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January 2016

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Tony Thomas Trigger Warning: A Story Not Quite True

By on January 20th, 2016

You might have seen reports that Sweden is instructing Muslim refugees in the fine art of sniping, and you might further have wondered what officials could be thinking. Well, rest easy. Marksmanship is being taught, but the designated targets are bullseyes, not infidels.
So the Swedish government is arranging courses on sniping for its young Islamic arrivals, to help them mingle on the range with locals and boost their Swedish language skills. This is the story doing the rounds on the blogophere. True? False? Crazy nonsense? You be the judge. Please remember Quadrant Online always provides nuanced coverage and does not regurgitate internet hoaxes.

The original story about the sniper-training is a nicely-illustrated spread in the Swedish newspaper Allehanda. This is a real newspaper, circulation around 70,000. It previously gained some éclat in the West for publishing a cartoon of Mohammad as a “roundabout dog”, a form of public art which Swedes seem to enjoy. This caused much Islamic offence and the standard reaction of Religion of Peace adherents: protests, threats, bombings, attempted assassination of the artist etc.

sniper storyThe Allehanda story (right) about the “sniper training” for happy-go-lucky Islamic teens is dated June 2, 2013. It’s an oddity that it laid doggo (no pun) all this time. The headline is “Laddade för prickskytte”, the first word google-translating as “charged (up)” and the third word, “sniping”. It is more precise than the word for “shooting” (skytte) or “target practice” (tävlingsskytt).

But because of the recent fuss, the Allehanda news editor has now issued this clarification:

“Because of the recent international citations of the 2013 Allehanda article ‘Laddad för prickskytte’, I as News Editor feel that a few clarifications are in order. Several websites refers to the immigration project in Sollefteå as ‘sniper training’. This is not a correct description. The word sniper training implies military combat education which is something completely different from this.

Although the refugees in the pictures can be seen holding what looks like sniper rifles, it is in fact biathlon sports equipment. Biathlon is since the 1960s recognised as an Olympic discipline, and the Sollefteå Ski High School runs an international upper secondary school programme for elite competitors. This is where the refugees were invited to try rifle shooting, the only element of biathlon possible in the summer. It was done by the authorities as part of their work with local immigration. I hope this clarifies the circumstances surrounding this article.”

So really, the Swedish government has only been training young Muslims to aim well at inanimate targets and miss as few times as possible. This is not the same as actually training them to be military-grade snipers a la Chris Kyle of American Sniper fame.

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Kent State Professor Under Investigation for Allegedly Recruiting Students to ISIS By Paula Bolyard

By on January 20th, 2016

A tenured associate professor of history at Kent State University in Ohio is under investigation for potential ties to ISIS. From KentWired:

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are investigating Julio Pino, a Kent State associate history professor, for alleged involvement with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIl.

A joint terrorism task force has been investigating Pino for the last year and a half, said an FBI special agent who did not wish to be named for safety reasons…

…The agent said they interviewed several faculty members and more than 20 of Pino’s students Tuesday about his alleged involvement. He is also being investigated for allegedly recruiting students to join ISIS.

The agent said there is “no direct threat” to the university.

Pino, who is teaching two classes this semester at Kent, told KentWired on Tuesday that he has not been notified of an investigation by either the FBI or Homeland Security, nor has he been contacted by them.

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WEINER: THE MOVIE

By on January 20th, 2016

Are you ready for the return of Anthony Weiner?By Joseph Smith
Hillary Clinton’s campaign vice chair and confidante, Huma Abedin, is at the center of a new documentary on her husband Anthony Weiner’s failed New York City mayoral campaign, potentially adding to the woes of the beleaguered Clinton presidential run.

As reported by the New York Times and highlighted on The Drudge Report, the movie Weiner will premier at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend, in theaters in May and on television in October, at the height of the campaign season. As The Times observes, “‘Weiner’ has become a source of heightened anxiety for Ms. Abedin and the Clinton campaign.”

The movie project was originally intended to document Mr. Weiner’s “spectacular political comeback,” but as the New York Times columnist dryly notes, “[t]hings did not go quite according to plan.”

The film instead focuses on “the implosion of Mr. Weiner’s mayoral campaign and a wrenching inside account of the couple’s interactions in the aftermath of his second explicit texting scandal.”

Benghazi, Hillary’s emails, and Bill’s behavior, not to mention Hillary’s robotic campaign personality, would be enough to sink many ordinary campaigns. As the Times continues:

But none of those controversies are as deeply personal or as potentially distracting to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign as the visceral film.

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Israel to Zuckerberg: Stop Killing Jews By Karin McQuillan

By on January 20th, 2016

It takes a global village to kill a Israelis. The recipe is well known. Begin with the lie that Islam is the religion of peace. Take U.N. (that is, U.S.) money and hire jihadis to teach small children Jews should all be killed. (First taught to the Moslem Brotherhood by Eichmann himself, sent by Hitler to launch the modern jihadi movement — read here, and here). Take Saudi money and staff every mosque with Wahhabi imams. Use oil wealth to brainwash vulnerable teenagers with Islamic supremacist idealism and promise endless sex in heaven if they kill a Jew. Flood the P.A. territories with billions of dollars in international aid, turning the entire place into one giant welfare state of entitlement and rage.

