Contributor’s links post for March 22, 2019

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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.

About Eeyore

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

149 Replies to “Contributor’s links post for March 22, 2019”

  1. Christchurch memorial service today:

    ‘… Attendees met at Christchurch’s central Hagley Park in New Zealand and observed a nationwide silence, called for by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, after the call to prayer was broadcast on national television and radio stations.

    Ardern, who was present at the ceremony held less than 500 metres away from the Al Noor mosque, where 42 people were shot down on Friday, quoted the Prophet Muhammad during a brief address to the crowd.

    “When any part of the body suffers, the whole body feels pain,” said Ardern, wearing a black headscarf. “New Zealand mourns with you, we are one.”
    …. Thousands of non-Muslims attended the ceremony, forming a sea of silence behind the prayer areas while Muslims worshipped, close to a police cordon restricting access to the mosque.

    Among them, many women of all backgrounds opted to wear headscarves in a show of solidarity with the Muslim community, which numbers no more than a few thousand locally and about 50,000 nationally.

    Christchurch resident Jeanine Benson said she had chosen to wear the garment as a “show of respect” to the city’s Muslims, adding it was important to “come together as one in New Zealand”.’

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/christchurch-holds-public-call-prayer-site-mosque-attack-190322000548154.html

    • “We will explore how the 1960’s space race changed not only humanity and pop culture, but also drag and queer culture.”

      A tale which ended in tearful tantrums after they tried fitting wedding gowns, heels, and tiaras into space suits. What really queered the deal (as it were) was their demand that NASA cater to all of their spatial needs.

      Still, there were fewer regrets overall after they found out that restaurants on the moon have no atmosphere.

  3. “Christchurch Live: Friday prayers and Sermon broadcast at Al Noor Mosque | 22 March 2019”
    GNN – Published on March 21, 2019
    English – 22:44

    • Behold the power of propaganda.

      They brought the muslims here, now they are racked by guilt and trapped in a whirlpool of ever increasing virtue signalling for the mess they made.

      #dhimmi

      • Le bingo! Someone please jolt me awake when Muslims leave slathers of Teddy bears, bouquets, and candles after the next (all too predictable) arena bombing, vehicle ramming, girl-kebabing, child gang-raping, defenestration or pushing-under-the-train sort of mass stabbiness.

        Whatever somnolent appearance upon my part is because Muslims feed me so much $h!t that it takes really strong coffee before you’ll get any movement out of me.

        • https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/not-us-tamaki-slams-muslim-call-prayer

          ‘Destiny Church’s Brian Tamaki has slammed the Muslim call to prayer which will take place at 1.30pm today.

          Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the prayer would take place to recognise the lives lost in the Christchurch terrorist attacks last Friday.

          Ardern said the prayer would be followed by two minutes of silence at 1.32pm.

          “Two minutes of silence is okay but the Islamic prayer will sound? it contains this line ‘there is no God but Allah’, well I disagree,” Tamaki wrote on Twitter….

          …. Meanwhile, Tamaki said the announcement of the Muslim call to prayer was an abuse of her Prime Ministerial power.

          “This is Offensive to all True Christians in Aotearoa … Our National Identity is at stake,” he posted on Twitter.

          “PM Jacinda Ardern has abused her Prime Ministerial decree in allowing ‘Allah as the only true God to be sounded in Muslim prayer across the airwaves in our nation tomorrow.”

          The responses to Tamaki’s comments have been swift and expectedly brutal.

          “Don’t pray it then,” one person tweeted.

          “The space is for others to pray it unashamed, unafraid – as they should always have had the absolute freedom to. Allow them this comfort amid the nightmare.

          “Keep your mouth shut, and attempt to open your heart to humanity in the way that God asks you to.”….

          Tamaki also created shockwaves in 2016 after he blamed the cause of the Kaikoura earthquakes on homosexuals.’

          (How hypocritical that left-liberal opinion castigated that guy for homophobia but cosies up to a homophobic creed!)

    • ENOUGH ALREADY !!!

      This is the “mild” version of what I wish will befall those who are milking this cow to death:

      • Rita I hate to tell you this but they aren’t milking the cow to death, the bag looks fairly full and if the milk isn’t removed it will become painful. The commercial dairy farms will use mechanical milking machines but if you are milking one cow for your own use the old fashion way is still used.

        Cows that kick are a danger but so are those who hit you in the face with their tail, the tip of which may be loaded with feces.

    • They’re mixing apples with oranges.
      The mosques are of the infinite minority Ahmadiyya strain of Islam aka reformers and peaceful. The Ahmadiyyas failed to mention this, as usual. They also forgot to say they are seen and persecuted by Sunni/Shia Islam as Apostates and Heretics.

  6. “Mosque in Christchurch shootings tied to radical Islamic terrorists” One America News Network
    Published on Mar 20, 2019

  8. Nearly 30 people killed, wounded in back to back explosions in KabulZarif: Islamic States ‘Shocked’ by US Call for Israeli Sovereignty Over Golans  (sputniknews, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201903221073452382-organization-of-islamic-cooperation-zarif/

    “The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states condemn the recent statement by US President Donald Trump on the necessity to fully recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Friday.

    “All shocked by Donald Trump continuing to try to give what is not his to racist Israel: first Al-Quds [and] now Golan,” the minister tweeted while in Turkey at the OIC meeting…”

  9. Dutch Voters Make ‘Forum for Democracy’ Party Number One in the Netherlands (sputniknews, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://sputniknews.com/europe/201903221073452144-netherlands-forum-for-democracy-party/

    “Euroscepticism, conservative values and opposition to current immigration policies have put Holland’s Forum for Democracy, a newcomer in Dutch politics, at the top of the country’s political Mount Olympus during this week’s provincial elections.

    It’s almost midnight on Wednesday, 20 March, and the crowd inside a small hotel in central Holland’s Zeist is glued to the TV screens. Every once in a while, the room explodes with applause as exit poll results from provincial council elections come in.

    Forum for Democracy (FvD) grew in just a little over two years, from a think tank founded by two lawyers — Thierry Baudet and Theo Hiddema, into a political force, which may play an important role in the country’s politics in the coming years.

