Contributor’s links for June 13, 2019

Daily Links Post graphic

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 must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

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

81 Replies to “Contributor’s links for June 13, 2019”

  1. OT/ My computer’s going into the shop later this morning.
    Many sites are inaccessible on my elderly emergency machine, including this one and GoV.

    The Roman Empire is finished for me by the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. Inbred and decadent, no fun at all.
    I’m going back to the Late Republic with Sallust, The Jugurtine War (111-105 BC). It’s a vigorous, scrappy society with Gaius Marius and Sulla, just before Julius Caesar comes on the scene.

    Hold the Fort here at VTB!

      • I’m holding on to every last second before my machine is ripped from my hands.
        I downloaded Pliny Elder + Younger for ‘Vesuvius Live !!’ – till the Elder perished on the scene.

  2. Ilhan Omar Declines to Address Terrorism Recruitment in Her District –

    According to a Fox News report from February, “More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country.” The city of Minneapolis is located in Omar’s district.

    “FBI stats show 45 Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined. And as of 2018, a dozen more had been arrested with the intention of leaving to support ISIS,” stated the report. https://pjmedia.com/trending/illhan-omar-declines-to-address-terrorist-recruitment-in-her-district/

    (Big mouth is at a loss for words, a rare moment)

  3. Chicken Brain

    The Chicken sees a worm squirming
    It knows for what it’s lookin’
    But draw a line beyond learning
    Hypnotically it’s cookin’.

    The Chicken sees a fox around
    No enemy mistookin’
    But block its eyes, sense-surround
    Hypnotically it’s cookin’

    Our brain is in two halves, to see
    Birth, Present and the Bookin’
    Told of God, Satan and Hell
    Hypnotically we’re cookin’

    And then we hear about The Flood
    We needed a good shookin’
    Won’t come again if you be good
    Hypnotically we’re cookin’

    • Bravo, PC.! Solid thematic development, a Claptonesque back beat, the chorus gently permutes, and all wrapped up in a lesson for the dumbclucks. What’s not to like?

      [golf clap]

  4. Middle East on brink: Oil tankers attacked in off Oman – warnings issued as torpedoes used (express, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1139836/Oman-oil-tankers-gulf-of-oman-iran-pakistan-explosions-crude-oil

    “TWO TANKERS have been attacked in the Gulf of Oman with reports of explosions amid growing tensions in the region.

    One of the ships, the Front Altair, is “suspected of being hit by a torpedo”, while the hull of Kokuka Courageous has been damaged. The crews have been safety evacuated. The UK Maritime Trade Operations, which is part of the Royal Navy, earlier warned of an unspecified incident and urged “extreme caution”.

    The US Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said their forces are assisting tankers after receiving two distress calls.

    Joshua Frey of the Fifth Fleet said: “We are aware of the reported attack on tankers in the Gulf of Oman. US Naval Forces in the region received two separate distress calls at 6.12am local time and a second one at 7.00am.”

    Iran has denied involvement, but it comes as Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen have also launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia.

    And a similar attack took place a month ago in which four tankers were struck in the area.

    The Gulf of Oman connects the Arabian Sea with the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which then runs to the Persian Gulf.

    It borders Iran and Pakistan on the north, Oman on the south, and the United Arab Emirates on the west.

    The incident comes as tensions are threatening to reach fever pitch between the US and Iran.

    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is currently visiting Iran in a bid to de-escalate the situation.

    Speaking yesterday after talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Mr Abe warned that any “accidental conflict” must be avoided.

    He is due to meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today, for the second and final day of his visit.

    Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said that Mr Abe’s trip aimed to help ease tensions in the Middle East but not specifically between Tehran and Washington.

    Iran is poised to break the 2015 nuclear deal which US President Donald Trump pulled out of last year, branding it “decaying and rotten”.”

  5. Germany: Muslim vandalized a mosque because he suspected it was a church+++
    Presumably to the annoyance of the political lefties, it turned out last week that the stone thrower on the Dresden mosque was a Muslim from Tunisia. At the court hearing, the orthodox believer now also expressed his motivation: The mosque he attacked was “not a real mosque”, rather a church.Only one week after the 30-year-old rejected asylum seeker Hosni S. had thrown three windows of the Fatih Camiine Mosque in Cotta, which was funded by Turkey, with stones, the Tunisian admitted in a so-called accelerated procedure before the district court of Dresden that he had also thrown in the windows of a Turkish kebab stand and two shop windows.In response to the judge’s question about his motivation, the “refugee” replied according to the newspaper SZ: This was not a real mosque, rather a church. The mosque funded by Turkey, is obviously not radical enough for him.He was ordered by Allah to attack the mosque. In the case of the kebab shop, he said people would get “poisoned food” there.”I believe you didn’t want to hurt anyone,” said the presiding judge, who is convinced that the man was guilty, in her verdict on the defendant. But that doesn’t mean that I approve of it,” says the judge, who then explains it to the refugee: “It is forbidden to damage other people’s property and to frighten people. She is not convinced that the 30-year-old had a political motive when he attacked the mosque. He said he wanted to fulfil an “alleged mission”.Judge Sibylle Vollmers sentenced the 30-year-old S. to a suspended sentence of five months for damage to property and material damage to the common good. However, the judge did not consider the accusation of attempted dangerous bodily harm, which was also charged, to be proven. However, the newspaper SZ does not report whether the criminal offence of the Muslim is listed with the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution under the heading “right-wing crimes”. It remains to be seen whether the chairman of the Islamic association “Central Council of Muslims”, Aiman Mazyek, will also be in hysterics in this case.
    Read more:
    https://searchlight-germany.blogspot.com/2019/06/germany-muslim-vandalized-mosque.html

