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Cuba’s ‘Transition’ Fake news with bells on. Humberto Fontova

Castro’s (unregistered) agents of influence are frantically busy this week thanks to their (unregistered) accomplices in the Fake News Media. All claim an earth-shaking “transition” is underway in Cuba!

Needless to add, according to these (unregistered) foreign agents, President Trump should promptly avail himself of this golden opportunity to embrace those harmless, innocent, free-health-care providers that U.S. policy has unjustly and vicariously “bullied” for so many years.

Could anything be more transparently facetious and idiotic? To quote the late Joan Rivers: “Can we talk?”

In fact, what’s happening as Cuban “President” (dictator) Raul Castro “steps down” in favor of Cuban “President” (eunuch and puppet) Miguel Diaz-Canel is about what happened when Korean “President” Kim Jong-il stepped down in favor of his son Kim Jong-un—except that Korea’s Kim Jong-il actually kicked the bucket before his son fully took over the reins of the mass-murdering, terror-sponsoring, nuke-rattling regime.

In fact, much of the vital day-to-day functions of the Stalinist regime will remain in the hands of Raul Castro’s son Alejandro Castro-Espin, a KGB-trained colonel in Cuba’s secret police and a fanatical Stalinist. Alejandro denounces to the U.S. as “an Empire of Terror!” and shrieks that “Cuba will never return to capitalism!”

As proof of Alejandro’s (secret) eminence and importance within the Stalinist regime, he was the person actually in charge of the “negotiations with” (demands upon) the Obama administration back in 2014. Nothing was more vital for the Castro-Family-Crime-Syndicate than securing and growing that multi-billion-dollar lifeline from the U.S. So naturally fanatical Stalinist and secret policeman Alejandro was put in charge of securing and protecting this flow through the Stalinist regime’s jugular.

And naturally Castro’s (unregistered) agents-of-influence kept this explosively embarrassing item very hush-hush, with the ever loyal and time-honored assistance of their (unregistered) accomplices in the Fake News Media. To hear them tell it, Pajama-Boy Ben Rhodes was harmlessly “negotiating” with other harmless Cuban Pajama-Boy diplomats. But here’s the ugly proof otherwise.

Emerging Islamist Political Clout Accelerates Europe’s Self-Islamization Jihad by culture. Abigail R. Esman

Forget the beheading videos, the ISIS propaganda on social media, even the terrorist attacks themselves. Europe, says counterterrorism expert Afshin Ellian, is Islamizing itself, and in the process, the Western values on which its democracies are built are increasingly put at risk.

Take, for instance, Belgium’s ISLAM Party, which now hopes to participate in the country’s October local elections in 28 regions. (Its name serves as an acronym for “Integrité, Solidarité, Liberté, Authenticité, Moralité.)

Its ultimate aim: transforming Belgium into an Islamic state. Items high on its agenda include separating men and women on public transportation, and the incorporation of sharia law – as long as this does not conflict with current laws –according to the party’s founder, Redouane Ahrouch. His own behavior, however, suggests that his respect for “current laws” and mores has its bounds: He reportedly refuses to shake hands with women, and in 2003, he received a six-month sentence for beating and threatening his wife. Currently, the Islam Party has two elected representatives in office – one in Anderlecht, the other in Molenbeek – both regions that happen to be known as hotbeds of extremism.

Or consider DENK, Holland’s pro-Islam party founded in 2015 by Turkish-Dutch politicians Selçuk Ozturk and Tunahan Kuzu. The party platform, which supports boycotts and sanctions against Israel, also discourages assimilation, calling instead for “mutual acceptance” of multiple cultures. Non-Muslims, for instance, would apparently be required to “accept” the Muslim extremist father who beats his daughter for refusing an arranged marriage, or for becoming too “Westernized” for his taste. It’s his culture, after all.

DENK also calls for a “racism police force” to monitor allegedly racist comments and actions. Those found guilty would be placed in a government “racism register,” and banned from government jobs and other employment.

