EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Top 10 College Administrations Most Friendly to Terrorists and Hostile to the First Amendment Targeting the nation’s worst offenders. Sara Dogan ****

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

Over the past two weeks, the David Horowitz Freedom Center has named 10 prestigious college and university campuses to its list of the “Top 10 College Administrations Most Friendly to Terrorists and Hostile to the First Amendment.” These campuses provide financial and institutional support to terrorist-linked campus organizations such as the Hamas-funded hate-group Students for Justice in Palestine while actively suppressing speech exposing the truth about Israel’s terrorist adversaries and their allies in the United States.

The Freedom Center placed posters exposing the links between the terrorist group Hamas and SJP on each of these ten campuses, both to inform students about the allies to terror in their midst and to challenge these campus administrations to do what they so far have refused to do—to uphold the First Amendment and promote free expression even when doing so means facing down radical students and faculty who demand otherwise.

Already our campaign has yielded positive results. Mainstream Jewish publication JWeekly.com reported on the Freedom Center’s poster campaign, quoting David Horowitz and noting that San Francisco State University President Les Wong has come under fire recently for failing to adequately protect Jewish students on campus.

Wong himself has also responded to the campaign in a letter to entire SFSU community (which was reprinted at Jweekly.com) noting that “This week I encountered both the re-emergence of posters on campus attacking and condemning the work of Palestinian activists and their supporters.” Wong went on to state, “I believe it is the fundamental role of a university to engage differing viewpoints and to evaluate their merits and shortcomings. It is this belief that compels me to unequivocally reject the concept of ‘anti-normalization’ outright.” SJP as an organization rejects all “normalization” of relations with pro-Israel groups. By making this declaration, Wong is taking an important stand against at least one aspect of SJP’s genocidal agenda.

The full report on the ten campus administrations “Most Friendly to Terrorists and Hostile to the First Amendment” follows below.

Introduction:

Of all the disturbing trends to have emerged on college campuses in recent years, perhaps the most ominous is the support universities offer to terrorist-linked campus organizations such as the Hamas-funded hate-group Students for Justice in Palestine while actively suppressing speech critical of Israel’s terrorist adversaries and their allies in the United States. Administrators at San Francisco State University, UCLA, the University of Chicago, Tufts University, Brooklyn College and other schools have actively supported organizations supporting terrorists and their activities while suppressing their critics.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has emerged as the leading pro-terrorist, anti-Jewish organization in America, and the driving force behind the recent surge of anti-Semitism on American campuses. SJP is the chief promoter of the Hamas-inspired and funded “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) campaign in America, an effort to weaken and ultimately destroy the Jewish state. SJP also stages annual “Israeli Apartheid” hate weeks on campuses across the nation which feature pro-Hamas speakers and “apartheid walls” in public spaces on campus displaying pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic propaganda. SJP also creates mock checkpoints and die-ins that obstruct student movements on campus, disrupts pro-Israel campus events, threatens Jewish and pro-Israel speakers, and has physically assaulted Jewish students.

As described in the Freedom Center’s recent pamphlet, Students for Justice in Palestine: A Campus Front for Hamas Terrorists, SJP’s pro-terror campaign is guided and funded through a Hamas front called American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), whose principals are former officers of the Holy Land Foundation and other Islamic “charities” previously convicted of funneling money to Hamas. AMP was created by Hatem Bazian, a pro-Hamas professor at UC Berkeley who is also the co-founder of SJP.

In recent testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Jonathan Schanzer, a terrorism finance analyst for the United States Department of the Treasury from 2004-2007, described AMP as “arguably the most important sponsor and organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is the most visible arm of the BDS campaign on campuses in the United States” and explained that “AMP spent $100,000 on campus activities in 2014 alone.”

The following report chronicles ten of the worst collegiate offenders in this category of campuses that support anti-Israel terrorists even when their rhetoric and propaganda cross the line into hate speech while rejecting speech critical of the perpetrators and promoters of terrorism.

