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.
MACEDONIA HEALTH MINISTER fakes vaccine. He got caught.
https://twitter.com/marc_capt/status/1339403770472656898
Bruce Lee-wannabe of Peace kicks a young woman. Somewhere in the Netherlands:
https://www.dumpert.nl/item/8030455_fb787a4b
Don’t just do something, sit there!
So it goes. But rather than quiver, quake and quit in the face of Freedom’s flight, I vow to not squander a perfectly good fandango. The fandango, or fandangos of which I speak being every nonsensical, but most efficacious, lie told by the left.
Why, even the other runner in this race between Nazis, none other than Islam itself, has taken a back seat in the news to the Globalist’s hijinx. Used to be a good old fashioned jihadi rape, stabbing, Sunday drive on the sidewalk, or suicide bombing could steal the show for at least a few minutes. Now, the first, second, third and fourth stories at the top of every hour on the local radio station are Covid stats. Allah can’t even buy prime time with 50 goats, two camels and a one-eyed wombat. If this doesn’t get you hip to the jive going on then you’re, well, sub-Sahara dumb. (Apologies to all sub-Saharans reading this, snicker.) Yet, while it seems that Islam has been left in the dust fear not, intrepid Vladtepians, they’re assuredly using the current Globalist dance steps for good cover to their own nefarious fantangos.
No, in my best olde english I declare that I shan’t squander the storm of lies so wicked as to let me see for miles. This means consolidating for reinforcement. Physically, financially and spiritually girding for what comes shall now be the plan. I mean, how much more climate change does the Wuhan flu need to convince gender fluidity that right-wing extremism didn’t steal the election of our new normal, or something? Or when I read that Pompeo was offended by the truth of Islam it makes me feel like the rug has been pulled out from under my feet yet again, and that President Trump speaks my dialect even more, if this makes sense. We’re on the merry-go-round, folks, and our little horsies will go up and down until the grown-ups get back and say enough is enough.
The grown-ups are the bankers and bean counters financing the revolution. When it comes to their business they are apolitical.
We have experienced the lowest interest rates for the longest period of time in the history of humanity. Let this sink in. Surely we don’t have to be sophisticated financiers to know that super-cheap money will cause all kinds of distortions if permitted to endure. Cheap money has acted as both soil and fertilizer to a lush, green garden of flourishing leftism, corruption and ridiculous prices on some things. Put another way, when the one financial instrument that has acted as the world standard for value assessment, the U.S. 10-year Treasury Bill, has itself become meaningless as a value yardstick, all other asset classes must follow in similar distortion.
When the money music stops, you better have your chair already picked out.
London bloodbath: Two men in hospital as Tottenham stabbing gives man ‘serious injuries’ (express, Dec 17, 2020)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1373494/london-news-tottenham-stabbing-haringey-north-london-stabbing-knife-crime-ont
“TWO men have been taken to hospital after being stabbed in a brutal attack which took place in the Haringey area of Tottenham.
One man aged in his 50s sustained serious injuries though his exact condition is unknown.
The second male is reported to be in a non-life threatening condition.
Both victims have been rushed to hospital by emergency services.
The incident took place along Winchelsea Road near the centre of Tottenham.
Thus far no arrests have been reported.
Police remain on the ground and a crime scene is in place.
Separately on Wednesday a man was charged following a shooting which took place on Middleton Road, in Hackney, on Monday.
According to the Metropolitan Police website the 28-year-old suspect has been charged with “five counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life”.
A 25-year-old man who received injuries during the incident remains in a critical, but stable, condition in hospital.
The suspect will appear at Thames Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
Anyone with information about the attack is urged to contact police by calling 101 and quoting Cad 7439/14Dec.
They also have the option of calling Crimestoppers anonymously via 0800 555 111.
On Sunday evening a 23-year-old man was stabbed dead in Harrow.
Two teenagers were injured in the same incident and received hospital treatment.
Dr Claire Hind, from the Specialist Crime Command, commented: “This is another tragic incident in which a young man has lost his life.
“We are working tirelessly to establish the circumstances of what happened and find those responsible; and I would appeal for any witnesses to come forward with information they believe may assist the investigation.””
‘Ex-political prisoner’ who says he was tortured by Iran demands release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he is convicted of trying to torch diplomatic car outside Iranian embassy (dailymail, Dec 17, 2020)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9063505/Dissident-tortured-Iran-demands-release-Nazanin-Zaghari-Ratcliffe-convicted.html
“A dissident who claims he was tortured by Iran demanded the release of imprisoned British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he was convicted of trying to torch a diplomatic car outside the Iranian Embassy.
IT professional Sam Parsa, 60, was accused of planting a bottle of petrol along with a scarf into the exhaust pipe of a BMW parked outside the offices in Knightsbridge, central London.
The Iranian said he was tortured for nearly eight years during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, before being released and fleeing the country by secretly crossing the Turkish border. Parsa then sought asylum in the UK.
He was caught on CCTV strolling through Hyde Park before crouching down next to the vehicle’s bumper in Princes Gate shortly before 5am on September 5, 2018.
If the engine was turned on it could have caused the liquid enough to ignite but the device was spotted poking out of the exhaust by two contractors, Mario Muller and Yasir Iqbal.
Though Parsa claimed he was framed by the Iranian government, he was convicted of attempted arson with intent to endanger life after one hour and 55 minutes of jury deliberations.
He shook his head in the dock and insisted ‘I am not guilty’ before ranting from the dock about jailed Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 41, who is accused by the Iranian regime of plotting to topple it…”
Turkish spy claims he was ordered to assassinate female Austrian politician of Kurdish heritage (dailymail, Dec 17, 2020)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9063421/Turkish-spy-claims-ordered-assassinate-female-Austrian-politician-Kurdish-heritage.html
“A Turkish spy claimed he was ordered to assassinate a prominent female Austrian politician of Kurdish heritage.
Feyyaz Öztürk stated the Turkish intelligence service blackmailed him to assassinate Vienna MP Berivan Aslan.
Italian citizen Öztürk, who has Turkish heritage, is under arrest in Austria after he turned himself in to police.
Since Öztürk made the claims, Aslan has been placed under police protection and is unable to leave her home without a bullet-proof vest.
A police report, leaked in the Austrian media and obtained by the Daily Telegraph, details Öztürk’s claims.
He suggested he was ordered to ‘spread chaos’ and that other attacks had been planned on two other politicians – one being Peter Pilz, the founder of the opposition Now party.
Öztürk suggested the aim of the operation was to ensure Aslan and other politicians ‘get the message’ as opposed to ensuring she was hurt or died.
He claims Aslan was to be assassinated in March but it never went ahead because he broke his leg in an accident while in Rimini, Italy.
Aslan said she had received death threats before. She told The Telegraph: ‘The dimension of violence has changed.
‘I am massively restricted in my freedom, every time I have an appointment away from home I think twice whether I need to go.
‘This feels like house arrest.’
The Turkish spy’s lawyer, Daniel Mozga, confirmed the man is charged with spying for a foreign state and that he handed himself in to police but declined to comment on the investigation.
The latest claims have sparked concern as to the lengths Turkey will go to to cease criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Öztürk had tried to hand himself in at a police station in Graz, Austria, in April but was turned away due to coronavirus rules.