So far, such pro-Islamist views have served the party well. In local Dutch elections last month, DENK (which means “think” in Dutch) gained three seats in Rotterdam, totaling four seats among 45 total and edging out Geert Wilders’ far-right Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV), which fell from three seats to one. In Amsterdam, which also has 45 seats, a full 50 percent of Dutch-Moroccans and about two-thirds of Dutch-Turks gave the party a three-seat win in its first election there, as well. Many of these voters, according to post-election analyses, moved to DENK from the center-left Labor Party (PvdA), clearly feeling more at home with a more overtly pro-Muslim politic.

Similarly, France’s Union of Muslim Democrats (UDMF) has taken a number of voters from the Green Party by promising to defend Muslims. UDMF’s online program statement condemns burqa and headscarf bans. What’s more, in its pretense of supporting what it calls the “sweet dream of Democracy, Union and Human Rights,” the party loudly (though rightly) condemns “anti-Muslim speeches” that “lead the most psychologically fragile people to commit acts of unprecedented violence.” Examples of such “unprecedented violence” follow: a German white supremacist, who killed an Egyptian woman wearing a veil in 2009, and the stabbing of a French Muslim in Vaucluse. “Heavy weapons attacks have exploded in Europe since the beginning of the year against Muslim places of worship,” the statement reads.

Countering Political Islam’s Economic Warfare By Rachel Ehrenfeld

To survive the fast-spreading cancerous metastases of the Political Islamic movement, liberal democracies must adopt a wide range of immunotherapeutic methods to inoculate their national cultural, political, and economic systems to withstand aggressive assaults on freedom.

Supporters of the Political Islamic movement invade societies, much like cancerous cells invade the human body. Like cancer, they deceive a nation’s ill-informed secular liberal vulnerable democratic system by mimicking a society’s traditional factions. These stealthy strategies allow them to remain hidden for a long time until, as with cancer, they are difficult to eradicate.

Liberal democratic societies, like normal body cells, fail to recognize the distinction between the healthy, politically different factions of society, and the parasitic Political Islamic invaders, who mimic other civil groups, pretending to be equally harmless elements of the national system. Emulating exceptionally parasitic biological cells, Political Islam’s sinister operatives employ a variety of tactics to invade their targets, to undermine social norms, and convert and lure non-Muslims to their cause.

Their disinformation campaigns are often joined by progressive leftist “Human Rights,” “Transparency,” and “Social Justice” organizations enabled by sympathetic media and politicians. These dangerous campaigns typically are carried out by nongovernmental local and international organizations, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); Human Rights Watch; the Muslim Council of Britain, Muslims for Progressive Values; the American Muslim Association; Muslim Advocates; the Islamic Circle of North America; and the Muslim Students Association, to mention but a few. They relentlessly undermine the existing system by decrying and often suing anyone who dares to criticize their activities and expose their agenda to replace tolerant, free societies with Political Islam’s intolerant, repressive sharia.

“Everyone Was Afraid to Be Branded as a Racist” Interview with Mona Walter by Natalia Osten-Sacken

“If I speak about Islam, they interpret it as hating Muslims. But I do not hate Muslims. I believe that this ideology is dangerous for all mankind. The Muslim community will also suffer under the Sharia.” — Mona Walter, Swedish activist from Mogadishu, Somalia.
“Jesus said we should love our enemies, but not that we should be stupid.” — Mona Walter.
“I always say to my Christian friends, ‘What do you think, what will happen to you if Islam becomes dominant here?'” — Mona Walter.

Mona Walter, age 45, is a Swedish activist from Mogadishu, Somalia. In the early 1990s, she fled as a refugee to Sweden. There, she abandoned Islam and converted to Christianity. The act resulted in criticism and death threats. The mainstream media consider her a person working for religious freedom. Other organizations accuse her of fueling anti-Islamic movements.

Natalia Osten-Sacken: I have heard your statements stigmatizing Islam as an intolerant and hateful culture. If it is so, why did you not notice it in Somalia?