(Campuses are listed in alphabetical order)

1. Brandeis University
2. Brooklyn College (CUNY)
3. Saint Louis University
4. San Francisco State University
5. Tufts University
6. University of California, Berkeley
7. University of California, Los Angeles
8. University of Chicago
9. University of Minnesota
10. Vassar College

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

North Korea’s Missile Test Puts Region On Edge Nuclear threat reaching point of no return. Joseph Klein

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

North Korea test fired yet another missile on Sunday. This time the test did not end in a fiasco. The missile was fired somewhere between 430 to 500 hundred miles, staying aloft for about 30 minutes at an altitude exceeding 1,240 miles, before landing in the Sea of Japan 60 miles south of Russia’s Vladivostok region. It exceeded in distance and altitude an intermediate-range missile that North Korea successfully tested last February. While reportedly not an intercontinental missile, North Korea is demonstrating with this successful test, according to at least one expert, a missile with a range as far as 3700 miles, putting Hawaii potentially at risk. The North Korean regime’s missile program is firing on all cylinders, including the use of mobile land-based and submarine launch platforms. It is only a matter of time before North Korea also conducts another, more powerful nuclear test in its relentless march towards achieving a strategic nuclear deterrence that would provide it with the leverage to extort its neighbors and threaten the U.S. mainland at will.

The White House issued a statement noting the proximity to Russia of the landing of its latest tested missile, and reiterating the U.S.’s firm commitment to protect its interests and those of its allies against North Korea’s provocations: “With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil – in fact, closer to Russia than to Japan – the President cannot imagine that Russia is pleased. North Korea has been a flagrant menace for far too long. South Korea and Japan have been watching this situation closely with us. The United States maintains our ironclad commitment to stand with our allies in the face of the serious threat posed by North Korea. Let this latest provocation serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea.”

South Korea’s newly elected President Moon Jae-In, while indicating more receptiveness to diplomatic talks with North Korea than his predecessor, called the missile test-launch a “clear” violation of UN Security Council resolutions, adding that “we should sternly deal with a provocation to prevent North Korea from miscalculating.”

North Korea’s leader Kim Jung-un appears oblivious to such condemnations and rhetorical threats. The latest missile launch was timed to send a clear message to South Korea’s new government, sworn in just days ago, that North Korea would not back down in the face of joint military exercises or other demonstrations of force by the United States, South Korea or their allies. If anything, such demonstrations are having the opposite effect, further convincing Kim Jung-un and his fellow leaders that North Korea’s only path to survival is a nuclear strike capability strong enough to dissuade the U.S. from daring to launch a pre-emptive military strike or invasion.

Sanctions are also clearly not enough to stop the North Korean regime from pursuing its nuclear arms and ballistic missile delivery objectives. Kim Jung-un could care less whether his people starve to death or not, as long as he can control them. North Korea has also proven to be very adept at evading sanctions through front organizations. According to a UN Panel of Experts report issued earlier this year, North Korea has successfully used front companies to obtain access to the international financial system.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

False Claims To US Citizenship Far from a “victimless crime.” May 15, 2017 Michael Cutler

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

Virtually all criminals lie.

Lying is a common tactic used by criminals to conceal their identities, their backgrounds and their crimes. They lie to cover their tracks, to evade detection and to escape from the reach of the “long arm of the law.”

This is why suspects who are taken into custody are fingerprinted and photographed, to attempt to make certain that the name the suspect provides is truly his/her name. Often criminals use multiple false identities whether by committing identity theft or fabricating altogether fictitious identities.

In point of fact, the 9/11 Commission found that in the aggregate, the 19 hijackers who participated in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, used more than 300 false identities or variations of false identities to conceal their identities and their movements as they went about their deadly preparations.

The 9/11 Commission also identified other terrorists who had entered the United States in the decade leading up to the attacks of 9/11 and found that the majority of all of these terrorists engaged in multiple forms of immigration fraud. This was the starting point for my recent article, Immigration Fraud: Lies That Kill.

The act of lying is, itself, a crime when it is done in furtherance of other criminal activities. A section of federal law, 18 U.S. Code § 1001, addresses this crime. Here is how this statute begins:

Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—

(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;

(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or

(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years.