    The crowd goes wild, as the party leader — 36-year-old Thierry Baudet, takes the stage to deliver his speech. In his address, Baudet slammed Holland’s mainstream media, universities, and the “cartel of ruling elites” for indoctrination attempts and undermining the Dutch people:

    “Economic simpleton” Mark Rutte raised taxes at the deepest point of the crisis, which resulted in the stagnation of purchasing power, pensions cannot be indexed, and now a total 2.5 million people in our society are below the poverty line — unemployed, or quasi-unemployed. After that, the next Rutte cabinet opened the borders, breaking one immigration record after another”.

    On the domestic front, opposing the massive wave of immigration became one of the key policies for FvD — a clear sign that voters have grown increasingly critical of how the government and law enforcement agencies handle immigrant assimilation as well as radicalism among the newcomers.

    Annabel Nanninga was the leading candidate for the FvD one year ago in her home city of Amsterdam, where she eventually won a municipal council seat. She says that even despite being a minority, the three FvD representatives in the council managed to reshape the local political landscape.

    “Amsterdam is an extremely ‘leftist city’. Even parties that are right-wing, their factions in Amsterdam are left-wing. And the first thing we managed to do is to bring opposition, to bring choice into Amsterdam politics. And you could also see that the Liberal Party was extremely “left” in Amsterdam — they used to welcome asylum seekers, et cetera, and they’ve already made a big pull to the right, only because of our presence.”

    When it comes to foreign policy, according to Dorien Rookmaker — a candidate who ran for public office under the party’s flag for the first time, countering the growing power of the EU is another pillar of FvD platform.

    Since FvD’s inception, Thierry Baudet was a proponent of improving relations with Russia, which landed him in hot water domestically. Mainstream politicians immediately labelled him a Kremlin sympathiser — a harsh accusation in today’s Holland.

    However, it was also Baudet, who called for the increase of defence spending to 2% of the country’s GDP; some perceived it as a hat tip before Trump with his “NATO members should pay an equal share” rhetoric, and, in such a case, being the exact the opposite of what would make “the Big Russian bear” happy. Nevertheless, Baudet denied that his “2 percent initiative” was NATO-related.

    The official results of the Dutch provincial councils’ elections have yet to be published. The manual vote count will be finished on March 25th. But it’s already clear that the growing popularity of Thierry Baudet’s party may lead to this new “right full rudder” trend playing an increasing role in Dutch politics.

    Neither the ruling VVD party nor the right-wing PVV responded to Sputnik’s requests for comments regarding the outcome of provincial elections at the time of publication.”

  10. Turkish Foreign Minister Says Maduro Vowed to CONVERT to ISLAM ‘Someday’ (sputniknews, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://sputniknews.com/world/201903221073447909-venezuela-president-maduro-islam/

    “The promise was made after the Venezuelan President saw “The Resurrection: Ertugrul”, a television series detaqiling the life of Ertugrul, the father of Osman I, who founded the Ottoman Empire.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday that during his meeting with Nicolas Maduro last year, the Venezuelan President told him that he may convert to Islam.

    Speaking at Alaaddin Keykubat University in Alanya, Cavusoglu recalled that after his talks with Maduro in Caracas in September 2018, he showed him a video of the Turkish Foreign Minister’s meeting with actors from “the Resurrection: Ertugrul”, a television series which focuses on the history of the Ottoman Empire.

    Cavusoglu specifically mentioned Maduro’s positive reaction to the movie, citing the Venezuelan President as saying that “these TV series tell the story of real Islam” and that thanks to the show, he will embrace Islam “someday”.

    “We are happy and proud to hear such words”, Cavusoglu underscored.

    His remarks come amid the ongoing political standoff in Venezuela, which escalated after the country’s opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president on 23 January…”

  11. Indian Army Reportedly Foils Pakistan’s Attempt to Send Drone to Border Area (sputniknews, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://sputniknews.com/asia/201903221073444843-indian-army-drone/

    “Earlier, Pakistan’s military claimed that an Indian spy drone had been shot down along the Line of Control which separates the Indian and Pakistani sections of the disputed Kashmir regions.

    The incident took place at around 6:30 a.m. local time on Friday. Indian troops successfully repelled the drone, which returned to Pakistani airspace, an official told Sputnik…”

  12. Armed Islamists, Security Forces Killed Over 150 People in Burkina Faso – Report (sputniknews, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://sputniknews.com/africa/201903221073453455-islamists-security-forces-killed/

    “More than 150 people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in Burkina Faso amid atrocities by Islamist armed groups and counter-terror operations by security forces, the HRW watchdog said in a report on Friday.

    The 56-page report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) documents over 40 killings by Islamists, mostly of people they suspect to be collaborating with the government, as well as executions of over 115 men accused by security forces of supporting terrorists.

    “Scores of people have been murdered in what amounts to a dramatic deterioration in the rights situation in northern Burkina Faso. Villagers are living in fear as both armed Islamists and government forces have demonstrated utter disregard for human life,” HRW Sahel director Corinne Dufka, who wrote the report, was quoted as saying in a statement.

    HRW said it had interviewed 92 victims and witnesses to the abuses, community leaders and officials, among others. The reported abuses took place in 32 villages in the troubled Sahel region between mid-2018 and February 2019.

    The nation’s government has received a copy of the report and promised to investigate the allegations, the human rights advocacy group said.

    The report comes after a string of attacks by Islamist groups linked to al-Qaeda and Daesh* terror groups on army bases, police and civilians have rocked the West African country since 2016, mostly in the northern Sahel region, prompting a violent response from the government.

    *Daesh (also known as Islamic State, IS, ISIS, ISIL) and al-Qaeda — terrorist groups, banned in numerous countries, including Russia”

  15. EU Orders Member States to End ‘Racist’ Migrant Underachievement in Jobs Market (breitbart, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/03/22/eu-orders-member-states-end-racist-migrant-underachievement-jobs-market/

    “EU nations have been told to bring in measures promoting ethnic minorities in the workplace, to ensure the bloc has “the diversity Europe needs to remain relevant” in a global economy.

    Institutions including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), and the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), stressed the importance of engineering equality of outcome between migrant populations and natives in the continent’s jobs market.

    “Today’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination points to a clear need to tackle pervasive racial discrimination in all areas of life. As it is also the International Decade for People of African Descent, we should stamp out the widespread and entrenched prejudice and exclusion that too many black people continue to face simply because of their skin colour,” the bodies said in a joint statement.