The station gave him a phone number for the counterterrorism office in Vienna and his case was left open until September.
Turkey denies Öztürk’s claims and suggests he has no links to the state.
Relations between Austria and Turkey have been fraught in recent weeks as demonstrations from both Turkish and Kurdish groups have taken place across Vienna – with one resulting in violent clashes between the two groups.
The incident sparked days of riots in the capital and investigations revealed a Turkish spy had a hand in the furore.
The latest revelation has raised concerns that Turkey may be willing to carry out assassinations in Europe.
Suggestions to target Pilz, a vocal critic of Erdogan with no Turkish or Kurdish background, have sparked more fears as previous plans for intervention were limited to exiled and immigrant communities.
Pilz said he too was offered police protection but the proposition was later revoked.
In the list Öztürk’s claims, he also suggests he was made to give a false testimony against a member of staff at the US consulate-general in Istanbul in 2017 – with Metin Topuz eventually being sentenced to more than 8 years in priso for aiding an armed terror group.”
UN: At least 120 migrants intercepted off Libya’s coast (abcnews, Dec 17, 2020)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/120-migrants-intercepted-off-libyas-coast-74776249
“More than 120 Europe-bound migrants, including eight women and 28 children, were intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea by Libya’s coast guard, the U.N. migration agency said Thursday.
The International Organization for Migration tweeted that a vessel carrying the migrants was stopped late Wednesday off the coast of the North African country and the passengers were returned to Libyan territories.
“We reiterate that Libya is not a port of safety,” the IOM said.
Safa Msehli, an IOM spokesperson in Libya, tweeted that 126 migrants from the vessel were taken to detention centers inside Libya.
In the years since the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, war-torn Libya has emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants hoping to get to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. Smugglers often pack desperate families into ill-equipped rubber boats that stall and founder along the perilous Central Mediterranean route. At least 20,000 people have died in those waters since 2014, according to the IOM.
In recent years, the EU has partnered with Libya’s coast guard and other local groups to try and halt the dangerous sea crossings. Rights groups, however, say those policies leave migrants at the mercy of armed groups or confined in squalid detention centers rife with abuses.”
Top court rules Hungary flouted EU law by detaining migrants (abcnews, Dec 17, 2020)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/top-court-rules-hungary-flouted-eu-law-detaining-74776199
“The European Union’s top court ruled Thursday that Hungary has failed to respect EU law by denying people entering the country without authorization the right to apply for asylum and unlawfully detaining them in “transit zones” on its border with Serbia.
The European Court of Justice ruled that “Hungary has failed to fulfil its obligation to ensure effective access to the procedure for granting international protection” to people entering from Serbia by leaving them “with the virtual impossibility of making their application” for asylum.
The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, took Hungary to court over a law it introduced in 2015, when well over 1 million migrants entered Europe, most of them refugees from Syria or Iraq arriving in Greece with the intention of seeking asylum in Germany or Scandinavia.
Tens of thousands of migrants moved through the Balkans. Hungary’s anti-migrant government erected razor wire fences to keep them out and expanded the use of “crisis situation caused by mass migration” legal exceptions to set up two transit zones where people were held.
The commission argued that people entering Hungary were forcibly deported to these areas, systematically detained there and were denied their right to apply for international protection.
In its ruling, the Luxembourg-based ECJ said that the right of people to apply for asylum “is an essential step” in granting protection to those seeking refuge due to threats against their lives or safety, and that EU member countries “cannot delay it unjustifiably.”
“Member States must ensure that the persons concerned are able to make an application, including at the borders, as soon as they declare their wish of doing so,” the court said.
The court said also that Hungary’s decision to hold some people in the transit zones while their asylum applications were considered “constitutes detention.”
Hungary has taken a very strict view on immigration and under Prime Minister Viktor Orban has argued that nation states should have control over their own borders. He has often argued that it is necessary to keep out migrants from the Middle East and Africa to preserve the Christian character of Hungarian culture.
Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga dismissed the ECJ ruling as “devoid of purpose” because the transit zones in question have been dismantled. But she wrote on her Facebook page that “strict border control is maintained.”
“We will continue to protect the borders of Hungary and Europe and will do everything we can to prevent the formation of international migrant corridors,” Varga wrote. “Hungary will only be a Hungarian country as long as its borders remain.””
Pope Francis: 2020 Saw a ‘Surge’ in Nationalism, Racism, Xenophobia (breitbart, Dec 17, 2020)
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/12/17/pope-francis-2020-saw-a-surge-in-nationalism-racism-xenophobia/
“The year 2020 was marked by the global coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis said Thursday, but also saw a worrisome a surge in “nationalism, racism, and xenophobia.”
“Sad to say,” alongside all testimonies of love and solidarity during the coronavirus pandemic, “we have also seen a surge in various forms of nationalism, racism and xenophobia, and wars and conflicts that bring only death and destruction in their wake,” he said in his message for the 2021 World Day of Peace, released Thursday.
In recent months, the pope has returned time and again to the topic of nationalism, tying it to the human person’s lowest instincts.
The pontiff presented his ideas for the “great reset” to the General Assembly of the United Nations in late September, urging the adoption of multilateralism and globalism — which he described as “God’s plan for our world” — over a return to nationalism and sovreignism.
“We are faced, then, with a choice between two possible paths,” Francis stated at the time. “One path leads to the consolidation of multilateralism as the expression of a renewed sense of global co-responsibility, a solidarity grounded in justice and the attainment of peace and unity within the human family, which is God’s plan for our world.”
“The other path emphasizes self-sufficiency, nationalism, protectionism, individualism and isolation,” he continued. It “excludes the poor, the vulnerable and those dwelling on the peripheries of life. That path would certainly be detrimental to the whole community, causing self-inflicted wounds on everyone. It must not prevail.”
Francis delivered a similar message the following month in his encyclical letter titled Fratelli Tutti (Brothers All), in which he decried the resurgence of populism and nationalism on the world stage and called for greater multilateralism.
Our own days seem to be showing “signs of a certain regression,” the pope wrote. “Ancient conflicts thought long buried are breaking out anew, while instances of a myopic, extremist, resentful and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.”
“In some countries, a concept of popular and national unity influenced by various ideologies is creating new forms of selfishness and a loss of the social sense under the guise of defending national interests,” the pope wrote in the 43,000-word letter, which was released on October 4.
As he has done on other occasions, Francis attributed renewed nationalist sentiment to growing xenophobia, narrowmindedness, and selfishness.
There are those “who appear to feel encouraged or at least permitted by their faith to support varieties of narrow and violent nationalism, xenophobia and contempt, and even the mistreatment of those who are different,” the pope stressed. “Faith, and the humanism it inspires, must maintain a critical sense in the face of these tendencies, and prompt an immediate response whenever they rear their head.”
“Narrow forms of nationalism are an extreme expression of an inability to grasp the meaning of… gratuitousness,” Francis asserted. “They err in thinking that they can develop on their own, heedless of the ruin of others, that by closing their doors to others they will be better protected.”
“Immigrants are seen as usurpers who have nothing to offer,” he added. “This leads to the simplistic belief that the poor are dangerous and useless, while the powerful are generous benefactors.”
“Sadly, politics today often takes forms that hinder progress towards a different world,” he said. “Lack of concern for the vulnerable can hide behind a populism that exploits them demagogically for its own purposes, or a liberalism that serves the economic interests of the powerful.”
