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Ruth King

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Death as Punishment “for Disbelief”: Extremist Persecution of Christians, by Raymond Ibrahim

By on September 9th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12982/death-punishment-disbelief

“I was beaten and taken to a bathroom. I asked what was my mistake, and they [the police] replied that I was his cousin…. Later they asked me to pull his pants down and sodomize him. I refused.” — Christian man, Pakistan.

“One of the Boko Haram said, ‘You’re not ready to convert to Islam, so I’m going to teach you a lesson.'” He then proceeded to drown her 3-year-old son Jonathan in a nearby river. — Nigeria.

“The equality that is named as a law in the Constitution of Egypt disappears before Article 2 of the Constitution, which stipulates that Islamic law is the main source of legislation.” — Fadi, a Coptic lawyer, Egypt.

The jihadi assault on, and massacre of, Christians continued unabated throughout the Muslim word. According to one report titled, “Armed gangs WIPE OUT 15 villages in mass Christian slaughter in Nigeria,” several Islamic terrorists “stormed through 15 villages to massacre Christians and destroy their churches in a violent crackdown against the religion…. Dozens of people have been killed after the gangs ransacked towns and villages to clear them of all aspects of the Christian faith. Houses belonging to believers have also been razed with authorities doing little to help…” According to a human rights activist, “One attack took place in broad daylight, as people were about to go to church. The assailants chased and killed the villagers and burned down nine churches and many more houses.”

An open letter to Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari lamented that since he came to power, the plight of Christians has gone from bad to worse: 16,000 Christians have been killed—many in the name of jihad—since June 2015, when Buhari became president. The letter states:

“… the estimated 30 million Christians in Northern Nigeria who form the largest minority in a predominantly Muslim environment, have for decades, suffered marginalization and discrimination as well as targeted violence especially in the hands of organized mob violence and violent groups such as Boko Haram and Fulani Herdsmen.

“Hundreds of churches in Northern Nigeria particularly Northeast and North-central Nigeria as well as Southern part of Kaduna State which is predominant Christian population have also been burnt or destroyed with estimated 16,000 defenseless citizens composed of mostly Christian population killed across the country since June 2015 when Mr. President became Nigeria’s sixth civilian President. The estimated 16, 000 defenseless civilian deaths outside the law include 5,800 mostly Christians killed by terror Fulani Herdsmen and Boko Haram since June 2015.”

A Christian woman, Rebecca Bitrus, shared her experiences as a former captive of the jihadi group Boko Haram. After she and her two young children were abducted during a raid on a Christian village, they were taken to a forest where the terrorists attempted to force her to convert to Islam, but she refused.

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Immigration Moves Europeans Right By Christopher Gage

By on September 9th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/09/immigration-

Angela Merkel’s dastardly decision to throw open Germany’s borders to more than 1 million mainly Syrian migrants in 2015 didn’t quite go as planned.

The German Chancellor’s grandiloquent gesture meant to exorcise German history once and for all instead cleaved through the middle of a once-reliably measured and “open” nation.

Even in Germany, where most people one meets will insist with conviction that any stance outside of the squishy center is “extreme,” the migration question has exposed the chasm between rulers and the ruled.

Last week saw violent protests engulf the eastern city of Chemnitz, where a 35-year-old carpenter was stabbed to death. Two suspects are in custody. One suspect is Syrian, and the other Iraqi.

Famed German tolerance, the kind Merkel drew upon when declaring, “Wir schaffen das”—We can do this—has boiled dry, in Chemnitz at least.

As always, social media disfigured the protests, echo-chambering and manicuring events to suit both extremes. As always, the simplistic tapestry of black and white is more a shade of gray. What started as a demonstration of grief, was soon hijacked by the mirroring of extreme Left and Right.

Ghastly images of troglodytic Nazi bootboys joined in violent communion with, of course, their black-clad Antifa cousins, peppered paper and pixel. Both groups are execrable to anyone with an IQ above that of processed cheese.

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Violent threats to Jewish students at Stanford U. Janet Levy

By on September 9th, 2018

This summer, the failure by Stanford University to adequately respond to threats of violence made by a Muslim student against other students dramatically illustrates that anti-Semitism does not rank anywhere near the same level of concern as hate speech against blacks or gays.

Indeed, the incident made clear that the justice system and even many Jewish groups were reluctant to act or even issue strongly worded rebukes. When Jews are the targeted hate population, many today give only weakly worded expressions of “concern,” but do nothing of consequence to stop anti-Semitism which only encourages more such expressions of hatred and endangers the safety of Jewish college students.

