Displaying the most recent of 90893 posts written by

Ruth King

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Anti-Israel Activist Arrested After Waving Machete Outside LA Synagogue Daniel Greenfield

By on December 19th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/272284/anti-israel-activist-arrested-after-waving-machete-daniel-greenfield

You might think the guy waving a machete outside a Los Angeles synagogue while dressed like a Muslim terrorist is a Muslim terrorist.

But for once, you would be wrong.

He’s not a Muslim terrorist. Just a sympathizer who posts, “Long live Palestine” on Facebook.

A man who was taking selfies with a machete and making menacing gestures in front of a North Hollywood Chabad synagogue on Friday was arrested later that night, according to local media reports.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Inmate Information Center indicates that 49-year-old David Brener was arrested late Friday evening, and released Saturday afternoon on a $10,000 bond.

While Dave looked like he was auditioning for the ISIS calendar, he seems more likely the David Icke/Alice Walker type of bigot. But his obsession with Israel is pretty clear.

What is allegedly Brener’s Facebook page includes “Palestinian” imagery, claims that Israel committed genocide, “Love live Palestine”, praise for the Tamimis, calling Jews, “Zionazis”, and hashtags like, #palestineforever #zionazi #antizionism and #antizionist

Also Holocaust denial.

Most of his social feed seems to be rants about Israel and Jews. So this is none too surprising.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrat-Appointed Judge Lambastes Flynn The Washington swamp’s revenge ensues. Matthew Vadum

By on December 19th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272289/democrat-appointed-judge-lambastes-flynn-matthew-vadum

A Democrat-appointed federal judge lashed out at former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn Tuesday, suggesting the defendant was guilty of treason as he postponed the scheduled sentencing for three months.

Meanwhile, The Hill newspaper reports, the judge’s tirade came after two of Flynn’s Turkish associates were indicted:

The Department of Justice indicted Flynn’s two Turkish lobbying business associates on Monday for conspiracy and acting as foreign agents. The indictment spells out in sharp detail how Flynn was paid thousands of dollars to allegedly lobby for the Turkish government through a conduit while he was working for Trump.

Although federal prosecutors say Flynn committed ethical lapses they have long maintained they could not make a successful treason case against Flynn, but grandstanding Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, appointed in 1994 by President Clinton, suggested without evidence that they could have done so.

At a federal courthouse in the nation’s capital Dec. 18 Sullivan pressed prosecutors, asking if what Flynn did rose “to the level of treasonous activity” or if he could be prosecuted under the archaic Logan Act which forbids unauthorized U.S. persons from negotiating with foreign countries. Prosecutors present in the courtroom refused to answer. No one has ever been successfully prosecuted under the Logan Act, which was enacted in 1799.

Flynn has pled guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with the then- Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak during the transition period following the 2016 election and regarding the lobbying he conducted on behalf of Turkey while he worked on the Trump campaign and on the transition.

“I’m not hiding my disgust, my disdain for your criminal offense,” Sullivan told Flynn. “Arguably, you sold your country out. … In the White House! In the West Wing!”

“You were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security advisor to the president of the United States,” the judge said during his outburst.

Continue reading →
BOOKS, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Can Trump be Europe’s Salvation? One Islam expert says yes. Bruce Bawer

By on December 19th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272182/can-trump-be-europes-salvation-bruce-bawer

Islam: Europe Invaded, America Warned is a new English translation of a book that has sold 50,000 copies since appearing in Norwegian three years ago – a figure that, given Norway’s small population, is equivalent to over three million copies in the U.S. Its author, Hege Storhaug, who — full disclosure – is a longtime friend, former employer, and (frankly) heroine of mine, began her career as a left-wing feminist writing about the rights of women and girls and ended up becoming a supposedly right-wing critic of Islam because she recognized the Religion of Peace as, by far, the greatest threat to females in Norway.