    “Too many people with an ethnic or migrant background are still being held back in the job market. This is despite laws against racial discrimination and for equal opportunities in employment that have been in place for decades,” the bodies added.

    In addition to enforcing existing anti-discrimination law both international and national with “tougher sanction”, European governments should establish “positive measures” such as workplace “diversity audits”, according to the press release.

    Transforming professions with pro-minority “amendments to working practices”, and holding public sector recruitment drives for people with foreign backgrounds are amongst actions that EU countries were urged to take in order to “promote the diversity Europe needs to remain relevant in today’s global economy”.

    “We have the laws but too often they fail to deliver. We need to step up our policies and practices to reduce the barriers ethnic minorities face when trying to enjoy their basic right to employment,” said FRA director, Michael O’Flaherty.

    Asserting that “racism in any form is toxic to the creation of a fair, equal and rights respectful society,” he pointed to the results of a recent FRA survey on the experiences of immigrants and people of foreign background in Europe.

    Just under a third of respondents said they had been discriminated against when applying for work, half of whom believed this was a result of their skin colour or appearance, according to the report by the FRA, which argues that inequality of outcome between migrant populations and natives in Europe is the result of discrimination.

    ECRI chair Jean-Paul Lehners added that, through its work with countries in Europe, the self-styled anti-racism body “aim[s] to motivate all stakeholders to open up even more to diversity and build an inclusive working culture”.

    Governments must also work “to prevent new discrimination risks that could arise from the use of new technologies”, he said in the statement, which warned policymakers should be alert to “built-in biases” of software which use data to automatically calculate risk assessments, for example.”

  16. New Zealanders wear headscarves in display of solidarity after mosque attacks (abcnews, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/zealanders-wear-headscarves-display-solidarity-mosque-attacks/story?id=61862923

    “New Zealanders of all religions donned headscarves on Friday in a symbol of unity as a mass funeral was held for dozens of victims of last week’s mosque attacks.

    Worshipers were gunned down inside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch and then at a nearby mosque in the suburb of Linwood on March 15. At least 50 people died, and dozens more were injured.

    The alleged gunman, identified as Brenton Tarrant, has been charged with one count of murder, but more murder charges are expected to be filed against the 28-year-old Australian.

    The massacres sparked at least two movements to show support for New Zealand’s Muslim community on Friday.

    One of them, “Headscarf for Harmony,” was organized by medical doctor Thaya Ashman of Auckland, who has spent time working in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She came up with the idea after seeing a Muslim woman on the news say she was now too afraid to go outside because she wears a hijab, one of the traditional coverings worn by Muslim women all over the world.

    Ashman said there are no rules around the color or type of headscarf, nor how to wear it. Men also were encouraged to take part in the event, which runs all day, and to drape their scarves over their shoulders or wrap it around their wrist.

    “This is a headscarf which both women and men throughout the world, have been wearing since time immemorial,” Ashman told ABC News. “It’s a simple invitation to the whole of New Zealand to show our support, but also to recognize our grief as New Zealanders.”

    “We have to change the rhetoric in our countries,” she added, “to move towards each other, with gentle gestures and heartfelt kindness, to create the space to hear each other’s stories, to discover our similarities, build relationship, make our streets safe for each other and deliberately and determinedly choose to live in harmony.”

    Another similar movement taking place Friday, “Scarves in Solidarity,” also signaled to Muslims that they are not alone.

    “I just thought, why don’t we all wear a scarf on Friday, a week on from this tragedy, and walk alongside our Muslim sisters as a mark of respect,” organizer Anna Thomas told ABC News. “Women, especially those who wear the hijab, are fairly regularly fearful when they go out in the streets, and what a better way to show support and walk alongside them than to wear one.”

    New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was praised for wearing a black headscarf in public appearances in the wake of the deadliest terror attack in the country’s history. On Thursday, Ardern announced a ban on all military-style semi-automatic weapons, such as the ones used in the March 15 shootings.

    The Islamic call to prayer was broadcast across New Zealand’s television and radio airwaves early Friday afternoon, followed by two minutes of silence, as thousands of people gathered for vigils ahead of a mass funeral for 26 of the victims at a Muslim cemetery in Christchurch.

    “New Zealand mourns with you,” Ardern said to a crowd gathered near the Al Noor mosque. “We are one.””

    • NZ says mosque gunman faces life prison in isolation (abcnews, Mar 22, 2019)
      https://abcn.ws/2HzJTaB

      “New Zealand’s deputy prime minister said the gunman accused of killing 50 people in two mosques in the South Pacific nation would spend the rest of his life in isolation in prison and called for solidarity to eradicate “hate-filled ideologies.””

    • Did the mozlem not give us Stockholm syndrome in the first place?while they were busy murdering people in that city?these cretins must be deriving some kind of sexual thrill from this masochistic display,it is significant that most of the participants are women,is not dominance, degradation, rape one of womens most cherished sexual fantasies,thier “love”novels are packed with it.

    • I posted this one before I watched it, it sounds like a conspericy theory but given what is happening daily in DC who can say.

    • I have finished the video and to a large extent it is just filling in the blank spaces in things that have been reported before, including the move to get Marxist prosecutors elected in all locations.

      I had forgotten about this move, it might explain some of the actions of a local prosecutor who is under investigation for unlawful imprisonment.

  18. The Latest: Mahathir: Muslims need new ways to reduce hatred (abcnews, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latest-australia-ups-scrutiny-white-supremacists-61855816

    “Malaysia’s prime minister says Muslim countries need to look for new ways to reduce the atmosphere of hatred and anger toward Muslims that prompted the deadly attack on mosques in New Zealand.

    Mahathir Mohamad, a prominent Muslim statesman, says he discussed ways to improve the perception of Muslims around the world in talks Friday in Pakistan with Prime Minister Imran Khan.

    He says Muslims need to learn how to respond to the hatred directed at them, and warned that taking revenge and killing invites the same reaction. He didn’t specify any alternatives, but his comments suggested more tolerance, patience and dialogue.

    Mahathir arrived in Pakistan on Thursday for a three-day visit.”

  19. Pakistan police say gunmen targeted cleric, killed 2 guards (abcnews, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/pakistan-police-gunmen-targeted-cleric-killed-guards-61862806

    “Police in Pakistan say gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a convoy carrying a prominent religious scholar and his associates in the southern port city of Karachi, killing the cleric’s two guards and seriously wounding his driver.