While the pope did not name names in his denunciation of the rise of an “aggressive nationalism,” recent years have witnessed a resurgence of nationalism in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and elsewhere.
“Over the past years, rising nationalism is seen everywhere and in everything,” declared a 2018 essay in the Journal Ethnopolitics.
“From the election of Donald Trump to Brexit, the nationalist policies of the Japanese Prime Minister Shinz? Abe, his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, the success of far-right parties in Italian, German and Austrian elections in 2017 and 2018, nationalism appears to be on rise globally,” it declared.
In later October, Pope Francis Pope Francis again attacked nationalism, suggesting that Europe, and especially Italy, is repeating the errors of pre-Nazi Germany by allowing new nationalisms to take hold.
In an address to socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Pope Francis recommended a book by “an Italian intellectual from the Communist Party” with the “very evocative title: Syndrome 1933.”
In his 2019 book, Siegmund Ginzberg drew a parallel between what was happening with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in 1933 to Italy in 2019, where a new anti-immigrant nationalism and populism threaten to become the dominant political movement.
The book “refers to Germany, obviously,” the pope said Saturday. “With the fall of the Weimar Republic emerged a whole mix of possibilities to get out of the crisis. And there an ideology began to show that the path was National Socialism and it went on and on and arrived at what we know: the drama that was Europe with that homeland invented by an ideology.”
“Because ideologies sectarianize, ideologies deconstruct the homeland, they do not build,” Francis continued. “Learn that from history. And this man in that book very delicately makes a comparison with what is happening in Europe. He says: Be careful that we are repeating the similar path.”
“It is worth reading,” he said.”
Commie wacko Pope. Should be in a rubber room.
Hungary Rejects Gender Theory in Constitutional Amendment (breitbart, Dec 17, 2020)
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/12/17/hungary-rejects-gender-theory-in-constitutional-amendment/
“The Hungarian parliament passed a measure this week amending the national constitution to more clearly enshrine the meaning of family and gender as traditionally understood.
In direct opposition to gender theory, the amended text states that “Hungary protects children’s right to an identity conforming to their birth gender and ensures education in accordance with the values ??based on Hungary’s constitutional identity and Christian culture.”
The constitutional amendment — Hungary’s ninth — spells out the definition of family as “based on marriage and the parent-child relation. The mother is a woman, the father a man,” in what pro-family organizations are hailing as a victory for marriage in the midst of an increasingly hostile and ideologically charged environment.
Hungarian law already recognized marriage as a stable union between one man and one woman, but Tuesday’s amendment stipulates that only people in such a union are allowed to adopt children. Single people can only adopt children with special permission from the minister in charge of family affairs.
The amendment was approved by parliament with 134 votes in favor and 45 against; there were five abstentions. According to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s communications office, the Constitution “now protects a child’s right to identify with their gender at birth and an upbringing based on Hungary’s constitutional identity and Christian culture.”
An explanatory text accompanying the legislation states that western ideology is changing in a way that necessitates guaranteeing the child’s right to self-identity in line with their gender at birth in order to protect the child from mental or biological intervention affecting their physical and mental wellbeing.
Raising children according to Hungary’s “constitutional identity and Christian culture” gives new generations the chance to learn about Hungarian identity and “to protect its sovereignty as well as the national role of Christianity,” the communications office noted.
The amendment will also ensure that only married couples can adopt a child, guaranteeing every adopted child a mother and a father, whose roles are not interchangeable.
Pro-LGBT groups reacted fiercely against the amendment, insisting that it targeted them.
“This is a dark day for Hungary’s LGBTQ community and a dark day for human rights,” said David Vig, director of Amnesty Hungary.
Mr. Vig said that “these discriminatory, homophobic and transphobic new laws are just the latest attack on LGBTQ people by Hungarian authorities.”
In August, 2018, the Hungarian government announced it was discontinuing programs in gender studies at state-run universities after determining the programs serve no identifiable purpose and are based on “ideology rather than science.”
Bence Rétvári, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Human Resources (EMMI), said that university degrees must be rooted in a scientific basis, whereas gender studies, “like Marxist-Leninism,” are more aptly termed ideology than science and are inappropriate matter for university-level education.
A spokesman for the Hungarian government said that there is no demand for gender studies graduates in the Hungarian job market.
“There is no economic rationale for studies such as these,” he said, and nor does the program “furnish students with skills that can be readily and directly converted on the labour market.””
Three-Year-Old Girl Found Raped at Greek Island Migrant Camp (breitbart, Dec 17, 2020)
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/12/17/three-year-old-girl-found-raped-at-greek-island-migrant-camp/
“A three-year-old girl was found passed out in the mud of the Kara Tepe migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, with doctors claiming the young child had been raped.
The horrific incident is said to have taken place on Monday night at the migrant camp which was created after the notorious Moria camp was burned down, allegedly by migrants themselves, earlier in the year.
The victim, who is the child of an Afghan family which applied for asylum in Greece, was found unconscious and bleeding and was quickly transferred to the camp’s medical facility before being sent to a hospital in the nearby city of Mytilene, Proto Thema reports.
So far, no arrests have been made, and police say they are investigating the incident.
The assault comes as NGOs have condemned the conditions at Kara Tepe after major rainfall over the weekend caused a flood, the third since the start of Autumn.
Some NGOs have begun to label the camp “Moria 2.0”, such as activist Tommy Olsen, the head of the Norwegian civil society group Aegean Boat.
“It’s unbelievable that Europe can let this happen on European soil in 2020. Over 7,000 people are living in this camp, many of them children, under inhumane conditions. This is the situation in the new camp on Lesbos that many refer to as Moria 2.0,” Olsen said this week.
The original Moria camp was also well-known for its overcrowded and poor conditions, along with a high number of sexual assaults against women and children.
In 2018, a United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) report claimed that the Moria camp had become a no-go zone for women and children due to the dangers of sexual violence from male migrants.
Cecile Pouilly, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR, stated at the time: “In these two centres, bathrooms and latrines are no-go zones after dark for women or children.”
“Even bathing during daytime can be dangerous. In Moria, one woman told our teams that she had not taken a shower in two months from fear,” she said.”
Trump is ready with a $2 trillion jolt for China as a ruthless delisting of Chinese companies begins
(Richard: I haven’t watched the whole thing yet but the fact that 7 States have sent 2 sets of electors (in my opinion) makes this a contested election. The next 2 to 3 weeks are going to get wild.)
Live Q&A: Duel Electors Cast Votes in Seven States | Crossroads
Singapore integrates missiles with greater range into air defence network
100% Israeli.
Iron Dome intercepts cruise missiles for first time
MoD: System can intercept a variety of threats, including UAVs and cruise missiles
The Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) said Tuesday it successfully completed a series of live-fire intercept tests of an advanced version of the David’s Sling weapon system against cruise and ballistic missiles.
The tests also demonstrated the capabilities of the Iron Dome system in intercepting UAVs and cruise missiles.