The incident at Stanford occurred in July, university student Hamzeh Daoud made violent threats on Facebook against pro-Israel students. Daoud had some stature on campus as a former student Senate member and a soon-to-be, residential advisor (RA) for a dormitory. He also worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and was active in the terror-linked, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Daoud’s SJP involvement is a cause for concern. The anti-Semitic group, founded by Hatem Bazian, who raised money for a Hamas front and headed the UC Berkeley Muslim Student Association, an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, is described by NGO Monitor as “the organization most directly responsible for creating a hostile campus environment saturated with anti-Israel events, BDS initiatives, and speakers.”

SJP routinely smears Israel by falsely characterizing it as an “apartheid state,” denounces Israel’s self-defense measures against Arab-Palestinian terrorism and supports the Hamas-inspired Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Jewish state.

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Illegal Immigration & Crime Chaos in EU Countries just in past few days

By on September 9th, 2018

Surely this is the most comprehensive list of the ongoing destruction of Western civilization throughout Europe that has ever been assembled. It is impossible to read all of this – but even a fast-paced scroll gives you all of the information you need…..C.Baker

UNITED KINGDOM

NHS staff crisis as 25% of student nurses drop out; With the National Health Service (NHS) struggling to cope with a huge shortfall of nurses – estimated at 40,000 in England alone – the issue is more pressing than ever.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1012134/NHS-staff-crisis-25-percent-student-nurses-drop-out

Scotland’s nurses at ‘breaking point’ as vacancies rise to record levels; more than one in 20 nursing and midwifery posts in NHS Scotland are vacant – the highest ever level.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/09/04/scotlands-nurses-breaking-point-vacancies-rise-record-levels/

Number of doctors opting for early retirement doubles, amid pension clampdown; Medics blamed stress, and said they were increasingly overloaded

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/04/number-doctors-opting-early-retirement-doubles-amid-pension/

FEARS are mounting over a new “Manchester-style attack” – after the defence secretary warned about links between UK terror cells and Islamic State fighters regrouping in Afghanistan; government acknowledged threats posed by links between the emerging threat in that country and terror cells in the UK.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1012327/UK-terror-warning-Islamic-State-Manchester-attack-terrorist-attack

FINALLY! British jihadists who fight with ISIS in warzones to face 10 years in jail; A total of 360 jihadists were allowed to go free, after officials deemed there was insufficient evidence to prosecute them; Javid has called for an amendment to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, calling for measures to imprison any Briton travelling to terror-ridden countries without reasonable grounds.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/09/06/returning-british-jihadists-could-face-ten-years-prison/

Two men accused of jointly plotting a terror attack were attempting to manufacture an explosive device involving a DRIVERLESS CAR to spare their own lives; the pair were supporters of terrorist organisation Islamic State; three air rifles, two Samurai swords, a wine bottle full of sulphuric acid, homemade fireworks, gunpowder, and “a variety of improvised homemade fuses” were discovered at their properties

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/terrorism-plot-driverless-car-explosive-device-bomb-chesterfield-sheffield-a8523101.html

Paramedics furious as ‘senseless’ thugs pelt ambulance with eggs and flour while on call in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1012831/Peterborough-news-Ambulance-pelted-with-eggs-and-flour-while-on-call-out

SCARRED FOR LIFE: Acid attacks in the UK – where have they been carried out and is London the worst affected city?

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4016850/acid-attacks-uk-london-statistics-westbourne-grove/

Seventeen men and a woman have appeared in court charged with offences linked to child sexual exploitation in West Yorkshire; The Muslim group are among 31 people accused of offences including the rape and trafficking of five girls, aged 12 to 18, in the Huddersfield area between 2005 and 2012.

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Luke Daniel :Debt colonialism: Is China trying to buyout Africa’s resources? “Why is China, a country with over 100 million people who are still living below the poverty line, playing at being the flashy big-spender? How can such wanton generosity be allowed?” – law professor, Xu Zhangrun.

By on September 9th, 2018

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/debt-colonialism

China has just offered Africa another $60 billion for emerging economic developments, but is this a slight of hand aimed at funnelling out the continent’s resources, or is it a sincere gesture of assistance?

South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, has vehemently denied accusations insinuating Chinese neo-colonialism taking root in Africa. Even Chinese President, Xi Jinping, rebuked the notion of ulterior motives, telling African leaders his country’s investments in the continent have “no political strings attached”.
China in South Africa

This may be so – but the question needs to be asked, what does China hope to gain from these costly investments in Africa?

In August, China pledged R196 billion to South Africa, during the 10th annual BRICS summit which was held in Johannesburg. A portion of these funds is set to assist embattled state-owned enterprises, Eskom and Transnet.

While foreign investment in South Africa is surely appreciated, especially considering Ramaphosa’s target of $100 billion, questions regarding the payback have not gone unnoticed.

