Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.
This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.
So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.
This is the new Samizdat. We muse use it while we can.
How to put an end to an Islamic “pest” problem
How to put an end to an Islamic “pest” problem
RAAAIIIDDD!!!
I had a similar thought when I read the title.
They Threatened To KILL Me But Never Showed Up
Japan REJECTS The West’s Culture of Emotional Outrage
St Bernie vs the God Emperor
The Upside of Brexit | Dr Gerard Lyons
Austria: Iraqi asylum seeker afforded beauty surgery in Istanbul+++
An Iraqi asylum seeker flew from Salzburg to Istanbul to undergo a beauty surgery. For many citizens, such cosmetic repair would be out of the question for cost reasons alone, which in turn raises the question of how a ” person looking for protection ” can afford this treatment when receiving social benefits. Asylum seekers are severely traumatised, but the trauma due to persecution suddenly seems to vanish into thin air when they spend their holidays at home or when they are jetting to a beauty doc.
The newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports:
An Iraqi asylum seeker living in Salzburg, who obtained a Convention passport with a false identity card and received welfare benefits from us, afforded a beauty surgery in Istanbul.
The 34-year-old had presented a forged document in order to apply for asylum in Austria. In any case, he received the Convention passport, which allows him to fly to many countries, but not to his home country, where he was allegedly persecuted.
The 34-year-old had presented a forged document in order to apply for asylum in Austria. In any case, he received the Convention passport, which allows him to fly to many countries, but not to his home country, where he was allegedly persecuted. The man received the welfare benefits. At the end of 2018 he finally flew to the Turkish metropolis of Istanbul for almost a month. There, the Iraqi underwent a beauty surgery.
After his return, the man was charged with fraudulent behaviour of third parties towards public welfare authorities. He should have reported the stay abroad. The damage amounts to several hundred euros. How the Iraqi could afford a cosmetic surgery and the flight is still unclear. The police are investigating.
Read more:
https://searchlight-germany.blogspot.com/2019/02/austria-iraqi-asylum-seeker-afforded.html
“How the Iraqi could afford a cosmetic surgery and the flight is still unclear. ”
Money’s no object when the imam gets all het up.
Venezuelan soldiers to guard border ahead of aid entry, minister says
CARACAS, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Venezuelan troops will remain stationed along the country’s borders to prevent territorial violations, the defense minister said on Tuesday, ahead of the opposition’s plan to bring in humanitarian aid to alleviate an economic crisis.
President Nicolas Maduro has rejected offers of foreign food and medicine, denying there are widespread shortages and accusing opposition leader Juan Guaido of using aid to undermine his government in a U.S.-orchestrated bid to oust him.
Guaido has said that aid will enter Venezuela from neighboring countries by land and sea on Saturday. The United States has sent tons of aid to Colombia’s border with Venezuela, but Maduro has refused to let it in.
In comments broadcast on state TV, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said the opposition would have to pass over “our dead bodies” to impose a new government. Guaido, who has invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency, denounces Maduro as illegitimate and has received backing from some 50 countries.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday warned members of Venezuela’s military who remain loyal to Maduro that they would “find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out.”
http://news.trust.org/item/20190219192150-z7baw
Cuba denies military in Venezuela, charges U.S. readies intervention
HAVANA, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Cuba denied on Tuesday it has security forces in Venezuela and charged the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign of lies paving the way for military intervention in the South American country.
U.S. President Donald Trump and members of the administration have charged that Cuba’s security forces and military control Venezuela’s and that troops are also on the ground there.
“Our government categorically and energetically rejects this slander,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said at a Havana press conference, adding all of the some 20,000 Cubans in Venezuela were civilians, most health professionals.
Rodriguez called on the U.S. administration to produce proof.
“There is a big political and communications campaign underway which are usually the prelude to larger actions by this government,” Rodriguez said.
Communist-run Cuba has been a key backer of the Venezuelan government since the Bolivarian Revolution that began under former leader Hugo Chavez in 1998
http://news.trust.org/item/20190219223110-ci0e5
Cuba denies military in Venezuela, charges U.S. readies intervention
Normally, I detest the entire interventionist mentality, particularly in its most modern, busybody, “the first step towards recovery is admitting that everyone else has a problem“, sort of meddling bull pucky.
With that in mind, when grown women are selling their breast milk and fourteen-year-old girls are selling their bodies on the street for $7.00, maybe it’s time for some intervention.
Maduro’s dance card seems entirely penciled in by the hangman. It looks like he’ll be
twirling all nighttwisting gently in the breeze if everything works out all right.So far he has been skating on thin ice but has voided breaking any is a way that would give the rest of the world an excuse to hold a massive live fire exercise at his location.
US steps up winter-warfare training as global threat shifts
MARINE MOUNTAIN WARFARE TRAINING CENTER, Calif. (AP) — Hunkered down behind a wall of snow, two U.S. Marines melt slush to make drinking water after spending the night digging out a defensive position high in the Sierra Nevada. Their laminated targeting map is wedged into the ice just below the machine gun.
Nearly 8,000 feet (2,440 meters) up at a training center in the California mountains, the air is thin, the snow is chest high and the temperature is plunging. But other Marines just a few kilometers away are preparing to attack, and forces on both sides must be able to battle the enemy and the unforgiving environment.
The exercise is designed to train troops for the next war — one the U.S. believes will be against a more capable, high-tech enemy like Russia, North Korea or China. The weather conditions on the mountain mimic the kind of frigid fight that forces could face in one of those future hotspots.
“We haven’t had to deal with these things. We’ve been very focused on Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Maj. Gen. William F. Mullen, head of the Marines’ Training and Education Command. “What we really have to do is wake folks up, expose them to things that they haven’t had to think about for quite a while.”
After 17 years of war against Taliban and al-Qaida-linked insurgents, the military is shifting its focus to better prepare for great-power competition with Russia and China, and against unpredictable foes such as North Korea and Iran. U.S. forces must be able to survive and fight while countering drones, sophisticated jamming equipment and other electronic and cyber warfare that can track them, disrupt communications and kill them — technology they didn’t routinely face over the last decade.
https://www.apnews.com/372aa8ded6c643c5884341c81d40ec4c
Richard: Probably just a warning to China, Russia and NK but it is good to have trained mountain/ski troops on tap.
“Probably just a warning to China, Russia and NK but it is good to have trained mountain/ski troops on tap.”
Why not ask the Heroes of Telemark?
I haven’t seen that movie in a long time, I need to find a copy of it.
OT: When I was serving all of the infantry wanted to get ski training, in the morning you wore your uniform and were trained in skiing. In the afternoon you changed into civilian sky clothing got civilian skies and took a bus to a civlian ski resort and spent it skiing while chasing girls. I don’t know what they do now.
Let’s give it a rest okay?
Ummmmm … no.
At least not until you’re a lot more specific regarding what you find so objectionable about a fact-based discussion of history.
Finger-waggings and “don’t make me come down there”-s lost all credibility a very long time ago.
What are YOU doing here then?
I suggest you send your troops for extensive training in Dystopia. I also suggest they never leave.
Richard: Looks like the Collage age kids are not enough to vote the Dems in, so the Dems are trying to get High School kids to vote them into office.
Oregon lawmakers seek to lower voting age in state to 16, so teens can ‘protect their future’
Children are our future — and a group of Oregon lawmakers wants the future to be now.
They’re pushing a bill that would amend Oregon’s constitution to lower the voting age in the state from 18 to 16. They hope to put it before voters in 2020.
Younger Oregonians should have “a chance to participate in the ballot — about decisions that affect their homes, their clean air, their future, their schools and, as we’ve seen, their very lives,” Democratic state Sen. Shemia Fagan said at a Monday press conference announcing the measure.