  6. Egypt officials say roadside bomb wounds 6 police in Sinai (abcnews, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/egypt-officials-roadside-bomb-wounds-police-sinai-63682290

    “Egyptian security officials are saying that six policemen were wounded by a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol vehicle in the restive northern Sinai province.

    The officials said Thursday that the bomb was detonated remotely near the city of El-Arish. They said Islamic militants had set up ambushes along the highway leading to El-Arish where they had kidnapped at least 14 civilians over the course of the last 24 hours. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.

    Egypt has battled Islamic militants for years in northern Sinai, where an affiliate of the Islamic State group is based.

    Last week, the group claimed responsibility for the killing of eight policemen in an assault on a checkpoint near El-Arish.”

  7. Police in the Australian state of Victoria have presumably been given mandatory lessons in Islamic propaganda, going along with the word “revert” (which is in line with the Muslim insistence that everyone including Jesus was born Muslim) instead of “convert”.

    Read the Channel Nine report as follows:
    ‘Two brothers shot by counter-terrorism police at a campground near the Victoria-NSW border yesterday are the sons of a fugitive who died during a siege in 2014.
    Former prison guard Rodney Clavell took his own life to end a 12-hour standoff with police at an Adelaide CBD brothel in 2014 after a 16-day manhunt.
    The brothers shot yesterday are two of his four sons, 19-year-old Joel and 30-year-old Joshua Clavell, who police say are “reverts or converts” to an extreme form of Islam.
    Counter Terrorism Command Assistant Commissioner Ross Guenther said this morning the brothers “have a very strong hatred of police as a result of their criminal history over a period of time”.’

    Now look at the video at source. At about 1:10 the cop, Ross Guenther, uses the Islam-compliant word “reverts”. Not “reverts or converts” (that’s part of the Channel Nine report, and it should read “reverts” or converts They’ve put the quotation marks in the wrong place.)

    https://www.9news.com.au/national/barnawartha-albury-police-shooting-two-men-suspected-terror-links-nsw-victoria-police-news-australia/f2b85b9a-d91b-4a67-91b5-062d4ad83d7d

  8. Jordan Peterson Launches Free-Speech Platform in Response to Leftist Censorship (sputniknews, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://sputniknews.com/world/201906131075844446-jordan-peterson-anti-censorship-platform/

    “Following a wave of criticism of YouTube and Facebook’s stringent content policy as well as Patreon’s crackdown on conservative content creators, Peterson has announced that the new platform won’t ban anyone unless ordered to do so by the court.

    Canadian public thinker and staunch defendant of free speech Jordan Peterson has announced the launch of a new online community, following an exodus from the crowdfunding platform Patreon.

    The new subscription-based platform is called Thinkspot and is billed as “an intellectual playground for censorship-free discourse”.

    In a recent podcast with Joe Rogan, Peterson advertised the platform as having “some cool features that no other platform has”.

    Most notably, it is designed to allow for as much freedom of speech as possible. “Once you’re on the platform, we won’t take you down unless we’re ordered to by a US court of law,” Peterson explained. “So we’re trying to make an anti-censorship platform.”

    He said that Thinkspot users will be able to mark out a certain part of a video or podcast and append their own written or audio comments to it.

    This content could then be posted on a user’s page or sent out to other members of the community so as to pull thousands of people into a “running conversation” on the platform.

    All comments will also be up- and downvoted, and if this ratio (which is still being debated) falls beyond 50 per cent, the disgraced user will be somewhat shadow-banned: their comments would be hidden but still available to those who click on them.

    Another feature would be a minimum length requirement. Peterson said this was necessary to combat “stupid trolling” and prevent people from typing brief slurs.

    He is hopeful this will encourage users to “put a little thought” into what they write on the platform. “Even if you’re being a troll, you’ll be a quasi-witty troll,” he added.

    Thinkspot is already available in a beta version and will start out as invitation-only. Among the beta-test pioneers will be Peterson himself, Skeptic magazine’s editor-in-chief Michael Shermer, political commentator Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report and British YouTuber Carl Benjamin, as well podcasters James Altucher and Jocko Willink.