And then give the jihadis Facebook, to spread the message: go out and kill a Jew today. With detailed instructions on how to do it.

The wave of stabbings in Israel are a Facebook-fueled intifada. And once it is tested in Israel, it will be coming to an American street near you.

Israelis are fed up. They can’t stop the U.N. from supporting jihad. They can’t stop the Saudis. They can’t stop Europe and America from sucking up to the Arab world by throwing money at the Palestinians with no strings attached (like: drop the anti-Semitic BS or no cash).

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Islam and Rape: Joined at the Hip By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on January 20th, 2016

Pamphlets being issued in Germany to Muslim male refugees that they are not to grope or fondle European women reveal the rank stupidity, ignorance, and sheer indifference of European leaders as they continue down a suicidal trajectory.

Of course these men were going to engage in rape jihad, since sexual abuse is ingrained in their religion and culture. As psychologist Nicolai Sennels explains, “Mohammed, the prime example for Muslims, married Aisha when she was six and had intercourse with her when she was nine. Besides, according to the Quran (4:24), Muslims are allowed to have sex with female slaves[.]” In addition, “uncovered women are in many Muslim cultures seen as a kind of prostitute, and if a man is aroused by such a female, then – partly due to the corrupted logic of responsibility within Muslim psychology – the female is blamed for being raped (and will therefore often face execution).”

In 2010, Andrew C. McCarthy, in his book entitled The Grand Jihad, described rape by Muslim immigrants as the “unspoken epidemic of Western Europe.” Six years later, it continues to expand and sweep across the continent. Ingrid Carlqvist documents how Sweden is now the rape capital of the West, and when “Michael Hess, a local politician from [the] Sweden Democrat Party, tried to warn his nation that ‘it is deeply rooted in Islam’s culture to rape and brutalize women who refuse to comply with Islamic teachings’ he was charged with ‘denigration of ethnic groups'” – a crime in Sweden.

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Why the U.S. Should Stand by the Saudis Against Iran Much about the House of Saud is detestable, but that isn’t a reason to abandon a vital ally. Bret Stephens

By on January 20th, 2016

There is so much to detest about Saudi Arabia. The kingdom forbids women from driving and bars its doors to desperate Syrian refugees. For years its sybaritic leaders purchased their legitimacy by underwriting, and exporting, a bigoted and brutal version of Sunni Islam. Crude oil aside, it’s difficult to find much of value produced by the desert kingdom.

More recently, the Saudis have increased tensions with Iran by executing, over U.S. objections, a prominent radical Shiite cleric while waging a brutal war against Iran’s Shiite proxies in Yemen. So why should the U.S. feel obliged to take sides with the country that Israeli diplomat Dore Gold once called “Hatred’s Kingdom,” especially when the administration is also trying to pursue further opening with Tehran?

That’s a question that suddenly seems to be on Washington’s liberal foreign-policy minds, as if they’ve just discovered that we don’t exactly share Saudi moral values. Some on the right also seem to think that, with the U.S. leading the world in energy production, we no longer have much use for the Saudi alliance.

So let’s remind ourselves why it would be a bad—make that very bad—idea for the U.S. to abandon the House of Saud, especially when it is under increasing economic strain from falling oil prices and feels acutely threatened by a resurgent Iran. Despite fond White House hopes that the nuclear deal would moderate Iran’s behavior, Tehran hard-liners wasted no time this week disqualifying thousands of moderate candidates from running in next month’s parliamentary elections, and an Iranian-backed militia appears to be responsible for the recent kidnapping of three Americans in Iraq.

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The Petraeus Vendetta The Pentagon may strip the former general of a star. And Hillary? see note please

By on January 20th, 2016

I am no fan of David Petraeus for his rules of engagement which put our soldiers at higher risk to avoid offending the sensibilities of Moslem enemies, nor, do I think the “surge” saved Iraq…. but this is pure hypocrisy….rsk

Whatever more may come in the career of David Petraeus, historians will remember him as one of America’s outstanding military men, whose “surge” strategy saved Iraq from chaos before President Obama squandered its gains. So what does it say of the Obama Administration’s priorities or sense of proportion that it may strip the retired general of one of his four stars, thereby docking his Army pension?

We’ll assume this isn’t Ashton Carter’s idea of parsimony, though the Secretary of Defense took up the case after then-Army Secretary John McHugh decided last year to take no action against the former general for sharing classified documents with his biographer and paramour Paula Broadwell. The breach was exposed in 2012 when Mr. Petraeus was CIA director. He lost his job and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for mishandling classified information and was punished with two years probation and a $100,000 fine. That and his public humiliation are punishment enough.