Hege has now been fighting on the Islam front for a quarter-century. She’s advised members of the Norwegian parliament on the subject, handed them tons of material documenting the social and economic consequences of Muslim immigration, and made a number of specific proposals that have resulted in legislation (and, alas, many more proposals that have gone nowhere). Unsurprisingly, her work has made her enemies not only among the nation’s Muslims but also on the radical left, members of which, on New Year’s Eve 2006/7, broke into her Oslo home and beat her up. She now lives in a secret location outside the city, and since the Norwegian edition of her book came out she’s routinely been accompanied to her public events by a cohort of armed police officers. The cops didn’t even tell her beforehand that they’d decided to start guarding her: she found out about it on November 4, 2015, the day before her book’s official publication date, when she showed up at a small-town community center to deliver a lecture and found three – count ’em, three – police cars parked out front.

“I’m the first person in Norway ever to require such protection,” she told me when we spoke the other day. Of course it’s a sign of the times – a reflection of the very real menace that Islam now poses to its outspoken critics in this once placid land. Not surprisingly, the mainstream Norwegian media have kept mum about Hege’s unique security status. Entirely. A naïve observer might think they’d consider it big news that in Norway, in 2018, a writer – a writer! – needs to be followed around by uniformed men packing heat (this in a country where you hardly ever see a cop with a gun). You might also think the Norwegian media – which are notorious for their habit of debating to death the most niggling, nugatory issues you can imagine – would consider this grim sign of the erosion of free speech in Norway worth discussing. Nope. After all, if they reported on Hege’s police escorts, they’d have to acknowledge that Islam really is a threat – and that’s verboten.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Senate Passes Bipartisan Criminal-Justice-Reform Bill By Jack Crowe see note please

By on December 19th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/senate-passes-bipartisan-criminal-justice-reform-bill/

It is a first tiny step but real reform must include bail reform- persons awaiting trial fill national jails because they cannot afford bail, and second…a good reform bill must address the problem of jailing mentally ill persons instead of providing supervised shelter elsewhere….rsk

The Senate on Tuesday passed the most significant criminal-justice-reform package in recent decades by an overwhelming and bipartisan margin.

The FIRST STEP Act, which passed the Senate 87-12, aims to reduce mass incarceration and high recidivism rates by expanding the pool of inmates eligible to participate in early-release programs and increasing judicial discretion with respect to sentencing.

Members of the House on both sides of the aisle have vowed to pass the legislative package this week and President Trump has publicly endorsed and pledged to sign it.

The legislation received endorsements from a wide array of political advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Koch brothers’ Right on Crime, and lawmakers from across the political spectrum.

Despite benefitting from broad bipartisan support, the legislation brought the intra-Republican divide over criminal justice into sharp relief, as hardliners led by senator Tom Cotton (Ark.) accused their fellow Republicans of jeopardizing the public safety by reducing the sentences of violent criminals and major drug traffickers.

Cotton and senator John Kennedy (R., La.) proposed a series of amendments to the bill that reduced the population of inmates eligible for early release, among other amendments, all of which were voted down by a narrow margin Tuesday night.

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

DoD: U.S. ‘Vulnerable to Deadly Missile Attacks’ Due to Ballistic Missile Defense Cyber Weaknesses By Phil Baker

By on December 19th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/dod-u-s-vulnerable-to-deadly-missile-attacks-due-to-ballistic-missile-system-cyber-weaknesses/

We’re constantly reading about cybersecurity weaknesses and cyber break-ins at our banks, department stores, and large corporations. The results include disclosure of our credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other personal information. But cybersecurity breakdowns can have much more ominous results, as a Department of Defense report reveals.

Serious cybersecurity flaws have been found in the U.S. ballistic missile defense system (BMDS). These flaws were found to put at risk our ability to defend ourselves if we are attacked by an enemy with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

In the report filed on December 10 by the inspector general (IG) for the Department of Defense, it was disclosed that a number of security issues were found with the networks that process, store, and transmit both the classified and unclassified technical information related to our ballistic missile defense systems. The issues include access to removable storage media that contains classified information, weak password controls, failures to encrypt technical information transmission, and problems in detecting intrusions — all relating to BMDS.