Please notice that the statute cited above noted the potential nexus between false statements and terrorism.

Getting back to immigration, aliens who enter the United States without inspection or who enter the United States legally but then violate the term so their immigration status may lie to authorities about their names, their countries of birth and/or countries of citizenship in order to evade detection by immigration law enforcement, to create the appearance that they are entitled to various public assistance programs or to be able to be employed in the United States and to achieve other illegal goals.

Such false claims to United States citizenship is a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 911. The description of this crime and the punishment for this violation of law is contained in this brief sentence:

Whoever falsely and willfully represents himself to be a citizen of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

The primary goal of illegal aliens is to not be arrested and deported (removed from the United States).

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Why Only Trump Can Win in North Korea It’s time to think outside the box. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

America is facing the same old bad choices in North Korea.

Either we apply multilateral sanctions hoping that Kim Jong-un, unlike his dad, Saddam Hussein and the Supreme Leader of Iran, will be suitably impressed by having to smuggle his iPhones through three other countries. Or we build a multilateral coalition to take out its military with minimal civilian casualties and then spend the next decade reconstructing and policing it into a proper member of the United Nations.

Is anyone surprised that after Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans have little appetite for either alternative?

How is it possible that we beat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in less time than it’s taking us to figure out that we can’t even trust the clods of dirt in Afghanistan? Let alone reach a peace deal with them.

But WW2 was a war. It may have been the last war in which we leveraged all the firepower at our disposal to smash an enemy. We don’t fight wars anymore. Instead we’re the world’s policeman.

The military and the police have very different functions. The military destroys a threat. The police keep order. What we’ve been trying and failing to do in Afghanistan is keep order. It’s what we want to do in North Korea. Get that obnoxious kid next door to stop testing nukes every time he has a bad day.

The vocabulary is a dead giveaway. When we call a country a “rogue state” instead of an “enemy”, we’re not saying that it’s a deadly threat to us, but that it’s not behaving the way a member of the global community should. But being a “rogue state” is only a crime to globalists. Our problem isn’t that North Korea is failing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Treatment of Radishes. It’s the nukes.

To solve a problem, you have to clearly define it because your solution will follow your formulation.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Meet the American women who are flocking to join ISIS Paul Sperry

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

ISIS is recruiting an army of AK-47-brandishing women from the West who are just as bloodthirsty as the men they are marrying. Calling themselves “lionesses of Allah,” they are thought to now number more than 600, and they’re bearing the next generation of terrorists, whom they call “cubs of the caliphate.”

Many of these women are true believers who trust that even with horrific gore and bloodshed, they are helping carry out the holy work of Allah in restoring the ancient Islamic caliphate, and that once it’s reestablished, all believers will live in peace and harmony under Islamic rule.

Some of these ISIS brides living in Syria and Iraq have made the terrorist watchlist. Arguably the most dangerous is Sally Jones, 49, a British Muslim convert who goes by the nom de guerre Umm Hussain al-Britani. She is reportedly now on a British special-forces “kill list” after threatening Queen Elizabeth II.

Jones, who in her youth was a guitarist for an all-girl rock band, Krunch, has also been implicated in two foiled plots to kill Americans and is training her young son to follow in her footsteps.

She and other Western women are actively recruiting like-minded “sisters” to their twisted cause. Their primary duty is “to raise the next generation of lions in Islamic State,” as Jones’ good friend, Umm Muthanna al-Britani, another young British woman, put it in a tweet.

And ISIS pays them a generous stipend for each “cub” they deliver ($25 for each child per month, plus a $400 maternity bonus, and a $500 marriage bonus). This is a strategic move. With more of its men killed in battle, the terror group has to ensure its longevity.

But these moms celebrate death more than life. In fact, they incite their “brothers” to suicidal violence, even reminding them of the supposed heavenly rewards for achieving martyrdom while killing infidels. As Umm Osama, an online friend of Muthanna, once tweeted: “when you get so excited hoping for 7ooris” — the famous “72 virgins” — “remember this n say ‘Marhrah adDugma’ (u can do it).”