They further demonstrated the interoperability of Israel’s multilayered air defenses (Arrow, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome) to intercept different threats simultaneously.…
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/military-shows-off-davids-sling-iron-dome-arrow-interoperable-652176
……
Israel’s historic missile test: A message to Iran, Hezbollah, allies
Today’s warfare is not about hunting down terrorists in buildings or using tanks, it is also about confronting hi-tech missiles and drones
https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/israels-historic-missile-test-a-message-to-iran-hezbollah-allies-652192
Japanese retailer to sell ‘hyper-realistic’ face masks | Tokyo news | World News
kinky
Gravitas: Pakistan’s new anti-rape law
Gravitas: Pakistan’s new anti-rape law
Chinese Dams on Brahmaputra river | India’s strategic concerns | Geo-political advantages
Gravitas: Pakistan’s new anti-rape lawhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcV10wjut6U
Putin tests an anti-Sat missile soon after Jinping celebrates his Arctic satellite
One company in China has single-handedly made thousands of Chinese people homeless
Exclusive: Why Do Hand Count and Machine Tally Always Match? 68% Error Rate Might Hold the Key.
https://youtu.be/smhi6jts97I
Alexei Navalni speaks about FSB.
Asian students’ status as ‘people of color’ canceled after they score ‘too high on tests’
By Ben Bowles December 17, 2020
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/12/17/asian-students-status-as-people-of-color-canceled-after-they-score-too-high-on-tests/
In March of 2015, the Los Angeles Times reported, much to the horror of Asian-Americans, that they were being discriminated against. The source of the bigotry was not white supremacists but college admissions officers.
According to a Princeton University study that measured how race and ethnicity affected admissions using SAT scores as a benchmark, blacks students had a “bonus” of 230 points added to their SAT scores, Hispanics 185 points. Asian Americans, in contrast, were penalized 50 points. In other words, they had to perform that much better to win admission. (RELATED: NY judge rules competency test for teachers racist because minorities score lower)
Now a Washington state school district has come up with its own solution for highlighting the extra hurdles faced by students of color and that hampers their academic performance. The solution? To remove the “person of color” tag from students of Asian extraction. Writes Robby Soave at Reason
The Persistent Myth of Biden’s ‘Moderation’
His personnel picks are plenty liberal, despite the carping of Bernie and company.
The dominant media is an unreliable arbiter of political labels. While it is quick to cast even the most prosaic Republicans as “hardline conservatives,” it is far more circumspect in its description of Democrats. To enhance the appeal of figures like Joe Biden, the media will often confer upon them the label “moderate.” This is a lever by which the media moves the ideological spectrum steadily leftward, to the advantage of liberals. A biased media would like the public to see liberalism and “moderation” as interchangeable. Hence, even though Biden ran a campaign to the left of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, many in the media still described it as moderate.
This media flattery continues as Biden rolls out his personnel picks. He hasn’t selected a veritable moderate yet. All his picks come from the ranks of liberal Democrats, and some of the most important posts have gone to the most ideological of them, from Neera Tanden at the Office of Management and Budget to Xavier Becerra at Health and Human Services. This week Biden named Jennifer Granholm, an opponent of traditional sources of energy, to head up the Energy Department, which is a bit like making a pacifist the head of the Defense Department.
It is clear that no serious dissenters from liberal orthodoxy will receive any positions in a Biden administration. Yet some in the media are still playing up “tensions” between Biden and “progressives” so that the mythology of Biden as a moderate can continue. “Progressives frustrated with representation as Biden Cabinet takes shape,” says the Hill. But the carping doesn’t amount to much. It appears more personal than ideological: Bernie Sanders and company would like to see more of their friends getting jobs. To the extent that it is ideological, it represents little more than an intramural dispute not between moderates and liberals but between leftists of varying degrees. (Neera Tanden is described in the article as “establishment,” though she is as liberal as they come.)
https://spectator.org/biden-moderation-progressivism/
Pelosi, the press, and the 25th Amendment — parts of a plan?
A national defense analyst is suggesting that the sudden interest of the mainstream media in the Biden family’s questionable dealings with adversaries like China may be a sign that the Democrats are setting up the former vice president for a fall.
While the mainstream media went out of its way – before the election – to cover up the scandals surrounding Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, CNN and other mainstream media outlets are now reporting on his questionable business dealings in China and the Ukraine, including his laptop (discovered in October) corroborating his deeds.
Robert Maginnis, a retired U.S. Army officer and now senior fellow for national security at the Family Research Council, wonders aloud if there are plans afoot.
“You’ve got this information coming out about Hunter and the Biden syndicate using influence-peddling to gain dollars – and if that is the case, then it’s quite possible that the effect in removing Mr. Biden [from office] would be something that would happen early in the administration,” he tells One News Now.
“Keep in mind,” he continues, “[House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi, months ago, started to chatter about the 25th Amendment, which means basically you can remove a president if the president is sick or doesn’t have his mental faculties.”
Maginnis says Pelosi’s discussion about the 25th Amendment may have been part of a strategy involving Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris.
https://www.gopusa.com/?p=99347?omhide=true
Yesterday a message on the marquee of a pub in London, Ontario read: Can the real fricking PC Gov’t emerge. Fire the PC of crap running the hospitals. WE DESERVE BETTER.
Today the messages reads: Hey evil Empire your Dictatorship LOCKDOWNS R NOT WORKING. YOU HAVE BEEN TUNED OUT AHOLES.
God love the hospital workers, the stress levels are high.
Terribly sad what our feckless leaders have imposed on all of us. We should have some kind of a mechanism to FIRE every last one of them.
Government should stay out of hospitals. Damn Doug Ford and Justine.
Mitt Romney illustrates how to lose, boosts Biden, not so sure ‘Trumpism is going away’
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah on Tuesday urged President Donald Trump to accept a clear loss to President-elect Joe Biden and called on Republicans to chart a course based on conservative principles as opposed to Trumpism.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 GOP presidential nominee, told CBS News’ “This Morning” that it was “very unfortunate” Biden would take office in a “difficult position … as a result of President Trump’s efforts to try to overturn the will of the people.”
https://www.gopusa.com/?p=99318?omhide=true
Omar, Tlaib and AOC Demand Facebook Remove 100% of ‘Anti-Muslim Content’
30 House Democrats go to war against the First Amendment.
Two of the most notorious bigots in the House of Representatives signed a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding that he “eradicate anti-Muslim bigotry from Facebook”.
The three-page letter signed by Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, as well as 28 other left-wing House members, spends a great deal of time demanding the removal of what it calls “anti-Muslim content” without ever specifically defining it. That’s convenient considering Omar and Tlaib’s own history of racism and antisemitism, and support for the sorts of Islamic bigotry and violence that groups like CAIR, which supports the letter, have become known for.
The letter spotlights one violent incident, but then goes on to call for a ban on “anti-Muslim content”, “anti-Muslim animus”, “anti-Muslim bigotry”, and finally, “anti-Muslim content and organizing” on the platform, without ever explaining what exactly they want to ban.
Considering the letter’s call for, “100 percent proactive detection and removal of anti-Muslim content”, the safe assumption would be that they want to ban everything critical of Islam.
That’s a disturbing attack on the First Amendment coming from 30 House members.