Mona Walter: In my country, we had our own African culture. People did not deal with religion so much. There was no Sharia, we had our own secular law. We came here as young, secular people. It is worth mentioning, that we belonged to the Sufi Sunni faction.

When I came from Somalia to Sweden, I experienced a huge clash of cultures, because Islam here is more extreme and fanatical than in my country. What is very important – we were Islamized after 1991, here in Sweden. In these closed areas, immigrant ghettos are deprived of democracy.

Turkey: Is Erdogan’s “Magic Spell” Beginning to Pale? by Pinar Tremblay

Research conducted in March by 50 teachers from the Imam Hatip schools revealed that students are moving away from Islam.

“[Mosques] no longer serve people, but rather serve as a source of income for certain people.” – Young imam, later fired.

Another cause of upset on the part of many religious Muslims is the content of the Diyanet-prepared Friday sermons, which frequently advocates violent jihad.

What is clearly on the rise, however, is great disappointment in the Erdogan government’s version of Islam, especially when accompanied by corrupt politics and a deteriorating justice system.

For decades, prominent Islamist figures would rarely criticize Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and when they did, it would be directed at his policies, rather than his personality. That trust seems beginning to change.

On March 26, for instance, Temel Karamollaoglu, the head of the tiny but increasingly influential Saadet (Felicity) party, railed against Erdogan and the members of the public “under his spell.” Karamollaoglu’s repeated reference to Erdogan as having performed “magic” on the Turkish people is significant. Accusing the leader of the ruling Islamist party of violating Islam, which bans sorcery and witchcraft, goes against the grain of the prevailing culture of unconditional loyalty and obedience. In fact, the 76-year-old Karamollaoglu has been a devoted follower of the political Islamic ideology of dawa (religious outreach) and a former supporter of both Erdogan and his Justice and Development (AKP) Party. Today, outspoken in his opposition, he says that his movement is the only one “that can stop the polarization in Turkey because we can sit down and speak with everyone, accepting our differences. Ours can be a platform of social democrats, nationalists, Kurdish voters and those who previously supported the AKP but are now disillusioned.”

A Murder in the Mountains In the West, honor killing isn’t alien anymore. Bruce Bawer

After living for many years in Oslo, I’ve been based for the last few years in Notodden, a town of about 12,000 people that is located in the mountains about two hours’ drive due west from the Norwegian capital. Notodden, Norway’s ninetieth largest municipality, used to be most famous as the headquarters of the energy firm Norsk Hydro; it’s now best known for its annual blues festival, which is held every August and which in recent years has featured a “blues school” run by Steven van Zandt. This year it will feature Bonnie Raitt.

Blues is big in this town. So are antique American cars. In short, this isn’t exactly a hub of European anti-Americanism. The locals tend to be down-to-earth, unpretentious, hard-working. Many of them take much the same jaundiced view of Oslo that middle Americans take of Washington, New York, and Hollywood. Living here is not all that different, I suspect, from living in the mountains of Kentucky or Tennessee.

So it’s a measure of the rapidity with which things have changed in Europe that even here in Notodden, there are women in hijab all over the place. The other day I was on a local bus, and the majority of passengers were women in hijab. There was a little girl in a pram – she was in hijab, too.

On another recent day I was alone on the bus with the driver, a Bulgarian immigrant who knows that I’m American and with whom I exchange pleasantries from time to time. He took advantage of the fact that we were alone to say to me: “Why does everybody criticize Trump so much? I don’t think he’s so bad.” After I volunteered that I think Trump is actually pretty darn terrific, he was quick to agree.