Leader of the Democratic Alliance, Mmusi Maimane, has requested the president to disclose conditions on the loan agreement before parliament, saying:

“If the President is confident that the agreement is in the best interest of the South African people, he will surely accede to our request.

It is difficult to imagine that the Chinese Development Bank approved a R33 billion loan to Eskom with no strings attached. Eskom is in dire financial straits and made a R2.3 billion loss in the last financial year.”

Is China practising debt-colonialism?

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The Sum of All Tears By Matthew Continetti

By on September 9th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/wendy-sherman-book-iran-deal-clueless-architects/

The clueless architects of Barack Obama’s terrible Iran deal.

International business consultant Wendy Sherman was the chief American negotiator of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear deal agreed to by President Obama in 2015 and abrogated by President Trump earlier this year. She has a new book out, Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power, and Persistence, and in the space of 14 tweets promoting it the other day, she managed to combine basically everything I dislike about Washington.

Twitter threads, for starters. These have proliferated much like WMD under liberal administrations. They no longer serve any useful function. The whole point of Twitter is to be succinct. That’s why it’s called a “micro-blogging platform.” I can see how, even with the 280-character limit, one’s thoughts might stretch to two, even three tweets. A dozen takes things too far. Fourteen? You’re trying our patience.

Keeping in mind the subtitle of Not for the Faint of Heart, I persisted. And found more stuff that annoyed me. Like beginning a story by saying, “I want to tell you a story.” What if I don’t want to listen? Get on with it, in any case. The “I want to tell you” preface isn’t only superfluous and self-indulgent. It’s a cliché. On Twitter, everyone uses it. Grab the reader’s attention with an original first sentence, an intriguing anecdote, a funny meme.

What I want to tell you about Wendy’s story is that it’s embarrassing, both self-pitying and self-congratulatory, and proves exactly the opposite lesson that it intends. The year is 2015. The scene is the Palais Coburg Hotel in Vienna. “I thought I’d be home in short order,” Sherman writes. “By day 25 I had barely left the hotel and eaten only one meal outside the Coburg.” The poor dear! Confined in this shack, this madhouse, this roach motel! It’s a wonder she didn’t go Jack Torrance on us.

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Mr. Rosenstein, What Is the Crime? By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on September 9th, 2018

What’s the legal basis for his special-counsel investigation? We have a right to know.

For precisely what federal crimes is the president of the United States under investigation by a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department?

It is intolerable that, after more than two years of digging — the 16-month Mueller probe having been preceded by the blatantly suspect labors of the Obama Justice Department and FBI — we still do not have an answer to that simple question.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein owes us an answer.

To my mind, he has owed us an answer from the beginning, meaning when he appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller on May 17, 2017. The regulations under which he made the appointment require (a) a factual basis for believing that a federal crime worthy of investigation or prosecution has been committed; (b) a conflict of interest so significant that the Justice Department is unable to investigate this suspected crime in the normal course; and (c) an articulation of the factual basis for the criminal investigation — i.e., the investigation of specified federal crimes — which shapes the boundaries of the special counsel’s jurisdiction.

This last provision is designed to prevent a special counsel’s investigation from becoming a fishing expedition — or what President Trump calls a “witch hunt,” what DAG Rosenstein more diplomatically disclaims as an “unguided missile,” and what Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz, invoking Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s secret-police chief, pans as the warped dictum, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” In our country, the crime triggers the assignment of a prosecutor, not the other way around.

Trump Makes It Hard to Defend Trump
Sound reasons undergird the regulations. If a Democrat were in the White House, we would know them by heart at this point. Republicans once knew them well, too. That was before Donald Trump’s character flaws had them shrugging their shoulders, resigned that he deserves to be investigated whether he committed a crime or not.

Yet, the rationale for the regulations relates to the presidency, not to the man or woman who happens to occupy the office at a particular time. It is too debilitating to the governance of the United States, to the pursuit of America’s interests in the world, for us to permit imposing on the presidency the heavy burdens of defending against a criminal investigation unless there is significant evidence that the president has committed a serious crime.

As illustrated by this week’s hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats are too Trump-deranged in this moment to recognize their interest in avoiding a prosecutor’s cloud over future Democratic administrations. (Of course, they probably calculate that no Democratic attorney general would appoint a special counsel, no matter the evidence, and that the media would compliantly play along.) It is therefore up to Republicans to respond to the damage being done to the office. This can be hard to do.

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The Unbearable Whiteness of Being By David Solway

By on September 9th, 2018

To be white, Christian, and proud of one’s heritage is now the kiss of death in academia.

