Another Obama White House Lie About Islam
Remember that iftar dinner the president sponsored? The dinner that got him in trouble because he came out in strong support of the mega-mosque at Ground Zero, support from which he backed away the very next day? Well, it turns out he delivered another blatant lie at that dinner, one that slipped under the radar because his support of the Ground Zero Mosque was so controversial.
In his remarks at the iftar observance, Obama claimed that the “first” iftar dinner in the White House was hosted by Thomas Jefferson.
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So what of this claim of Jefferson’s iftar dinner? As Jihad Watch informs us, there never really was one. The truth is that in 1805 Jefferson invited to a dinner at the White House one Sidi Soliman Melli Melli, the diplomatic envoy that the Bey of Tunis sent to Washington. The time set for this dinner was 3:30 PM, the normal time that everyone then ate dinner in those days. Since it was Ramadan, however, the envoy informed Jefferson that he could not attend until the sun went down because he was observing his fasting ritual.
Jefferson then offered to push his dinner hour until the sun went down as a courtesy to his invited guest. It was as simple as that. There was no mention of any iftar anything. President Jefferson simply moved the hour of dinner to suit the envoy. There was no change to what was served in order to suit Muslim needs, there was no acknowledgment of the Muslim faith, and no observance of any “iftar” dinner. Jefferson was just being a nice guy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Army Probes Mysterious Baby Deaths at Fort Bragg
[China kills more Americans. Washington D.C. does nothing — Z]
(Sept. 1) — Army officials are investigating the sudden, mysterious deaths of 10 babies at the sprawling Fort Bragg installation in North Carolina, but some parents suspect they may already know the cause — toxic Chinese drywall in their base housing.
Spc. Nathanael Duke and his wife, Krystyna, lost their 6-week-old son, Gabriel, in March. They say investigators removed chunks of drywall and carpeting and sent them to a lab.
“They told us the sample over Gabriel’s bed tested positive for Chinese drywall,” Krystyna Duke said in an interview with WTVD in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. The couple was told, “‘Get out of the house, seek medical attention, do not wait,’“ her husband said.
Fort Bragg officials said Tuesday the probe started about a month ago after base authorities learned that two baby cousins had died within three months of each other at the same house. The investigation ultimately spread to 10 unexplained deaths since 2007. All of the children were younger than 8 months.
“We’re going to figure this out,” said Brig. Gen. Michael Garrett, chief of staff of the 18th Airborne Corps, according to The Associated Press. “We cannot explain two deaths of children at one address, and that’s really the problem we’re trying to solve.”
One death was attributed to sudden infant death syndrome, seven were ruled “undetermined” by military pathologists and two remain under investigation. The youngest child was 2 weeks old, the military said.
Base authorities said they would not release information about the parents or where they lived on the base.
But the parents are talking. On April 15, 2009, 2-month-old Jay’Vair Pollard stopped breathing. Three months later, his 7-month-old cousin, Ka’Mya Frey, died while taking a nap in the same housing unit, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“Unfortunately, our kids died before we had any idea what was going on with them,” said Ka’Mya’s mother, Bianca Outlaw. “I mean, there has to be something in that house that’s causing healthy babies to get sick and die.”
A third child who had stayed at the same address died in 2007. Authorities said that death occurred off the base.
According to WTVD, investigators said test results for the presence of Chinese drywall came back negative or within safe limits.
The overseas building material can emit high levels of sulfur gases, which act as a corrosive to wiring and fixtures. Unprecedented amounts were imported to help rebuild areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but complaints of foul odors and respiratory problems soon followed, trailed by class-action lawsuits.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has launched a federal investigation into the imported drywall and has received 3,482 complaints from across the country.
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
BP Says Limits on Drilling Imperil Spill Payouts
BP is warning Congress that if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new offshore drilling permits, it may not have the money to pay for all the damages caused by its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The company says a ban would also imperil the ambitious Gulf Coast restoration efforts that officials want the company to voluntarily support.
| [Return to headlines] |
Dear Patients: Vote to Repeal Obamacare
Don’t believe Democrats who promise to fix the bill once they’re re-elected.
Facing a nationwide backlash, Democratic congressional candidates have a new message for voters: We know you don’t like ObamaCare, so we’ll fix it.
This was the line offered by Democrat Mark Critz, who won a special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district after expressing opposition to the law and promising to mend it—but not to repeal it. As a doctor I know something about unexpected recoveries, and this latest attempt to rescue ObamaCare from repeal needs to be taken seriously.