Two of the most notorious bigots in the House of Representatives signed a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding that he “eradicate anti-Muslim bigotry from Facebook”.The three-page letter signed by Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, as well as 28 other left-wing House members, spends a great deal of time demanding the removal of what it calls “anti-Muslim content” without ever specifically defining it. That’s convenient considering Omar and Tlaib’s own history of racism and antisemitism, and support for the sorts of Islamic bigotry and violence that groups like CAIR, which supports the letter, have become known for.The letter spotlights one violent incident, but then goes on to call for a ban on “anti-Muslim content”, “anti-Muslim animus”, “anti-Muslim bigotry”, and finally, “anti-Muslim content and organizing” on the platform, without ever explaining what exactly they want to ban.Considering the letter’s call for, “100 percent proactive detection and removal of anti-Muslim content”, the safe assumption would be that they want to ban everything critical of Islam.That’s a disturbing attack on the First Amendment coming from 30 House members.
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m o d e r n i t y 4
the rebel – WATCH: Theresa Tam declares Santa an “essential worker”
the rebel – CBC LIES! Trudeau’s Chinese Soldiers Story (As Presented by the State Broadcaster)
Dr.’ Jill Biden’s ‘dissertation’ was unbelievably awful – Liberty Unyielding
Hans Bader
5-6 minutes
‘Dr.’ Jill Biden’s ‘dissertation’ was unbelievably awful
Jill Biden (Image: YouTube screen grab)
Jill Biden calls herself “Dr.” because she received an Ed.D. degree. To get that degree, she wrote a dreadfully bad “dissertation/executive position paper.” It was not, in substance, a dissertation, and its quality was simply awful. Indeed, its quality was so poor that people would likely have raised questions about its adequacy, if her husband hadn’t been a powerful politician in Delaware, whose state university gave her the degree.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/12/17/dr-jill-bidens-dissertation-was-unbelievably-awful/
Iran’s Plan to Topple Arab Leaders
Khaled Abu Toameh
9-12 minutes
Islamists are calling on the Moroccan people to revolt against their government and King Mohammed VI. This call shows that the Islamists have shifted from rhetorical attacks on Arabs who establish relations with Israel to calls to violence against the Arab rulers and governments. Pictured in foreground: King Mohammed VI of Morocco. (Photo by Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran’s Islamist proxies in the Arab world have resurfaced to condemn last week’s normalization agreement between Israel and Morocco just as they did with similar accords reached in the past few months with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
As usual, the Islamists and their patrons in Tehran, who seek the elimination of Israel, are using texts from the Koran and sayings attributed to the prophet Mohammed to justify their opposition to the normalization of relations between Arabs and Israel.
After the Israel-Morocco deal, however, the Islamists have stepped up their campaign of incitement against Arabs who want to make peace with Israel.
Now, the Islamists are calling on the Moroccan people to revolt against their government and King Mohammed VI. This call shows that the Islamists have shifted from rhetorical attacks on Arabs who establish relations with Israel to calls to violence against the Arab rulers and governments. By urging the Moroccans to “resist” the normalization agreement, Iran’s proxies are sending a message to the people of Morocco to topple their “treacherous” regime by using all available methods, including terrorism.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16859/iran-topple-arab-leaders
twitter @TedPetrou
Sweden’s two-year mortality rate in 2019-2020 is one of the lowest in the last 10 years.
I even overestimated 2020 deaths by 2-3%.
Share this to everyone you know who tries to point at Sweden as an example of covid policy failure.
Their strategy has been a huge success.
https://twitter.com/TedPetrou/status/1338885808661671936
MEMO: Biden Was Briefed on Burisma’s Corruption Weeks Before Demanding Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Firing
A new leaked memo suggests that Joe Biden, who is currently slated to be sworn in as President in January, was briefed on the corruption of Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky weeks before he personally demanded the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the oligarch-owned company, which employed his son Hunter Biden at the time.
Just the News’ John Solomon revealed the email on Tuesday, which is sent to a Biden aide in December 2015.
In the email, the US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt warned Biden of Burisma’s owner’s corruption. Pyatt cited a join US-UK investigation into assets of Zlochevsky stashed overseas, a common corrupt business practice used by Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs who received ownership of former state industries following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the transition to a market economy.
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/memo-biden-was-briefed-on-burismas-corruption-weeks-before-demanding-ukrainian-prosecutors-firing/
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2020/12/17/adl-smears-foes-of-jihad-terror-as-islamophobes-gets-canceled-as-anti-muslim-anyway-n1216817?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=582
ADL Smears Foes of Jihad Terror as ‘Islamophobes,’ Gets Canceled as ‘Anti-Muslim’ Anyway
BY ROBERT SPENCER DEC 17, 2020 12:29 PM ET
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) top dog Jonathan A. Greenblatt on Wednesday penned a defensive op-ed in the Forward, complaining about the cancel culture. Has the ADL, which has strayed a considerable distance from its stated mission “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all” and trafficked eagerly in the cancel culture for years, suddenly recovered a respect for the freedom of speech and the common decency to refrain from demonizing opposing viewpoints as evil and worthy only of silencing? No, but it is getting a taste of the medicine it has dished out for so many years in stigmatizing and marginalizing foes of jihad terror, and demonstrating yet again that the Leftist elites will never be satisfied with anything but absolute compliance with their agenda.
Greenblatt begins with a strut, proclaiming that the ADL is “one of the oldest civil-rights organizations in the Jewish community,” and trying for a tone of sweet reason, insisting that “we’re not unaccustomed to criticism, even in the pages of one of America’s oldest Jewish news outlets.”
However, now something has happened that even the saintly Greenblatt can’t pass over this one with his usual manful stoicism: “But the OpEd by Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which the Forward published on Tuesday morning, was illuminating about how certain quarters in our society desperately try to employ cancel culture to silence others.”
What was that? The organization that produces articles with titles such as “Islamophobes React to Coronavirus Pandemic with Anti-Muslim Bigotry” has discovered the evils of the cancel culture? It seems unbelievable, but true at least as far as this goes. Greenblatt continues: “In this case, the author is trying to marginalize ADL and make support for the State of Israel disqualifying in pursuing civil rights for all Americans, including the Muslim-American community. Al-Marayati argues that ADL is a source of “anti-Muslim” rhetoric and cannot be fully trusted as an ally in the fight for civil rights because of our support of the Jewish state.” Greenblatt whines that it is a “common tactic in a smear campaign” to “narrow down a broader argument…into a singular, unfounded allegation.”
Oh, you mean like claiming that “American anti-Muslim ideologues are propagating a range of conspiracies aimed at stoking fear, claiming Muslims are defying social distancing rules and/or actively trying to spread the virus”? There are so many unfounded allegations in the ADL article that even al-Marayati would stand in awe. First there is the ADL’s smearing of foes of jihad violence and Sharia oppression as “anti-Muslim ideologues.” Then there is the characterization of the reporting of news stories as “propagating a range of conspiracies aimed at stoking fear.” Then there is the smearing of me as a “leading Islamophobe and right-wing conspiracy theorist,” which is the kind of language that precludes any honest discussion or debate out of hand, for the target has been prima facie ruled out of the bounds of acceptable discourse.
But now Jonathan Greenblatt is himself the recipient of his own tactics. He is discovering that any dissent, no matter how small and qualified, from the far-Left agenda — which is increasingly open in its hostility to Israel — will get you defamed as an “Islamophobe,” no matter how much you pander, no matter how much you desperately try to stay in the good graces of those who set the tune to which the rest of us must dance. Salam al-Marayati of MPAC has smeared ADL as “anti-Muslim” for supporting Israel, and Greenblatt is dismayed, saying that “the allegation that ADL falls along the same side of Islamophobes is patently false.”
