitbart with a screenshot of progressive activists targeting his account for mass-reporting prior to his ban.

    Big tech CEOs like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey resolutely maintain that they do not discriminate on the basis of political views. In an election year, it would be suicidal to claim otherwise. But the mountain of evidence contradicting them renders their well-rehearsed media talking points almost comical.

    The list of the conservatives, right-wingers and other critics of progressivism who have been kicked off at least one major online service is huge. Tommy Robinson (banned by Twitter), Gavin McInnes (banned by Twitter), Lauren Southern (banned by Patreon, Stripe), Britanny Pettibone (banned by Patreon), Proud Boys USA (banned by Twitter), Sargon of Akkad (banned by Twitter), Roger Stone (banned by Twitter), Milo Yiannopolous (banned by Twitter), Hunter Avallone (banned by Twitter), Prager University (censored by YouTube), congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng (campaign ads banned by Facebook and Twitter), Pamela Geller (repeatedly kicked off Facebook), Alex Jones (banned by almost every social media platform).

    These individuals all had hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of followers on their social media accounts prior to being banned. Their social media platforms served as organizing hubs for petitions, fundraisers, rallies, and other political activities of the grassroots right. The loss of their social media accounts will have a major impact on the ability of conservatives and right-wingers to organize its online supporters for the U.S. midterm elections and beyond.

    The left, meanwhile, is virtually unrestricted in its ability to amplify its voice on social media. On the same day that it purged hundreds of accounts that followed prominent conservatives on social media, it verified Sarah Jeong, the newly-minted New York Times editorial board member who rose to infamy for using Twitter to engage in racist diatribes against white people.

    Jeong described whites as “groveling goblins” who “mark up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants,” and boasted of feeling “joy” when being “cruel to old white men.” Not only did Twitter decline to ban her for hate speech, they didn’t even ask her to delete the offending tweets. And then they verified her — after her tweets became the subject of international attention.

    This power imbalance on the most influential technology platforms on the internet is sure to have an impact on the midterm elections. One side of politics is allowed to mobilize online without being impeded, while the other is not.

    For over a year, Democrats and the mainstream media have been caterwauling about Russian social media interference in the 2016 election. Yet, as even the Washington Post admitted, Russia’s spent a minuscule sum on Facebook ads in 2016. Voters observing the ads, according to research conducted by an academic who is no fan of Trump, were unlikely to have been affected. If Russia’s goal was to sow panic in American politics then they’ve succeeded, largely thanks to the Democrats. But direct influence on voters? Not so much.

    The real attempt to bias the outcome of an election hasn’t come from beyond America’s borders, but from the San Francisco Bay Area. Shamed by Democrats and the Media for “letting Trump win” in 2016, social media companies have responded by utterly crippling the ability of the president’s supporters to organize on the web.

    Free-market libertarians say “build your own platforms” — but replacing even if replacing Google, Twitter, and Facebook were possible (and that’s unlikely), it’s a project that would take many years, possibly over a decade, to complete. How many election cycles could Silicon Valley influence by then?

    Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, who masterminded the president’s digital operations in 2020, understands the problem. In an op-ed for the Washington Examiner today, Parscale says “big tech is becoming big brother.”

    “What we are seeing in Big Tech is the inherent totalitarian impulse of the Left come into full focus,” writes Parscale. “The Left is losing at the ballot box, and there are some signs it is starting to lose the culture war too. The free and open Internet has been indispensable in spreading conservative ideas, and it was indispensable in getting Donald Trump elected president — and now the Left wishes to destroy it.”

    If they want to save themselves, the rest of the Republican party must realize that the tech giants that have come to dominate so much of our lives are not the same as Christian bakers, and are crying out for regulation. Now is not the time for free-market platitudes. Democracy itself is at risk…”

  40. Social Media Corporations Step Up Attacks on Conservatives
    The critical off-year elections are a little over two months away. Coincidence?
    August 21, 2018
    Matthew Vadum

    The politically-driven censorship of conservatives by the gigantic, unregulated social media corporations controlled by the Left is moving into high gear as the crucial midterm congressional elections of Nov. 6 approach.

