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Germany: Asylum for Cash Scandal by Soeren Kern

Posted By on May 22nd, 2018

Germany’s Federal Office for Refugees and Migration (BAMF) will review more than 25,000 asylum decisions after allegations of corruption at its regional office in the northern city of Bremen.

Some of those granted asylum were considered by German authorities to be potential security risks, according to the news magazine Der Spiegel. They include Syrian intelligence operatives, human smugglers and other hard-core criminals — as well as potential Islamic State jihadists.

BAMF currently rejects almost all asylum requests from converts from Islam to Christianity, according to Thomas Schirrmacher, president of the International Society for Human Rights. He said that when undergoing “belief tests,” BAMF often relies on Muslim translators who deliberately mistranslate at the expense of Christians or converts.

Germany’s Federal Office for Refugees and Migration (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF) will review more than 25,000 asylum decisions after allegations of corruption at its regional office in the northern city of Bremen.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced the audit after it emerged that a former official at BAMF’s Bremen branch allegedly accepted cash bribes in exchange for granting asylum to at least 1,200 refugees who did not meet the necessary criteria. Five others, including three lawyers, an interpreter and an intermediary, are also being investigated.

The three lawyers allegedly received cash payments from “refugees” across Germany and submitted their asylum applications to the Bremen office. The interpreter then “interpreted” asylum interviews in such a way that the answers supposedly given by refugees matched the requirements for successful asylum applications. He reportedly received €500 ($680) per asylum seeker.

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Sharia, Lies and Videotape A leftist’s embarrassing attack on a former child bride unveils the pernicious lies of Jihad Denial. Jamie Glazov

Posted By on May 22nd, 2018

Anni Cyrus is a former child bride from Iran who suffered terribly under Sharia Law and was able to miraculously escape Islam’s totalitarian clutches. Today she is a human rights activist who tours our nation in an effort to raise awareness about Sharia; she runs her own website, LiveUpToFreedom.com, and produces this writer’s web-tv show, The Glazov Gang, which aims to tell the truth about the Leftist-Islamic Unholy Alliance.

Anni’s brave and noble fight on behalf of Muslims and non-Muslims who suffer at the hands of Jihad and Islamic Law has made her all the right enemies. The hate group, Southern Poverty Law Center, for example, is now targeting Anni, as is the Muslim-Brotherhood front-group CAIR, which is doing its best to try to silence the former child bride. Anni should take pride, of course, in these kind of attacks by these vile forces, since they confirm that she is doing something very right and humane — and effectively so.

Anni was recently invited to the Henry Monsky Lodge of B’nai B’rith in Omaha, Nebraska, to talk about Sharia Law and how she survived it. At the end of her talk, a leftist by the name of Steve, who described himself as a “lawyer,” attacked Anni with the preferred Jihad Denial slanders and accused her of preaching “hatred.” His intriguing performance was caught on video — which can be seen here. As it quickly became evident, Anni takes no prisoners when confronted with ignorance and she wiped the floor with Steve — just as she recently did with an Antifa “feminist.”

The exchange between Steve and Anni is crucial for us to highlight and examine, because the accusations and slanders that Steve hurled at Anni are the key falsehoods and smears that hate groups like CAIR and SPLC hurl at her and at other truth-tellers and freedom fighters. These malicious libels and slanders are at the core of the Jihad Denial that is now controlling our culture and its boundaries of discourse. And it is precisely this denial that clouds the threat we face in the terror war — and pushes what propels it into invisibility.

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John Brennan in Panic Mode Former CIA chief faces the legal consequences of his dirty deeds. Joseph Klein

Posted By on May 22nd, 2018

John Brennan, director of the CIA during the Obama administration, is running for cover. He could be facing criminal charges for his role in the Deep State cabal that sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and then to undermine the legitimacy of the duly elected president of the United States, Donald Trump. Acting in desperation as the noose tightens around him, Brennan tweeted a warning to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, claiming they will “bear the majority of the responsibility of the harm done to our democracy” if they don’t stop President Trump from continuing along his “disastrous path.” The “disastrous path” to which Brennan took such umbrage was the president’s own tweet on Sunday, in response to news reports that an FBI informant was hovering around members of Mr. Trump’s campaign and asking them questions under false pretenses. President Trump demanded “that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