—–

The other day I found in my mailbox a copy of Phyllis Chesler’s new book A Family Conspiracy. It’s a collection of ninety-nine of her articles about honor killing. The earliest of these articles dates back to 2004, a time when many people in the West were just starting to hear about this most alien-sounding of cultural practices. It is a depressing topic to read about and to write about. But it’s vital to know about, because for those of us in the West, alas, it’s no longer alien. Phyllis – a feminist heroine who has been a friend and idol of mine ever since I met her many years ago at a women’s rights conference in Rome – knows more about honor killing, and has read and written about it more extensively and effectively, than anyone else I can think of. Her new book is a perfect introduction to the subject, rich in insight and packed with harrowing accounts of these monstrous crimes. Some of them took place in Iraq, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Israel, Finland, Britain; others happened in North America – in such cities as Toronto, St. Louis, Dallas, Buffalo, Chicago, Jersey City, Ottawa, and New York.

One of the grim lessons of this book, indeed, is that wherever you live, an honor killing has occurred somewhere not too far afield. Some girl in hijab whom you might have passed one day on the sidewalk or in a grocery store may well have gone home that very day only to be thrown to the floor by her brother and held down by her mother while her father opened her throat with a knife. All in punishment, of course, for a violation of some tenet of sharia – for example, stepping outside the family home without parental permission, or without a male escort, or without having her hair properly covered. Such are the offenses that can instantly unite the members of a Muslim family in a tidy and barbaric intrigue to eradicate their daughter, their sister, their mother.

Such brutal offenses happen in the West with increasing frequency. And yet for most Americans, the topic continues to feel unutterably alien.

—–

On April 10, Aftenposten reported that a woman in her late thirties had been found dead the day before in her apartment here in Notodden. The woman was originally from somewhere in North Africa, and had lived in Notodden with her child since December of 2016. She had been attended Norwegian language classes. Her body had been discovered because her child (apparently a very small child) had been heard crying in a corridor of the apartment building.

The next day brought more news. The dead woman’s ex-husband had been arrested and charged with her murder. An acquaintance of the dead woman described her as “a wonderful person and a very good mother” who had lived in fear of her ex. She had, in fact, moved to Notodden with her child from somewhere in northern Norway – where her husband still lived – in order to escape him. He had made threats, of which officials in Notodden had been aware.

On April 17, the murder victim was identified as Houda Lamsaouri, a 38-year-old Moroccan citizen. A neighbor told the regional newspaper TA that she had been eager to learn Norwegian, find a job, and start a new life. “She was a quiet, kind person who was also smart,” the neighbor said. Also, she was a “very sweet mother” who “just wanted a peaceful life.” The same TA article described her ex-husband as a 53-year-old Syrian whom she had charged with violence back when they were living together up in Harstad, about 1000 miles north of Notodden. More recently, the couple had been involved in a legal dispute over the custody of their child – a dispute that was settled last month when full custody was awarded to the now-deceased mother.

“Becoming too ‘Westernized,’ wanting to choose one’s own spouse, refusing to marry a first cousin, daring to have infidel friends or allegedly engaging in sex outside of marriage – all are killing offenses,” writes Phyllis Chesler in her introduction to A Family Conspiracy. As far as I can see, nobody in the Norwegian press has yet used the term “honor killing” (in Norwegian, æresdrap) to describe the murder of Houda Lamsaouri. But at present it certainly seems likely that she was the victim of an honor killing. Indeed, she appears to have done pretty much everything a Muslim woman can do to merit cold-blooded slaughter under sharia law: she left her husband, took her child with her, lived alone without a male guardian or chaperone, attended language classes (probably in the company of infidels), and aspired to an independent life and career in a free, secular country.

And her ex-husband, by all indications, killed her for it. And it happened right here, in the obscure town I live in, in a little white building that I have passed a thousand times.

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About Bruce Bawer

Bruce Bawer is the author of “While Europe Slept,” “Surrender,” and “The Victims’ Revolution.” His novel “The Alhambra” has just been published.
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How to Stop Vladimir Putin’s Mafia The real enemy is a group of about 100 beneficiaries of the regime and several thousand accomplices. By Mikhail Khodorkovsky

After Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, I predicted that Russia’s stance toward the U.S. would become more antagonistic. Vladimir Putin always needs a foreign enemy to rally his nation around him and divert attention from the poor Russian economy. Mr. Putin’s aggression has indeed managed to raise tension between the U.S. and Russia. But instead of reinforcing Mr. Putin’s narrative by punishing Russia as a whole, the U.S. should target its response toward Mr. Putin and his inner circle.