    It’s no secret that social media platforms have been suppressing and marginalizing ideas they don’t like — and the ideas they don’t like are overwhelmingly of the conservative and patriotic variety.

    But the social media corporations are ramping up censorship of right-leaning groups and individuals to give Democrats an advantage in the upcoming elections.

    The stakes are high. If Democrats recapture either chamber of Congress from Republicans, President Trump’s conservative reform agenda will grind to a halt and investigating Trump for all manner of imagined misdeeds will be all Americans hear about 24/7/365. It will be political payback – pure and simple.

    The immediate goal is to silence and intimidate conservatives, as well as anyone who supports President Trump.

    Since Trump unexpectedly won the presidency in November 2016, these unaccountable oligarchs who run Silicon Valley –chiefly Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google— have manipulated algorithms, trending lists, and search engine results in order to create the false impression that Americans are in revolt against the president and his policies. They also use armies of phony fact-checkers from well-known organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center and Snopes to give their actions the veneer of respectability. The environment of mass hysteria the Left and their allies in the mainstream media have created has been largely successful in drowning out news of the president’s significant policy achievements.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271089/social-media-corporations-step-attacks-matthew-vadum

  42. China Ratchets Up Its U.S. Spying Programs
    American Universities and financial institutions are at risk.

    Russian efforts to corrupt American politics captivates the media, but they pay scant attention to the aggressive actions of the Chinese. This under-reporting is concerning, given the concerted Chinese efforts go well beyond the hacking of U.S. computers – an illegal activity of great concern – but they also extend onto the campuses of our universities.

    There are, however, occasional acts of real reporting on Chinese espionage. One example comes from, the usually liberal and globalist publication, Newsweek back on May 20, 2015, A New Cold War, Yes. But It’s With China, Not Russia.

    Another story worthy of mention is this from the Houston Chronicle reported on August 8, 2018, which reported: FBI warns Texas academic and medical leaders of ‘classified’ security threats.

    The piece led off with this ominous excerpt:

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271074/china-ratchets-its-us-spying-programs-michael-cutler

  43. Off-Duty Paris Police Officer Brutally Attacked While Helping Accident Victims (breitbart, Aug 21, 2018)
    https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/21/off-duty-paris-police-officer-brutally-attacked-while-helping-accident-victims/

    “A female off-duty police officer was brutally attacked after coming to the aid of victims of a serious traffic accident — the attacker being one of the passengers of the crashed vehicle.

    The crash occurred early afternoon on Saturday in the nineteenth arrondissement of Paris and saw the driver of a Peugeot 206 lose control of their vehicle on the rue de Belleville near the Metro station Télégraphe. The car then hit a construction site and flipped several times, ejecting the driver who was declared dead an hour later, Le Parisien reports.

    The female officer, who was off-duty but witnessed the crash attempted to help the four remaining passengers inside, including a baby. When she also took photographs of the scene to aid her colleagues in preserving the scene of the accident, one of the passengers jumped out of the car and began to brutally attack her with fists and a car jack…”

  45. ‘Hotbed of Evil’: Turkish Citizens, Politicians Demand Closure of Incirlik Base (sputniknews, Aug 21, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201808211067365889-turkey-us-incirlik/

    “Incirlik residents and local politicians have called on Ankara, demanding the expulsion of American troops from Incirlik Air Base and that the base be handed over to the Turkish military. Speaking to Sputnik, Turkish civilians explained why they’re protesting against the US military presence in their country.

    “American troops should leave Incirlik Air Base!” residents of the neighborhood of the same name in the Yuregir district of the Turkish city of Adana say, amid the escalation of tensions between Ankara and Washington.

    Sputnik reached out to the enraged civilians, asking them to explain their discontent.