The report, which is full of redactions, can be viewed here. It reads in part:

We determined that officials from the (redacted) did not consistently implement security controls and processes to protect BMDS technical information. Specifically, (redacted) network administrators and data center managers did not:

require the use of multifactor authentication to access BMDS technical information at the (redacted)

identify and mitigate known network vulnerabilities at three of the five Components visited

lock server racks at the (redacted)

protect and monitor classified data stored on removable media at the (redacted)

encrypt BMDS technical information transmitted between (redacted)

implement intrusion detection capabilities on classified network

require written justification as a condition to obtain and elevate system access for users at the (redacted)

The report notes, “We determined that officials did not consistently implement security controls and processes to protect BMDS technical information and facility security officers did not consistently implement physical security controls to limit unauthorized access to facilities that managed BMDS technical information.” As a result, “The disclosure of technical details could allow U.S. adversaries to circumvent BMDS capabilities, leaving the United States vulnerable to deadly missile attacks,” the report explained. CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

FBI Helps Italian Authorities Thwart ISIS Terror Bombing Plot Targeting Vatican: Patrick Poole

By on December 19th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/fbi-helps-italian-authorities-thwart-isis-terror-bombing-plot-targeting-vatican/

Italian police authorities today acknowledged the role of the FBI in helping stop an ISIS plot to attack the Vatican and other Christian places of worship after the arrest of a Somali national affiliated with ISIS last week.

Last Thursday, 20-year-old Mohsin Ibrahim Omar, also known as Anas Khalil, was arrested in the Aegean Sea port city of Bari. The operation involved multiple Italian and international law enforcement agencies, including the FBI:

According to the Italian daily Repubblica, in at least one of Omar’s intercepted communications he referenced putting bombs in churches throughout Italy and specifically indicated St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican — the largest church in Rome and the seat of the Roman Catholic papacy.

“The 25th is Christmas…the churches are full. Let’s put bombs in all the churches in Italy,” he reportedly told an associate.

Pictures of the Vatican were discovered on his phone.

Omar, a member of the Islamic State affiliate in Somalia, was in direct contact with an operational cell and was under constant surveillance. Italian police moved to arrest Omar because he said he had been planning to leave the country immediately, and in his communications he indicated active plans to target upcoming Christmas festivities and churches, specifically places where Christians gathered.

Omar praised last Tuesday’s terror attack in Strasbourg, France, that killed five people at the city’s historic Christmas market that dates back to 1570.

“The one who kills Christians and the enemies of Allah is our brother…” Omar reportedly said in reference to the Strasbourg attack.

He also praised martyrdom, saying, “When one is killed in the way of Allah, the glory is with him, and he is not dead.”

In recent years, Bari has become a transit hub for international terror groups.

In July 2017, a 38-year-old Chechen man who was part of the “Emirate of the Caucuses” was arrested in Bari as he was supervising the transit of Chechen ISIS fighters transiting to Europe. The man was found to have connections to terror cells in Belgium. CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran: Toward a Plan B by Amir Taheri

By on December 19th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13421/iran-plan-b

Is a Plan B possible? No one knows for sure.

What is certain, however, is that the possibility should be discussed. This is what we propose to do in this session with a paper aimed at opening the discussion on how to nudge, help or even force Iran out of the schizophrenic trap that its current ruling elite, or history if you prefer, have set for it — a way out that points to Iran absorbing its revolutionary experience to re-become a nation-state with the needs, aspirations, hopes, fears, and patterns of behavior of nation-states.

For four decades Iran has been in world headlines, not always for the best of reasons. Many countries have had problems with Iran in its current version as the Islamic Republic. In turn, the Islamic Republic has not been able to find the place it covets in a global system that it rejects as a creation of the “Infidel”.

Those having problems with the Islamic Republic have contemplated, planned and, in some cases, even tried quite a few Plan A options to deal with the Islamic Republic. These range from efforts to persuade the current leadership in Tehran to change aspects of its behavior to economic warfare, “crippling” sanctions, and, on occasions, even military action.

All those plans failed to produce the desired result because they were based on the assumption that the Islamic Republic is a classical nation-state and likely to respond as such.

However, in its revolutionary emanation, Iran has experienced what could only be called an historic schizophrenia in which its identity as a revolutionary cause is in conflict with that of its identity as a nation-state.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Great Turkish Brain Drain by Burak Bekdil

By on December 19th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13434/turkey-brain-drain

Scores of academics (more than 265) who signed the “peace call” are being prosecuted on charges of terrorism.

“Most better [academics] tend to leave the country,” said one university professor in Ankara on condition of anonymity, himself in correspondence with two US universities for a teaching position.