    Karachi police chief Ameer Shaikh says Maulana Taqi Usmani and his associates came under attack on Friday in an eastern neighborhood of the city.

    He says Usmani and his two grandsons who were in the convoy were unhurt, but his private guard and an official police escort were killed.

    The police chief says there were four attackers and that they fired over a dozen shots before fleeing the scene on two motorbikes.

    Usmani runs a religious seminary and is known for preaching tolerance. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.”

  20. “That’s why I’m suing Twitter for $500 MILLION!” Devin Nunes with Sebastian Gorka on AMERICA First

  21. Sam Harris response to accusations that he is responsible for Christchurch shooting.

  22. Traditional Liberals Forced Further Left into the Socialist Madness by Young Marxist Militants

  23. Ilhan Omar: The Democrats Far-Left Fresh New Creation Evil Genius or Just Another Babbling Racist

  27. President Trump says the Federal Reserve hurt U.S. economy’s growth in 2018

    OAN Newsroom
    UPDATED 7:13 AM PT — Friday, March 22, 2019

    President Trump is calling out the Federal Reserve for slowing the economy’s growth. During an interview on Thursday, the president explained how the economy would have grown over four-percent last year if the Fed hadn’t raised interest rates.

    He added, the U.S. is not experiencing the same slowdown as the rest of the world, so the economy should have had greater growth than 3.1-percent.

    The Federal Reserve has now signaled it will not raise rates this year despite an earlier prediction of at least two increases for 2019.

    https://www.oann.com/president-trump-says-the-federal-reserve-hurt-u-s-economys-growth-in-2018/

  28. GOP looking to weaponize Democrat push to expand Supreme Court

    OAN Newsroom
    UPDATED 7:46 AM PT — Friday, March 22, 2019

    Republicans are pointing to Democrats’ effort to expand the number of Supreme Court justices as yet another sign the party is moving further left.

    Conservative analysts have called the move “desperate” as several lawmakers prepare to use a constitutional amendment to block the proposal.

    Tennessee Congressman Mark Green floated a bill Thursday, which would lock the current number of justices at nine.

    https://www.oann.com/gop-looking-to-weaponize-democrat-push-to-expand-supreme-court/

  30. Blast at Chinese chemical plant kills 47; Xi orders probe

    YANCHENG, China (Reuters) – An explosion at a pesticide plant in eastern China has killed 47 people and injured more than 600, state media said on Friday, the latest casualties in a series of industrial accidents that has angered the public.

    The blast occurred on Thursday at the Chenjiagang Industrial Park in the city of Yancheng, in Jiangsu province, and the fire was finally brought under control at 3.00 a.m. on Friday (1900 GMT), state television said.

    https://www.oann.com/death-toll-from-china-pesticide-plant-explosion-hits-12/

  31. Montreal priest stabbed during mass, hospitalized – police

    A priest was stabbed during a morning mass at Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, the city police reported. He was taken to the hospital, while the suspected attacker has been arrested.

    The suspect ran at Father Claude Grou from the back of the rectory and injured him with a sharp weapon, Céline Barbeau, director of communications for the oratory, told the media.

    The incident happened during mass and was captured on a livestream, Barbeau said. The police said Father Claude received “light” injuries of his upper body.

    Police were called to the scene at about 8:40am local time. By the time they arrived, the attacker had already been restrained by the oratory security staff, Caroline Chèvrefils, the spokesperson for the Montreal force, said.

    The incident happened a week after the massacre at two mosques in New Zealand, which left 50 people dead and an equal number injured. The killings in Christchurch by a self-described white supremacist were described as a terrorist attack by the government.

    https://www.rt.com/news/454491-montreal-priest-stabbed-during-mass/

    A priest has been stabbed during mass at St. Joseph’s Oratory

    Several people rushed to the altar, blocking the attacker from getting too close to the rector.

    The rector at St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal was stabbed as he said mass in the church on Friday morning.

    The 8:30 a.m. mass was being broadcast on a Catholic television network. Footage from the mass showed a man dressed in dark clothing and wearing a white baseball cap walking toward the altar, where Father Claude Grou was saying mass. The man knocked over a candle as he rushed toward Grou. Grou moved away, falling as the man attacked him, knocking over a banner at the right of the altar.

    Several other people rushed to the altar, blocking the man from getting close to Grou. Grou stood up and was helped by people in the church.

    The suspect was quickly subdued by security officers at the Oratory and is in police custody, where he will be questioned further.

    Police said Grou’s injuries are not life threatening. The Catholic Diocese of Montreal said on Twitter that his condition is stable.

    https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/a-priest-has-been-stabbed-during-mass-at-st-josephs-oratory

  32. Venezuela, China in focus for Trump meeting with Caribbean leaders

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is set to meet with five Caribbean leaders on Friday who have sided with the United States and most Western countries in backing Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as head of state.

    Trump will meet with leaders from the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Saint Lucia at his private club in Palm Beach, Florida.

    https://www.oann.com/venezuela-china-in-focus-for-trump-meeting-with-caribbean-leaders/

  33. On Purim, the spiking of Iran’s land bridge across Mesopotamia
    By J.E. Dyer March 21, 2019

    It’s probably coincidental that two major developments converged on the holiday of Purim – the commemoration of Jews’ salvation from genocide in the book of Esther – to thwart Iran’s consolidation of a land bridge across Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean, and Israel.

    President Trump probably didn’t have Purim in mind, at any rate, in pursuing the policies that produced the two developments.

    But converge they have. And although Trump may not have been thinking of Purim with the timing of his announcement on Thursday, 21 March, about recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, he was assuredly thinking of the other, related development.

    Trending: Obama-appointed judge: Illegal who used fake document to get driver’s license didn’t break law

    The other development is the (nearly complete) annihilation of ISIS on its previously-held territory in Syria.

    The two pockets of ISIS resistance that remain hold no defensible terrain (reportedly a pair of tactical positions in Baghouz), but the SDF with the lead role on the ground wasn’t quite prepared to declare victory as of midday Thursday. That said, ISIS’s hold on territory in Syria is broken, for every meaningful purpose.

    These two U.S. policy events are closely connected. Geographically, they are at opposite ends of southern Syria. In strategic terms, they mark the key waypoints for Iran in using her long-sought land bridge to build up a “correlation of forces” against Israel.