For Democrats who voted for ObamaCare, this tactic is an escape route, a chance to distance themselves from the president with a vague promise to fix health-care reform in the next Congress.
To counter this election-year ruse, my colleagues and I at Docs4PatientCare are enlisting thousands of doctors in an unorthodox and unprecedented action. Our patients have always expected a certain standard of care from their doctors, which includes providing them with pertinent information that may affect their quality of life. Because the issue this election is so stark— literally life and death for millions of Americans in the years ahead—we are this week posting a “Dear Patient” letter in our waiting rooms.
The letter states in unambiguous language what the new law means:
“Dear Patient: Section 1311 of the new health care legislation gives the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and her appointees the power to establish care guidelines that your doctor must abide by or face penalties and fines. In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy this bill effectively makes them government employees and means that you and your doctor are no longer in charge of your health care decisions…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Joe Miller: Barack Obama ‘Bad for America’
Alaska GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of trying to move the United States toward “socialism.”
Appearing on CNN’s “John King USA,” Miller was asked to describe the president “in a sentence or two.” “Bad for America,” Miller responded.
Host John King then asked Miller what Obama has done to merit that statement.
“He’s one of the major forces moving this country toward socialism,” Miller said. “He’s expanding the entitlement state. It is the wrong direction for America. This is a bipartisan problem. But he’s at the front of it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Judge to Lakin: Find Another Defense
Rules that officer challenging Obama’s eligibility can’t see evidence
FT. MEADE, Md. — A career officer in the U.S. Army acting as a judge in the prosecution of Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin today ruled that the military is no place for Barak Obama’s presidential eligibility to be evaluated.
Army Col. Denise R. Lind today ruled in a hearing regarding the evidence to be allowed in the scheduled October court-martial of Lakin that he will be denied access to any of Obama’s records as well as any testimony from those who may have access to the records.
With her decision, Lind plunged into lockstep with a number of federal judges who have ruled on civil lawsuits over Obama’s eligibility. They have without exception denied the plaintiffs’ any access to any requested documentation regarding the president’s eligibility.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Myrick: Hezbollah Car Bombs on Our Border
Why isn’t Obama’s Department of Homeland Security concerned?
An indictment was handed down Aug. 30 by the Southern District Court of New York that shows a connection between Hezbollah — the proxy army of Iran and a designated terrorist organization — and the drug cartels that violently plague the U.S.-Mexico border.
In short, a well-known international arms dealer was trying to orchestrate an arms-for-drugs deal in which cocaine from FARC — the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which works with Mexican drug cartels to take cocaine into America — would be traded for thousands of weapons housed by a Hezbollah operative in Mexico.
This most recent case brings up several questions: Why would a member of Hezbollah be in Mexico? Why would Hezbollah need thousands of weapons in Mexico? Why are members of Hezbollah willing to work with FARC? Perhaps to exchange weapons for drugs? If Hezbollah has guns in Mexico and wants drugs, isn’t it logical to assume that it is trading with more accessible Mexican drug cartels?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Oil Rig Platform Catches Fire in Gulf of Mexico
VERMILION BAY, LA (WAFB/AP) — The Coast Guard is on the scene of another oil rig fire in the Gulf of Mexico. Officials are now reporting a mile-long oil sheen spreading from the site.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Coklough said the sheen, about 100 feet wide, was spotted near the burning platform. He said Mariner Energy, Inc., the Houston company that owns the rig, had deployed three firefighting vessels to the site and one already was in place fighting the blaze.
According to the Coast Guard, 13 people were on the platform when it caught fire Thursday morning. All 13 are accounted for and one injury was reported.
The workers will be taken to Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma by helicopter to be fully checked out. Their conditions are unknown.
The rig is located about 90 miles south of Vermilion Bay and was still burning as of 12:45 p.m.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
What is meant by “Our Judeo-Christian-Heritage”? What upsets both many Jews and Christians when President Obama reversed the order traditionally used by public figures and spoke of the United States as “A Country of Christians and Muslims,”? Is not Islam one of the “Three Abrahamic Religions” as many Muslims claim? How does Islam fundamentally differ? What does the history of Islamic expansion and its views on the individual, society and what the Constitution calls “inalienable rights” portend?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Time to Start Standing Up for America
Among the dangers lurking in Congress’s fall session and lame duck session will be Obama’s demand that the Senate rush to ratify the treaty called New START, which he signed with the Russians in Prague last April. This treaty is not only a bad idea, it’s downright dangerous to U.S. national security.
For the first time in the long record of U.S.-Russian treaties, New START links offensive and defensive weapons. Obama’s advocates of ratification say that doesn’t matter because the link is only in the preamble and that doesn’t bind us.