Mr. Putin’s conflicts with the U.S. are clearly intended to improve his reputation among the Russian people. Through his policy and rhetoric, Mr. Putin has spread the notion that the U.S. is a cunning enemy trying to undermine Russia and is responsible for Russia’s every problem at home and abroad.

Kremlin propaganda makes clear that Russia’s fights in eastern Ukraine and in Syria are aimed specifically at opposing the U.S. Mr. Putin sees the rest of the West—with the exception of the United Kingdom—as nothing but feeble U.S. puppets. And even the U.K. is a weak but crafty opponent.

But to sustain his illusion of strength at home, Mr. Putin must be seen scoring victories over the entire U.S. alliance. This is why he has targeted the internal cohesion of Western nations. The Kremlin has funded fringe movements in France and Germany, provoked conflict in Catalonia, attempted to influence elections in the U.S., and brutally punished Russian defectors in the U.K. and Austria.

While the Kremlin sees its target in clear focus, the West has often failed to identify its enemy correctly. It is only in recent statements by British Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, following the Kremlin’s poisoning of a Russian defector to the U.K., that a gradual awareness has begun to appear. The enemy is not Russia, a country of nearly 150 million people like you. It is not even the Russian government as a whole, which is composed of nearly three million civil servants, most of whom receive a modest salary and work for the benefit of society as best they can. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Love Affair with Syria’s Dictator by Majid Rafizadeh

Finally, a world leader, President Donald Trump, took a stance against the war criminal who rules Syria. Instead of supporting that action, however, many people have been attacking Trump for the clear message he sent Bashar Assad: He cannot use illegal weapons to target civilians and enjoy immunity.

Whoever appeases Assad and legitimizes his actions should be aware that they are complicit in crimes against humanity.

Many people claim to champion the pursuit of justice and the defense of human rights around the globe. If there is an opportunity for them to make promises, they will. But when a true need arises, when their voices and rallying could make a genuine difference, many of those promises prove false.

Recently, Syria’s dictator, President Bashar Al Assad, attacked his own people with banned chemical weapons — at least 50 times. The victims were mainly civilians. Innocent people — men, women and children — were suffocated by these attacks, but not before burning their eyes and drowning their lungs in fluid.

Finally, a world leader, US President Donald Trump, took a stance against this war criminal. Instead of supporting that action, however, many people have been attacking Trump for the clear message he sent Assad: He cannot use illegal weapons to target civilians and enjoy immunity.

Why would people take the side of a man who murders his own people? If we look at the history of the relationship between the Syrian regime and the public, it is clear that this is not the first time that many have leaned towards Assad.

Former US President Barack Obama set several “red lines” for the Syrian regime, but Assad freely crossed them without eliciting any response from either Obama. In international politics, when a world leader sets red lines and does not take action against those who cross them, he shows only weakness — immensely damaging to his country’s security on the global stage. A weak leadership empowers dictators and emboldens extremists. It indicates that there will be no consequences for illegal actions. It also gives Assad and his ally, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the green light to give chemical weapons to militias and terrorist groups that target the United States and its allies.

Belgium: First Islamic State in Europe? by Giulio Meotti

The leaders of Belgium’s ISLAM Party apparently want to turn Belgium into an Islamic State. They call it “Islamist democracy” and have set a target date: 2030.

“The program is confusingly simple: replace all the civil and penal codes with sharia law. Period”. — French magazine Causeur.

“The European capital [Brussels] will be Muslim in twenty years”. — Le Figaro.

The French acronym of Belgium’s ISLAM Party stands for “Integrity, Solidarity, Liberty, Authenticity, Morality”. The leaders of the ISLAM Party apparently want to turn Belgium into an Islamic State. They call it “Islamist democracy” and have set a target date: 2030.