    Peterson’s new platform is being created as an alternative to the popular crowdfunding site Patreon, which kicked out Carl Benjamin late last year for violating hate speech policies (he used the N-word and other racial slurs on another YouTuber’s channel). It followed earlier bans of controversial figures such as Lauren Southern, Milo Yiannopoulos and James Allsup.

    Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin said in a joint video in 1 January that they were departing Patreon because of what they described as as the company’s continued censorship practices.

    Another Internet personality and a top Patreon creator, Sam Harris, followed suit, saying that such expulsions “seem more readily explained by political bias” rather than by violation of Patreon’s terms of service.”

  9. WWII victims tracing – I just finished reading a moving article by someone who decided to find out the names and places of death for his parent’s respective first spouses. He also learnt the name of a murdered teenaged half-sibling. He mentions that some archives have just recently come on-line and that these Nazi death certificates include time, place, and cause of death (e.g. “heart weakness”) along with cremation dates.
    https://www.yadvashem.org/archive.html
    https://arolsen-archives.org/en/search-explore/
    (I’d like to update if I learn further details about sites to search.)
    Aside from the obvious interest VTB readers may have, what stands out in my mind from the author is the conviction his Lithuanian Jewish survivor-father recounted: the Nazis had in mind all along to destroy Christianity and all religion. He claims that the method is to leave intact the religion’s organizations — holy places, clergy, holiday venues — until just before cutting them down.
    Draw strength from the brave act his parents did in creating a new family together.

  10. Surveillance-savvy Hong Kong protesters go digitally dark

    Hong Kong’s tech-savvy protesters are going digitally dark as they try to avoid surveillance and potential future prosecutions, disabling location tracking on their phones, buying train tickets with cash and purging their social media conversations.

    Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to break up crowds opposed to a China extradition law on Wednesday, in the worst unrest the city has witnessed in decades.

    Many of those on the streets are predominantly young and have grown up in a digital world, but they are all too aware of the dangers of surveillance and leaving online footprints.

    Ben, a masked office worker at the protests, said he feared the extradition law would have a devastating impact on freedoms.

    “Even if we’re not doing anything drastic — as simple as saying something online about China — because of such surveillance they might catch us,” the 25-year-old said.

    This week groups of demonstrators donned masks, goggles, helmets and caps — both to protect themselves against tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets, and also to make it harder for them to be identified.

    https://news.yahoo.com/surveillance-savvy-hong-kong-protesters-digitally-dark-003014805.html

  11. Eurocrat Juncker Calls Merkel ‘Postmodern, Loveable Work of Art’ (breitbart, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/06/13/eurocrat-juncker-calls-merkel-postmodern-loveable-work-of-art/

    “President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has hailed German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a “loveable work of art”.

    Speaking to Politico, the outgoing president of the European Union’s executive arm said that he believed the German chancellor, who is leaving her post in 2021, is a “loveable work of art” and when asked to elaborate on what style, he said: “Postmodern.”

    The Belgian politician was expanding on comments he made in April when he described the former Christian Democratic Union (CDU) as “a complete and endearing work of art” who was “highly qualified” for the top Brussels job.

    Asked if he thought that Merkel — who at the height of the 2015 migrant crisis unilaterally suspended the EU’s refugee rules and invited more than one million migrants to Europe — would ever become Commissioner, he said: “I don’t think so.”

    “Because I like the woman, I don’t want her to endure it,” he said.

    Mr Juncker was not the only European politician to have warm words for Ms Merkel. French President Emmanuel Macron — who Juncker had described in the same interview as a “Classical” work of art “with a modern touch” — said that he would back the German chancellor should she want the role.

    “I won’t speak for Angela Merkel,” Mr Macron told Swiss TV station RTS on Tuesday in comments reported by Politico, adding: “Should she want it, I would support her. Of course. Because I think we need someone strong.”

    “Europe needs strong personalities, it needs people with personal credibility and skills to fill the positions,” Mr Macron said.

    Negotiations for the top jobs in Brussels are ongoing following the results of the European Parliament elections in May. Since 2014, the Commission has appointed the Spitzenkandidat (“leading candidate”), the favoured candidate from the party most likely to form a majority in the European Parliament, in this parliamentary sitting that being European People Party Spitzenkandidat and German politician Manfred Weber.

    Ms Merkel has said she will retire from politics when her term as German chancellor ends in two years’ time and is not officially a candidate for European Commission president, throwing her support behind Weber, instead.

    However, some European politicians have expressed reservations about Mr Weber, the notionally conservative candidate, including Mr Macron, with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pushing for a more left-wing candidate in the role to implement a progressive agenda in the EU, including greater integration of EU institutions.”

  12. Multicultural Malmö Sees Three Explosions Within 24 Hours (breitbart, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/06/13/multicultural-malmo-sees-three-explosions-within-24-hours/

    “The southern Swedish city of Malmö saw three explosions within a 24-hour period this week with multiple venues targetted including a residential area and a nightclub.

    The first explosion took place at around 2 am in the notorious suburb of Rosengård, which has been described as a no-go area in the past, and saw the blast shatter several windows in a multi-family home, Nyheter Idag reports.

    The following explosion occurred only an hour after the first and took place near a local nightclub in the centre of the city with witnesses claiming to have heard a loud bang with several shops around the area were damaged.

    The next explosion took place the following day, again in the troubled suburb of Rosengård, with another residential area affected by the blast that took place in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

    “The entire gate is destroyed right up to the lift. There are glass pieces and metal pieces that made holes in the lift five metres away,” a witness said. While there was some property damage in the three explosions, police say that no one was injured in any of the incidents.

    Malmo has seen a number of bombings and explosions so far this year. Last month, two people were arrested in connection with an explosion that rocked a restaurant, which police described as a “heavy” explosion.

    While many of the explosions see no injuries, one explosion in April led to a 12-year-old girl sustaining injuries as she slept when an explosion shattered the windows to her bedroom, resulting in her being taken to hospital.

    Explosions have not been limited to Malmö, however. Last week, the city of Linköping saw a massive blast that ripped through two apartment buildings and injured 25 people. Investigators have so far ruled out terrorism.”

  13. 25 officers injured in Memphis after marshals kill fugitive

    1 of 11
    Frayser community residents taunt authorities as protesters take to the streets in anger against the shooting of a youth identified by family members as Brandon Webber by U.S. Marshals earlier in the evening, Wednesday, June 12, 2019, in Memphis, Tenn. Dozens of angry protesters clashed with police throwing stones and tree limbs until police forces broke the mob up with tear gas. (Jim Weber/Daily Memphian via AP)

    MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Armed officers and an angry crowd faced off after a black man was fatally shot in a confrontation with U.S. marshals in a working-class Memphis neighborhood.

    People in the crowd threw rocks and bricks, with 25 officers suffering mostly minor injuries during the tense clash Wednesday night in the Frayser community in north Memphis. Officers cordoned off several blocks near the scene. By 11 p.m., officers had used tear gas and most of the crowd dispersed, police director Michael Rallings said at a Thursday morning at a news conference. Three people were arrested.

    Officers on horseback patrolled the area, and lines of police cars with flashing blue lights were parked along the street. An ambulance could be seen at the outer edge of the scene. A helicopter flew overhead as police cars trickled away. Residential streets were blocked, and a heavy police presence remained in the area Thursday.

    https://www.apnews.com/c290fd44dace4fe7b836110de77c1894

    • Looking for the latest trainers,the ones they stole on the last riot have now worn out.

      • Looking for the latest trainers,the ones they stole on the last riot have now worn out.

        You don’t even want to know what happens when the latest $200.00 Air Jordans go on offer (and get resold on eBay for $500.00+).

        [A]n Air Jordan 1 retro costs $16.25 to produce with materials costing around $10.75, $2.43 for labor, overhead at $2.10, and a factory profit which rings in at $0.97.

        T = 00:01:39

  14. Suicide bomber kills 9 in eastern Afghanistan (abcnews, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/afghan-government-freed-490-taliban-prisoners-63681425

    “A suicide bomber walked up to an Afghan police vehicle in Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province, and detonated an explosive device that killed three police and six civilians on Thursday, said provincial health department official Shoaib Sahak. He said another 13 people were wounded, some of the seriously.

    Attahullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor, said security forces were the target of the attack. Several of the injured were police, he said.

    No one took immediate responsibility for the attack, but both the Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State Khorasan Province and the Taliban operate in Nangarhar province, considered an IS stronghold…”

  15. Overruled: Border commission locked gate open on privately built wall section, then agreed to lock it shut
    By LU Staff June 12, 2019

    It’s an obvious suspicion: that there may have been higher-level intervention here.

    At the end of May, President Trump tweeted out video footage of more than 1,000 migrants rushing in from Mexico via what looked like a breach in the border wall near El Paso.

    Although it seemed to be some kind of breach at the time, later information from Brian Kolfage, the Air Force veteran spearheading the crowd-funded We Build the Wall effort, indicated that a border agency was routinely leaving gates open in the wall sections along that stretch of the bord

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/06/12/overruled-border-commission-locked-gate-open-on-privately-built-wall-section-then-agreed-to-lock-it-shut/

  16. Venezuelans now regret letting government take their guns away
    By Jeff Dunetz June 12, 2019

    Article by Warner Todd Huston and Jeff Dunetz

    Not long ago, millions of Venezuelans decided to become loved by the left and voted away their right to keep and bear arms. But now that their government has descended into a socialist nightmare where everyone is starving to death, these same people are now regretting their votes to give away their right to self-defense.

    It is an object lesson for the folks here in the U.S. who want to travel down the same path as Venezuela; gun-free, socialism and all.

    Venezuela implemented its gun ban six years ago before their world took its last steps into the living hell it has become. Now they have no defense against the junta and the socialist criminals controlling their nation.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/06/12/venezuelans-now-regret-letting-government-take-their-guns-away/

    • The purpose of the Second Amendment has always been self defense. Self Defense against the criminals and Self Defense against the Government. There are enough firearms in the hands of the People in the US to wage a long term asymmetric war against the US government if it turns oppressive, or should I say more oppressive then the Obama administration turned.

      The People in Europe and South America are now learning what the Founding Fathers knew, all governments can turn oppressive. President Reagan said that freedom is never more then 2 generations away from extinction. Thomas Jefferson said that from time to time the Tree of Liberty has to be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants. We are entering a time when we must once again water the Tree of Liberty, We The People of all nations must stand up on our hind legs and tell the Tyrants (both foreign and domestic) that they are not our Masters and that we refuse to bow to them. We must tell them in terms that they understand that we will not yield on inch to their tyranny but will fight to the death to preserve freedom for the future generations.

      To accomplish our goal and to ensure that freedom doesn’t die we must win and we must teach the people that disarming those who want to own weapons always leads to Tyranny.

      Fight damn it, fight for your natural rights, rights the left wants to take from you. Fight until the left is defeated and then teach the coming generations to always be armed and distrustful of the government.

  17. France: Charlie Hebdo causes a stir with Women’s World Cup cartoon

    French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has courted controversy again by publishing a provocative cartoon on its front page allegedly targeting the currently underway Women’s World Cup in France with one local, Annass Hasanian calling it “demeaning on every level” as reactions poured in from Paris on Thursday.

    The headline of the cover page also caused a stir with another local, Amele Ait Alla calling it “trashy, dirty, absolutely not representative of the event itself” even as for another local Michel, the message behind the image got a thumbs up saying that “for once I think this drawing is rather funny because the feminist lobby is trying to sell us the feminist football and the feminist everything and for once they’re against that.”

    When asked about her reaction to the controversial front-page Samantha Mewis, midfielder from USA team said “it sounds inappropriate” adding that she hopes “that through our play people can catch up to the times and understand that what we’re doing is awesome and that we deserve a lot of respect.”

    Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical magazine which was first published from 1970 to 1981 and appears since 1992 again with a regular, weekly print run of about 60,000 copies in Paris. The latest edition came out on wednesday.

  18. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says President Trump “does not know right from wrong.”

  19. Valerie Jarrett: Why Would We Want Anyone to Put Their Thumb on the Scale During Election

  20. “Brooklyn New York Mosque Blasting Islamic Call To Prayer To 20 Blocks Radius” Third Rail Talk – Published on June 9, 2019
    See description below video

  21. “This is the best clip of all time from our President. This proves everything we love about him. He lives in the real world where people do real things and aren’t a bunch of p*ssies.”
    Prince of Whales – June 12, 2019 – Twitter
    https://twitter.com/JoeyNoCollusion/status/1138967317126221824

    “Russian comedians prank phone call US representative Adam Schiff FULL HD” Mejores Momentos Españoles – Published on Feb 6, 2018

    • “Russian hackers prank call John McCain exposing his dealings with govts behind Trump’s back”
      The Darkest Reaches – Published on February 16, 2017

  22. Twitter Deletes Thousands of Accounts Reportedly Linked to Iranian Government (sputniknews, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://sputniknews.com/science/201906131075852254-twitter-deletes-thousands-of-accounts-reportedly-linked-to-iranian-government/

    “Twitter announced this week that it had removed thousands of accounts from its social media platform because it believed the profiles were “associated with – or directly backed by – the Iranian government.”

    The Thursday disclosure showed that the social media giant removed 4,779 accounts, which were later categorized into three different sets because their “signals and behaviors” varied.

    The first group, which amounts to 1,666 accounts, was removed because “they tweeted global news content, often with an angle that benefited the diplomatic and geostrategic views of the Iranian state,” a release by Yoel Roth, the head of Twitter’s Site Integrity, reads. He added, “Platform manipulation is a violation of the Twitter Rules.”

    Another 248 accounts allegedly originating from Iran were removed from the platform because they “were more directly engaged with discussions related to Israel specifically.” The last set included 2,865 deleted accounts, which were found to have “employed a range of false personas to target conversations about political and social issues in Iran and globally.”

    Additionally, the announcement noted that dozens of other accounts originating from Russia, Spain and Venezuela were removed from the social media site. Those accounts include four profiles with ties to the Russia-based Internet Research Agency, 130 accounts linked to the Catalan independence movement and 33 accounts originating from Venezuela that were reportedly “engaging in platform manipulation targeted outside of the country.”

    Twitter first began issuing disclosures regarding accounts and content “associated with potential information operations” in October 2018 as a means to be more transparent with information and to stem manipulation on its site. Since then, the social media company has made its datasets available to investigators so that further analysis can be conducted.

    “We believe that people and organizations with the advantages of institutional power and which consciously abuse our service are not advancing healthy discourse but are actively working to undermine it,” Roth wrote in the Thursday announcement.

    “By making this data open and accessible, we seek to empower researchers, journalists, governments, and members of the public to deepen their understanding of critical issues impacting the integrity of public conversation online, particularly around elections.”

    “This transparency is core to our mission,” he added.

    This latest development comes weeks after it was reported that both Twitter and Facebook deleted so-called “Iran-linked” accounts based off of information from a report by cybersecurity firm and CIA startup FireEye. However, it was later revealed by Roth that Twitter hadn’t actually been provided with said report when it chopped some 2,800 “inauthentic accounts originating in Iran” from its platform.”

  23. Swedish Authorities Sound Alarm Over Rise in Extremists, Recommend Deportations (breitbart, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/06/13/swedish-authorities-sound-alarm-over-rise-in-extremists-recommending-deportations/

    “The Swedish security service Sapo has sounded the alarm over the rise of extremists saying that the number of known extremists in some circles has risen from hundreds to thousands in a short period of time.

    Sapo have recommended and applied for the deportation of several individuals connected to the radicalisation process including several Muslim radicals who were recently detained, Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio reports.

    Fredrik Hallström, a senior figure in Sapo, commented on the increase in extremists saying, “We have found that in the last few years all three extremist environments have increased. Along with the [anarchist] autonomous environment and the white power environment, the violence-promoting Islamist environment has seen growth partly due to global forces that the Security Police and other authorities in Sweden have difficulty influencing.”

    Hallström also commented on the recent arrests of several Muslim leaders saying, “This is a relatively small number of individuals, a core that has conducted activities over a certain period. We then submitted an application to the Migration Board that they should be expelled.”

    In the past several years it has been clear to observers that the number of radical extremists, particularly radical Islamic extremists, has vastly increased compared to the era before the creation of the Islamic State terror group and the migrant crisis of 2015.

    In February of last year, researcher Peder Hyllengren of the Swedish Defence College claimed that Sweden had become an international hub for Islamic extremist groups and said political correctness was partially to blame for the increase in extremists.

    “You risk being identified as racist in a way that you did not see in other European countries. There, this question was as uncontroversial as the importance of combating Nazism and right-wing extremism. But in Sweden, it took a long time before we could discuss jihadism in the same way that we discussed Nazism for a long time,” Hyllengren said.”

  24. Cop Watch Database Endangers Police
    Welcome to The Plain View Project — an anti-police information operation.
    June 13, 2019
    Dawn Perlmutter
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    The Plain View Project (PVP), a cop watch group disguised as a reputable research organization, analyzed the Facebook accounts of thousands of police officers across eight U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, Dallas, St. Louis, Phoenix, York, PA, Twin Falls, ID, Dennison, TX and Lake County, FL. On June 1, 2019 the Plain View Project study was published online as a database. This resulted in immediate internal affairs investigations, officers placed on desk duty and mandatory sensitivity training. The media enthusiastically reported that thousands of officers endorsed violence against Muslims, women, and criminal defendants. The ACLU is outraged, CAIR is making demands and an assortment of social justice protesters started marching. Everyone is calling for police to be fired. That is how a successful information operation works.

    At first glance the results of the so-called systemic look at officers on social media seems indefensible. However, a closer look reveals an extreme left wing biased, major flaws in the research and a calculated manipulation of data to skew the results. Comments were cherry picked, taken out of context and the data is presented in a way to make it look like all the comments in the posts were written by officers when most were posted by civilians on long comment threads. It is obvious that the project was designed to make officers look bad. It is a classic cop watch hit job dressed up as a legitimate research study.

    What the PVP and the media are not disclosing is that many of the posts were in response to disturbing incidents. For example, officers posted links to videos and articles immediately after terrorist attacks, when people were killed during robberies, when children were raped, when officers were killed, and after reports of officers having their home addresses and family information made public. Others were in response to horrific homicides involving torture and dismemberment.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273973/cop-watch-database-endangers-police-dawn-perlmutter

  25. Trump to Move USDA Personnel From D.C. to Where Food Grows
    June 13, 2019
    Daniel Greenfield

    D.C. is the ultimate big government town. Food doesn’t grow there. A swamp does.

    The USDA, under Trump, is trying to actually move personnel closer to where food does grow.

    Employees at USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) intend to move from Washington, D.C. to an unspecified area in the Kansas City region by the end of 2019, the Washington Post reports.

    Of course there’s screeching at the idea.

    Why it matters: “Employees, congressional Democrats and a bipartisan coalition of former USDA leaders” have warned that the move “would devastate the two agencies,” per the Post. ERS and NIFA have both recently unionized and some “union officials have promised to fight the move.”

    Food.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/274012/trump-move-usda-personnel-dc-where-food-grows-daniel-greenfield

  26. Fascism Coming to America, Says Politician Who Locked Up Filmmaker
    June 13, 2019
    Daniel Greenfield

    Hey kids, it’s time for another edition of, “Clintons Say the Darnedest Things”.

    Hillary Clinton warned her audience of the rise of fascism in America during an alumnae event held at Wellesley College.