They don’t shed a tear if they lose a husband. If he dies in battle, they are “instantly transformed into a hero — the wife of a martyr,” or “shaheed,” Center for Terrorism and Security Studies fellow Mia Bloom said.

ISIS rewards such widows well. “U dnt hav 2 pay 4 ANYTHING if u r wife of a shaheed,” one Western woman in Syria wrote.

BOOKS Comments turned off

David Isaac: A Review of Tuvya Tenenbom’s “The Lies They Tell”—–De Tocqueville He’s Not!!!!

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

“America I find is not the America I wished to find. It is racist, it is hateful and its citizens are bound to destroy themselves.” This is Tuvia Tenenbom’s cringe-worthy conclusion in The Lies They Tell, a chronicle of his wanderings through America to find out what makes it tick. But Tenenbom doesn’t appear to know a thing about America—despite living in New York for 15 years—and seems unable to learn.

What makes this more astonishing is that Tenenbom’s Catch the Jew!, his previous book, was as insightful as his latest is muddled. That book, a gutsy exposé of European funding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Israel, with the complicity of some Jewish groups, was the first hands-on, direct-contact revelation of what these NGOs were up to, i.e. undermining Israel’s legitimacy. Israel’s government seems to have awoken to the danger. Recently, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to meet with Germany’s foreign minister after he conferred with anti-Israel NGOs.

Tenenbom understood what he was talking about in part thanks to his unusual background. Groomed to be a rabbi in Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Israel, he broke away to pursue secular studies, formed the Jewish Theater in New York, wrote numerous plays, and became a columnist for the Jewish daily The Forward. Fluent in German, he also writes for the German paper Die Zeit. Unfortunately, none of this gives him special insight into America. Tenenbom admits that the rest of the country is to him a blank. “Like many New Yorkers, I don’t know much about the other forty-nine states that make up America,” he writes.

Catch the Jew! had the added benefit of being Tenenbom’s idea, something that can’t be said of his latest effort. As he notes in his introduction, “Following the success of the two books, [I Sleep in Hitler’s Room, on Germany, and Catch the Jew!] my devoted editor, Winfried Horning, asked me to add another book to the series. . . . Winfried thought that the time had come to have a book about America as well.”

Tenenbom decided the best way to “portray the character of the country and its people” was to go out and meet people. He tours the states, but without a reason (apart from a book contract) or theme his wanderings appear aimless, even to himself. While in Cleveland, he writes, “I ate. I walked. Time to rest. Tomorrow I drive. Where to? Detroit. Why? Because there’s nothing more American than Detroit. How do I know? I just made it up.” The book is filled with this sort of empty trivia.

Tenenbom travels for six months, chatting with a racially diverse cast of Americans. He pesters them with questions about politics, religion, and race. Not surprisingly, they’re reluctant to answer. Maybe in Germany and Israel strangers love arguing about politics with strangers, but in this country, starting in on politics with someone you’ve just met is considered rude. Author Robert D. Kaplan, who made a similar trip, writes in his Earning the Rockies, “If you ask people straight out about such things as politics and foreign policy, they will often as not adopt a pose: after all, they don’t know you, and they may be uncomfortable about being quoted in public.” Tenenbom doesn’t entertain the possibility that the people he buttonholes don’t want to open up to him; instead, he decides they’re frightened. Americans, he concludes, are “afraid to share their political and religious views with strangers. In the Land of the Free, the Brave are quiet.” This peculiar idea becomes a major pillar of his book.

HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Another Ohio Man Charged With Providing Material Support to ISIS By Debra Heine

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

A federal grand jury today indicted a Jordanian man living in Ohio on charges that he attempted to provide material support and resources to ISIS — the second such case in Ohio in a month.

Laith Waleed Alebbini, 26, of Dayton, was arrested on April 26 by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport as he was going to board the first of a series of connecting flights to Jordan, where he planned to cross the border into Syria and join the terror group.

According to the FBI, Alebbini is a citizen of Jordan and became a legal permanent resident of the United States in April 2014. He first traveled to the U.S. in July 2011.