    “The US has unleashed a war on Turkey, using the arrest of the pastor as a pretext,” Mehmet Kaya, a town-dweller, said, referring to the ongoing diplomatic row over the fate of American Evangelical missionary Andrew Brunson, indicted in Turkey on charges of links with Fethullah Gulen’s banned movement. “The US was behind the coup attempt on July 15 [2016]. They do not want other countries to develop; their only goal is to put other states in a position of dependence upon Washington. Turkey’s decision to buy the S-400 (missiles) from Russia has thrown the US off balance, as they want to control the whole world.”

    According to Kaya, the US sows discord and destruction wherever it goes: “[Washington] entered Syria, Iraq, Tunisia and Libya, and these territories have been reduced to ruins,” the Turkish citizen said. “In Syria, people used to live in peace and unity, but when the US came, massacres began, brother turned on brother, and chaos erupted.”

    Another Sputnik interviewee, Abuzer Tuncer, suggested that US President Donald Trump “had gone mad” when he had chosen Turkey as his target.

    “The US launched a war against Turkey and the entire world economy. They do not want Turkey to develop and prosper. In fact, they are our main enemy. The US does not give us weapons that we bought from them for our own money, but at the same time supply weapons to our enemy — the Kurdish self-defense units. Moreover, they oppose the purchase of S-400 (missiles) from Russia,” Tuncer said, citing the scandal over Turkey’s suspended procurement of the F-35 stealth fighters from the US, which was restricted by American lawmakers because of the Turkish-Russian S-400 deal.

    According to Mehmet Erdem, an Adana resident, there is a necessity to form a united front of activists, political parties and movements of the region to close the Incirlik base.

    Turkish citizens Mehmet Celik and Neziyet Sermin recalled that the base had become the main foothold of coup plotters in July 2016.

    During the attempted coup of July 15, 2016, an aerial tanker carrying the fuel for the F-16s used by the military conspirers got off the ground at Incirlik Air Base. It was the first time, when the base had become the bone of contention between Ankara and Washington and triggered massive protests in the region.

    “The Incirlik base is a hotbed of evil,” Celik said, stressing that US military personnel should leave the air base.

    He highlighted that not only Turkey had fallen prey to Washington’s tariff and sanctions spree, but also Russia, China and Iran. Additionally, US measures against Turkey and Iran had finally backfired on European companies, he added.

    According to Celik, what Washington is doing amounts to nothing short of “international banditry.”…”

  46. Portland Leftist Gets Beat Up by His Own Side Because He Held ‘Fascist’ American Flag

  50. Russia’s War on the West

    by Stephen Blank and Peter Huessy
    August 21, 2018 at 4:00 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12849/russia-war-west
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    After the Helsinki Summit was over, the Russian government, the Russian and American media, and many Russian experts in the West have been calling for the United States and Russia to agree quickly to either an extension of the 2010 New Start Treaty, or a new follow-on arms control agreement; the New Start Treaty between the two countries is scheduled to expire in 2021.

    Many of these calls for new negotiations and a new treaty are primarily driven by alarm at the bad state of East-West relations, the belief in the inherent benefits of arms control in general, and that arms control remains the area where it is easiest to secure Russo-American dialogue.

    Additionally, arms control is historically the arena where Moscow most feels it is being treated as an equal by the United States. According to some American arms control enthusiasts, such deals also provide opportunities for Russia to achieve “parity” and supposedly thus stability between the two nations. Therefore, in the name of international security and East-West dialogue, it is argued, it is necessary to resume arms control talks with Moscow.

    It is often assumed that “right wing” ideologues are opposed to arms control with the Russians, just as they purportedly were during the Cold War. This view is apparently based on another assumption: that “right-wingers” desire U.S. superiority over Russia and other armed adversaries, a superiority that bilateral arms control deals would preclude. However, it has always been the case that arms control, when done correctly, has been a policy designed to advance U.S. interests, not an effort to satisfy Soviet-Russian neuroses about being equal to the U.S. Therefore, the test of a credible arms control proposal and/or process is whether it advances U.S. interests.