Brennan is evidently unfamiliar with the U.S. Constitution. Here is a simple explanation for the man who once voted for the Communist Party candidate for president, Gus Hall, even though Hall by then had been a long-time enthusiastic supporter of the Communist Soviet Union’s hardline expansionist policies. The Department of Justice is part of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government. Under Article II of the Constitution, Mr. Brennan, the president of the United States is the head of the Executive Branch. The president, therefore, is acting within his constitutional authority to order the Department of Justice to undertake an investigation of possible abuse of power for political purposes within the Executive Branch over which he now presides.

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Did the Obama Administration Spy on Michael Flynn? By Julie Kelly

Posted By on May 22nd, 2018

In his controversial tweet on Sunday, President Trump indicated that he would direct the Justice Department to investigate “whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes—and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

Is the president hinting that he thinks Michael Flynn, a top campaign consultant who briefly served as Trump’s national security advisor, was the target of FISA-authorized surveillance during the campaign or presidential transition—or during both?

Recently released documents—the final House Intelligence Report and the trove of memos authored by former FBI Director James Comey—contain clues to support that suspicion. In his memo dated February 8, 2017, Comey relays this exchange at the White House with then Chief of Staff Reince Priebus:

He then said he wanted to ask me a question and I could decide whether it was appropriate to answer. He then asked, “Do you have a FISA order on Mike Flynn?” I paused for a few seconds and then said that I would answer here, but that this illustrated the kind of question that had to be asked and answered through established channels. I said the answer [redacted]. I then explained that the normal channel was from DOJ leadership to the WH counsel about such things.

The next sentence is redacted. Comey continues: “I explained that it was important that communications about any particular case go through that channel to protect us and to protect the WH from any accusations of improper influence.”

Flynn resigned on February 13 amid reports he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about phone conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016. (Details about the call were illegally leaked to the Washington Post in January 2017. The leaker has not yet been identified or charged.)

So why did the Justice Department redact Comey’s answer? It’s fair to assume that if his answer was “No,” there would be no need to conceal it. Also, why would Comey instruct Priebus to follow proper “channels” of inquiry to avoid accusations of “improper influence” if the answer was no? And not just a regular “No.” More like an Are-you-fricking-kidding-me-of-course-not! kind of “No.”

The unredacted version of the House Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, released earlier this month, also dropped a little bombshell about Flynn.

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Hillary Clinton and the fall of Yale and Harvard By Patricia McCarthy

Posted By on May 22nd, 2018

Why on Earth would Yale invite Hillary Clinton, the whiniest woman on the planet to speak at its commencement? Did the administrators not have advance knowledge of her psychosis? Her address to Yale grads was all about her: her loss, her anger at those who did not vote for her. She is, without a doubt, the sorest of sore losers.

Hillary quoted Dickens when bemoaning the constitutional crisis she herself has created by inventing the Trump-colluded-with-Russia hoax. She is the person who colluded with Russia in numerous ways. It was Hillary who saw to it that the U.S. sold twenty percent of our uranium to Russia. She is the one who benefited financially, to the tune of $145M, from that deal. She is the one who commissioned and paid for the fake dossier on Trump and then had her like-minded felons in the Deep State use it to spy on the Trump campaign and probably everyone within it. It was she who was and is affiliated with Fusion GPS and Perkins Coie, the law firm that facilitated much of the skullduggery perpetrated on her behalf. It was she who sabotaged Bernie Sanders during the primaries. And looking back, it was she who made a mess of Libya and is responsible for the deaths at Benghazi. The complete list of her failures and crimes against the nation is too long to include here.

Mrs. Clinton and her husband are the most corrupt people in U.S. history to dominate a political party. They have become fabulously wealthy by selling access to U.S. government favors and via other unscrupulous schemes. And still she whines. She wanted more; she wanted the presidency and believed with absolute certainty that it was hers for the taking.