But this interpretation hasn’t been cleared with the Russians, who assert that the preamble puts a binding limit on the U.S. missile defense program. The Russian government issued a statement that the New START treaty “can operate and be viable only if the United States refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively.”
The Russians are salivating at the thought that the New START proclaims their victory in their long-running battle to kill U.S. missile defenses. For decades, Russia’s primary goal was to stop the United States from building any anti-missile capability.
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The U.S. Constitution gives the Senate “advice and consent” power over treaties. But the Obama administration refuses to let senators review the treaty’s negotiating documents.
[…]
New START bars the U.S. and Russia from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers. To achieve that goal, we will have to destroy some of our missiles and not modernize the ones we keep because the treaty locks us into a permanent comprehensive nuclear test ban.
The State Department admits that Russia has consistently cheated on all its arms-control treaties, including the 1991 START I treaty right up until it expired last December. Russia admits that it cheated on the famous 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, from which President George W. Bush finally (and thankfully) withdrew the United States.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Using Lasers to Recognize Spinning Electrons Within a Semiconductor
Using powerful lasers, Hui Zhao, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, and graduate student Lalani Werake have discovered a new way to recognize currents of spinning electrons within a semiconductor.
Their findings could lead the way to development of superior computers and electronics. Results from their work in KU’s Ultrafast Laser Lab will be published in the September issue of Nature Physics, a leading peer-reviewed journal, and was posted online in early August.
Zhao and Werake research spin-based electronics, dubbed “spintronics.”
“The goal is to replace everything — from computers to memory devices — to have higher performance and less energy consumption,” said Zhao.
The KU investigator said that future advancements to microchips would require a different approach for transmitting the sequences of ones and zeros that make up digital information.
“We have been using the charge of the electron for several decades,” said Zhao. “But right now the size of each device is just 30 to 50 nanometers, and you don’t have many atoms remaining on that tiny scale. We can’t continue that way anymore because we’re hitting a fundamental limit.”
Instead of using the presence or absence of electronic charges, spintronics relies on the direction of an electron’s rotation to convey data.
“Roughly speaking, an electron can be viewed as a tiny ball that spins like a baseball,” said Zhao. “The difference is that a baseball can spin at any speed, but an electron can only spin at a certain speed — either counterclockwise or clockwise. Therefore, we can use one spin state to represent ‘zero’ and another to represent ‘one.’ Because a single electron can carry this information, this takes much less time and much less energy.”
However, one major hurdle for spintronics researchers has been the difficulty in detecting the flow of spinning electrons in real time.
“We haven’t been able to monitor the velocity of those spinning electrons, but velocity is associated with the spin current,” Zhao said. “So there’s been no way to directly detect the spin current so far.”
The discovery by Zhao and Werake changes that.
The KU researchers have discovered that shining a laser beam on a piece of semiconductor generates different color lights if the spinning electrons are flowing, and the brightness of the new light is related to the strength of the spin current.
The optical effect, known as “second-harmonic generation,” can monitor spin-current in real time without altering the current itself. Zhao compares his new method with a police officer’s radar gun, which tracks a car’s speed as it passes.
This vastly improves upon spin-current analysis now in use, which the KU researcher says is akin to analyzing still photographs to determine a car’s speed, long after the car has sped away.
“Spintronics is still in the research phase, and we hope that this new technology can be used in labs to look at problems that interest researchers,” said Zhao. “As spintronics become industrialized, we expect this could become a routine technique to check the quality of devices, for example.”
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
France: Polls Show Support for Sarkozy Up by 4 Points
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 2 — Popularity ratings for French president Nicholas Sarkozy, which fell to their lowest level in three years in the month of July, have risen by 4 points — to 30% — according to the monthly public opinion poll TNS Sofres Logica for the Le Figaro magazine. According to the institute, also seeing a 2-point rise in popularity was Premier Francois Fillion, now at 37%. In July only 26% of those interviewed claimed to have confidence in Sarkozy, whereas those unsatisfied with him stood at 71%.
Now, however, the latter figure has dropped to 37%. Also seeing a sharp rise in popularity ratings were the two ministers who are clamping down on security: Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux (+4% at 19%) and Immigration Minister Eric Besson (+5% to 20%). Down, on the other hand, was Sarkozy’s main enemy on the right, Dominique de Villepin, who spoke of the deportations of the Roma as a “stain on the French flag”. His ratings have dropped from 30% to 29%. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
German Bank Calls for Controversial Member to be Fired
The German central bank has called on the country’s president to dismiss one of its board members over comments he made about immigration and Jews. The call came after the board met for a second day to discuss the issue. Earlier, President Christian Wulff said he was concerned Germany’s image could be damaged by Thilo Sarrazin’s remarks. Mr Sarrazin has criticised German Muslims, suggested the existence of a Jewish gene, and warned of ethnic Germans being outnumbered by migrants.