    I’ve been writing about this for a number of years, and laid it out most recently in an extensive post in 2017. I am reproducing two maps from that post for illustration, but please visit it for additional views and commentary.
    Syria situation overview, August 2017. (Map: syria.liveuamap.com. Author annotation)

    The main point I made in 2017 was that the U.S, if we wanted to stabilize the region, needed to “block the center” of Iran’s land approach to Syria and the Mediterranean. It wouldn’t be good enough to hold territory through allies (i.e., the Kurds) to the north of the center, in Raqqa. Even if our allies – Syrian coalition forces – also held territory south of the center, on the border with Jordan, leaving the Euphrates Corridor that defines the center of the land bridge to Iranian dominance would be unsustainable over time.
    The Iranian push into Iraq orchestrated by Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani, 2014-2016. (Google map; author annotation)

    What we did not want to do, I argued, was let Iranian-led forces be the ones to roll up ISIS between the Iraqi border and Deir-ez-Zor.

    In 2017, outside of a brief surge of interest when the battle for Deir-ez-Zor heated up (in August-September), the battle for eastern Syria pretty much dropped off the radar of the Western media. It was obvious when that tactical confrontation intensified that Iran indeed meant to gain control of the Euphrates Corridor in that crucial segment.

    The U.S. did three important things in 2017-2018 that shifted the correlation of forces, including the combat momentum, in our coalition’s favor. One, we made it clear with less than a handful of tactical demonstrations that we would not allow Russia to interfere with our coalition’s operations south of Deir-ez-Zor. Russia did not, it turned out, want to push the point in that area badly enough to get into a faceoff.

    Two, we quietly continued to hold the territorial base used by our coalition between the Euphrates and the southern Syrian border, and operate from it to attack ISIS along the Euphrates.

    And three, we increased the profile and operating posture of our coalition forces at the Al Asad Air Base outpost in Anbar Province in Iraq.

    The last point is as vital as the others, because our presence and intent to operate between Al Asad and the Syrian border meant that Iran’s Shia militia proxies, which had been surged to the border for the fight around Deir-ez-Zor, did not have a decisive military advantage in western Iraq. They didn’t own Anbar Province outright. With an operationally significant coalition presence in the area, we held an implicit veto over whatever Iran might want to try.

    Between August 2017 and March 2018, ISIS was rolled up from Deir-ez-Zor to the Iraqi border: the crossing between Al-Bukamal and Al-Qaim. That last small area is the one ISIS was flushed out of this week. And it was flushed out not by Iran-backed proxy militias but by the U.S.-backed coalition.
    President Trump’s map of the last ISIS outpost, Mar 2019. Author annotation

    It appears that Trump sent his tweet about recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights very shortly after it became clear that ISIS’s last holdouts were cooked.

    It has been clear for some time now that Iran has been eyeing the Golan as a gateway to military leverage over Israel. A year ago, Iran was using a group of newly improved bases south of Damascus to support artillery and drone operations that kept “straying” across the UN monitoring zone to menace northern Israel. These events included the intrusion of a “flying bomb” drone into Israeli air space just south of the Sea of Galilee.

    During much of 2018, Israel launched air strikes into Syria to attack the Iranian bases south of Damascus, and the bases in remote eastern Syria where Iran was bringing in and garrisoning the weapon systems deployed to operate from the front-line bases. Israeli sovereignty in the Golan allows Israel to dominate those bases south of Damascus. Iran can’t have a free hand there to prepare or execute surges of any kind, whether with drones, artillery, or special forces.

    It’s worth noting that in going after the imported Iranian arms at depot level – i.e., at the Tiyas T-4 air base – Israel was also able to affect the fight in eastern Syria. When new shipments were destroyed, Iran had less to use in the fight south of Deir-ez-Zor. Bashar al-Assad’s forces had less Iranian support to count on.

    But the U.S.-backed coalition had the lead in much of that fight, and was waging it off the front pages. We may always have to wonder if Trump made sure the final push in eastern Syria remained off the front pages by tweeting in December 2018 that he intended an abrupt, complete pullout from Syria. The tweet certainly diverted the public debate on Syrian topics away from the local battlefield, and toward Trump’s intemperate, irresponsible jumpiness.

    Since December 2018, the public declarations of U.S. senators and experts in the punditry have seemed to back Trump into a modified position of keeping a force of some 1,000 troops in Syria, instead of pulling out altogether. The interesting thing is that this effect was produced by a lot of other people arguing for that policy, even without a new authorization from Congress for the use of military force (AUMF).

    Trump would have had a lot of blowback trying to make his own argument for keeping troops in Syria without a new AUMF – the instrument putatively needed to justify a continuing presence after the defeat of ISIS. There was little chance, if he wrote the script, of his getting a new AUMF from a hostile, Democrat-led House of Representatives.

    But now he has consensus buy-in – shaped by the demands of his critics – for 1,000 troops to support holding the center of Iran’s land bridge pathway.

    He had that first. Then U.S. armed forces and the coalition delivered the ISIS territorial roll-up that culminated in blocking Iran’s land bridge. Now our coalition holds key terrain at the border crossing, at least to the extent that Iran is not in control of it.

    Then Trump capped it all by announcing that the U.S. would recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

    Timing. It was certainly key to the original story behind Purim: a story that unfolded in the ancient Persian Empire. Notably, the outcome of the story in Esther was as good for Persia as it was for the Jews who were saved from a genocidal plot (if not so good for some factions inside Persia, including powerful actors in the Persian court). Beyond that, I commend to you both stories, from the 5th century B.C. and the A.D. 21st century, as food for thought on this Purim in 2019. In today’s case, how much of the timing could have been orchestrated by human foresight is something readers will have to decide for themselves.

    Assad, Hezbollah, Hamas, the wild card of Turkey, the chronic vulnerability of Lebanon, the disruptive ideology of ISIS, an unstable and provocatively radical Iran, sponsoring insurgencies around the region — all of these factors are still in play. But what has been averted, for now, is the consolidation of an Iran-dominated land bridge from the Zagros Mountains to Damascus and Tartus, subject to steady militarization and made increasingly defensible by time and political momentum. With U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan, the vector of geomilitary momentum will shift significantly. The consequences for the radical regime in Iran are likely to be bigger than we imagine today.