Of course it is. The ADL has repeatedly done to foes of jihad violence against Israel and other states, and foes of Sharia oppression of women and others, exactly what Salam al-Marayati is doing to him now. Greenblatt could have used this as an occasion to wake up and realize how he is being played, and how the entire “Islamophobia” enterprise is a scam designed to intimidate people into not having the courage to oppose jihad terror, for fear of falling prey to what al-Marayati is subjecting him to. But instead of having an original thought for the first time in his life, Greenblatt is doubling down, pleading with al-Marayati to accept him. Will it work? Almost certainly not, but it will likely lead the ADL to become even more anti-Israel than it is now.
It’s a common tactic of Leftists: represent facts that are patently true as if they were self-evidently false, and egregiously hateful and bigoted, without any actual attempt to refute them. But this is what the ADL has done to those it smears as “Islamophobes” for years. It is tempting to grab some popcorn and indulge in some schadenfreude at Greenblatt’s discomfort, were it not for the fact that the Overton window of acceptable speech keeps narrowing and narrowing, until hateful Marxist and Islamic supremacist agitprop will be the only things you’re allowed to say. We’re well on our way there.
https://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2020/12/16/cops-question-man-for-hate-speech-for-writing-islam-is-right-about-women-outside-mosque-n1215509
Cops Question Man for ‘Hate Speech’ for Writing ‘Islam Is Right about Women’ Outside Mosque
BY ROBERT SPENCER DEC 16, 2020 1:44 PM ET
My oh my, the new speech codes of our moral superiors are convoluted. The absurdity of the Left’s new orthodoxy was on full-frontal, ghastly display Tuesday, when a man in New Zealand was questioned on suspicion of “hate speech.”
His offense?
Writing “Islam is Right about Women” in chalk on the sidewalk outside a mosque. Yes, now apparently the new thought police are so good, they can determine from chalk graffiti whether or not you’re being sarcastic and “hateful.”
How could writing “Islam is Right about Women” possibly be “hate speech”? It seems that the officials who are investigating this case have the concept all wrong. The chalk graffiti would have been “hate speech” if it had said “Islam is WRONG about women,” no? Certainly in the view of the dominant Left today, that would be hate speech. But defending Sharia oppression of women? Why, that’s not “hate speech”! That’s positively woke!
This ridiculous incident illustrates the fact that the very concept of “hate speech,” so beloved and increasingly used by the Left, not just in New Zealand but all over the world, is arbitrary, subjective, and useless. How is the graffiti “hate speech” in any conceivable fashion? If an adherent of Islam put it up, he or she would strenuously object to that label, and maintain that Islam’s treatment of women was divinely-ordained justice. So if this is “hate speech,” then Islam is hateful, which I’m sure no New Zealand police officials meant to imply.
Clearly, the cops immediately thought that the graffiti was written by “Islamophobes,” and quickly nabbed their man. Still, it’s an odd sort of “hate speech” to affirm what one opposes. But since clear thinking has pretty much gone the way of the Model T Ford and sensible Leftists these days are extinct, fear of “Islamophobia” is what led the police to consider this graffiti a provocation.
Meanwhile, lost in the controversy is what is actually the central question: is Islam actually right about women?
The Qur’an teaches that men are superior to women and should beat those from whom they “fear disobedience”: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” (4:34)
The Qur’an likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: “Your women are a tilth for you, so go to your tilth as you will” (2:223)
It declares that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man: “Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as you choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her” (2:282)
It allows men to marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls also: “If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if you fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly, then only one, or one that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice” (4:3)
It rules that a son’s inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: “Allah directs you as regards your children’s inheritance: to the male, a portion equal to that of two females” (4:11).
It allows for marriage to prepubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4)
Also, a Muslim wife may not refuse sex. A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “If a husband calls his wife to his bed [i.e. to have sexual relation] and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning” (Bukhari 4.54.460).
And: “By him in Whose Hand lies my life, a woman can not carry out the right of her Lord, till she carries out the right of her husband. And if he asks her to surrender herself [to him for sexual intercourse] she should not refuse him even if she is on a camel’s saddle” (Ibn Majah 1854).
Islamic law stipulates: “The husband may forbid his wife to leave the home…because of the hadith related by Bayhaqi that the Prophet…said, ‘It is not permissible for a woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day to allow someone into her husband’s house if he is opposed, or to go out of it if he is averse” (Reliance of the Traveller m10.4).
However, not only can none of this be spoken in the mainstream, but even to affirm the opposite is now an offense in New Zealand. Nonetheless, the supposedly obvious fact that this graffiti was sarcastic doesn’t obscure the fact that the intelligentsia all over the Anglosphere want you to ignore all those citations and others like them, and believe in your heart that Islam is indeed right about women. And no one will dare object and speak up in defense of women, for fear of suffering far worse than what this graffiti artist got.
Rethinking Pinochet.
https://tinyurl.com/y8m4s88a
Questions over vaccine injection at UMC event
Michigan Secretary of State Refuses to Testify to State Legislature on Election
By Zachary Stieber
December 17, 2020 Updated: December 17, 2020
biggersmaller Print
Michigan’s top election official has declined to appear before the state legislature to testify as lawmakers probe alleged election irregularities.
“I am aware of the hearings the Committee has conducted, and am concerned that contrary to your desire to ‘get to the bottom’ of election questions, they are instead amplifying already debunked conspiracy theories and previously disproven claims of people who lack basic knowledge of election administration, and in doing so undermining the integrity of the election and wounding our democracy,” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, wrote to state Rep. Matt Hall.
Benson cited Attorney General William Barr, who said earlier this month that investigators had not yet found “fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.” She also referred to a statement put out by the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, which called the election “the most secure in American history.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/michigan-secretary-of-state-refuses-to-testify-to-state-legislature-on-election_3622724.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-12-17-2
2020 Election Fraud Is CCP ‘Assassin’s Mace’: Patrick Byrne
By Simon Veazey and Jan Jekielek
December 16, 2020 Updated: December 17, 2020
biggersmaller Print
Election fraud is the secret “assassin’s mace” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that has long confounded security hawks, according to tech billionaire and entrepreneur Patrick Byrne, who back in August assembled a cyber intelligence team to analyze the U.S. voting system.
“For 10 years or more, there have been references to a coming ‘assassin’s mace’ in the Chinese literature—where they take out the United States with one stroke,” Byrne told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program. “The national security community in the United States has been trying to figure this out: Is it their new aircraft carrier? Is that the hypersonic missile? Is it this, that, is it an EMP?”
“I don’t think so, ” he told host Jan Jekielek. “The one stroke that takes the United States out is what we’re experiencing right now.”
The 2020 vote involved “massive election fraud,” he says. “Not voter fraud, but election fraud.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/2020-election-fraud-is-ccp-assassins-mace-patrick-byrne_3619337.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2020-12-17
DAILY MAIL – Publisher cancels Julie Burchill’s book contract after ‘Islamophobic’ Twitter row when she accused Muslim journalist of ‘worshipping a paedophile’
Julie Burchill, 61, accused journalist Ash Sarkar of ‘worshipping a paedophile’
Burchill was accused of Islamophobia and has lost her book contract over row
Row started after Burchill leapt to defence of Rod Liddle after Sarkar’s criticism
In 2012, Liddle said he wasn’t a teacher as he couldn’t not try to ‘s**g the kids’
Feminist writer Julie Burchill has had her book contract cancelled after she told a Muslim journalist that the Prophet Mohammed was a paedophile.