A sworn affidavit from FBI investigators states Alebbini was arrested Jan. 10 for unlawfully entering the Turkish embassy in Washington D.C., but the charges were later dropped.

Two days later, Alebbini tried to travel to Turkey via Amsterdam, but was denied entry because his Jordanian passport had expired, officials said. He returned to the U.S. on Jan. 15.

On Jan. 23, the FBI states Alebbini was interviewed about the incident at the Turkish embassy.

During the interview, Alebbini allegedly admitted to posting pro-ISIS videos on Facebook and to supporting ISIS’s desire for a united Middle East.
He allegedly said during the interview that “I am the perfect recruit for ISIS,” but said he did not agree with their violence, according to court documents.

He said his reason for going to the embassy was to discuss the conflict in the Middle East with the Turkish Ambassador, the documents state.

“Alebbini said the security at the embassy was very lax, and that ‘if I had on bomb on me, I swear to God, three embassies would have done down,'” investigators reported in the affidavit.

The FBI decided to keep a close eye on Alebbini after that.

Via WCPO Cincinnati:

In court records, an FBI special agent detailed various pro-ISIS comments he said Alebbini had made to a confidential source, including that he planned to travel to the Middle East, join ISIS and “fight in Jihad.”

“Our duty is to support the Islamic State,” Alebbini is quoted as saying. “Those are the words, what is your duty? Jihad. A person is supposed to stay away from the people of sins … and what happens, happens … caught? Let them arrest you, then, let them arrest me. This is the true conversation.”

If convicted, Alebbini could spend up to 20 years in prison. CONTINUE AT SITE

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

ISIS to Moms: Raising Jihadist Kids Doesn’t ‘Kill Their Childhood and Destroy Their Innocence’ By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

ISIS issued a special message to moms in the most recent issue of their multi-language recruiting magazine: Don’t listen to people who say raising kids as pint-sized jihadists is ruining their childhood or trashing their innocence.

The May issue of Rumiyah, published and distributed online in 10 languages including English, emphasized that the “tremendous grace” of giving birth in the Islamic State is “not granted to many other women,” so jihadi moms should “painstakingly endeavor to raise her children in a manner that pleases her Lord and brings benefit to her ummah [Muslim community].”

The article warns of “reckoning and punishment” if a Muslim woman “shows neglect concerning her flock,” starting with Quran and Arabic education and providing a model example as “the uprightness of the children is connected to the uprightness of the mother.”

She’s also supposed to raise her kids, the article states, “so that the worldly life becomes trivial to them and the Hereafter becomes significant to them, with the mother nurturing them upon a difficult life and some aspect of rough living.”

ISIS’ recruitment model has emphasized luring or creating jihadist families so that young children can be raised in the terror organization. The ISIS “cubs” have been featured in gory training videos, including child jihadists hunting down bound prisoners and young kids killing prisoners tied to ruins of carnival games. Many children in liberated Mosul were held out of school for the two-plus years of occupation as parents didn’t want their kids raised in ISIS indoctrination programs, which have included military training and even kids’ apps.

The Rumiyah articles dictates that “the generation of the Khilafah [caliphate] must be raised upon so that it becomes a firm and course generation which life has tested and strengthened, and so it can thereby prepare to bear the trust, take up the banner, and assume authority in the land.”

An ISIS mom “should recognize and take advantage of” her kids being “raised in the home and under the wing of a mujahid father,” it adds.

“So they grow up with their eyes becoming accustomed to seeing weapons and equipment, including rifles, tactical vests, bullets, grenades, and explosive belts. Likewise, watching the mujahidin’s video releases and following their written and recorded news nurtures within the lion cub the love of jihad and the mujahidin and hatred towards their enemies,” ISIS continues. “The mother may hear criticism from some people who would argue that the manner in which she raises her children might kill their childhood and destroy their innocence.”

“…We ask Allah to grant us righteous offspring and to bring forth from us a generation that will wage jihad for His cause and bring victory to His religion.”