The call for his dismissal was an unprecedented move by the Bundesbank — a proudly independent institution — and was taken under unprecedented pressure, says the BBC’s European affairs correspondent Oana Lungescu in Berlin. In his book, Germany Abolishes Itself, Mr Sarrazin states Muslim immigrants refuse to integrate. In a newspaper interview about the book, he said that “all Jews share a particular gene”. Mr Sarrazin says the book is “very balanced”.
On Monday, the Bundesbank, which does not have the right to dismiss Mr Sarrazin itself, distanced itself from his comments, saying his remarks were “discriminatory”. On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Mr Sarrazin’s remarks were “completely unacceptable” and urged the Bundesbank to act.
Public opinion divided
The banker faces exclusion from the centre-left Social Democratic Party, but the rank-and-file have sent messages of support, our correspondent adds. Polls suggest that Germans are divided over whether he should keep his job. Necla Kelek, a social scientist of Turkish descent who came to Germany at the age of 11, was at Mr Sarrazin’s book launch in Berlin on Monday, and welcomes the debate his comments have stirred up. “We have a real need to talk about these issues in Germany. They can get rid of Sarrazin, but not the debate,” she told the BBC World Service’s Europe Today programme.
Mr Sarrazin is expected to appeal against the decision. He rejects any comparison with Nazi views on racial purity. “I am myself a European mongrel,” he said in a newspaper interview, with a family that descends from the Huguenots, Calvinists who fled religious persecution in France in the 17th Century, and a surname that derives from Saracen, the name given to Arab pirates in the Middle Ages. Germany has more than four million Muslims, most of them of Turkish origin. Based on advance orders, the book has shot to the top of Germany’s sales chart.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Germany’s Central Bank Decides to Sack Board Member
Germany’s central bank has taken the unprecedented decision to sack one of its board members after he repeatedly expressed criticism of the country’s Muslim population and made other comments that were considered racist. The decision followed an extraordinary meeting held by the Bundesbank’s president, Axel Weber, and the board’s four other members. They will now ask the German president to carry out the dismissal of Thilo Sarrazin, according to the rules of the bank.
President Christian Wulff has already signalled he is ready to support Sarrazin’s dismissal, saying his remarks may have damaged Germany’s international reputation. In a brief statement the board said the decision to sack Sarrazin had been taken unanimously. It is the first time a bank board member has been dismissed in the institution’s 50-year history.
Sarrazin’s widely publicised comments about immigration, in a book published this week, unleashed a political scandal and led to widespread calls for his resignation, both from his position at the bank and the Social Democratic party.
Sarrazin said Germany’s economic strength and intelligence were being undermined by immigration to Germany from Muslim countries and the higher fertility rate of Muslim immigrants. Sarrazin, who descends from a family of Huguenots — French Protestants who found refuge from persecution in Germany in the 17th century — came under huge pressure after the chancellor, Angela Merkel, waded into the row this week. She called his remarks “completely unacceptable”.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Bundesbank Seeks Sarrazin’s Dismissal
The Deutsche Bundesbank said Thursday that its board will ask the German president to dismiss board member Thilo Sarrazin, whose comments on immigration have caused a political storm in Germany in recent days. The Bundesbank said in a brief statement that the board had taken its decision unanimously, and that its head of corporate governance, Uwe Schneider “wholeheartedly supports” this step. A spokeswoman for the president’s office said it would make a statement shortly. Neither Sarrazin nor his publisher were immediately available for comment. Mr. Sarrazin’s contract with the Bundesbank runs until 2014.
Mr. Sarrazin launched a book at the start of this week in which he argues that continued immigration from Muslim countries, combined with the higher fertility rate of Muslim immigrants already living in Germany, will erode Germany’s economic potential and its collective intelligence in the long term. In other comments as part of a prelaunch marketing campaign, Mr. Sarrazin had also referred to the genetic uniqueness of racial communities, singling out Jews and Basques. He has since backpedalled on his comments about Jews.
Talking to the cable news channel N24 late Wednesday, German President Christian Wulff had dropped a heavy hint that he would be prepared to accept a request from the central bank to dismiss Mr. Sarrazin. “I think that the board of the Deutsche Bundesbank can do plenty to ensure that the discussion doesn’t damage Germany-above all, internationally,” Mr. Wulff said on the program.