    “I think Madeline [Albright]’s book is really well-named: “Fascism: A Warning,” Clinton said. “And the idea that ‘oh, it can’t happen here’ is just old-fashioned, my friends.”

    “The demagoguery, the appeal to the crowd, the very clever use of symbols, the intimidation, verbal and physical,” she listed, “this is a classic pattern. There is nothing new about it, it’s just different means of messages being delivered.”

    Fascism has been coming to America since around 1927.

    But Hillary is legitimately an expert on fascism.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/274011/fascism-coming-america-says-politician-who-locked-daniel-greenfield

  27. The Collusion Between Twitter, Google in Silencing the Pinterest Investigation is Cartel Behavior
    June 12, 2019
    Daniel Greenfield
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    To quickly recap,

    Pinterest had a covert policy of censoring conservatives. The policy was exposed by Live Action, a pro-life group that was a target of Pinterest censorship, and by Project Veritas.

    Since then, YouTube (Google) and Twitter have shut down Veritas efforts to broadcast material about the investigation.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/274000/collusion-between-twitter-google-silencing-daniel-greenfield

  28. Master class in information manipulation: Obama, Trump, migrants, and ‘former Japanese internment camp’
    By J.E. Dyer June 12, 2019

    It just wouldn’t sound the same if The Hill told us the Trump administration was sending migrant children to be housed at the vast Army base at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma.

    That would sound, you know, humane, if not ideal. Virtually all of these children are unaccompanied minors, most in their teens. It’s much better for them to be housed while they await processing in adequate facilities where the younger ones can be separated from the older ones, and services including medical care, school teaching, and supervised play are easier to provide.

    But The Hill apparently didn’t want it to sound better. So The Hill’s headline reads:

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/06/12/master-class-in-information-manipulation-migrants-and-former-japanese-internment-camp/

  29. Dutch gov’t pushes €3.5 million into anti-terrorism measures at train stations: report
    https://nltimes.nl/2019/06/11/dutch-govt-pushes-eu35-million-anti-terrorism-measures-train-stations-report

    The government is investing 3.5 million euros into counter-terrorism measures at six train stations in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht, among others, the Telegraaf reported on Tuesday. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management would not say exactly which train stations are involved, according to the newspaper.

    “Measures are being taken at the stations that match the current threat level”, State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven of Infrastructure said to the newspaper. “The implementation of the physical measures will start this year and will be combined with current projects as much as possible.”

    There is no concrete reason for this once-off investment in extra counter-terrorism measures, a spokesperson for the national coordinator for counter-terrorism and security NCTV said tot he newspaper. The attack on Amsterdam Central Station, in which two American tourists were stabbed, also has nothing to do with the investment, the Telegraaf writes.

    The terrorism threat level in the Netherlands is at 4 out of 5, the same level it’s been on for years. This means that there is a real chance of a terrorist attack in the country, but that the authorities know of no concrete plans to commit one. According to the NCTV, there are still jihad supporters who are involved in planning attacks in the Netherlands.

  30. Richard: From India

    Girls in a dance group forced by mob of 500 Muslim men to dance naked in Eid program
    By Pamela Geller – on June 12, 2019

    The group somehow managed to escape from the barricaded venue, some of them barefoot, and called their friends for help and also called the Boko police station. One vehicle of the dance group was also attacked by axes and steel digger bars, causing substantial damage to the vehicle.

    OPINDIA: In a shocking incident in Assam, girls in dance troop invited to perform at an Eid celebration were forced to strip and dance naked by rowdy spectators, although they managed to escape.

    According to a complaint filed with police by Arup D Rabha, director of the dance group, a special cultural show was organised on the occasion of Eid in the Asolpara village in Chaygaon area in Kamrup District. Kuddus Ali, one of the organisers of the event, had contracted the Rainbow Dance Group of Boko in Assam for performing in the event on 7th June, and an amount of ?37,000 was agreed upon for the same. Accordingly, the 42-member dance group reached the venue in the evening on that day, but they were surprised to see that there was not any environment of a cultural program there. When they contacted Kuddus Ali, he took them to a weird looking place which was surrounded by corrugated sheet fences on all sides.

    When the dance group started their traditional dance performance, around 700-800 youths present their created a ruckus, and started trying to pull the clothes of the girls in the group. Instead of controlling the mob, the members of the organising committee also participated in this assault. They asked the girls to strip and dance sexual numbers naked, and threatened to attack them with daggers if they don’t comply.

    No coverage in Western media.

    https://gellerreport.com/2019/06/muslim-mob-force-infidle-girls-naked.html/

  31. Islamic State arrival in Mozambique further complicates Cabo Delgado violence (thedefensepost, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://thedefensepost.com/2019/06/13/islamic-state-mozambique-cabo-delgado-iscap/

    “Islamic State claimed its first presence in Mozambique, saying in a statement on June 4 an attack by the army was repelled in “Metobe” in the “Mocimboa area.” The fighting was attributed to its Central Africa Province affiliate. Evidence of links between ISIS and local groups in northeastern Mozambique preceding this claim remain elusive, only increasing questions around the deadly insurgency carried out by Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama.