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    J.E. Dyer
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    J.E. Dyer is a retired Naval Intelligence officer who lives in Southern California, blogging as The Optimistic Conservative for domestic tranquility and world peace. Her articles have appeared at Hot Air, Commentary’s Contentions, Patheos, The Daily Caller, The Jewish Press, and The Weekly Standard.

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    It’s probably coincidental that two major developments converged on the holiday of Purim – the commemoration of Jews’ salvation from genocide in the book of Esther – to thwart Iran’s consolidation of a land bridge across Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean, and Israel.

    President Trump probably didn’t have Purim in mind, at any rate, in pursuing the policies that produced the two developments.

    But converge they have. And although Trump may not have been thinking of Purim with the timing of his announcement on Thursday, 21 March, about recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, he was assuredly thinking of the other, related development.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/03/21/on-purim-the-spiking-of-irans-land-bridge-across-mesopotamia/

  34. Supreme Court to consider allowing states to prosecute illegals for identity theft
    By Rusty Weiss March 22, 2019

    The Supreme Court will consider allowing states to prosecute illegal aliens for identity theft if they use another person’s Social Security number to obtain a job.

    A case involving three Kansas restaurant workers having done just that will be heard during the Court’s nine-month term that starts in October.

    The Kansas Supreme Court threw out convictions of the illegal alien workers, ruling that only the federal government could prosecute based on information that comes from federal form I-9.

    Prosecutors argue they should be able to use the information on the form. Lawyers for the aliens each of whom stole someone else’s identity, naturally claimed that allowing states to use federal documents to prosecute illegals could lead to discriminatory tactics.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/03/22/supreme-court-to-consider-allowing-states-to-prosecute-illegals-for-identity-theft/

  35. NYC Transit cops mounted urgent sting operation when pro-Trump graffiti hit subway station
    By LU Staff March 22, 2019

    New York City may not make a priority of keeping criminal illegal aliens from pestering local citizens, but city authorities move fast when they are “flooded” with complaints about pro-Trump graffiti in a subway station.

    Complaints from subway riders began on January 9, according to a police briefing given on Tuesday. (The reporting from local news sources seems to indicate that the briefer, NYPD Transit Chief Edward Delatorre, meant February 9. In either case, there appear to have been two iterations of the offensive tagging.)

    Someone was visiting a station on the R-Line in Brooklyn and tagging a stairwell with “#lovetrump” scrawled in Sharpie. Apparently the tags were scrubbed off (or painted over), but then reappeared

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/03/22/nyc-transit-cops-mounted-urgent-sting-operation-when-pro-trump-graffiti-hit-subway-station/

  38. DAILY MAIL – REVEALED: French soldiers will be allowed to ‘OPEN FIRE’ if lives are threatened by Yellow Vest rioters this weekend as the military is drafted in to help 5,000 police on the streets of Paris

    General Bruno Leray confirmed French Army will support 5,000 police Saturday
    This weekend will be the 19th Yellow Vest demonstration in the capital in a row
    Last week there was widespread rioting across Paris with many shops looted

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6838623/French-soldiers-allowed-OPEN-FIRE-lives-threatened-Yellow-Vest-rioters.html

  39. Trump Signs Executive Order on Campus Free Speech
    Colleges and universities that won’t protect free speech may lose federal research grants.
    March 22, 2019
    Matthew Vadum

    President Trump signed an executive order yesterday directing the nation’s colleges and universities to defend free speech on campus or lose federal research funding.

    “In America, the very heart of the university’s mission is preparing students for life as citizens in a free society,” the president said March 21 in the East Room of the White House.

    “But even as universities have received billions and billions of dollars from taxpayers, many have become increasingly hostile to free speech and to the First Amendment. You see it all the time. You turn on the news and you see things that are horrible.”

    Trump continued:

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273239/trump-signs-executive-order-campus-free-speech-matthew-vadum

  40. ISIS 100 percent eliminated in Syria, White House claims (abcnews, mar 22, 2019)
    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/isis-100-percent-eliminated-syria-white-house-claims/story?id=61869156

    “President Donald Trump has, on numerous occasions before now, announced ISIS’ defeat, but this time it would appeared the claim had the full backing of the White House and Pentagon.

    Sanders, speaking to the traveling press pool of reporters on Air Force One as the president headed to Florida, Sanders directed reporters to the Department of Defense for further questions but shared a photo of what appeared to be the same map President Trump declassified and showed reporters on Wednesday.

    She said acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan was on the plane and had briefed the president on the news.

    After Trump got off the plane in Florida, according to a pool report, he walked over to to waiting reporters and cameras with the same map he had used Wednesday,except without the small dot of red indicating ISIS-held territory that had been there before.

    “This is what we have right now, as of last night,” Trump said. “I think it’s about time,” he said according to the pool report.

    This is a developing story, Please check back for updates.”

  41. ORWELLIAN SPECTACLE OVERSHADOWS IMMIGRATION DEBATE
    Thought Police be damned – we need a debate about immigration’s impact on public health.
    March 22, 2019
    Lawrence Lockman

    Maine people were given yet another lesson last week in what sort of thinking our home-grown Thought Police will tolerate on the subject of immigration.

    Here’s the lesson in a nutshell: under no circumstances will Big Brother and his minions permit anyone to connect the dots between the reality of a massive influx of foreigners across our southern border from poverty-stricken Third World countries, and the potential for outbreaks of contagious diseases here. Even asking about a possible connection between unchecked immigration and the spread of disease is a Thought Crime that will get you labeled as an irredeemable bigot, and banished from polite society.

    Portland mayor Ethan Strimling played the role of prosecutor for this Orwellian exercise. The defendant was Waterville mayor Nick Isgro, who also serves as Vice Chairman of the Maine Republican Party.