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/02/oregon-lawmakers-seek-to-lower-voting-age-in-state-to-16-so-teens-can-protect-their-future.html
AOC is opposed to big money in politics, but guess who’s behind Green New Deal?
By LU Staff February 20, 2019
So far, every breath she has taken in her two-month-old career in the federal government has reinforced the assumption that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the least qualified person ever to hold such a post.
That assumption has been underpinned by another: that she is clueless. That still may turn out to be the case, though a new report raises the possibility that AOC is just-plain duplicitous. Either way, these revelations prove her to be hypocritical.
The report, at Breitbart News, is by investigative journalist Aaron Klein, and notes that “the Green New Deal blueprint introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was crafted by three far-left organizations and is being pushed by a coalition of well-funded professional progressive groups and known leftist agitators.”
The three groups Klein names are the Sunrise Movement, Justice Democrats, and a group calling itself New Consensus. Klein proceeds meticulously to document the intricate network of ties between these groups and big money (aka, corporate greed), whose influence on government Ocasio-Cortez has sworn to expose.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/02/20/aoc-is-opposed-to-big-money-in-politics-but-guess-whos-behind-green-new-deal/
Who’s Behind the Green New Deal? Big Money Backs Ocasio-Cortez Socialist Dream Project
13,759
The Green New Deal blueprint introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was crafted by three far-left organizations and is being pushed by a coalition of well-funded professional progressive groups and known leftist agitators.
Some of the organizations helping to promote the Green New Deal have ties to financing from billionaire George Soros and trace their roots to such radical groups as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter.
Earlier this month, Ocasio-Cortez posted an 11-page Google document in the form of a nonbinding legislative resolution that has become the most authoritative version of the Green New Deal, a broad outline for the current conception of the socialist-style plan.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/19/whos-behind-the-green-new-deal-big-money-backs-ocasio-cortez-socialist-dream-project/
Richard: Remember the warnings that Red Cortez is dangerous? The new info means that either she is incompetent and being controlled by competent people who are working to bring full Marxism to the US. Or that she is a very skilled duplicitous actor who is using her supposed incompetence to push the US towards full Marxism. Either way she is dangerous and I am not sure which is the most dangerous.
She may be playing the fool to keep the Nations attention on her while her socialist comrades are busy busy working behind the scenes.
One thing she has already achieved is bring the idea of turning the US into a Scialist hell hole into the open and starting a public nations wide debate. What we need to watch for is most altro turf demonstrations to push for the full Marxist programs that Red Cortez is pushing. Some of these demonstrations are going to turn into full scale riots which the Propaganda Media will try to say the conservatives started.
Pakistani Spy Stoned to Death by Inmates in Indian Jail Following Terror Attack (sputniknews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://sputniknews.com/asia/201902201072587253-pakistan-priosner-murdered-indian-prison/
“Three convicts allegedly beat and killed Shakir Ullah, a Pakistani national who was imprisoned in India on charges of espionage.
New Delhi (Sputnik) — A Pakistani inmate serving a sentence at the Jaipur Central Jail in Rajasthan was allegedly beaten to death by fellow inmates on Wednesday morning, according to news reports.
Rupinder Singh, a senior Rajasthan police official, confirmed the murder. However, at this point it’s unclear if the attack was carried out in apparent retaliation to the recent suicide bombing in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama on 14 February, which killed scores of military personnel…”
At Least One Dead After Blast Rocks Building in Istanbul – Reports (PHOTO) (sputniknews, feb 20, 2019)
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201902201072588849-blast-istanbul/
“A blast has hit a building in Turkey’s largest city of Istanbul, leaving at least one person dead.
“According to preliminary data, an explosion occurred in the area of Buyukcekmece in the Hurriyet quarter. As a result of the explosion, one person died,” the administration said in a statement….
Locals claim the explosion was caused by a natural gas leak. Authorities are still on the scene investigating the incident.”
Swedish-Hungarian War of Words Escalates as Minister Called ‘Sick Creature’ (sputniknews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201902201072584343-sweden-hungary/
“Sweden and Hungary have been embroiled in a bitter quarrel after a Swedish cabinet minister made a controversial comparison between Budapest’s pro-family policy and that of Nazi Germany.
The Hungarian ambassador to Sweden has been summoned to a meeting with representatives of the Foreign Ministry as part of the escalating verbal exchange of fire between the two nations.
The war of words broke out when Swedish Social Insurance Minister Annika Strandhäll compared Hungary’s new pro-family policy, which includes complete tax exemption for mothers of four children, to Nazi Germany, claiming it “reeked of the 1930s”. In turn, Hungarian Vice Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen called the Swedish minister a “poor sick creature” in a talk show on Echo TV.
“What else should Hungary want if not Hungarian children born in Hungary? So I believe what this poor sick creature has said is an abnormality in itself”, Zsolt Semjen said, as quoted by Swedish national broadcaster SVT. During the interview, he referred to Annika Strandhäll on several occasions as “poor creature”. He also stressed that the Hungarian government is helping women to become mothers, stressing that anyone who questions the laws of nature is sick.
According to Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Pezhman Fivrin, these statements were unacceptable and triggered the summons.
“These are the statements that we find unacceptable,” Fivrin told Swedish Radio.
Annika Strandhäll herself stressed “major differences” between the family and gender equality policies of Sweden and Hungary in a written comment to SVT. “There are political differences, and it is important to be able to conduct a discussion on politics without resorting to personal attacks,” the author of the Nazi simile wrote. Strandhäll stressed that she will not answer Semjen’s statement, yet called for more dialogue between Sweden and Hungary.
Previously, Strandhäll’s tweet was slammed by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which summoned Sweden’s ambassador Niclas Trouvé for a conversation. Hungarian Family Minister Katalin Novák penned an open letter to Strandhäll demanding an official apology.
Sweden and Hungary have chosen diametrically opposed immigration policies. While Sweden, a nation of 10 million, has taken in over 200,000 migrants since the onset of Europe’s migrant crisis, Hungary, with its similar-sized population, has effectively opposed non-white immigration, which landed Budapest in a bitter conflict with Brussels. At present, a quarter of the Swedish population have an immigrant background, which has contributed to Sweden’s fertility rate of 1.85 births per woman. Hungary, by contrast, remains 93 percent Hungarian, yet has a fertility rate of 1.45 births per woman, which is below the EU average.
Hungarian Foreign Minister defended Budapest’s strict immigration policy by claiming that immigration was “not a human right”. Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed that “immigration is surrender”.”
Just one day when all of the lunatic Swedish watermelon/TIRF(?) ratbags are in one building discussing the fairy tales they “program” some recently arriving, poorly informed fanatic might do the world a favour. Once sharia takes over Sweden this will become a certainty.
Shamima Begum’s baby COULD COME TO UK – Javid says ISIS bride’s child ‘should not suffer’ (express, Feb 20, 2019)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1089932/shamima-begum-baby-isis-bride-uk-citizenship-sajid-javid
Moment ISIS bride Shamima Begum finds out she’s been stripped of her UK citizenship as first picture emerges of her newborn baby after Sajid Javid hints the child may allowed into Britain WITHOUT her (dailymail, Feb 20, 2019)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6724023/Will-ISIS-bride-Shamima-Begum-use-BABY-door-Britain.html
Fight against us,kill us ,and WE get your bastard?
ITV News – Shamima Begum interview: The moment IS bride learns she’s lost UK citizenship
Shamima Begum said losing UK citizenship is “hard to swallow” as ITV News told her of the Home Office decision.
“I’m a bit shocked. It’s a bit unjust on me and my son,” the IS bride said as ITV News Security Editor Rohit Kachroo handed her a copy of the letter at the Syria refugee camp where she is being held.