Burchill had tweeted that Ash Sarkar’s worship of the Prophet was the ‘worship of a paedophile’, referring to the 7th Century leader’s marriage to his third wife Aisha when she was around 10.
.. married at six - penetrated at 9... and now in lunar years that means 5 ¾ and 8½ ...]Burchill’s book – Welcome to the Woke Trials: How #Identity killed progressive politics – was due to be released in March but was dropped by Little, Brown after the row.
The Hachette imprint said that Burchill’s comments were ‘not defensible from a moral or intellectual standpoint’ and had ‘crossed a line with regard to race and religion’.
It added that her book, which describes what happened after one her articles for the Observer was removed amid criticism that she had used ‘transphobic’ language, had become ‘inextricably linked with those views’.
Her latest spat began on December 13 when she rushed to defend journalist Rod Liddle after Sarkar criticised a 2012 article in the Spectator where Liddle said he didn’t become a teacher because he would want to sleep with pupils.
Liddle wrote: ‘The only thing stopping me from being a teacher was that I could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids. We’re talking secondary level here, by the way – and even then I don’t think I’d have dabbled much below year ten, as it is now called.’
Posting a portion of the piece, Sarkar commented: ‘It’s astonishing that both he and his editor thought guffawing about hypothetically being a paedophile made for a good article.’
In response, Burchill said: ‘Can you please remind me of the age of the Prophet Mohammad’s first wife? Thank you in anticipation.’
She later added: ‘I don’t WORSHIP a paedophile. If Aisha was nine, YOU do. Lecturer, lecture thyself!’
Sarkar subsequently accused Burchill of Islamophobia, with the exchange shared widely on social media.
Last night, Burchill revealed she had been ‘cancelled’ by her publisher following the row. She said: ‘Reason was ‘hate speech’ to Ash Sarkar and ‘crossing a line’ – There was also a concern that the line might be crossed again during the promotion of the book.’
Tweeting today, Burchill boasted about her cancellation and said she is ‘excited for imminent events’.
Sarkar said she was ‘appalled’ by Burchill’s comments, telling the Times: ‘It was quite upsetting to see that it’s not the first time she’s made derogatory insinuations about my faith.’ She added that she is discussing her option for further action with her lawyers.
But Little, Brown’s move has also been met with fury, with actor Laurence Fox tweeting for people to ‘play the game’ and boycott Hachette books.
He also called the word Islamophobia ‘a lie’ and a ‘meaningless word scrabble of rubbish’.
The Free Speech Union, which represents Burchill, said it will be taking up her case. It called the cancellation of her book ‘a new low’, adding: ‘Appeasement is like feeding a crocodile in the hope he will eat you last.’
Spiked editor Brendan O’Neill said that ‘this orgy of censorious fury ironically proves the point of Burchill’s book – that the unwoke are being tried and found guilty and cast out of polite society’.
‘If anyone ever again tries to say cancel culture doesn’t exist, remind them of this: a book on cancel culture was cancelled because the author made fun of Islam,’ Mr O’Neill added.
In a statement, Little, Brown said: ‘We will no longer be publishing Julie Burchill’s book. This is not a decision we have taken lightly.
‘We believe passionately in freedom of speech at Little, Brown and we have always published authors with controversial or challenging perspectives – and we will continue to do so.
‘While there is no legal definition of hate speech in the UK, we believe that Julie’s comments on Islam are not defensible from a moral or intellectual standpoint, that they crossed a line with regard to race and religion, and that her book has now become inextricably linked with those views.’
Burchill previously said that her desire to write the book had been sparked by the ‘vitriolic reaction’ she had received after writing an article in the Observer in defence of Suzanne Moore in 2013.
A synopsis read: ‘Welcome to the Woke Trials will be part-memoir and part-indictment of what happened to Burchill between then and now, as the regiments of the woke took over.
‘It will also be a characteristically irreverent and entertaining analysis of the key elements of a continuing and disturbing phenomenon – all told with the common touch and rampant vulgarity that has made Burchill a household name.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9058903/Publisher-cancels-Julie-Burchills-book-contract-Islamophobic-Twitter-row.html
SCOTUS….
https://twitter.com/i/status/1339641451215544322
The United States of Canada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQzFNSCDaTg&feature=emb_logo
This is pretty amusing.
Next US Admin Will Bow to Iranian Nation: Rouhani
https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2020/12/17/2412411/next-us-admin-will-bow-to-iranian-nation-rouhani
“The Iranian nation’s fortitude will surely force the next US administration to give in, President Hassan Rouhani said.
In comments after opening a number of projects carried out by the Interior Ministry on Thursday, Rouhani said he is quite confident that the Iranian nation’s resistance will make the next US administration give in.
“We must all try to strengthen national power, because increased national power and unity will force everyone to bow down to the Iranian nation,” he added.
Pointing to the advice that Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei gave the Iranian officials on Wednesday about boosting national solidarity, the president warned against any comment that may drive a wedge between people.
“We must try to neutralize the sanctions,” Rouhani stressed, giving an assurance that his administration will do its utmost to that end.
“I assure the people that resistance and perseverance will force the enemy to surrender to the Iranian nation,” he added.
In remarks on Wednesday, Ayatollah Khamenei offered four important pieces of advice. “Be strong in all fields, do not trust the enemy, preserve national unity, and more than thinking about removing the sanctions work on nullifying them.””
EU Allocates 6 Billion Euros Sought by Turkey for Syria Refugees
https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2688361/eu-allocates-6-billion-euros-sought-turkey-syria-refugees
“The EU announced Thursday that it has allocated to Turkey the full six billion euros Ankara sought in return for its hosting of Syrian refugees.
After the biggest refugee crisis since World War II in 2015 saw a million people arrive in Europe, Brussels and Ankara agreed in 2016 to resolve the issue.
Under the deal, Turkey pledged to accept the return of migrants arriving in Greece and do more to stop the flow in exchange for six billion euros ($7.20 billion).
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the EU of not fulfilling promises and says Ankara has spent $40 billion on more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey.
“Today marks the finalization of the contracting of six billion euros in EU support to refugees and host communities in Turkey,” AFP quoted Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, the bloc’s envoy to Ankara, as saying.
The two sides have “put an important milestone behind us and (will) now focus on making sure that the refugees and host communities will benefit from our projects.”
The EU money has been earmarked for specific social projects inside Turkey for helping refugees and will not be paid directly to the Turkish government.
The issue has put a significant strain on relations between the bloc and Turkey.
Earlier this year, Erdogan said Turkey would not prevent migrants from leaving for EU territory but later rescinded the threat.
He sought to pressure Brussels into providing more support to Turkey in view of the Syrian conflict, especially after violence flared in the northwestern region of Idlib.
The new contracts include supporting health services for migrants and improving the living conditions of the most vulnerable refugees.”