    Isgro’s alleged Thought Crime was committed on Twitter, where he had the audacity to say “we need a serious talk” about the record number of immigrants crossing the border, and the potential risk of them bringing contagious diseases with them. Isgro cited Portland in particular for its crisis of homelessness, driven by an unprecedented surge in the number of immigrants who have arrived there in the past year

    Mayor Strimling took notice of Isgro’s heresy and immediately fired off an indignant text message to the Portland Press Herald, a reliably liberal media outlet Strimling knew could be counted on to amplify and echo his attack on Isgro. And that’s exactly what happened.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273236/orwellian-spectacle-overshadows-immigration-debate-lawrence-lockman

  42. China Deploys Troops Near India-Pak Border to Safeguard CPEC Projects – Reports (sputniknews, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://sputniknews.com/asia/201903221073459760-china-pak-cpec-saftey/

    “The move was reportedly prompted by the perceived threats to coal mine projects in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor which have been facing stiff resistance from locals in Pakistan. China is reportedly unhappy over the Pakistani Army’s alleged inability to ensure the safety of the project despite repeated assurances.

    New Delhi (Sputnik): China has deployed a contingent of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to the Thar region of Sindh province in Pakistan which is about 90 kilometres away from Pakistan’s international border with India. Indian television channel Zee News quoted a senior intelligence officer saying that Indian forces had noticed the movement of Chinese troops close to the border.

    “The Border Security Force (of India) deployed at the India-Pakistan border has also noticed the movement of Chinese troops close to the border. It seems that due to the opposition of Chinese projects by locals in Sindh and Balochistan provinces, China has deployed its PLA,” the intelligence officer told Zee News.

    The multi-billion dollar CPEC is a collection of infrastructure projects that are currently under construction throughout Pakistan. Originally valued at 46 billion dollars, the actual cost of the projects has now crossed 62 billion dollars.

    Pakistan has deployed around 17,000 soldiers to protect the 3000-kilometre-long corridor. Moreover, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa during a visit to China last year had sought to assure Beijing that optimum security would be provided to the project. However, dissatisfied over Pakistan’s inability to deal with protests by locals, China decided to take the matter on its own hands.

    A former Indian Army official is of the view that the development is, however, a matter of concern to India.

    “Officially, the deployment of troops by China is to protect their own citizens working in Pakistan in various projects and also to secure the safety of the CPEC from local people. But unofficially, it is the commencement of a military base in the interiors of the country (Pakistan). It could also be perceived to be a sort of restriction on India in case it attempts a military option against Pakistan. Although India would never go this deep inside Pakistan, but in the long run, the Chinese PLA could also be deployed much closer to our border. Finally, it signals the growing proximity between China and Pakistan and interdependence. No nation in its right senses would permit such a deployment,” Major General (Retired) Harsha Kakar told Sputnik.

    “In fact, China is eyeing a military base in Pakistan in the long run. China has not invested for the betterment of Pakistan but for its own national interest. But the army and air force bases are major security concerns for India,” Major General Kakar added.”

  43. Hungarians Catch Suspected ISIS Beheader from Syria (breitbart, Mar 22, 2019)
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/03/22/hungarians-catch-suspected-isis-beheader-syria/

    “A Syrian man suspected of having taken part in beheadings carried out by the Islamic State in Homs has been taken into custody and questioned by authorities in Hungary.

    The 27-year-old, whose name wasn’t released, has refugee status in Greece. He was initially apprehended in December at Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt International Airport when he and a female companion were found to have forged personal IDs.

    While he was awaiting deportation to Greece, officials discovered, in cooperation with Belgian prosecutors, that the man has been an IS member since 2016.

    He is suspected of having taken part in the beheadings of about 20 relatives of a Homs resident who refused to join the extremist group. The killings were meant as revenge and to terrify local residents.”

  44. Call to Prayer in London’s Trafalgar Square at vigil for Christchurch mosque shooting victims

  45. How Small State Democrats are Selling Out Their States to California
    The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact’s conspiracy against the electoral college.
    March 22, 2019
    Daniel Greenfield

    Colorado has a population of around 5.7 million. Or 1.75% of the country.

    Despite that, Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, signed on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact after Colorado’s General Assembly passed the National Popular Vote bill by 34 to 29.

    The bill to disenfranchise Colorado voters was sponsored by Senator Mike Foote, a Democrat, Representative Emily Sirota, a “progressive” Democrat, and Jeni James Arndt, a Democrat. The bill passed in a party line vote with Democrats lining up to make Colorado politically irrelevant.

    The Popular Vote Bill conspires to bypass the electoral college and toss out the votes of Coloradans by awarding the state’s electoral college voters to the winners of the popular vote: also known as whichever candidate New York and California billionaires decided should run the country.

    California has a population of almost 40 million. New York has a population of almost 20 million.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273216/how-small-state-democrats-are-selling-out-their-daniel-greenfield

  46. ‘Highly Profitable Scam’: Southern Poverty Law Center ‘Ripping Off Donors,’ Former Staffer Says

    The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a “highly profitable scam” that “never lived up to the values it espoused,” according to former SPLC staffer Bob Moser.

    The New Yorker on Thursday published a scathing essay from Moser, now a Rolling Stone reporter, accusing the left-wing non-profit of “ripping off donors” while turning a blind eye to sexual harassment and racial discrimination within its own ranks.

    https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/21/southern-poverty-law-center-scam-morris-dees/

  47. Turncoat Sen. Roy Blunt Disinvited From Missouri GOP Dinner Over Vote Against Trump Border Emergency

    Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) was one of 12 Republicans who voted against Republican President Donald Trump’s border emergency declaration.

    Blunt joined 11 other Republicans to turn their back on the president and on Republican voters.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/turncoat-sen-roy-blunt-disinvited-from-missouri-gop-dinner-over-vote-against-trump-border-emergency/?utm_source=TGPemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=subscriber_id:553016019&utm_campaign=Auto%20Send%20from%20The%20Gateway%20Pundit%20on%20March%2022,%202019%20at%2011:06:06%20AM

  48. If you don’t have time to watch the entire show a video of a city council disrespecting on of their citizens starts at a little after 45:30 Bongino wants us to make this video go viral. It needs to and the entire City Council needs to be voted out of office.

    Ep. 942 The Most Disturbing Video I’ve Seen in Awhile. The Dan Bongino Show 3/22/2019.

  49. DAILY MAIL -Police arrest ten ‘jihadists’ in Germany who were ‘plotting to use a car and guns to kill as many people as possible and had already hired a vehicle’ as knives are seized in raid

    The suspects were detained in the Frankfurt area in police raids earlier on Friday
    They ranged in age from 20 to 42 but no details of their nationality were given
    They are said to have contacted weapons dealers and hired a vehicle already

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6839581/Police-swoop-arrest-ten-jihadists-Germany.html

    Deutsche Welle – German prosecutors arrest 10 suspects over Islamist attack plan

    Prosecutors in Frankfurt said the ten individuals were detained on suspicion of planning an Islamist attack using a car and guns. The aim was to kill as many people as possible.