She addressed her decision to ignore her family’s pleas to come home after fleeing to join so-called Islamic State with two Bethnal Green school friends in 2015.
She said she believed her family had “got over” her decision to leave London but accepted she had caused them anguish.
Ms Begum also has a message for Home Secretary Sajid Javid and said she may pursue citizenship through her Dutch husband, who she married as an Islamic State bride while he was fighting in Syria.
Facebook have BANNED Jayda for this video on Shamima Begum
( restricted on YT …. )
I just watched Jayda Fransen’s video. It’s excellent. It’s outstanding. She is a sane, kind hearted person who still has a soul. By contrast, devout Muslims have discarded their sense of empathy, their consciences, and even their souls because somehow they think their god, Allah, wants them to be that way. As a mostly rational observer, I would say that Muslims have been brainwashed. They accept and repeat the messages and ideology they learn from those who shout the loudest. And when a non-Muslim westerner provides protection for Muslim behavior, he/she has allowed themselves to be brainwashed too. It takes courage and clear thinking to stand up against Muslim/Islamic inertia. We survival of the free would requires more clear-headed rebels like Jayda Fransen.
Turkish Radio and Television – TRT – Has the UK govt failed Shamima Begum?
ISIS teenager would be investigated upon return – BBC London
Tommy Robinson – ISIS woman Shamima Begum and her child want to come home – Facebook Live – Feb 18
Shamima Begum’s baby COULD COME TO UK – Javid says ISIS bride’s child ‘should not suffer’
Right! That’s it! No more benefit of the doubt. Javid is a crypto-jihadist. Full stop.
Where does this Home Office sub-moron think poor widdle Shamima got radicalized? Down at the mosque; where she cannot go unescorted by a male relative? Perhaps it happened in a complete vacuum that normally would make your eyes bleed, but not this Lioness of Islam™. No siree, bob.
As in: we’re supposed to believe that her parents were completely unaware bystanders who had all of nothing to do with Shamima’s wholly unexpected years-long terrorist baby daddy prospecting fling cum decapitation and sex-slave-taking Syrian expedition.
Then we are treated to the obscene spectacle of Muslims acting so butt hµrt and bewildered when Unbelievers take the Queen’s Own Piss over Islam’s jaw-dropping condescension—half of whose offensiveness derives solely from the ummah’s unblushing expectations (nay, demands) that such flagrant, steaming piles of odious ßüllshït should be swallowed without a blink.
A fat sow like Shamima Begum shouts, “Look at me. I’m the victim!”, as she waddles around atop a mountain of emaciated corpses. Now we’re supposed to pretend that her warlord-namesake hell spawn isn’t being punted off to her parents so they can perform the same perverted catechism on their grandchild.
This sort of outrageous filth is what’ll get the cattle cars rolling again. Any Mystified Moderate Muslims (3Ms – i.e., everything is taped ahead of time) had better start thinning their herd of these supposed ideological “strays” [spit] or risk being branded during the big roundup.
Personally and I am NOT speaking for Vlad Tepes or any others here, ALL former or present ISIS members in the UK (and all western states for that matter) should be removed quickly and quietly but with extreme prejudice and if the UK government won’t do this or prosecutes those who do then the British people should, and in the process clean up Westminster. In my world Hammurabi’s code applies to all of the warlord’s scum.
REVEALED: 12 more British ISIS brides scurry to refugee camp as Begum PLEADS for UK return (express, Feb 20, 2019)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1089937/shamima-begum-isis-brides-refugee-camps-beg-for-uk-return
“AT least 12 more British ISIS brides have arrived at the Syrian refugee camp where Shamima Begum is begging to be sent back to the UK.
The women fled to the al-Hawl camp as the last outpost of the terrorist group’s so-called caliphate is obliterated in a final battle in Baghuz. Shameless Begum, 19, is pleading to be allowed back to London despite the Eastender boasting she “had a good time” with her terrorist husband and Islamic State pals after travelling to the jihadi-infested hellhole from the capital in 2015.
Begum was 15 when she and two pals from Bethnal Green Academy ran off to Syria to marry ISIS henchmen in 2015.
This week, the Home Office stripped the terrorist-loving teen of her British citizenship.
But Home Secretary Javid indicated Begum’s newborn son, Jerah, may be allowed into the UK.
It was reported last week that “tens” more Jihadi women are set to plead authorities to return to the UK.
With more UK jihadi brides pouring into the settlement in northern Syria, Mr Javid may have to decide whether to also remove the British citizenship of dozens more women.
BBC correspondent Quentin Sommerville revealed that British jihadi brides were now arriving in large numbers after he interviewed Begum at the camp.
He said: “This whole issue of what to do with these IS women and other IS supporters isn’t going to go away.
“We know that in the last week alone, 12 British women have arrived at displacement camps
“So for the British Government, this headache of what to do doesn’t end with Shamima Begum.”
The Begum family lawyer Tasnime Akunjee has vowed they are considering “all legal avenues” following the government’s bombshell to strip Begum of her British citizenship.
The Home Secretary can deprive a British citizen of their nationality if it is “conducive to the public good” and it is proved they have dual nationality…”
Iran accuses Donald Trump of TERRORISM for slapping sanctions on nations (express, Feb 20, 2019)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1089927/Iran-news-iran-nuclear-deal-iran-US-donald-trump-Hassan-Rouhani
“IRANIAN President Hassan Rouhani has said relations with the United States are “at a maximum” and Donald Trump’s sanctions on Tehran’s oil and banking sectors are “a terrorist act”…”
It could take 100-years to make Met Police representative of London, the force admits (telegraph, Feb 19, 2019)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/19/could-take-100-years-make-met-police-representative-london-force/
“It could take more than 100 years for Scotland Yard to recruit enough black officers to make the force representative of London’s ethnic make-up, the Met Commissioner has admitted.
Two decades on from the publication of the watershed Macpherson report, which labelled the Met “institutionally racist”, Cressida Dick, acknowledged there was still work to do to encourage people from all communities to join the police.
But she said the force recognised the challenge and was not complacent about continuing to transform policing in the capital…”
German Security Chief Wants Captive Islamic State Suspects Screened (breitbart, Feb 20, 2019)
https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/02/20/german-security-chief-wants-captive-islamic-state-suspects-screened/
“Germany’s top security official says suspected German members of the Islamic State group captured in Syria need to be screened before they can return home…”
Hungary: New Campaign Warns EU Planning to Flood Bloc With Migrants (breitbart, Feb 20, 2019)
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/20/hungary-warns-brussels-migrant-flood/
“Eurocrats including the Commission president are working hand-in-hand with George Soros to flood the bloc with migrants, Hungary is warning citizens in a new poster campaign ahead of EU elections in May.
A poster unveiled by the government this week features a message stating people in Hungary have “the right to know what Brussels is preparing”, superimposed over an image of globalist multi-billionaire George Soros alongside one of a laughing Jean-Claude Juncker.
“The government is launching an information mission on the Brussels plans for immigration,” prime minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party announced on Facebook, declaring that “everyone has the right to know” about plans underway in Brussels which, if implemented, would “fundamentally endanger Hungary’s safety” according to Budapest.
Proposals highlighted by the campaign include the launch of “experimental migration projects with African countries”, plans to “ease [illegal] immigration with migrant visas” and draft budget rules which would financially penalise EU nations which refuse to resettle, food, house and clothe uninvited migrants from the third world.
Brussels reacted with outrage to the posters, with spokesman Margaritis Schinas blasting the allegations from Hungary as “shocking”, and “a ludicrous conspiracy theory”.