    Previously, ISCAP-attributed attacks were limited to the Democratic Republic of Congo but ISIS on June 4 claimed: “The soldiers of the Caliphate were able to repel an attack by the Crusader Mozambican army,” and that the fighting led to “killing and wounding a number of them,” adding that “weapons, ammunition, and rockets” had been captured.

    Mozambique police denied that ISIS was behind the fighting, with spokesperson Orlando Mudumane saying “the security forces distance themselves from these reports,” and that “the information is not true.”

    ISIS also released two images purporting to show weapons and ammunition seized in the fighting. A weapons researcher known as Calibre Obscura identified some of the arms…”

  32. Arab Coalition Destroys Houthi Military Targets (aawsat, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1765966/arab-coalition-destroys-houthi-military-targets

    “The Arab Coalition confirmed on Thursday that it carried out an operation, destroying Houthi military assets in Yemen.

    A Coalition statement said the operation targeted “foreign experts from terrorist organizations working with the Houthis.”

    “The targets that were destroyed in Yemen include missile depots, weapons and manufacturing plants,” said the Coalition statement.

    The Coalition had vowed to respond to a missile attack on Abha International Airport a day earlier.”

  33. Violence flares in eastern Sudan with country embroiled in a security vacuum (mee, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/violence-flares-eastern-sudan-country-embroiled-security-vacuum

    “As attention has been locked on protests in Khartoum, there has been increasing violence away from Sudan’s capital amid a security vacuum that tribal leaders accuse the country’s ruling military council of benefiting from.

    Clashes have flared in several regions of the country, particularly in the already-fragile and troubled regions of eastern Sudan and Darfur.

    Eastern Sudan has witnessed escalating tribal clashes that have led to the killing of more than 30 people in recent days, medical sources have told Middle East Eye…”

  34. Egypt hands life terms in Sisi assassination attempt case (memo, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190613-egypt-hands-life-terms-in-sisi-assassination-attempt-case/

    “An Egyptian military court handed down various sentences that ranged from three years to life imprisonment against 296 defendants over an alleged attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and former Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef.

    The court sentenced 32 of the defendants to life, 29 to 15 years in prison, and 36 to ten years. One defendant was sentenced to seven years in jail, 81 were handed five-year terms and 117 were sentenced to three years. Two were acquitted as there was insufficient evidence to convict them.

    The verdicts may be appealed within 60 days.

    Prosecutors referred the case for military trial in 2016 charging the defendants with plotting to assassinate Al-Sisi on two occasions, one of which was during his 2014 visit to Saudi Arabia to perform the Umrah in the company of Mohamed Bin Nayef. They also accused the defendants of forming a terrorist cell affiliated with Daesh and carrying out 18 terrorist operations in North Sinai.

    The second alleged assassination attempt against Al-Sisi took place in Cairo, prosecutors said in an official statement at the time.”

  35. Saudi Arabia is using battlefield technology to track down women fleeing the country (memo, Jun 13, 2019)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190613-saudi-arabia-is-using-battlefield-technology-to-track-down-women-fleeing-the-country/

    “Saudi Arabia is going to extraordinary lengths to hunt down women who are fleeing the country seeking life outside the repressive kingdom. Technology normally used by the military to track targets for lethal drone strikes is being used against women that run away from the country.

    The use of such advanced technology, which is rarely employed by civilians, was exposed by four Saudi women who spoke to the Business Insider about the way in which they were tracked down through their mobile phone’s unique 15-digit International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number.

    Saudi security services used various means to track the IMEI number including raiding the homes and interrogating the family members of women who fled the country. They demand to be shown the packaging box of cell phones which contain the IMEI number. Some of the women who had fled to Europe and were tracked down were brought back to the country.

    This method of tracking people using an IMEI is thought to be almost exclusively a tool used by the police, national security and military bodies. Saudi Arabia’s use of this technology against civilians is said to be not only a sign of desperation but also an indication of the threat faced by dozens of women that have fled the kingdom.

    The seriousness with which Riyadh views this growing phenomenon is a source of concern. According to the Business Insider after two high-profile escapes in early 2019, Saudi Arabia’s Presidency of State Security produced a video in February likening women who run away to jihadist terrorist operatives working for the likes of Daesh.

    Technology experts said that escaping the radar of the kingdom’s security was not a simple matter. Changing a phone’s SIM card is not sufficient. IMEI numbers are unique to the phone and the only way to escape being tracked is to replace the handset, physically remove and replace a chip to obtain a new IMEI, or use a phone which has a reprogrammable IMEI.

    Though Saudi Arabia’s use of IMEI numbers to track down women may not come as a huge surprise, it highlights the growing sophistication with which the country goes after anyone it deems a threat. Since Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman came to power, the kingdom has pursued its critics using some of the most advanced spyware including ones created by an Israeli spyware firm which was used to murder journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”