According to the French magazine Causeur, “the program is confusingly simple: replace all the civil and penal codes with sharia law. Period”. Created on the eve of the 2012 municipal ballot, the ISLAM Party immediately received impressive results. Its numbers are alarming.

The effect of this new party, according to Michaël Privot, an expert on Islam, and Sebastien Boussois, a political scientist, could be the “implosion of the social body”. Some Belgian politicians, such as Richard Miller, are now advocating banning the ISLAM Party.

The French weekly magazine Le Point details the plans of the ISLAM Party: It would like to “prevent vice by banning gaming establishments (casinos, gaming halls and betting agencies) and the lottery”. Along with authorizing the wearing the Muslim headscarf at school and an agreement about the Islamic religious holidays, the party wants all schools in Belgium to offer halal meat on their school menus. Redouane Ahrouch, one of the party’s three founders, also proposed segregating men and women on public transport. Ahrouch belonged in the 1990s to the Belgian Islamic Center, a nest of Islamic fundamentalism where candidates for jihad in Afghanistan and Iraq were recruited.

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Germany: by Soeren Kern

Anti-Semitism is running rampant at German primary schools, according to Heinz-Peter Meidinger, president of the President of the German Teachers’ Association (Deutschen Lehrerverbandes, DL). He also said that videos of beheadings are commonplace at German schools, and that female pupils are being threatened with murder. “In chat forums like WhatsApp, movies such as ISIS beheading videos are spreading like wildfire.”

“It is unacceptable that non-Muslim and above all Jewish children have to be afraid of going to school in this country because they are being labeled as ‘unbelievers’ and even threatened with death…. Since autumn… Kuwait Airways is allowed to discriminate against Jews at Frankfurt Airport, and the Federal Government does not object. Let us not fool ourselves: it is the Federal Government, which, for inexplicable reasons, allows Jews in Germany to be treated like this.” — Julian Reichelt, Editor-in-Chief of Bild.

“Mass gatherings that degenerate into violence are incompatible with our understanding of democracy. Humanity, tolerance, respect and dealing with each other in a democratic way are the basic values ​​on which our coexistence is oriented. We all want to live in a peaceful, open and democratic society.” — Sören Link, Mayor of Duisburg.

March 1. The Spreewald Elementary School in Berlin’s Schöneberg district hired security guards to protect teachers and students from unruly students. Around 99% of the pupils at the school have a migration background. “Within the past year, the violence has increased so much that we now had to take this measure,” said headmaster Doris Unzeit. “The violence is widespread and we want to take countermeasures with the security service. This should improve the reputation of the school and ensure that the children can learn here again in peace.”

March 2. A 41-year-old Syrian, Abu Marwan, stabbed to death his 37-year-old wife in Mühlacker. The couple’s three children, a girl and two boys, witnessed the murder. It later emerged that immediately after the killing, the blood-stained man posted a video on Facebook warning women not to irritate their husbands: “This is how you’ll end.”

March 4. A 30-year-old man who raped at least four women at or near subway stations in Berlin turned himself in after police published surveillance photos of him. The man chose his victims while riding on subway trains. He made eye contact with them, followed them out of the station and subsequently raped them. Berlin police blacked out information about the man’s nationality. Berliner Zeitung filled in the missing details: he is from Egypt.

March 4. A group of ten migrants sexually assaulted several women at an outdoor festival in Lienen. The attack was a case of taharush, a practice in which groups of Arab males encircle females and assault them.

March 5. Middle Eastern crime families in Berlin are intimidating police by provoking officers during arrests and filming them with cell phones, according to Welt am Sonntag. They are also spreading false rumors, accusing police of seeking sexual favors from prostitutes who are pimped by the very same crime families. “This is a very observable tactic to discredit the colleagues,” said the spokesman for the GdP police union in Berlin, Benjamin Jendro. “The criminals want to show that the state is losing control. This has become a popular sport.”