“Hungarians deserve facts not fiction”, the Commission said in a Facebook post, which asserts that there were “zero plans for ‘humanitarian visas’” — despite the fact EU Parliament approved the proposal in December, as reported in an official press release entitled “Humanitarian visas to avoid deaths and improve management of refugee flows”.
While Brussels went into almost no detail on why the campaign should be considered what Schinas insists is “fake news”, a piece published in the globalist Guardian attempts to paint Hungary’s claims as false, setting out to ‘debunk’ the government’s assertion that Brussels wants “to weaken member states’ rights to protect their own borders” with the assertion that “EU leaders have repeatedly stressed their desire to strengthen Europe’s borders in recent years”.
But Orbán has previously warned that plans to ‘strengthen’ the bloc’s border agency, Frontex’, with moves that would also see Brussels handed additional control over member states’ asylum policies, amount to the denationalisation of frontier protection in a bid to force asylum seekers on patriotic eastern and central nations.
The Guardian also said it was “not immediately clear what the Hungarian government meant by ‘migrants’ visas’”, before suggesting that the campaign might have been alluding to the EU’s “little-used blue card scheme”, which the newspaper describes as an initiative “to attract skilled labour” despite the Commission offering funding to countries receiving these supposedly “highly skilled” migrants from the third world, with the admission that many will require “education, employment and vocational training”.
Opening up channels for mass migration “has been a priority of the Juncker Commission from the very outset”, stated a Brussels state of the union press release on “enhancing safe and legal pathways to Europe” last year.
As well as looking at efforts to expand the Blue Card scheme by making it “more attractive” to people from the world’s poorest countries to move to Europe, and at the various refugee resettlement schemes promoted by Brussels, the document also highlighted work to encourage mass migration specifically from Africa.
“The Commission calls on Member States to fully engage and cooperate on developing pilot projects with African countries and with other non-EU countries in the future, with the first projects to be launched by the end of 2018,” it said, adding that funded will be provided by European taxpayers.”
Sweden To Deport Palestinian Migrant Synagogue Firebomber (breitbart, Feb 20, 2019)
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/20/sweden-to-deport-migrant-synagogue-attacker/
“The Supreme Court of Sweden has announced a new ruling that will see a Palestinian migrant who was found guilty of firebombing a Jewish synagogue in Gothenburg expelled from the country.
The ruling came against a 23-year-old Palestinian, identified as Feras Alnadim by online Swedish media, who had previously been sentenced for his participation in the synagogue attack that occurred in December of 2017, soon after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. embassy in Israel would be moving to Jerusalem SVT reports.
Initially, a district court ruled that the 23-year-old could not be deported back to the Gaza strip but that ruling was appealed with the argument that the 23-year-old may face persecution in his home country.
Now, following a report from the Swedish Migration Board, the Supreme Court has upheld the original ruling. The judgement claimed that there was no “reasonable reason” to assume Alnedim would “risk being punished with death or being subjected to bodily punishment, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”.
The court also ruled on two other migrants, a Syrian and a Libyan, who will also be deported following their prison sentences for robbery in the case of the Libyan and serious rape in the case of the Syrian national.
Deportations of asylum seekers have been a difficult issue in Sweden regarding certain countries like Afghanistan where around 9,000 migrants were allowed to stay in Sweden due to an outcry by groups and activists who claimed the country was too dangerous for migrants to return to.
In one case, an Afghan migrant who was aboard a plane set to be deported was” saved” by young Swedish activist Elin Ersson who cried and refused to allow the Turkish airline’s flight to take off. It was later revealed that the Afghan migrant had previously been convicted of assault.
Earlier this week Ersson was sentenced to a 3,000 krona ($324/£251) fine after being found guilty in a Swedish court for preventing the deportation. The Afghan migrant has since been deported from Sweden.”
Iran slams ‘hypocrisy’ of US-Saudi nuclear plans (abcnews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/iran-slams-hypocrisy-us-saudi-nuclear-plans-61184539
“Iran’s foreign minister has seized on a congressional report that the U.S. sought to share nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia, accusing Washington of ignoring the kingdom’s human rights violations.
Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted Wednesday: “First a dismembered journalist; now illicit sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia fully expose #USHypocrisy.”
He appeared to be referring to the report, released Tuesday, which said senior White House officials pushed a project to share nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia despite the objections of ethics and national security officials. He also referred to the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in October.
The Trump administration withdrew from a 2015 international agreement aimed at preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, saying it did not go far enough in restricting Tehran’s nuclear activities.”
EU border guard chief says ‘no burning crisis’ over migrants (abcnews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/eu-border-guard-chief-burning-crisis-migrants-61183913
“The head of the European Union’s border agency says there is “no burning crisis” right now in Europe due to migrant arrivals, but that more and more African people are trying to enter through Spain from Morocco”
Saudi crown prince backs India’s fight against terrorism (abcnews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/saudi-crown-prince-lauds-centuries-ties-india-61182061
“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday offered intelligence sharing and other cooperation with India in fighting extremism and terrorism, as New Delhi tackled rising tensions with Pakistan following a suicide bombing last week on Indian paramilitary soldiers in disputed Kashmir.
The crown prince, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi by his side, told reporters that he “shared India’s concern on terrorism” but did not make any reference to Pakistan…”
Saudi crown prince backs India’s fight against terrorism
No one could possibly hope for a more perfect example of, “Let’s you and him fight!” India got the right idea well before MbS got into Dodge. New Delhi took its page right out of Trump’s playbook when they jammed Pakistan with a 200% duty increase over Pulwama. Let’s see the slime mold over in ISI walk back from that one.
It would be worth good money to hear Modi’s gears turning about that $20b Easter egg MbS laid during his Islamabad stopover.
The “charm offensive” is nothing but a series of press releases. Postures and pictures.
Mr. Modi is popular, known to be a devout Hindu. Receiving MbS gives “face” to a young man tagged by Turk/MB media as a capricious killer. MbS is being paraded around like the pre-Khashoggi pretty pony.
This has all been orchestrated by Western public relations professionals, most likely recommended by the Trump administration. Saudis are shedding big bucks at each stop on this parade.
Britain urges Germany to ease curbs on arms sales to Saudi (abcnews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/britain-urges-germany-ease-curbs-arms-sales-saudi-61186034
“Britain’s top diplomat has urged Germany to relax its ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia because they are affecting U.K. sales of weapons to — and by extension its influence with — the oil-rich kingdom.
The German weekly Der Spiegel reported Wednesday that British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt sent a blistering letter to his counterpart in Berlin earlier this month, warning that Germany’s credibility as a partner is at stake over its restrictions on arms exports to the Gulf nation.
Germany rescinded existing arms export permits to Saudi Arabia last year in response to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The move, which amounts to an export ban, means Britain can’t ship war planes such as the Typhoon to Saudi Arabia because they contain German-made components.
Asked about the letter ahead of a meeting Wednesday with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, Hunt said both Britain and Germany have a common interest in ending the war in Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor Yemen , where a major humanitarian crisis has claimed tens of thousands of civilian lives. A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting with Yemen’s government against Shiite Houthi rebels since 2015, leading to criticism of arms exports to Saudi Arabia.
Hunt insisted that Britain has strict rules on arms exports that include “independent assessment of whether our arms exports are likely to be used in breaches of international humanitarian law.”
“At the moment we don’t make that judgment,” he said. “But when I talk to Heiko Maas what I say is that that strategic relationship that the U.K. has with Saudi Arabia is what allows us to have a huge influence in bringing about peace in Yemen.”
“We need to be able to continue that strategic relationship in order to make sure that there is a European voice at the table doing everything we can to press for peace,” said Hunt. He made no mention of the Khashoggi slaying.