Spokespeople for the Israeli and Turkish embassies in Germany said Thursday that their governments hadn’t raised the issue with the German government, both calling it “an internal German affair.” A spokesman for the U.S. embassy wasn’t immediately able to comment on whether there had been contact between Washington and Berlin on the matter.
A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “The chancellor has acknowledged with great respect the decision of the independent Bundesbank..”
Earlier Thursday, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet had said that “as a citizen,” he was appalled by Mr. Sarrazin’s comments, but added that he had “full confidence” in the Bundesbank’s ability to deal with the issue.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Protests Slated in Capital to Save Iranian Woman From Stoning
Rome, 2 Sept. (AKI) -Italy’s Green Party organised a sit-in outside the Iranian embassy in Rome on Thursday to save 43-year-old woman in Iran from execution by stoning. Huge pictures of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani were also being hung outside the Italian cabinet office and Rome’s town hall.
The Green Party invited protesters to attend the sit-in “irrespective of their political colours” to save Mohammadi Ashtiani’s life.
The mother-of-two’s sentencing to death by stoning for adultery and complicity in her husband’s murder has sparked a world outcry. Adnkronos news agency has also launched an appeal to save Mohammadi Ashtiani.
“We call on all of Italy’s political and democratic forces to attend Thursday’s protest outside the Iranian embassy in order to save Sakineh,” said Green Party president Angelo Bonelli.
“Italy, like many other European countries including France, must speak out against the systematic violation of human rights in Iran — it’s an international scandal.”
The Italiani government arranged for the giant poster of Mohammadi Ashtiani to be displayed outside the cabinet office at the historic Palazzo Chigi (photo) in central Rome.
“This is unprecedented action to raise public awareness and save Sakineh from a brutal and unacceptable sentence — stoning.
“We are sending out a message to the entire international community that Italy and Italians support her,” said said Italy’s foreign minister Franco Frattini and equal employment minister Mara Carfagna in a statement.
Italy is also working though diplomatic channels to help save Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, said the ministers , who are campaigning on her behalf.
Rome’s mayor Gianni Alemanno was due to officiate at a ceremony at Rome’s town hall on Thursday where a poster of Mohammadi Ashtiani with the slogan “Free Sakineh” will be put up on the renaissance Palazzo del Campidoglio.
Mohammadi Ashtiani’s case sparked a diplomatic incident after an Iranian government newspaper last week called France’s first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of president Nicolas Sarkozy “immoral” and “a prostitute”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Intellectuals Back Campaign to Save Iranian Woman From Stoning
Rome, 2 Sept. (AKI) — Growing numbers of Iranian and Middle Eastern intellectuals are lending their support to Italian news agency Adnkronos International’s campaign to save the life of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman who faces death by stoning.
In interviews with AKI, several of the supporters voiced their revulsion at stoning and other human rights violations in Iran.
“We need to stop the persecution of women in Iran. We are asking the government to do so and to abolish the barbaric practice of stoning,” a former Iranian women’s affairs minister, Mahnaz Afkhami told AKI.
AKI has launched a campaign on Ashtiani’s behalf , ‘Flowers not Stones!’ which urges people all over the world to leave flowers outside the Iranian embassy and diplomatic representations in their country.
“The stoning of men and women in Iran must be outlawed. It is a primitive punishment which cannot and must not be carried out in the modern world,” said the US based Iranian women’s rights activist and journalist Ariba Amini.
A representative of Iran’s largest religious minority, the Bahais, told AKI it opposed stoning and backed the equal protection of all Iranians’ human rights.
“We are against lapidation…All citizens’ fundamental rights must be equally safeguarded,” said Dian Alai, a representative at United Nations for the Bahais.
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Bahai community has frequently been persecuted in the Islamic country.
Middle Eastern intellectuals also told AKI Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother-of-two, must be saved.
Mohammadi Ashtiani faces stoning for adultery and helping to kill her husband.
“Stop it!” was the sole comment of Libyan poet and writer Joumana Haddad, who has backed AKI’s ‘Flowers not Stones’ campaign.
“It’s an extremely sad situation, because Sakineh is not the first or the last woman to have received such a harsh sentence,” said Egyptian writer Sahar Tawfiq.