The article includes a picture of an armed child about junior high-age with the caption, “A soldier of the Khilafah who was incited to wage jihad by his mother.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

College Reporter Fired After Tweet of Muslim Student Explaining Command to Kill Infidels By Jeff Reynolds See note please

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

Read :NGO IN HIS OWN WORDS

Fired for Reporting the Truth Simply tweeting video of a Muslim student characterizing his religion on an interfaith panel cost me my job. By Andy Ngo http://www.nationalreview.com/node/447563/print

At an interfaith student panel at Portland State University in April, a Muslim student responded to a question by confirming that it is ok in many Muslim countries to kill non-Muslims. A reporter for the student-run newspaper on campus tweeted out the video of this comment, an act for which he was fired. The newspaper stated that the main reason for the firing was because the video was run at a conservative news outlet—even though it was done without the reporter’s knowledge.

The reporter, Andy Ngo, is a graduate student in political science at Portland State University. Until this incident, he was also a reporter and multimedia editor for the Portland Vanguard, the student-run newspaper on campus. On April 26, the campus hosted a free student panel discussion, “Unpacking Misconceptions,” which it billed as “a panel & discussion on different Religions, Spiritualities, and Worldviews.”

Ngo writes that he began recording video with his cell phone when the Muslim student on the panel was asked about a verse in the Koran that allows Muslims to kill non-Muslims. The Muslim student answered:

I can confidently tell you, when the Koran says an innocent life, it means an innocent life, regardless of the faith, the race, like, whatever you can think about as a characteristic. And some, this, that you’re referring to, killing non-Muslims, that [to be a non-believer] is only considered a crime when the country’s law, the country is based on Koranic law — that means there is no other law than the Koran. In that case, you’re given the liberty to leave the country, you can go in a different country, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. So you can go in a different country, but in a Muslim country, in a country based on the Koranic laws, disbelieving, or being an infidel, is not allowed so you will be given the choice [to leave].

Ngo was not there on an assignment for the Vanguard, merely as a student with an interest in the event. He proceeded to tweet the video of the Muslim student’s answer from his personal Twitter account.

Ngo says that his tweet was shared with the editor-in-chief of the Vanguard shortly after the event concluded with no negative feedback. It was only four days later, when Breitbart ran a story based on his public tweets, that Ngo was called in for a meeting with the editor-in-chief and the managing editor of the Vanguard. Ngo did not contribute to the Breitbart story, and in fact, it ran without his prior knowledge. CONTINUE AT SITE

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Populist Storm Stirs in Italy Fueled by disillusionment with mainstream politicians, the euroskeptic 5 Star Movement readies for elections by May 2018 By Giovanni Legorano and Manuela Mesco

Posted By on May 15th, 2017

ROME—Europe’s establishment breathed a sigh of relief after the pro-European Union centrist Emmanuel Macron was elected French president this week. But another populist storm is brewing in Italy, where the euroskeptic 5 Star Movement has remained strong.

Fueled by discontent with slow growth, high unemployment and disillusionment with mainstream politicians, 5-Star has won local elections in Rome, Turin and elsewhere, partly on the strength of its leaders’ call for a referendum on Italy’s use of the European single currency.

Pollsters say about 30% of Italian voters support the movement founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, a level of popularity that has stood firm despite a series of high-profile stumbles, especially by its mayor in Rome. The self-described association of free citizens has replaced the center-left Democratic Party at the top of most polls ahead of national elections to be held by May 2018.

Now, the group that has flouted the rules of the game for establishment parties in Italy is experiencing growing pains as it prepares for the possibility of taking power.

The prospect of Mr. Grillo and his supporters winning and forming a government has made investors nervous and pushed up yields on Italian bonds in recent months. On Friday, the spread between Italian and German 10-year sovereign bond yields was 1.85 percentage points, nearly five times the corresponding spread between French and German bonds.

Mr. Grillo and 5 Star waged a successful campaign to block constitutional changes sought by former Democratic Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, effectively forcing him from office in December. Since then, a caretaker government has run Italy. CONTINUE AT SITE