Hillary is clearly convinced that her defeat in the 2016 election was a near-death blow to American democracy. In her view, Trump’s victory is an assault on our republic. She is still furious at all the deplorables who did not vote for her. She has no concern for those of us who are victims of and are outraged at the senseless crimes committed by illegal aliens protected by sanctuary cities or the businesses shut down by the tyranny of the diversity police.

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Jihad via the Ballot Box By Eileen F. Toplansky

Posted By on May 22nd, 2018

In his 2008 book titled Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, Andrew C. McCarthy sounded the alarm when he described a “zealous international network of warriors dead certain that history and Allah are on their side.” Since then, this network has not diminished; it seems to metastasize in every part of the world.

Violent jihad by its nature makes headlines and causes grief and anger. It also gives resolve to those who would fight back. Law enforcement will track down the perpetrators and bring them to court or kill them outright. But a far more dangerous and insidious undermining of America continues unabated. It seeks to ultimately destroy the foundations of American values.

It is important to see the larger picture of what the Islamic jihadists assiduously work to achieve in this country. Connecting the dots irrefutably proves their game plan.

It begins with immigration, or hijra. I have often wondered why a group of people accustomed to very warm climates continues to settle in extremely cold geographical areas. Consider that the Nordic countries now boast a growing Muslim population, and Minnesota is now host to Somali Muslims. In war lingo, this could be construed as a siege, whereby a country’s borders are sealed off by the enemy…with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.

Hijra is immigration by jihadists who seek to populate and dominate new lands. They have absolutely no intention of assimilating peacefully in a new host nation. In fact, they scorn the host nation’s traditions and legal systems. Rather, hijrah is a means to “colonize and then transform non-Muslim target societies since the ultimate goal is global submission to sharia law.” So Sweden, under the much vaunted multicultural umbrella, opened its borders to Muslim immigration. Today, it is the rape capital of the West.

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Advice to New Grads: Scale or Bail Want to change the world? Don’t bother volunteering—get a real, ‘boring’ job.By Andy Kessler

Posted By on May 22nd, 2018

Dear Grads: How can you make an impact on this world? Michael Keaton told Kent State students, “I’m Batman.” Ronan Farrow encouraged Loyola Marymount’s class of 2018 to “trust that inner voice.” Human-rights lawyer Amal Clooney told Vanderbilt grads last week, “Courage is needed more than ever.”

Maybe you’re looking for something less vacuous than warmed over “Wizard of Oz” themes? If so, put down your JUUL vape pen, unplug from “Fortnite,” tuck in your “I Am the Change” shirt, and listen up. Scale or bail.

Many of you graduates think you want socially conscious careers—giving back, fighting injustice and making a difference. “Well, you know, we all want to change the world.” You want to reduce inequality, end poverty, comfort the homeless, expand human dignity. Guess what? Me too! But you’re going about it the wrong way.

Some 44% of millennials believe they do more to support social causes than the rest of their family, according to the 2017 Millennial Impact report. If you’re volunteering at shelters or working for most nonprofits, that’s all very nice, but it’s one-off. You’re one of the privileged few who have the education to create lasting change. It may feel good to ladle soup to the hungry, but you’re wasting valuable brain waves that could be spent ushering in a future in which no one is hungry to begin with.

There’s a word that was probably never mentioned by your professors: Scale. No, not the stuff on the bottom of your bong or bathtub. It’s the concept of taking a small idea and finding ways to implement it for thousands, or millions, or even billions. Without scale, ideas are no more than hot air. Stop doing the one-off two-step. It’s time to scale up.

I hear you talking about food deserts and the need for urban eco-farms to enable food justice. You certainly have the jargon down. You can hoe and sickle and grow rutabagas to feed a few hungry folks, but then it’s really all about you. A better option: Find a way to revamp food distribution to lower prices. Or reinvent how food is grown and enriched to enable healthier diets. Call it a Neo-Green Revolution.

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Putting a New Squeeze on Iran Pompeo lays out a strategy of severe economic pressure.

Posted By on May 22nd, 2018

Hard on the heels of U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear accord, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday laid out a new strategy to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional imperialism. The U.S. plans to impose severe financial and economic pressure while offering Iran better diplomatic and commercial relations if it changes its threatening course.

In 2015 Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry made a $100 billion bet that their Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) would end Iran’s nuclear program while transforming the Islamic Republic into a responsible member of the world community. The wager didn’t pay.

While delaying its nuclear dream a few years, Iran has spent the windfall from sanctions relief financing proxy wars through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen. The Iranian economy languished, and Iranians suffered. “ Qasem Soleimani has been playing with house money that has become blood money,” Mr. Pompeo said about Iran’s Qods Force general.

The new U.S. strategy promises to restore a hard economic vise that will squeeze Iran’s funds for adventurism. The sanctions regime in place before the nuclear deal already is returning, Mr. Pompeo said, and new penalties will be “the strongest sanctions in history.” Iran will have to choose: “Either fight to keep its economy off life support at home or keep squandering precious wealth on fights abroad. It will not have the resources to do both.”

Critics insist the U.S. can’t replicate the previous sanctions because the Europeans, Russians and Chinese aren’t supportive. The European Union in particular is exploring ways to circumvent U.S. sanctions, but that is harder than it sounds. As Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg note nearby, the Iran economy is under pressure and its currency is reeling.

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Campus Censorship Hits Pro-Lifers Hard When antifa issued threats to my student group, Cal State Fullerton did nothing. By Kristan Hawkins

Posted By on May 22nd, 2018

Ms. Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America, which has more than 1,200 chapters on college and high school campuses.

Free speech is out of fashion on college, university and even high school campuses, and pro-life students are hit especially hard. Putting aside any feelings about the issue of abortion, consider that pro-life students increasingly find their ability to make their case suppressed by fellow students and administrators. With more than 1,200 college and high school chapters, Students for Life of America works daily addressing obstacles to student speech. Among them:

• Vandalism and theft of displays and signs. Defacing displays like a Cemetery of the Innocents, set in remembrance of lives lost to abortion, occurs regularly, and was captured on video recently at the Miami University of Ohio. Chalking is a popular way to express thought peacefully. Recently a California State University, Fresno, professor was required to pay $17,000 and undergo free-speech training for destroying student pro-life chalk messages and encouraging his students to do the same.

• A tax on speech in the form of selectively assessed security fees. When a Students for Life chapter at the University of Michigan invited Martin Luther King’s niece Alveda King to speak, the school sent the students a bill for more than $800. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys intervened, noting: “The government may not charge speakers for the security costs driven by listeners’ response to that speech.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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Daryl McCann Bernard Lewis and the Dangerous Creed of Freedom (October 2012)

Posted By on May 21st, 2018

In his memoir Notes on a Century, Bernard Lewis observes that it has become “fashionable to assume that everything Western is bad”. Lewis, nonetheless, allows himself to make one “blatantly chauvinistic statement” by claiming that “the quest for knowledge” is a “peculiarly Western feature”. Throughout the past half-millennium, from the time of the earliest European Orientalists, the intellectual curiosity of Western philologists, adventurers and scholars has transcended provincialism, religion, sentiment and compliance. Notes on a Century goes a long way towards explaining why this phenomenon appears to be under threat, dwelling as we do in an era of “intellectual conformism unknown for centuries”.

Bernard Lewis, speaker of some thirteen languages, has been a leading Western authority on the Middle East for an astonishing seven decades, since the publication of The Origins of Ismailism in 1940: a colossus in his field, impossibly brilliant and an intellect of the highest order. The late Edward Said, one-time professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, described Lewis in 2003 as “a tireless mediocrity”. This says more about the founder of post-colonial studies than it does about his adversary. A more accurate description of Lewis was made by a Muslim critic in 1966: “[He is] either a candid friend or an honest enemy and in any case one who disdains to distort the truth.” Lewis, now ninety-five years old, wants to be regarded as a dedicated and single-minded scholar who successfully avoided the pitfalls of both polemics and apologetics. Despite (or perhaps because of) bouts of celebrity, and interludes as an adviser to various heads of state including the United States of America and Turkey, Lewis has his Western critics. Most—but certainly not all—hail from the ranks of post-colonial studies.