“Many have been condemned to death or executed so cruelly. It’s terrible and we need to put a stop to it,” Tawfiq concluded.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Srdja Trifkovic: General Pierre-Marie Gallois, RIP
General Pierre-Marie Gallois, who died on August 23 in Paris at the age of 99, will be remembered primarily as the architect of France’s nuclear deterrence doctrine in the 1950s. He was the last in a long line of European geopolitical thinkers—from Clausewitz and Jomini to Liddell Hart and Guderian—who have combined superbly honed analytical skills with hands-on soldiering.
Gallois was one of the most impressive men I have met. Back in 1993 I enjoyed his hospitality at his sprawling flat at No. 8, rue Rembrandt, just south of the Parc de Monceau. He was in his early eighties then, a dynamo of physical and mental energy dividing his time between an insane writing and speaking schedule and the painting of a five-story mural on the courtyard side of the building. It was an old love: before joining the French air force in 1935 he had studied arts and worked for a company that created lighted ads that hung on the Eiffel Tower. Speaking in a staccato English, accented but fluent, he insisted that a true soldier has to be an artist at heart: “You need a vision, an image of what lies beyond, a sense of the greater reality.”
His vision was shaped by the trauma of France’s debacle of May 1940. Two years later Gallois fled from Algeria, where he was serving as an air force officer on the staff of the Fifth air region, to London. He placed himself at General Charles de Gaulle’s disposal and joined the RAF.
A decade after completing thirty bombing raids over Germany, Colonel Gallois joined the cabinet of the French minister of defense. From there he was seconded to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), studying the effect of nuclear weapons on modern strategy. He came to the conclusion that the atomic bomb was the only opportunity for his country to regain that great power status that he knew was no longer rightfully hers on the basis of economy, demography, or spirit. The alternative, he realized then and reiterated half a century later, was to accept France’s fatal dependence on a hegemonistic yet unreliable America—a “totalitarian democracy” devoid of any sense of its normal limits.
A geopolitical realist who believed in “peace through fear,” he was attacked in the English-speaking world as an advocate of nuclear proliferation. He responded by arguing that the possession of a nuclear arsenal was the key prerequisite to ensuring deterrence, and added, provocatively, that the spread of nuclear weapons could increase international stability. He claimed that nuclear weapons raise the stakes and forces all actors to show greater restraint in crises involving more participants with nuclear weapons. As the number of nuclear actors involved increases, Gallois claimed, the likelihood of war would continue to fall.
Gallois’ tenure at SHAPE convinced him that France could not afford to entrust its strategic defense to the American nuclear umbrella in perpetuity. As he recalled many years later, he shared his concerns with his boss, General Lauris Norstad:…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Honour Killing’ Parents Dramatically Re-Arrested Seven Years After Death of Shafilea Ahmed
The parents of a suspected honour killing victim were yesterday dramatically arrested on suspicion of her murder after new allegations by the dead girl’s younger sister.
Shafilea Ahmed, 17, disappeared more than seven years ago after claiming her parents were trying to make her take part in an arranged marriage against her will.
Her remains were later found hidden by a riverside and a coroner ruled that the Muslim teenager had been the victim of a ‘vile murder’. Despite a number of arrests, no one has been charged over her death.
Last week, her sister Alisha, who was two years younger, was questioned by police for allegedly masterminding an armed robbery at the family home.
The 22-year-old is believed to have made new claims about her parents’ involvement in Shafilea’s death, and they were arrested in a pre-dawn raid yesterday and held on suspicion of her murder.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Four Officers Called to Deal With 84-Year-Old Ww II Veteran… For Riding His Bike on the Pavement
Police were accused of being ‘heavy handed’ today after four officers were dispatched to deal with a 84-year old World War Two veteran — because he was riding his bicycle on the pavement.
Great grandfather James Gresty was chased into a bank by two police community support officers after they said he was cycling on the path outside.
The pair ordered Mr Gresty to come outside for a ticking off but when he refused they called for ‘back-up’ from two other regular officers in a nearby police van.
They promptly drove over the pedestrianised street outside the Halifax bank in Sale, Greater Manchester, to reach him and issue him with a £30 fixed penalty for an offence of cycling in a pedestrianised area.
Today widower Mr Gresty, who won several war medals during his three year service as a private with the York and Lancaster Regiment, said: ‘I was shocked at the attitude of these two officers who wanted to speak to me.
‘They were carrying on as if I had been guilty of committing a serious criminal offence.
‘They were being aggressive, rude and heavy handed, all over an in issue of whether I was cycling on the pavement.
‘I wouldn’t mind but they didn’t even get that right either. I had got off my bike before I got on the pavement. God knows why four police officers had to be involved.