“Children who do not read the Quran are with Satan and Satanic people.” — Professor Ali Erbaş, Turkey’s top cleric, head of the Turkish government’s powerful Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet).

This author once described a Turkish university as “just a group of buildings gathered around a library and a mosque,” to paraphrase a quote from Shelby Foote. Today, universities in Turkey are increasingly becoming seats of Islamic learning, zeal and government bootlicking.

Life, for many scholars, is gloomy. Since the attempted coup in July 2016, nearly 6,000 academics have been dismissed from public universities under emergency decrees, including 378 who had signed a January 2016 Academics for Peace petition condemning the government’s security operations in the Kurdish southeast. Another 38 academics from public universities and 48 from private universities have been dismissed by their universities and were told by university officials that the reason was signing the petition. Scores of academics (more than 265) who signed the “peace call” are being prosecuted on charges of terrorism.

Continue reading →
P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

The National Gallery of Identity Politics Forget Monet or Hopper. The art museum’s new director wants to tackle ‘gender equality,’ ‘social justice’ and ‘diversity.’ By Roger Kimball

By on December 19th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-national-gallery-of-identity-politics-11545179349

‘Every thing is what it is and not another thing,” observed the 18th-century British philosopher Joseph Butler. If that seems obvious, you haven’t been paying attention to what has been going on in the culture. Once upon a time (and it wasn’t that long ago), universities were what they claimed to be, institutions dedicated to the preservation and transmission of civilization’s highest values. Now they are bastions of political correctness, “intersectionality” and identity politics.

Something similar can be said of art museums. Although barely 200 years old as an institution, the art museum until recently existed primarily to preserve and nurture a love of art. Today, many art museums serve as fronts in battles that have little or nothing to do with art: entertainment, yes; snobbery and money, of course; and politics, politics, politics.

The latest example of this trend is particularly egregious because it involves one of America’s premier institutions, the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Established and endowed by Andrew Mellon in 1937, the National Gallery quickly became one of the nation’s two or three most exquisite art museums. In terms of the breadth, depth and excellence of its collection, its only real rival is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. And because of its place in the nation’s capital (and its claim on the taxpayer’s purse—about $140 million of its $190 million budget comes from the U.S. Treasury), the National Gallery occupies a singular place in the metabolism of America’s cultural life.

Obituarists looking to write the epitaph of the American art museum could do worse than ponder the elevation of Kaywin Feldman, currently director and president of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, to take the helm of the National Gallery in March when Earl A. “Rusty” Powell III, director since 1993, retires.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Chaos on French Highways as Yellow Vest Protesters Torch Toll Booths By Rick Moran

By on December 19th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/chaos-on-french-highways-as-yellow-vest-protesters-torch-toll-booths/

A major highway connecting Marseille and Toulon was closed overnight as a key toll booth was occupied and burned by yellow vest protesters.

All told, about 40 toll booths across the country were occupied or set on fire by protesters against the government of President Emmanuel Macron.

Reuters:

Some 20 people were arrested on Tuesday following the blazes, while four others remain in custody following fires on Saturday.

“Motorists should take utmost care as they approach toll gates and motorway access ramps due to the presence of numerous pedestrians,” Vinci said in a statement.

Several people have died in roadside accidents at yellow vest roadblocks in recent weeks, mostly at the many roundabouts blocked by groups of demonstrators.

Toll booths haven’t been the only target of the protesters on the nation’s highways.

Protesters angry about high fuel costs and new speed limits have also damaged or torched hundreds of traffic radars.

Radars-auto.com estimated that by the middle of last week some 1,600 – about half of all French traffic radars – had been damaged. More than 250 have been entirely destroyed, it said.

The French state will also lose several tens of millions of euros in revenues, it said, adding that in 2017 the radars had yielded on average 84 million euros ($96 million) per month.

The interior ministry declined comment on the number of radars damaged, but said that minor damage cost on average 500 euros per radar to repair, with major damage costing up to 200,000 euros.

Fines for damaging radars can run as high as 75,000 euros.

“Even wrapping a radar in plastic or a yellow vest… without destroying it is an offense,” a ministry official said.

Vinci estimates the damages since the start of the protests will cost it “several tens of millions” of euros, not including lost revenue, as the protesters have allowed thousands of motorists onto the highways for free. CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →