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Pakistan: Muslim Mobs Hunt Christians by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on September 1st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19939/pakistan-muslim-mobs-hunt-christians

Hundreds of Christians fled their homes on August 16 when, in the eastern Pakistani district capital of Jaranwala, Muslim mobs started an anti-Christian riot, vandalizing churches and setting churches and Christians’ homes on fire — all based just on an accusation that a Quran had been desecrated.

At least 20 churches throughout the city were set on fire and more than 400 homes belonging to Christians damaged.

“Two Christian individuals are accused of desecrating the Quran. People are demanding life imprisonment, but the accusation is false. They have done nothing. The accusation was fabricated by an Islamist group, Tehreek-e-Labbaik.” — Faraz Pervaiz, a Christian Pakistani asylum-seeker who fled to Thailand after being accused in Pakistan of blasphemy for criticizing political Islam, reporting through his sources on the ground, August 2023.

“On August 16, 2023 a woman carrying these documents with torn pages of Quran knocked the door of Raja and Rocky, later be accused of blasphemy. When they opened the door, the woman started shouting at the family and accusing them that you have desecrated the Quran. The family was shocked. Meanwhile this woman started making loud noises to wake the people up. ‘Raja and Rocky has committed blasphemy,’ she was shouting, ‘and you Muslims are sleeping!'” — Faraz Pervaiz, August 2023.

The Muslim mobs then started attacking Christian homes and churches; the Christians fled and slept outside to avoid being burned alive, Pervaiz said.

“Christians are sleeping under open sky now. They are helpless. They get no support from any organization or the Government. They get no food support, and no new shelter is provided. They are starving. They are too scared to go back to their homes. They fear being killed… The police were helping the perpetrators and the vigilantes. There was no military intervention to stop the attacks. …The newly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan has condemned the incidents, but Christians need help, which he could have provided. But he did not because he knew that entire Muslim community would stand against him.” — Faraz Pervaiz, August 2023.

To urge Muslims to hunt down Pervaiz, mullahs in Pakistan have led demonstrations where the crowds were encouraged to chant: “There is only one punishment for insulting the Prophet. Sever the head from the body! Sever the head from the body!”

In 2019, Pervaiz’s home address in Bangkok, Thailand, was revealed in a video released on social media, with calls to every Muslim to find and kill him and his family. Several mullahs also attached fatwas to the video calling on Muslims to kill him. Posters with his photograph were plastered across many cities, including outside mosques and government offices in Lahore and Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.

Meanwhile, Pakistani Islamists have placed a bounty on Pervaiz. The Tahreek-e-Labbaik political party announced the first bounty of $62,000 in 2015. The next year, a cleric doubled it to $124,000. Pervaiz told Gatestone that many Islamist parties in Pakistan have placed a bounty on him; the amount now totals $400,000.

The UN and other members of the international community seriously need to reconsider their relations with the government of Pakistan. It is a systematic violator of human rights and a major supporter of Islamist terrorism. A government that treats its minorities so unjustly and inhumanely needs to be held to account.

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Chicago TV Crew Mugged While Reporting on Robberies Ben Wilson

Posted By on September 1st, 2023

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/chicago-tv-crew-gets-mugged-while-reporting-on-robberies/

A TV news crew covering armed robbers in Chicago were themselves robbed this week, as the city continues to struggle with a surge in crime.

The two crew members, a reporter and photographer for Univision Chicago, were standing on the street in the city’s Wicker Park neighborhood on Monday when two vehicles pulled up and three masked men with guns took their equipment and belongings, according to USA Today.

The identities of the victims have not been released, but police reported that they were not injured. No arrests were made as of Tuesday morning.

The story is the latest example of Chicago’s struggle with crime and violence. Dozens of people are shot and several killed on a weekly basis.

Crime increased by 38 percent in the month after Democratic mayor Brandon Johnson took office in May. In late July, robberies were up 17 percent compared with the same time last year, according to police data, and were up by 30 percent in the past three years.

A Democratic Chicago alderwoman asked gang members this month to limit their shootings and murders to the evening hours.

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Democrats And Republicans Have Been Talking About School Reform For Years While Everything Has Gotten Worse By: Auguste Meyrat

Posted By on September 1st, 2023

https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/01/democrats-and-republicans-have-been-talking-about-school-reform-for-years-while-everything-has-gotten-worse/

On education, both Republicans and Democrats are out of ideas as schools continue to crumble.

One important takeaway from the first Republican presidential primary debate was that every candidate shared lackluster views on education.

The GOP has not developed a coherent position on this crucial issue. Sure, they have a few talking points: They want to abolish the Department of Education, break up teachers unions, protect children from leftist radicals, and implement some kind of school choice. But this doesn’t come close to a comprehensive vision of an issue that affects all Americans and will largely determine the trajectory of the country’s future. 

Assuming the candidates received their wishes, how would this work out? In all likelihood, this would mean that the federal government would save billions of dollars by offering fewer grants to needy college students and underprivileged schools. Teachers in all states would lose their leverage in negotiating a fair wage and better working conditions. And a whole new industry of education scammers would crop up to con unwitting parents out of their school vouchers.

These ostensible “reforms” could be made without such negative outcomes — and I’ve argued for some of them myself — but only if the reformers did their homework and took the time to understand how these systems and processes worked. 

Unfortunately, the Democrat Party is even worse on education.

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RFK Jr. STILL Pushing 20% in Dem Primary Polling Despite Constant Attacks, Censorship, Smears By Ben Bartee

Posted By on September 1st, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/08/31/rfk-jr-still-pushing-20-in-dem-primary-polling-despite-constant-attacks-censorship-smears-n1723508

Biden 60% Kennedy 19% Williamson 10%

A recent poll conducted by Big Village CARAVAN assessing Democrat Party voter preferences in June 2023 found that the Brandon entity is sitting at 60.3%, RFK Jr. is at 19%, and Marianne Williamson is at 9.7%. “Someone else” gets 10.9%.

This means that just about 40% of his own party’s voters actively oppose the re-nomination of Joseph Brandon and endorse other candidates — nearly unheard of for a sitting president. And this is without any debates and with the entire corporate state media in his corner.

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Biden’s Border Crisis Fuels Massive Spike In Retail Crime

Posted By on September 1st, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/01/bidens-border-crisis-fuels-massive-spike-in-retail-crime/

As retailers reported their quarterly earnings this month, a phrase that kept cropping up is one you probably never heard before – “organized retail crime.” It has spiked enough that it’s eating into profits.

Turns out that, by throwing open the southern border, President Joe Biden has created a booming business for Mexican cartels ripping off U.S. retailers – although you’d never know it based on the media blackout of this trend.

Target, Dollar Tree, Foot Locker, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Nordstrom, and others recently disclosed that organized retail crime – or ORC for short – is hitting their bottom lines.

Dick’s Chief Financial Officer Navdeep Gupta said that the sports retailer lowered its profit outlook for the year in part because “the number of incidents and the organized retail crime impact came in significantly higher than we anticipated.”

Dollar Tree said it is keeping more of its items in locked cases or removing them altogether as organized theft climbs

Just last week, 50 criminals swarmed a Los Angeles mall and made off with $300,000 worth of stolen goods. A news report suggests that they were following orders from organized crime or gang members.

“There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of … criminal organizations behind this. Some of it involves gang members; some of it involves people that are what you would identify as professional retail thieves,” Deputy Los Angeles Police Chief Alan Hamilton told NBC News on Sunday. “It runs the gamut, and there is a black market for purchasing these items, unfortunately. … The same people [are] then turning around and committing these acts again, over and over again.”

The National Retail Federation says ORC cost retailers close to $100 billion in 2021 – a significant increase from the year before – and that money eventually comes out of consumers’ pockets.

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Clarence Thomas Discloses, the Media Opposes The justice’s 2022 filing confirms the Journal’s debunking of ProPublica’s botched April story. James Taranto

Posted By on September 1st, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/clarence-thomas-discloses-the-media-opposes-journal-crow-ethics-402ad421?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

One reason Americans don’t trust the media is that politically biased reporters routinely adulterate the news with tendentious language and prepackaged opinions. The result is crude propaganda—lousy opinion writing and unreliable information rolled into one and deceptively packaged as straight news.

Here’s an example from CNN (emphasis mine): “Justice Clarence Thomas disclosed Thursday that Republican megadonor Harlan Crow paid for private jet trips for Thomas in 2022 to attend a speech in Texas and a vacation at Crow’s luxurious New York estate, as ethics questions continue to rock the Supreme Court.”

What actually happened is too mundane to rock anything: The Judicial Conference of the U.S., which regulates judges’ financial disclosures, changed its rules regarding “transportation that substitutes for commercial transportation.” A private plane trip is now considered a gift, which is subject to disclosure, rather than “personal hospitality,” which isn’t. The rule took effect in March, and Justice Thomas complied with it for his 2022 form.

This week’s coverage is another demonstration that disclosure is a mug’s game. If you follow the rules perfectly, “ethics experts” will fault you for failing to disclose when it isn’t required and for what you disclose when it is. Gabe Roth, who heads an outfit called Fix the Court, tells CNN that although Justice Thomas “says he plans on more closely following the disclosure laws moving forward, his penchant for living a lifestyle few of us can only dream of [sic] is not reflected in today’s report.” Mr. Roth adds that the justice “should go back and amend earlier disclosures to recount the full extent of the lavish gifts he’s received over the years.” The connection with judicial ethics is unclear: As CNN notes in passing, Mr. Crow has never had business before the court.

Justice Thomas’s 2022 disclosure form also vindicates my reporting last April on a real-estate transaction that ProPublica—which styles itself “an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force”—attempted to spin into a scandal.

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Hurricane Ron DeSantis If he can do the executive job, maybe his skill at small talk is immaterial.

Posted By on September 1st, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ron-desantis-hurricane-idalia-florida-a4ec7f61?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Ron DeSantis spent Thursday visiting rural Florida counties hit by Hurricane Idalia, and during his morning news update the Governor was in command of the details. “As of 6 a.m. today,” he said, “there are approximately 146,000 power outages reported across the state,” but thousands of borrowed linemen were at work, and 420,000 accounts had already been restored.

As of the night before, Mr. DeSantis said, authorities had done about 40 successful rescues. “All state bridges, including the Cedar Key Bridge, have been cleared, and that happened within 12 hours of landfall,” he added. Schools? “Thirty of the 52 districts that closed during the storm are open today, and an additional eight will be open tomorrow.” Fuel, water, tarps? “All that stuff we have an abundance of, and we’ll be providing that as needed.”

The driving winds in Florida’s Big Bend region were enough to rip off roofs and topple a gas-station canopy. Yet worse appears to have been avoided because Idalia hit mostly rural areas, after a forecast of its path that Mr. DeSantis called “pretty doggone accurate.” The contrast is with Hurricane Ian last year, which was predicted to hit the Big Bend but veered into Fort Myers and killed about 150 Americans.

Mr. DeSantis received high marks for his handling of that disaster, in particular after the state Transportation Department made swift emergency repairs to two bridges the storm damaged, stranding thousands of residents.

Hurricane Idalia cleanup isn’t over, and perhaps there will be hiccups. But if there aren’t, we’ll know it by what we don’t read in the national press. The Governor will get no credit for success.

This seems to be Mr. DeSantis in his element, examining the figures, the emergency response plans, the Covid-19 statistics, and then synthesizing it into government policy. Everyone knows an introvert like this, and the flip side of the personality type is that Mr. DeSantis, now a 2024 presidential candidate, has proved less than adept at making small talk with Iowans.

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Truth is essential to a functioning democratic republic, which is why the left manipulates it By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on August 31st, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/truth_is_essential_to_a_functioning_democratic_republic_which_is_why_the_left_manipulates_it.html

Today provided a great example of how the media simultaneously confess to Biden’s little lies while hiding his big ones

A democratic republic cannot work when a corrupt politician holds allegiance to interests other than those of the electorate. The media’s primary role should be to expose that corruption to the American people. Instead, today, the Washington Post continued the cover-up, confessing to Biden’s small crimes while ignoring his treasonous ones.

Biden is slowly but steadily being exposed as a liar about something fundamental to his presidency. His fundamental lie has been that he has denied to the American people that he was in business with his son, with the two men receiving millions from governments and companies with interests antithetical to America. Leftists must do damage control and, funnily enough, the Washington Post’s damage control came out on the same day as a conservative article lambasting the media for ignoring Biden’s lies.

On the conservative side, writing at The Federalist, Mark Hemingway published a well-sourced, very detailed essay about Biden’s lies and the media’s cover-up. The title and subtitle tell the story:

If The Media Insisted On Calling Trump A Liar, That Standard Must Be Applied To Biden’s Corruption Lies

One of the distinguishing features of Trump’s presidency was an aggressive press corps that felt obligated to call out Trump’s ‘lies’ — so why won’t they apply this same standard to Biden who is inarguably a world-class liar?

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Report: Hunter Biden’s Firm and Vice President Biden’s Office Exchanged Over 1,000 Emails By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on August 31st, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/31/report-hunter-bidens-firm-and-vice-president-bidens-office-exchanged-over-1000-emails/

New records released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) reveal that Hunter Biden’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, exchanged over 1,000 emails with the office of then-Vice President Joe Biden during the Obama Administration.

As the New York Post reports, the records were released by NARA on Wednesday after a request from the conservative legal advocacy group America First Legal (AFL). At least 861 emails were sent or received by the Office of the Vice President during the period of time between January of 2011 and December of 2013, and over 200 more emails remain hidden due to the Biden White House citing executive privilege.

“Release would disclose confidential advice between the President and his advisors, or between such advisors,” NARA claimed in its statement responding to AFL.

The emails that were released show that Rosemont Seneca was given direct lines of communication to Joe Biden’s office, and were often given crucial information regarding various White House social events in order to seek audiences with government officials. Among the information shared with Hunter’s business partners were White House guest lists, seating arrangements, and guest biographies for numerous official events, such as the 2012 United Kingdom State Dinner, the 2013 Turkey State Luncheon, and the 2014 France State Dinner.

In one such example, lobbyist Doug Davenport frantically begged for a last-minute ticket to the 2013 White House Christmas tour.

“Hey guys……I am in a bad spot. I have a guy from Apple who is dying to take his 4 colleagues on a REGULAR WH Tour…see the tree, etc…..this Friday,” Davenport’s email reads. “I know it is WAY short notice, but I would owe you my life if you could tell me any way possible to get my hands on some public tour tix for this Friday? Or am I just way out of line???”

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

From One Unapologetic Media Hoax to the Next A discredited media has never expressed remorse for damage done By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on August 31st, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/31/from-one-unapologetic-media-hoax-to-the-next/

Joe Biden lied repeatedly when he claimed he knew nothing of his son Hunter’s influence-peddling businesses.

The President further prevaricated that he had no involvement in Hunter’s various shake down schemes.

Yet, the media continued to misinform by serially ignoring these facts.

Had journalists just been honest and independent, then candidate Joe Biden might have lost a presidential debate and even the 2020 election. The public would have learned that Hunter’s business associates and his laptop proved Joe was deeply involved in his son’s illicit businesses.

Later, as the evidence from IRS whistleblowers mounted, the White House stonewalled subpoenaed efforts and sought to craft an outrageous plea deal reduction in Hunter’s legal exposure.

Reporters ignored the Ukrainians who claimed Joe Biden himself talked to them about quid pro quo arrangements.

They again discounted Hunter’s laptop that explicitly demonstrated that Hunter was whining that he had handed over large percentages of his income to his father Joe—variously referred to as the Big Guy and a “ten percent” recipient on many deals.

They played dumb about Joe Biden’s use of pseudonyms and alias email accounts to hide thousands of his communications to Hunter and associates.

They attacked the former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who now claims Biden was likely bribed by Ukrainians.

Yet the media can no longer hide the reality that the President of the United States likely took bribes to influence or alter U.S. policy to suit his payers. Those two crimes—bribery and treason—are specifically delineated in the Constitution as impeachable offenses.