Berlin and London have stressed in recent months that cooperation on defense and security must remain a pillar of Anglo-German cooperation even after Britain leaves the European Union at the end of March.
A spokeswoman for Germany’s economy ministry, Tanja Alemany, told reporters on Wednesday that Berlin’s position on arms exports to Saudi Arabia hasn’t changed and “there’s currently no basis for further permits.””
Britain urges Germany to ease curbs on arms sales to Saudi
Because everyone knows there’s an endless line of Khashoggies queued up and not enough hours in the day.
PS: I wonder which pom’s limo top-off finally got too expensive for them to keep siding with fellow Antisemitic virtue signalers in Berlin.
No telling.
I wonder how many of the British oil companies want to see if the North Sea wells have refilled like the ones in the US have? The Brit watermelons won’t let them but it is something for the Brits to think about. They could be a lot less dependent on Foreign oil if they were free to make rational decisiosn.
CNN – McCabe: It’s possible that Trump is a Russian asset
Former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe tells CNN’s Anderson Cooper that he believes it is a possibility that President Donald Trump is a Russian asset.
CNN -McCabe: It was a ‘head-spinning moment’
CBC – Mueller’s Russia investigation: Sorting out what we know
( 12 min 34 )
The full story is not known, the evidence is not conclusive, but there is more of it in plain sight than you might have thought.
Washington reporter Keith Boag takes an in-depth look at the Mueller investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.
USA TODAY – The Mueller investigation is almost two years old. So what do we know so far?
After almost two years, Mueller’s Russia investigation status can be confusing. Here’s an overview of the central question, and what we know.
And soon, federal authorities will begin selling off what’s left of Paul Manafort’s life, a small fortune amassed through a decade of illicit lobbying work. When they do, the investigation into Russian election interference stands to breach an unusual milestone: bringing in more money than it has cost.
But first, lawyers working for special counsel Robert Mueller must reach a deal with another set of opponents, including the Trump Tower condo board.
A handful of banks and the Trump Tower Residential Condominium Board have lined up to argue that they’re entitled to parts of the properties and investment accounts valued at about $26.7 million that the former Trump campaign chairman has been forced to give up as part of plea agreement with Mueller’s team. Included in the package of New York real estate is a $7.3 million compound in the Hamptons and a $3.8 million apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower.
CNN: Mueller report may be delivered as early as next week
Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to announce as early as next week the completion of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, with plans for Barr to submit a summary of Mueller’s confidential report to Congress soon after, according to people familiar with the plans.
If the summery clears Trump not one word will be leaked, if there is anything that can be spun to hurt him it will be leaked.
Trump says the release of Mueller report will be up to Barr
Trump meets with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and answers questions from the press.
Turkey seeks life terms for 16 activists over 2013 protests (abcnews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkey-seeks-life-terms-16-activists-2013-protests-61187387
“Turkey’s state-run news agency says prosecutors have charged a prominent philanthropist businessman and 15 other people with seeking to overthrow the government by allegedly supporting anti-government protests in 2013.
Anadolu Agency reported Wednesday that the prosecutors are seeking life prison terms for the all of those indicted. They include businessman Osman Kavala, exiled journalist Can Dundar and actor Mehmet Ali Alabora, who took part in the demonstrations.
The Turkish government has accused Kavala of financing and organizing the protests. He has been in pre-trial detention for more than a year.
The protests started with an environmental cause, protecting Gezi Part in central Istanbul. They quickly broadened into opposing the government.
A court in Istanbul must accept the prosecutors’ indictment against the suspects before a trial can begin.”
LIVE: ‘Yellow Vests’ protest in front of UN headquarters in Geneva
‘Yellow Vests’ are protesting in front of the UN headquarters in Geneva on Wednesday, February 20 to denounce police violence during the demonstrations in France.
This is the first time the French ‘Yellow Vest’ movement has organised a protest abroad.
Several ‘Yellow Vest’ delegations from France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium are expected to attend in hopes of catching the UN’s Human Rights Council’s attention.
Around a thousand ‘Yellow Vest’ protesters from France and Switzerland gathered in front of the United Nations office in Geneva on Wednesday, to denounce the violence of the French police during Yellow Vest demonstrations.
Groups from different regions of France joined the rally at the Place des Nations. Organisers had prepared a dossier with all the names of the persons injured during the protests to deliver it to a UN official for study.
“We are here to ask for some help to the UN with this dossier. When you have French citizens that lose an eye during a protest, a hand removed, injuries and skulls fractured, we have to do something to stop it. This is the objective,” the rally organiser Nicolas Mollier said.
FRANCE – Dole – Marche féminine des Gilets jaunes, mercredi 20 février 2019
Egypt executes 9 over 2015 assassination of top prosecutor (abcnews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/egypt-executes-2015-killing-top-prosecutor-61183242
“Egypt on Wednesday executed nine suspected Muslim Brotherhood members convicted of involvement in the 2015 assassination of the country’s top prosecutor, security officials said.
The nine were found guilty of taking part in the bombing that killed Hisham Barakat, the first assassination of a senior official in Egypt in a quarter century. Barakat was also the most senior official killed since the military overthrew an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media, said the families of the men were told to pick up their bodies from a Cairo morgue.
A total of 15 people have been executed in Egypt since the start of the year. Three were hanged earlier this month for their involvement in the 2014 killing of a judge’s son in the Nile Delta town of Mansoura. Authorities executed another three for killing a police officer in Cairo in September 2013. Rights groups decried the executions, saying the men were sentenced to death following torture and beatings to extract confessions.
According to rights groups, authorities have executed at least 165 people since July 2013, including at least 32 between January and November 2018.
By carrying out the executions, Egypt demonstrated an “absolute disregard for the right to life,” said Najia Bounaim, North Africa campaign director for Amnesty International.
“The international community must not stay silent over this surge in executions. Egypt’s allies must take a clear stand by publicly condemning the authorities’ use of the death penalty, the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment,” she said.
The London-based group on Tuesday had called on Egypt to halt the latest executions, saying that some defendants said they were forcibly disappeared and confessed under torture.
Egypt’s highest appeals court upheld the death sentences in November. It commuted six other death sentences to life in prison. Death sentences were also handed down in 2017 to 13 defendants tried in absentia. They will be eligible for a new trial if they surrender or are captured. Turkey deported one of the 13 last month.
The Muslim Brotherhood was Egypt’s best-organized opposition movement for decades and won a series of elections after an Arab Spring uprising in 2011 ended President Hosni Mubarak’s nearly three-decade rule.
But President Mohammed Morsi, a senior Brotherhood figure elected in 2012, proved divisive, and the military removed him from power amid mass protests against his rule a year later.
Since then, authorities have waged an extensive crackdown on Islamists, arresting and detaining thousands and sentencing them to harsh prison terms. The Brotherhood has been banned and declared a terrorist group.
Islamic militants have, meanwhile, stepped up attacks since Morsi’s 2013 overthrow. An Islamic State affiliate based in the northern Sinai Peninsula has repeatedly targeted security forces and the Christian minority. Another group, known as Hasm, which has targeted security forces, has been linked to the Brotherhood.
The assassination of Barakat recalled one of Egypt’s darkest chapters, when Islamic militants and the state security apparatus engaged in retaliatory killings for nearly a decade starting in 1990. That year, the militants gunned down Parliament speaker Rifaat el-Mahgoub in Cairo, the last assassination of a senior official. There were attempts against other ministers until the insurgency was crushed in the late 1990s.
Also on Wednesday the military said in a statement that security forces killed eight suspected militants and destroyed seven hideouts and weapons depots and two car bombs in the restive north of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The military statement gave no time frame for the recent operations. It wasn’t possible to independently confirm the details as access to northern Sinai is heavily restricted.
Wednesday’s statement came days after the Islamic State claimed an attack on an army checkpoint in northern Sinai left 15 troops and seven militants dead.
Egypt has been battling Islamic militants for years. Last year, the government launched a broad security operation focused on northern Sinai, where an Islamic State affiliate has carried out many attacks in recent years.”
https://twitter.com/andyvblue/status/1098216425221775362
Welcome to London 2019..
We know that Sadiq Khan has a soft, ‘touchy feely’ approach to crime but when his Police are being handcuffed with their own handcuffs by the people they are trying to arrest??? Serious questions need asking!
Real? Fake? What is this?
the rebel- Miles McInnes ATTACKS Alex Jones on InfoWars!
Russia’s First ‘Poseidon’ Underwater Drone-Carrying Submarine to Be Launched in 2019
The first nuclear-powered submarine capable of carrying the Poseidon underwater drone will be launched this spring, according to Vladimir Putin.
https://thediplomat.com/2019/02/russias-first-poseidon-underwater-drone-carrying-submarine-to-be-launched-in-2019/
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Russia’s Poseidon Underwater Drone Shown on TV for First Time
https://sputniknews.com/military/201902201072592903-russia-underwater-drone/
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DAILY MAIL – Russia releases video of its Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater drone that can be launched from a submarine and carry nuclear warheads hundreds of miles
Clip shows test launch of the new nuclear-powered underwater drone Poseidon
First video of the weapon released shortly after Putin’s state of the nation speech
The Russian President revealed that Poseidon had undergone successful tests
Russian officials see the top-secret weapon as giant nuclear-capable torpedo
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6725273/Russia-releases-video-Poseidon-nuclear-powered-underwater-drone.html
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Covington High student’s legal team sues Washington Post
Attorneys representing the Kentucky high school student involved in a confrontation that went viral on social media last month announced Tuesday that they were suing The Washington Post for $250 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Kentucky, accused The Post of practicing “a modern-day form of McCarthyism” by targeting Nicholas Sandmann and “using its vast financial resources to enter the bully pulpit by publishing a series of false and defamatory print and online articles … to smear a young boy who was in its view an acceptable casualty in their war against the president.”
Washington Post spokesperson Kris Coratti told Fox News in an email that the paper was “reviewing a copy of the lawsuit, and we plan to mount a vigorous defense.”
video at site
https://www.foxnews.com/us/covington-high-students-legal-team-sues-washington-post
March Of Reckoning Richmond
This video is made by a watermelon, he is using emotion rather then reason and science. It still shows the attitudes of some of the people in Virginia about their Governor, in this case they are saying he isn’t radical enough.
Several People Injured Following Blast at Ammunition Depot in Turkey’s Polatl? (sputniknews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201902201072600071-ammunition-depot-turkey/
“At least 5 soldiers have been injured as result of an ammunition explosion in the Turkish city of Polatl?, the Turkish Defence Ministry said as quoted by milliyet.com.tr news website.
The incident reportedly occurred at 7:00 pm local time during an artillery training; the injured have been taken to a hospital.
“According to the preliminary data, five soldiers have been injured at the Artillery and Missile School Command in Polatli during a heavy weapon training,” the Turkish Defence Ministry said in a statement.
An investigation into the incident has been launched….”
emocratic Activist Tries To Make The Case For Identity Politics
Marine Le Pen sur le rassemblement contre l’antisémitisme : “nous n’avons pas été conviés”
MUST SEE:
Survivors Of Isis Genocide Have Nothing, Four Years Later:
A photo essay.
https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-Threat/Survivors-of-ISIS-genocide-have-nothing-four-years-later-581208
Seth Frantzman Verified account@sfrantzman
Thread: Person who joined ISIS and was then found in Syria recently and became a celebrity is “shocked” that her citizenship might be revoked…it’s “unjust” she said.
Umm…notice she is never “shocked” at the harm ISIS did to indigenous people in Iraq and Syria, never “unjust”
3:55 AM – 20 Feb 2019
Because essentially not only have we never heard remorse from ISIS members toward victims, but they always only speak in terms of “me, me, me”…how unfair it is to them, how they want this and that and a “second chance” #AfterISIS #ISIScrimes
In the West, for the converts and followers that made up 5,000 volunteers, ISIS essentially catered to self-centered people who seek dominance, the kind of people who would have joined the most cruel units of the Nazis for instance, volunteers, not conscripts.
ISIS members who were local to Iraq and Syria expressed a more wide range spectrum of cruelty…to being almost unwilling conscripts choosing the lesser of two evils…foreign, wealthy, western, members didn’t do that. They chose. They reveled in genocide
Few, if any, of these volunteers sought to leave ISIS when it was winning and even up until the fall of Raqqa most enjoyed this life of looting, abuse and genocide. It is essentially the worst kind of people who were inspired by ISIS, transcending various backgrounds
Imagine, for instance, the role of the CONVERT who joined ISIS, these were people who converted solely for genocidal purposes. Bereft of extremist movements at home, they sought to travel abroad to carry out the worst crimes of the colonial era.
What separates these people is that unlike some other criminals who do heinous crimes, who sometimes seek reform and volunteer to help others in society and apologize, ISIS members have basically never done that, they remain 100% self-centered. “me, me, me”
https://twitter.com/sfrantzman/status/1098189279979888640
NY Cleric: Do Not Take Jews and Christians as Allies; FBI and Police Hire Informants in Mosques
New York Imam Abul Baraa Muhammad Abdullah Amreeki delivered a sermon in which he quoted verses in the Quran that said that Muslims should not take Jews and Christians as allies.
He said that it is very common today for Muslims to spy on, covertly monitor, and “entrap” other Muslims because the government or police threatened them or offered them some incentive, and that it is a known fact that the FBI and police in New York City and elsewhere in the U.S have spies in every mosque that are paid to deceitfully bait Muslims into making inflammatory statements.
He said that Islam forbids spying in this fashion, and that it is prohibited to report on the prayer and donation activities of mosque members.
Imam Amreeki said that people who do this receive a worse punishment than infidels on Judgement Day.
He elaborated that some scholars have said that those who spy on Muslims for non-Muslims should be punished by death, while other scholars have said that only non-Muslim informants should be punished by death.
The sermon was delivered at the Rockaway Islamic Center in Queens, NY, where Amreeki is the imam. The video was uploaded to the center’s Facebook page and to Amreeki’s YouTube channel on January 25, 2019. Amreeki was born and raised Christian in Jamaica, Queens, NY. He was incarcerated at the age of 19 for robbery and spent time at Rikers Island. He converted to Islam when he was 20 after becoming familiar with Islam in prison. According to the bio on his website, islamsfinest.com, Amreeki is an Arabic-to-English translator, who studied at the Qortoba Institute for Arabic Studies in Cairo. He also attended CUNY Medgar Evers College. The bio further says that Amreeki was previously the imam of Islamic Center of SC in Conway, South Carolina.
The Final Version of the EU’s Copyright Directive Is the Worst One Yet
Despite ringing denunciations from small EU tech businesses, giant EU entertainment companies, artists’ groups, technical experts, and human rights experts, and the largest body of concerned citizens in EU history, the EU has concluded its “trilogues” on the new Copyright Directive, striking a deal that—amazingly—is worse than any in the Directive’s sordid history.
Goodbye, protections for artists and scientists
The Copyright Directive was always a grab bag of updates to EU copyright rules—which are long overdue for an overhaul, given that it’s been 18 years since the last set of rules were ratified. Some of its clauses gave artists and scientists much-needed protections: artists were to be protected from the worst ripoffs by entertainment companies, and scientists could use copyrighted works as raw material for various kinds of data analysis and scholarship.
Both of these clauses have now been gutted to the point of uselessness, leaving the giant entertainment companies with unchecked power to exploit creators and arbitrarily hold back scientific research.
Having dispensed with some of the most positive versions of the Directive, the trilogues have also managed to make the (unbelievably dreadful) bad components of the Directive even worse.
A dim future for every made-in-the-EU platform, service and online community
Under the final text, any online community, platform or service that has existed for three or more years, or is making €10,000,001/year or more, is responsible for ensuring that no user ever posts anything that infringes copyright, even momentarily. This is impossible, and the closest any service can come to it is spending hundreds of millions of euros to develop automated copyright filters. Those filters will subject all communications of every European to interception and arbitrary censorship if a black-box algorithm decides their text, pictures, sounds or videos are a match for a known copyrighted work. They are a gift to fraudsters and criminals, to say nothing of censors, both government and private.
These filters are unaffordable by all but the largest tech companies, all based in the USA, and the only way Europe’s homegrown tech sector can avoid the obligation to deploy them is to stay under ten million euros per year in revenue, and also shut down after three years.
America’s Big Tech companies would certainly prefer not to have to install these filters, but the possibility of being able to grow unchecked, without having to contend with European competitors, is a pretty good second prize (which is why some of the biggest US tech companies have secretly lobbied for filters).
Amazingly, the tiny, useless exceptions in Article 13 are too generous for the entertainment industry lobby, and so politicians have given them a gift to ease the pain: under the final text, every online community, service or platform is required to make “best efforts” to license anything their users might conceivably upload, meaning that they have to buy virtually anything any copyright holder offers to sell them, at any price, on pain of being liable for infringement if a user later uploads that work.
News that you’re not allowed to discuss
Article 11, which allows news sites to decide who can link to their stories and charge for permission to do so, has also been worsened. The final text clarifies that any link that contains more than “single words or very short extracts” from a news story must be licensed, with no exceptions for noncommercial users, nonprofit projects, or even personal websites with ads or other income sources, no matter how small.
Will Members of the European Parliament dare to vote for this?
Now that the Directive has emerged from the Trilogue, it will head to the European Parliament for a vote for the whole body, either during the March 25-28 session or the April 15-18 session—with elections scheduled in May.
These elections are critical: the Members of the European Parliament are going to be fighting an election right after voting on this Directive, which is already the most unpopular legislative effort in European history, and that’s before the public gets wind of these latest changes.
Let’s get real: no EU political party will be able to campaign for votes on the strength of passing the Copyright Directive—but plenty of parties will be able to drum up support to throw out the parties that defied the will of voters and risked the destruction of the Internet as we know it to pour a few million Euros into the coffers of media companies and newspaper proprietors—after those companies told them not to.
There’s never been a moment where your voice mattered more
Watch this space. We will be working with allies across the EU to make this upcoming Parliamentary vote into an issue that every Member of the European Parliament is well-informed on, and we’re going to make sure that every MEP knows that the voters of Europe are watching them and taking note of how they vote.
All that it takes is for you to speak up. Over four million Internet users have signed the petition against the Directive. If you can do that, you can pick up the phone and call your MEP. Tell them why you’re against the Directive, what it means for you, and what you expect your representatives to do in the forthcoming plenary vote. It really is the last chance to make your voice heard.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/final-version-eus-copyright-directive-worst-one-yet
EU countries back copyright reforms aimed at Google, Facebook
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union countries on Wednesday endorsed an overhaul of the bloc’s copyright rules which would force Google and Facebook Inc to pay publishers for news snippets and filter out copyright-protected content on YouTube or Instagram.
A majority of EU diplomats agreed to the revamp while Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland refused to back the deal and two other EU countries abstained.
Negotiators from the EU countries, the European Parliament and the European Commission sealed a deal last week, two years after the EU executive proposed changes to protect the bloc’s cultural heritage and ensure that publishers, broadcasters and artists are remunerated fairly.
Romania, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said in a tweet that the copyright agreement had been approved by the EU Council.
The dissenting countries said the proposed changes could hinder innovation and hurt the bloc’s competitiveness in the digital market.
“We regret that the Directive does not strike the right balance between the protection of right holders and the interests of EU citizens and companies,” they said in a joint statement.
The next step in the process is a vote by a committee of lawmakers next week followed by a parliamentary vote either next month or early April before the changes can become law.
The revamp would require Google and other online platforms to sign licensing agreements with rights holders such as musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists to use their work online.
Google’s YouTube and Facebook’s Instagram and other sharing platforms will have to install upload filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials.
Google, which has lobbied against both features and has even suggested that it might pull Google News from Europe, said last week it would study the text before deciding on its next steps.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-copyright/eu-countries-back-copyright-reforms-aimed-at-google-facebook-idUSKCN1Q91WO
europravda – EU-Hungary spat continues with new ad against EU’s Juncker
Viktor Orbán’s government published a fresh advert on EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker and billionaire George Soros.
The Dan Bongino Show
Ep. 920 Was There Another Dossier?
https://bongino.com/ep-920-was-there-another-dossier/
The family secret Bruce Ohr told Rod Rosenstein about Russia case
Who would have thought that, this deep into the Russia collusion probe, we’d be learning about yet another dossier connected to Hillary Clinton? And, as it turns out, it was sort of a family secret.
By his own account, senior Department of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr played an essential — and unorthodox — role, carrying politically tainted allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion to the FBI during the 2016 election.
First, it was unverified intelligence starting in July 2016 from Trump-hating former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous Russia dossier.
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/430717-the-family-secret-bruce-ohr-told-rod-rosenstein-about-russia-case
#RedforEd: Socialists Organizing Teachers to Turn Purple States Blue by 2020
http://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/19/redfored-socialists-organizing-teachers-to-turn-purple-states-blue-2020/
A well-funded and subversive leftist movement of teachers in the United States threatens to tilt the political balance nationwide in the direction of Democrats across the country as Republicans barely hang on in key states that they need to hold for President Donald Trump to win re-election and for Republicans to have a shot at retaking the House and holding onto their Senate majority.
This teachers union effort, called #RedforEd, has its roots in the very same socialism that President Trump vowed in his 2019 State of the Union address to stop, and it began in its current form in early 2018 in a far-flung corner of the country before spreading nationally. Its stated goals–higher teacher pay and better education conditions–are overshadowed by a more malevolent political agenda: a leftist Democrat uprising designed to flip purple or red states to blue, using the might of a significant part of the education system as its lever.
The movement takes its name from a political organizing tool first seen in Florida in 2010, when teachers union members wore red to express political opposition to public school reform proposals under consideration at that time in the state and encouraged parents and political activists from other unions to join them.
Dealing With Europe’s ISIS Returnees
Will our allies heed Trump?
February 20, 2019
Bruce Bawer
Seven hundred German citizens have gone to Syria to fight for the Islamic State. It’s not what they’re doing over there that scares us. It’s what happens when they come back.”
– Astrid, German intelligence officer, Homeland, season 5, episode 2.
Now that ISIS has been reduced from a caliphate to a cipher, the question arises: what to do with its former members who traveled from the West in order to crush the West – and who remain in the hands of the U.S. military and its local allies? Ship them all to Guantánamo so that the European media can paint them as victims of American abuse? Set them free to fight another day?
Early on Sunday morning, President Trump addressed this issue on Twitter. He wrote:
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272907/dealing-europes-isis-returnees-bruce-bawer
Ed Husain on the British Museum and “The True Face of Islam”
While the real and brutal truths about Islam are buried in fantasies.
February 20, 2019
Hugh Fitzgerald Ed Husain, a self-described former Muslim extremist who once headed the Quilliam Foundation, which is ostensibly dedicated to turning Muslims away from Jihadist activities, is ecstatic about the exhibit of artifacts of Islamic civilization at the British Museum that opened last November.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272850/ed-husain-british-museum-and-true-face-islam-hugh-fitzgerald
If there’s one thing I deeply admire about Hugh Fitzgerald, it’s how instructive his writing style can be. Here I was, taking him at his word and capitalizing the word Infidel strictly out of very sensible reciprocity for Muslim being a proper noun.
Now I see how (in the full article) he capitalizes Unbeliever as well, and that’s good enough to change the text protocol of this electron-stained Unbeliever.
Since Fitzgerald’s content is largely expository, he’s not give the same opportunities for creatively pruning away verbiage to the same extent as that Old Master, W. Somerset Maugham. Not that many writers, living or dead, can match Maugham and his crystalline prose.
FBI lawyer: Bureau used confidential sources who ‘already had’ Trump campaign contacts
A top FBI official acknowledged in congressional testimony last year that the bureau’s investigation of the Trump campaign relied in part on confidential sources who had established contacts with Trump campaign advisers.
Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel, told congressional investigators in an Aug. 31, 2018 deposition that the FBI relied on sources who “already had campaign contacts” to gather the information from Trump’s team.
“To my knowledge, the FBI did not place anybody within a campaign but, rather, relied upon its network of sources, some of whom already had campaign contacts, including the source that has been discussed in the media at some length beyond Christopher Steele,” Anderson said, according to The Epoch Times, which published portions of Anderson’s testimony on Tuesday.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/02/20/fbi-lawyer-bureau-used-confidential-sources-who-already-had-trump-campaign-contacts/
U.S. admiral blasts Russia for recent Sea of Azov incident; links to U.S. destroyer headed for Black Sea
Joel Gehrke, Wash. Examiner
Ed. – There may have been a previous statement on this, but Admiral Foggo’s is the first affirmation I’ve heard that Russia detained the Ukrainians in international waters. If so, that is legitimately outrageous.]
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/02/19/u-s-admiral-blasts-russia-for-recent-sea-of-azov-incident-links-to-u-s-destroyer-headed-for-black-sea/
‘Irritated’ US admiral sends destroyer to Black Sea after Russia fires on Ukrainian vessels
MUNICH — An American destroyer is sailing to the Black Sea to conduct naval exercises with Ukraine to demonstrate “solidarity” in response to a clash with Russia that has a top U.S. admiral furious.
“The whole episode in the Sea of Azov was extremely bothersome to me,” Admiral James Foggo, commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe and Africa, told reporters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference over the weekend.
Russian forces fired on three Ukrainian naval vessels that attempted to pass through the Kerch Strait, the narrow waterway that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, and arrested the sailors in late November. The maritime incident was the first public act of violence by Russian forces against Ukraine since 2014, when unmarked Russian fighters helped annex Crimea and invade eastern Ukraine. Since the takeover, Moscow has used control of the land on both sides of the waterway to restrict access to key Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/irritated-us-admiral-sends-destroyer-to-black-sea-after-russia-fires-on-ukrainian-vessels
India Preparing Dossier to Expose Pakistan’s Role in Terror Attack – Sources (sputniknews, Feb 20, 2019)
https://sputniknews.com/asia/201902201072597795-india-pakistan-terror/
“Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria and India’s Ambassador to the US Harsh Vardhan Shringla met Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi following the deadly terrorist attack.
New Delhi (Sputnik) — India is preparing a dossier to expose Pakistan’s role in the recent suicide car bombing in Pulwama, in which more than 40 Indian security personnel were killed, Home Ministry sources told Sputnik.
The dossier, containing proof and evidence of Pakistan’s role in propping up terrorist groups in India, will be circulated among different embassies and high commissions hosted by New Delhi, the source added.
As part of their efforts to isolate Pakistan in the world stage, Indian authorities have been engaged in hectic diplomatic parleys over the last few days. On Wednesday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh briefed Indian Ambassador to the US Harsh Vardhan Shringla in Delhi about the emerging scenario.
“The US being our strategic ally and considering the strong counter-terrorism cooperation, the government will share the intelligence inputs and other details to the US government related to Pulwama terror attack to show that how Pakistan based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed carried out the attack,” a Home Ministry source told Sputnik.
The home minister also met with Indian envoy to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria and discussed India-Pakistan ties following the terror attack. Bisaria was withdrawn from Islamabad after the deadly suicide car bombing in Pulwama.
Last weekend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India will make all diplomatic efforts to ensure that Pakistan is isolated internationally due to its support and sheltering of terror organisations.
Jammu and Kashmir is a region that has been disputed by India and Pakistan since 1947, when both countries gained independence from the British Empire…”
India Preparing Dossier to Expose Pakistan’s Role in Terror Attack – Sources
An immediate indicator that this neatly bagged wad of flaming Islamic terrorist filth is gently being laid at the Gucci-shod
cloven hoovesfeet of MbS sometime right about now.Europe: Trying to Legitimize Iran’s Regime
by Giulio Meotti
February 20, 2019 at 5:30 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13762/europe-iran-legitimacy
“In looking to the future, Ayatollah Khomeini has spoken of his hopes to show the world what a genuine Islamic government can do on behalf of its people”, wrote Princeton University professor Richard Falk at the dawn of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979. He was one of the many Western intellectuals who, in a mix of misconception and naiveté, supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime. These deaf Western secularists succumbed to the charm of the Iranian clerics who have just celebrated the 40th anniversary of their regime. It is useful to remind the public that Khomeini orchestrated his Islamic revolution from Neauphle-le-Château, a village 20 miles outside Paris.
“It is perhaps the first great insurrection against global systems”, the French philosopher Michel Foucault remarked at the time about the Iranian revolutionaries who brought down Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Many American officials and academics also fell into this Iranian Revolution trap. Andrew Young, the US ambassador to the United Nations under the Carter Administration, said that Khomeini was a “saint” and compared his revolution in the name of Islam to the US civil rights movement. The American ambassador to Tehran, William Sullivan, compared the new Iranian ruler to Gandhi, while President Carter’s advisor, James Bill, wrote admirably that Khomeini was a man of “impeccable integrity and honesty”. The result, as US President Donald Trump tweeted recently, has been “40 years of corruption. 40 years of repression. 40 years of terror. The regime in Iran has produced only #40YearsofFailure”.
Turkey’s ‘Food Terrorism’: Blaming ‘Global Powers’ for Country’s Ills
by Uzay Bulut
February 20, 2019 at 4:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13758/turkey-west-blame
At a rally on February 13, ahead of Turkey’s municipal elections — slated for March 31 — President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an blamed “global powers” (meaning the West) for the country’s serious economic problems and massive rise in the price of produce.
Alluding to “food terrorism,” Erdo?an said:
Erdo?an’s tirade was part of a propaganda tactic to keep the public from attributing its domestic plight, and the country’s problems in the international arena, to poor government policies. Judging by surveys conducted during the past few years, which reveal that xenophobia in general and anti-Americanism in particular are widespread in Turkey, that tactic seems to be working wonders.
Syracuse U: U.S. Constitution is ‘exclusionary’ to some students
Syracuse University denied an application for Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) to become a Registered Student Organization (RSO), stating, as one of its reasons for doing so, that requiring students to believe in the U.S. Constitution is “exclusionary to international students.”
The Syracuse Office of Student Activities denied YAF’s application, in part because members must support the “Sharon Statement,” which is a statement of support for the U.S. Constitution. Syracuse took issue with the Sharon Statement, alleging that adhering to it violates the college’s policy of non-discrimination.
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11888