‘You would have thought they would have something better to do with their time. I’m an 84-year-old man, not some teenage hoodie.
‘And it’s all rather galling that that their “back”up drove across a pedestrianised area, which I think is far more dangerous than riding a bike across it.
‘It seemed that these two PCSOs were young people who put on a uniform and thought they owned the place. Obviously the power had gone to their heads.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Stig the SAS Hero: Top Gear Driver’s Military Past Revealed (As Well as His Identity)
The driver revealed to be The Stig from BBC’s Top Gear is a former specialist SAS driving instructor who trained servicemen in the art of ‘high-speed escape and evade tactics’.
Ben Collins was unmasked yesterday when he won the right to publish his autobiography after seven years as Top Gear’s mysterious driving expert.
But as details of his former life in the military became public, BBC chiefs were expected to end his involvement in the hit TV Series.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Thousands of Police Officers Have Complaints Made Against Them
Thousands of police were subject to multiple complaints last year by fed-up members of the public.
The officers faced accusations of being rude, late or even committing assaults on three or more occasions, Freedom of Information requests revealed.
One officer in the West Midlands had to wear a headcam while on duty to monitor his conduct following allegations.
The report comes as a special constable who assaulted an off-duty soldier while arresting him was jailed for three years.
The figures show that, of the 43 out of 52 UK forces which replied to FOI requests, 2,073 police officers were subject to three or more complaints.
There were a total of 5,069 allegations against officers — with most complaints were about rudeness, assault or failure of duty.
It follows recent admissions by police that four out of ten victims of crime do not get a visit from an officer.
Police have also been under fire for refusing to log complaints made by upset members of the public.
Last year it emerged officers had been wrongly writing-off thousands of vicious assaults and thefts as ‘no crime’. This happens when police dismiss a person’s report of a crime without even making cursory inquiries. In effect, they take a decision the victim is wrong, or lying.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Young Bride Burned Herself to Death to Escape ‘Shame’ Of Failing Arranged Marriage
A young Indian bride burned herself to death to escape the shame of her failing arranged marriage, an inquest has heard.
Harsimrat Kaur Bains, moved from India to marry husband Dalvinder Bains, 30, in 2007 but soon afterwards began complaining of domestic abuse.
After months of alleged abuse the 24-year-old doused her body in petrol and set herself alight in the couple’s bedroom in Leicester.
In a two-page suicide note Harsimrat wrote: ‘To save my mother’s respect I am committing suicide.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Concedes Jerusalem Before Negotiations Even Begin
Also agrees to forfeit holy sites to be governed by ‘special regime’
JERUSALEM — Ahead of the start of today’s Mideast summit in Washington, the Israeli government publicly conceded sections of Jerusalem will become part of a Palestinian state while holy sites would be governed by a “special regime.”
Speaking in an interview with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Defense Minister Ehud Barak outlined a deal with the Palestinians: “West Jerusalem and 12 Jewish neighborhoods that are home to 200,000 residents will be ours. The Arab neighborhoods in which close to a quarter million Palestinians live will be theirs.”
“There will be a special regime in place along with agreed upon arrangements in the Old City, the Mount of Olives and the City of David,” added Barak.
Barak told the newspaper what is needed “is courage to make historic, painful decisions. I’m not saying that there is certainty for success, but there is a chance. This chance must be exploited to the fullest.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast Talks: Barak Says Jerusalem Needs to be Divided
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, SEPTEMBER 1 — On the eve of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has said that as part of a definitive agreement it will be necessary to divide the city of Jerusalem along demographic lines. “West Jerusalem along with 12 Jewish districts built in the east where 200,000 Jews live will be ours,” said Barak to the Haaretz daily. “The Arab districts in East Jerusalem, where almost 250,000 Palestinians live, will be theirs. As concerns the Old City, the Mount of Olives (where there is a large Jewish cemetery, Ed.) and the City of David (the Palestinian district of Silwan), it will be necessary to draw up a special statute and come to an agreement.” Barak was the prime minister when — in the year 2000 — an important Israeli-Palestinian summit was held in Camp David in the presence of Yasser Arafat, which did not lead to any agreement. The minister told Haaretz that now, on the other hand, “there is a true chance” for success. “If Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu takes the lead, most right-wing ministers will follow him. There is a need for courage, to make historic and painful decisions.” In Barak’s vision, the future Palestinian state would have to be demilitarised, meaning that it would not have the possibility to launch rockets at Israeli territory, and actively involved in the prevention of terrorism. For a lengthy period Israel would continue to guard the Jordan Valley to protect against possible military threats “from the East”. Israel, on the other hand, would have to dismantle West Bank settlements to the east of the security barrier. In reference to yesterday’s attacks in the West Bank, Barak has today appealed to settlers — by way of the military radio station — to keep calm and not give in to the temptation to retaliate. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama ‘Peace Partner’ Honored Terrorists Before Summit
Murderers upheld as ‘model of willpower,’ awarded for ‘resoluteness and giving’
Just days before it attended President Obama’s summit in Washington this week, the Palestinian Authority honored the families of the perpetrators of some of the notorious terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians.