Ballistic missile fired by Houthis falls inside Yemeni territory
https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/601526/SAUDI-ARABIA/Ballistic-missile-fired-by-Houthis-falls-inside-Yemeni-territory
“A ballistic missile launched by Iran-backed Houthi militia from Sana’a fell inside the Yemeni territory, the Arab Coalition said on Thursday.
In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency, the coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki said: “The terrorist, Iran-backed Houthi militia launched a ballistic missile from Sana’a governorate this morning (Dec. 17, 2020), using civilian objects as a launch site. The missile fell in Sa’dah governorate of Yemen after traveling a distance of short 158 km after the launch.”
“The Houthi militia continues its flagrant violations of the international humanitarian law by launching ballistic missiles that fall indiscriminately on civilians and residential areas, threatening the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians, Al-Maliki added.
The spokesman warned, saying: “The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition will continue to undertake all deterrent, rigorous measures to protect civilians in Yemen, and safeguard regional and international security.””
Coalition of groups criticise OIC for failing to condemn China’s persecution of Uighurs
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uighurs-china-oic-failing-condemn
“A coalition of 140 organisations sent a letter criticising the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s failure to condemn China over its abusive treatment of Uighur Muslims. The groups also called on the Muslim intergovernmental organisation to demand accountability from Beijing for its actions.
During a news conference on Thursday, organisations, politicians and rights groups came together to urge the OIC to reverse its stance on China’s treatment of its Muslim minorities.
“Today’s letter to the OIC has tremendous significance. Today, Muslim organisations from all over the world have come together in a united voice for the Uighur people. We have been calling on the OIC to break its silence for more than two years,” said Omer Kanat, chairman of the World Uighur Congress.
“OIC’s charter includes a commitment to safeguarding the rights, dignity, and religious, cultural identity of the Muslim communities and minorities in non-member states.”
The letter will be delivered to the OIC by the United States Council of Muslim Organisations, one of its main sponsors.
In its letter, the coalition of groups said, using a different spelling for the Muslim minority group, that “the OIC has a religious and moral obligation to condemn atrocities, not support them, and to advocate for the rights of Muslims all over the world, including the millions of Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims suffering grave abuses in their own homeland”.
Uighurs total about 10 million people in their home province of Xinjiang, also known by Uighurs as East Turkestan.
The number of Uighurs in the region is increasingly being outnumbered by ethnic Han Chinese who have settled in the region in recent decades.
China is said to be holding at least one million Uighurs in internment camps where they are undergoing political “re-education”, while the region itself is under intense and intrusive surveillance.
Uighur activists who have fled China say Beijing is working to eradicate the religion by destroying mosques and outlawing worship, including fasting during the month of Ramadan.
News reports have also said that China is working to slash birth rates of Uighurs through forced sterilisation, which experts have referred to as being a part of the country’s “demographic genocide”.
Serwi Huseyin, a campaign lead at the advocacy group Justice For All, which coauthored the letter, has herself spent time in a forced labour camp in Xinjiang. She said the letter was meant to urge Muslim nations to step up and “pressure the Chinese government to stop this genocide and stop this crime against humanity”.
Omar Soleiman, a US-based imam and founder of the Yaqeen Institute, said Muslim-majority countries must work to stop the persecution of Uighurs, as it is a part of a global Islamophobia campaign, and Beijing’s tactics may be passed on to other countries where Muslims are a minority.
“There is no persecution more egregious than the persecution of our Uighur brothers and sisters at this scale,” he said during the news conference.
OIC’s failure to hold China accountable
The OIC, a group of 57 Muslim-majority countries that aim to be the “collective voice of the Muslim world”, in 2019 released a resolution that commended China for “providing care to its Muslim citizens”.
The resolution stated that the organisation “looks forward to further cooperation between the OIC and the People’s Republic of China” and does not mention any of the documented and reported rights abuses that China has committed against one of its Muslim minorities.
Rights groups, as well as Muslims around the world, criticised the resolution for its failure to hold Beijing accountable for its rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Meanwhile, many Western countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom, have recently condemned the Chinese government over its rights abuses against Uighurs.
Still, despite calls and protests from Uighurs outside of China, as well as critical statements from Western governments, many Muslim-majority countries have remained either silent or even aided in China’s repression by deporting Uighurs back to China.
In October, a news report found that a number of Uighur Muslims who fled China and sought refuge in countries in the Middle East were arrested and deported.
“If the international community does not condemn the human rights abuses in Xinjiang province by the government of China, a precedent will be set and these methods will be adopted by other regimes,” Heather McPherson, a member of the Canadian Parliament, said during Thursday’s news conference.
Engin Eroglu, a German politician and member of the European Parliament, said that in cases of severe human rights violations, it is up to intergovernmental organisations to take a stand and demand for accountability from the perpetrators.
“The international community must stop turning a blind eye to China’s gross human rights violations,” Eroglu said in a statement.
“Intergovernmental institutions such as the UN and the OIC also have an obligation to take a clear stance, demand transparency, as well as justice regarding these atrocious human rights violations””
4 Sudan soldiers die in clashes with Ethiopia militias along border
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20201217-4-sudan-soldiers-die-in-clashes-with-ethiopia-militias-along-border/
“Ethiopian militias raided a Sudanese region along the countries’ border, leaving a brigadier general dead.
A senior official at Sudan’s eastern border province of Al-Qadarif told Russia Today (RT) that the Sudanese army had launched an “attack and fierce battles along the border with Ethiopia that have left three Sudanese soldiers killed.”
The sources stressed that the Sudanese army had recaptured “a number of Sudanese areas which were occupied by Ethiopian farmers in recent days.”
Sudan deployed more than 6,000 troops to the border at the start of fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region that pitted the federal government against regional authorities last month.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared victory in the fight. However, clashes between federal and regional forces have continued.
The fighting in Tigray has led to more than 52,000 Ethiopian refugees fleeing to Sudan, mostly in Al-Qadarif.”
New agreement needed to revive Iran nuclear deal under Biden, IAEA chief says
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20201217-new-agreement-needed-to-revive-iran-nuclear-deal-under-biden-iaea-chief-says/
“Reviving Iran’s nuclear deal under US President-elect Joe Biden would require striking a new agreement setting out how Iran’s breaches should be reversed, UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said, Reuters reported.
Biden, who takes office on Jan. 20, has said the United States will rejoin the deal “if Iran resumes strict compliance” with the agreement that imposed strict curbs on its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions.
After President Donald Trump quit the deal and reimposed US sanctions, Iran responded by breaching many of the deal’s restrictions. Tehran says it could quickly reverse those steps if Washington first lifts its sanctions.
In an interview with Reuters, Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency that polices Iran’s compliance, said there had been too many breaches for the agreement to simply snap back into place…”
175 irregular migrants held off Turkey’s western coast
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20201217-175-irregular-migrants-held-off-turkeys-western-coast/
“A total of 175 irregular migrants planning to cross into Europe were held in western Izmir province of Turkey, the provincial coastal guard reported on Thursday, Anadolu Agency reports.
The coast guard in a statement said they received information regarding the whereabouts of the irregular migrants, who were located in a private boat off Sigacik gulf of the Aegean province.
The boat was halted by the Turkish Coast Guard units where irregular migrants were detained; they were then referred to the provincial migration office.
Also, a human-trafficking suspect was arrested by authorities.”