There can be little doubt that the modern university, in its obsession with race, gender, and sexual orientation under the rubric of “social justice,” has violated its core mandate, which, in the words of Matthew Arnold from Culture and Anarchy, is to familiarize readers and students with “the best that has been thought and said.” The Academy has turned Arnold’s maxim on its head, instructing students in the worst that has been thought and said – and done. The curricular fetish of “social justice,” which is destroying the university as an institution of higher learning, continues to metastasize.

Indeed, the university as a social and cultural institution is a slow-motion train wreck picking up speed: equity hiring, affirmative action, anti-conservative and overt leftist politics, the “diversity and inclusion” myth on which the academy prides itself, groupthink, speech codes, snitch lines, trigger warnings, safe spaces, microaggressions, the attack on academic freedom – the list goes on.

The bogus issue that has recently acquired major prominence in the quagmire of campus politics is “whiteness,” especially the “hegemony” of straight white males and their champions, guilty, apparently, of every conceivable ill that has bedeviled the world since the first silverback descended from the trees. This is merely a prime manifestation of the reigning hysteria on college campuses, in particular its mephitic obsession with race. “The toxic racial climate of colleges looks to be perpetual,” warns Scott Greer in No Campus for White Men; anti-white ferocity “remains established as an unchallenged dogma.” There is no campus for some white woman as well. Witness the current vendetta against distinguished University of Chicago medievalist Rachel Fulton Brown.

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Bring Back Shame By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on September 9th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/bring_back_shame.html

Now that the eulogy – I mean grotesque political self-aggrandizing McCain funeral service – is over, featuring some of the most egotistical, self-serving, and corrupt individuals, Candace Owens succinctly states that “[t]his new trend of using funerals and eulogies to deliver political messages is really quite disgusting. Everyone involved should be ashamed[.]”

Consider how America has lost an awareness of the value of shame. As defined, shame is a “painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.”

James B. Twitchell in his 1997 book For Shame: The Loss of Common Decency in American Culture asserts that “we are living in shameless times,” as compared to when he was growing up in the 1950s, when “public drunkenness, filing for bankruptcy … drug addiction, hitting a woman, looting stores, using vulgar language in public, being on the public dole [and] getting a divorce” were considered shameful, and “most of these reflected concerns about limiting individual behavior within a group.”

What once was considered a private matter now results in haphazard public defecations. San Francisco currently boasts a “poop map” as the city reports a 140% rise in feces. Taboos that used to entail modesty have disappeared.

Instead, according to Twitchell, shame has been “redirected to trivial concerns,” and Americans have lost their “receptiveness to shame.” Promoting unwed teenage mothers and not hectoring their “reprobate companions” barely raise eyebrows. Twitchell asks, “Why do we not excoriate the unwed teenage mother?” Instead, we are privy to a television show titled Teen Mom.

When Hollywood folk have children out of wedlock, they are praised, but “all hell would break loose” if someone were caught wearing mink or baby seal. Our priorities have been turned inside-out.

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Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

By on September 9th, 2018

https://quillette.com/2018/09/07/academic-

In the highly controversial area of human intelligence, the ‘Greater Male Variability Hypothesis’ (GMVH) asserts that there are more idiots and more geniuses among men than among women. Darwin’s research on evolution in the nineteenth century found that, although there are many exceptions for specific traits and species, there is generally more variability in males than in females of the same species throughout the animal kingdom.

Evidence for this hypothesis is fairly robust and has been reported in species ranging from adders and sockeye salmon to wasps and orangutans, as well as humans. Multiple studies have found that boys and men are over-represented at both the high and low ends of the distributions in categories ranging from birth weight and brain structures and 60-meter dash times to reading and mathematics test scores. There are significantly more men than women, for example, among Nobel laureates, music composers, and chess champions—and also among homeless people, suicide victims, and federal prison inmates.

Darwin had also raised the question of why males in many species might have evolved to be more variable than females, and when I learned that the answer to his question remained elusive, I set out to look for a scientific explanation. My aim was not to prove or disprove that the hypothesis applies to human intelligence or to any other specific traits or species, but simply to discover a logical reason that could help explain how gender differences in variability might naturally arise in the same species.

I came up with a simple intuitive mathematical argument based on biological and evolutionary principles and enlisted Sergei Tabachnikov, a Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University, to help me flesh out the model. When I posted a preprint on the open-access mathematics archives in May of last year, a variability researcher at Durham University in the UK got in touch by email. He described our joint paper as “an excellent summary of the research to date in this field,” adding that “it certainly underpins my earlier work on impulsivity, aggression and general evolutionary theory and it is nice to see an actual theoretical model that can be drawn upon in discussion (which I think the literature, particularly in education, has lacked to date). I think this is a welcome addition to the field.”

So far, so good.

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