The Pentagon’s case against him seems to rest on an FBI claim that he shared some of his personal notebooks with Ms. Broadwell days before he retired from the Army. To our knowledge none of the information in those notebooks was publicly disclosed by Ms. Broadwell or anyone else, and what the bureau seems to think is a high crime is what most journalists would call a leak.

This suggests that what’s mainly at work here is Pentagon vindictiveness, perhaps including an effort to derail Mr. Petraeus’s prospects in the next Administration. Great strategists aren’t abundant, as this Administration proves, and it would be a shame for a future President not to use Mr. Petraeus’s talents.

Meantime, it will be instructive to see how the suddenly punctilious Administration deals with a far graver case of mishandled classified information—the one involving a certain former junior U.S. Senator from New York.

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Hillary Clinton Emails Face New Scrutiny Former secretary of state’s private server included highly classified intelligence, review says; unclear whether information was deemed classified when sent By Byron Tau

By on January 20th, 2016

WASHINGTON—Emails on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server contained national-security information classified at some of the highest levels, according to a new review by a government watchdog.

A letter from Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough finds that Mrs. Clinton’s email trove contains a type of highly classified intelligence information beyond “top secret,” referred to as “special access programs” or SAP. That designation is reserved for information shared on a need-to-know basis to protect intelligence sources, military operations or other highly sensitive government information.

In a separate review over the summer, Mr. McCullough’s office found “top secret” information on Mrs. Clinton’s home server. The new unclassified letter from Mr. McCullough to members of the House and Senate committees that oversee intelligence, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, says that the intelligence community now believes even more highly classified information was on the server. The letter was reported earlier by Fox News.

Mr. McCullough’s latest finding is that “several dozen” emails in Mrs. Clinton’s archive containing information classified at various levels, including SAP.

Most of Mrs. Clinton’s email trove of about 55,000 pages from her time in office has been released by the State Department. That includes more than 1,300 emails with some information blocked out, or redacted, because it is classified.

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Supreme Court to Rule on Obama’s Bid to Block Deportations Sets the stage for a blockbuster ruling on presidential powers in key immigration case By Jess Bravin and Byron Tau

By on January 20th, 2016

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court took up the divisive political issue of immigration on Tuesday, agreeing to rule by June on the Obama administration’s stalled plan to defer deportation of more than four million illegal immigrants.

The court’s move sets the stage for a blockbuster ruling on presidential powers just as the major parties settle on their 2016 nominees. As if the stakes weren’t high enough already, the justices added a provocative question to the case, asking the parties to address whether President Barack Obama violated his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

The immigration case joins a docket loaded with politically charged issues that underscore the court’s relevance to the presidential campaign: Abortion rights, affirmative action, contraceptive coverage and public-employee union powers all are before the court.

The immigration dispute stems from Mr. Obama’s second-term embrace of executive action to shift policy, in the face of a Republican-controlled Congress that has stymied his legislative initiatives. From the campaign trail to Capitol Hill, Republicans have stated nearly universal opposition to Mr. Obama’s agenda on energy, guns and foreign relations, and criticized his use of executive authority.

The Supreme Court will rule on President Obama’s immigration plan that would defer deportation for parents of children born in the U.S.

The president has made no apologies. With Congress deadlocked over an immigration overhaul, Mr. Obama in November 2014 cited his authority to give a temporary reprieve to illegal immigrants whose children hold U.S. citizenship or permanent residency. The plan sought to prioritize the removal of serious criminals while allowing parents of these children to work without fear of deportation.

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For U.S., Taiwan Vote Changes Calculus Over ‘One China’ Washington less likely to indulge Beijing over its policy after victory of island’s pro-independence party By Andrew Browne

By on January 20th, 2016

TAIPEI—No dogma is more important to Beijing than “One China,” the concept that Taiwan is a part of a single Chinese nation—just temporarily estranged.

America and much of the rest of the world acquiesce to that position, denying the reality that Taiwan has set its course as an independent state. Last weekend’s vote, in which the Taiwanese electorate overwhelming endorsed a party that rejects Beijing’s “One China” formula, confirmed the direction in the most emphatic way to date. That not only puts China in a bind, but the U.S. too.

Like it or not, the political equation has changed, forcing Washington to look at Taiwan in a different light.

To be sure, an American challenge to the “One China” doctrine is unthinkable. It’s the one move that could realistically provoke a war between the world’s two strongest powers. Yet some diplomats and scholars think that a postelection Taiwan may get more sympathetic treatment in Washington.

“Taiwan occupies a bit of a different space now,” says Donald Rodgers, a professor at Austin College in Texas, who was in Taiwan observing the elections.

He predicts the U.S. will be somewhat less worried about offending China by opening more direct channels of communication with Taiwan on issues from security to the environment and health. Such dialogue must now be conducted in a cloak-and-dagger style lest it suggests state-to-state relations. U.S. arms sales to Taiwan routinely incur Beijing’s wrath.

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