    Prosecutors in Frankfurt issued a statement on Friday to say the suspects were detained in police raids involving 200 officers in the Frankfurt region earlier in the day.

    Commenting on the raids, Hesse state interior minister Peter Beuth said: “Police intervened in a timely manner to prevent possible attack plans at an early stage.”

    There were no details on the nationalities of the suspects whose ages were given at between 20 and 42 years. They live in the Frankfurt, Offenbach, Wiesbaden and Mainz areas. Eleven people were initially arrested but the investigation was centered on ten suspects.

    The main suspects were a 21-year old man from Offenbach and two 31-year brothers from Wiesbaden, all associated with the local Islamist Salafist community. All are German citizens.

    The number of registered Islamists in the state of Hesse in 2017 was 4,170, including 1,650 Salafists.

    Killing unbelievers

    According to the initial investigation, the accused were planning to use a vehicle and firearms to kill as many “unbelievers” as possibl. They had rented a large vehicle and made contact with weapons’ dealers and started to raise funds.

    During the raids, police found and seized over €20,000 ($22,500) in cash, several knives, small quantities of narcotics, a variety of documents and electronic data storage equipment.

    The charges include funding terrorism and conspiring to commit a crime. The accused are due to appear before a judge at the District Court of Frankfurt on Friday afternoon.

    A number of plots have been foiled by police in recent months, with some similar raids.

    https://www.dw.com/en/german-prosecutors-arrest-10-suspects-over-islamist-attack-plan/a-48028985

    Elf Festnahmen bei Antiterror-Razzia

    In Hessen und Rheinland-Pfalz hat die Polizei elf mutmaßliche Islamisten bei einer Razzia festgenommen. Die Verdächtigen sollen einen terroristisch motivierten Anschlag geplant haben.

    Bei einer Antiterror-Razzia in Hessen und Rheinland-Pfalz haben Ermittler elf Verdächtige festgenommen. Bei den Hauptbeschuldigten handelt es sich um einen 21-Jährigen aus Offenbach und zwei 31-jährige Brüder aus Wiesbaden, wie die Staatsanwaltschaft in Frankfurt am Main mitteilte.

    Nach bisherigen Erkenntnissen sollen die Verdächtigen gemeinsam verabredet haben, einen “islamistisch-terroristisch motivierten Anschlag” zu verüben und dabei so viele “Ungläubige”wie möglich zu töten. Zur Vorbereitung des Anschlags sollen sie bereits Kontakt zu verschiedenen Waffenhändlern aufgenommen, ein größeres Fahrzeug angemietet und Vermögenswerte gesammelt haben, um diese für den Ankauf von Schusswaffen und die Begehung der geplanten Morde zu verwenden. Die drei Hauptverdächtigen sollen den Ermittlern zufolge der salafistischen Szene im Rhein-Main-Gebiet angehören.

    Messer, Drogen und 20.000 Euro

    Laut Staatsanwaltschaft richten sich die Ermittlungen aktuell gegen zehn Beschuldigte aus Frankfurt, Offenbach, Wiesbaden und Mainz im Alter zwischen 20 und 42 Jahren. Ihnen werden Terrorismusfinanzierung und das Verabreden zu einem Verbrechen zur Last gelegt. Bei den Durchsuchungen wurde nach Angaben der Ermittlungsbehörde umfangreiches Beweismaterial beschlagnahmt, darunter über 20.000 Euro Bargeld, mehrere Messer, kleinere Mengen Drogen sowie eine Vielzahl schriftlicher Unterlagen und elektronischer Datenträger.

    An der Razzia am Morgen waren insgesamt etwa 200 Beamte des hessischen Landeskriminalamtes und weiterer Polizeidienststellen sowie Spezialeinheiten aus Hessen und anderen Bundesländern beteiligt.

    https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/razzia-antiterror-rhein-main-101.html

    • Germany: 11 Arrested for Plotting Islamic Extremist Vehicular Attack (breitbart, Mar 22, 2019)
      https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/03/22/germany-11-arrested-plotting-islamic-extremist-vehicular-attack/

      “German authorities arrested 11 people Friday during a series of raids on a group of people suspected of planning an Islamic extremist attack using a vehicle and firearms.

      Frankfurt prosecutors said the aim of the alleged plot was “to kill as many ‘infidels’ as possible,” news agency dpa reported.

      The main suspects are two 31-year-old brothers from Wiesbaden and a 21-year-old man from Offenbach, near Frankfurt, all of them German citizens. The group under investigation — aged between 20 and 42, and from Frankfurt, Offenbach, Mainz and Wiesbaden — is suspected of offences including terror financing and conspiracy to commit a crime.

      It wasn’t immediately clear how concrete the attack plan was.

      Hesse state’s interior minister, Peter Beuth, said “police intervened in a timely manner to prevent possible attack plans at an early stage.”

      The suspects are believed to have hired a large vehicle, contacted weapons dealers and collected money.

      Investigators seized more than 20,000 euros ($22,780) in cash, several knives, small quantities of drugs and documents in the raids in the area around Frankfurt.”

  50. Socialism: Be Careful What You Wish For

    by Philip Carl Salzman
    March 22, 2019 at 5:00 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13925/socialism

    For so long, it appeared that socialism had definitively failed in practice and had lost its appeal as an economic ideology. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had crashed; its Eastern European satellites had escaped in the 1990s; China had transitioned from socialism to state capitalism beginning with the economic reforms of 1978 and has carried on energetically ever since; communist Cuba had declined to an offshore holiday resort for Canadians and Europeans, and socialist Venezuela totally collapsed. In a 1989 essay entitled “The End of History?”, Francis Fukuyama argued that, in the events mentioned above, we were witnessing “an unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism.”

    Socialist parties have, of course, been present in many European countries throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, and at some time and in some countries, have been dominant. But they have tended to be “pink” rather than “red,” and have generally favoured welfare state policies rather than the takeover of the means of production; at the moment, most European countries are currently struggling to stay on life-support. The British Labour Party, for instance, abandoned state ownership of the means of production in a 1993 revision of Clause IV of its constitution.