The PA’s minister for prisoners’ affairs, Issa Karake, last week awarded his government’s “Shield of Resoluteness and Giving” to a mother, Um Yousuf Abu Hamid, whose four sons are in Israeli jails for carrying out terrorist attacks targeting civilians.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
There Will be No Peace
On Monday all the talk in the news was of an Israeli Rabbi who had called on G-d to strike down Abbas, the head of the terrorist Palestinian Authority, and the rest of his gang. On Tuesday, terrorists murdered a pregnant woman and three other people. The same media that dedicated a great deal of time and energy to condemning Rabbi Yosef for inciting violence, wasted no such time on discussing the constant incitement to violence practiced by the Palestinian Authority media under Abbas’ authority. Earlier this month Abbas had participated in a ceremony honoring the Munich Massacre terrorists. But the media has never been particularly interested in discussing Muslims calls to violence, only in tarring any opponents of Muslim terrorism in the darkest and ugliest shades.
The murder of four Israelis and an unborn child was described not in terms of their human toll, but their political toll. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs condemned the terrorists as “enemies of peace”. The six orphans no doubt thank him for his concern for “peace”. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley dispensed with the human side entirely, warning that, “There may well be actors in the region who are deliberately making these kinds of attacks in order to try to sabotage the process”. A statement that could have been produced by a particularly unfeeling computer.
Gibbs boasted that the Palestinian Authority had condemned the attack. In reality what the Palestinian Authority had said was that the attack went “against Palestinian interests”. As condemnations go, this is right up there with, “Don’t sell drugs while the police are watching my house” and that all time champion, “I am completely against adultery in an election season”. The Palestinian Authority did not condemn terrorism. It condemned the attack because it wasn’t in their interest today to murder the Ames’ and their friends today. Tomorrow it might be again.
Meanwhile the US is funding a Palestinian Authority ad campaign aimed at Israel, which suggests that Abbas and his terrorist gang is interested in peace, and Israel isn’t. So while Obama talks about being evenhanded, he is actually funding a series of domestic attack ads against Netanyahu, and for Abbas.
[…]
A day from now, this story will already be gone from the headlines. Swept away by the latest manufactured scandal used by the media to target Israel in the non-stop orgy of hate directed at the Jewish state. Perhaps it will be a soldier’s Facebook photo. Or an offhand remark by some Rabbi. Or Noam Chomsky will be denied the right to enter PA territory to incite more violence and terrorism. But no doubt it will be some other thing entirely. There are enough NGO’s and reporters working hard to smear Israel, and they are bound to turn up something. But even if there is nothing, the story will vanish quickly anyway. Because while a number of dead Turkish Islamists who tried to beat and stab Israeli soldiers to death may trigger an international outcry and calls for an investigation—but the murder of four Israelis will trigger none.
And that tells you all that you really need to know about what is going on here.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NY Imam Gets Tepid Reaction in Mideast
Kuwait-born Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Muslim cleric leading the project to establish the centre, has been in Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the past two weeks but met with a subdued reaction.
“Muslims this time are not part of this, they didn’t call for it, they didn’t defend it and didn’t bother with the whole issue,” Saudi columnist Abdulrahman al-Rashid wrote in the pan-Arab daily Asharq Alawsat.
[…]
An American Muslim cleric who delivers a weekly sermon at an Abu Dhabi mosque said the row was more about US domestic politics with the November 2 congressional vote looming.
“It’s really a local issue,” the cleric, Jihad Hashim Brown, said. “It has to do with the current congressional election. As soon as the elections are finished it will blow over.”
…public relations consultant Riham el-Houshi, 22, an Egyptian living in Qatar, adding that she thought building the planned centre was insensitive.
Qatari Ghanim al-Naimi said the right to build mosques anywhere in the world should be guaranteed: “Religion had nothing to do with (September 11).”
| — Hat tip: AJ | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey-Kosovo: Bursa and Pristina Become “Sister Cities”
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 2 — Turkish north-western province of Bursa and Kosovo’s Pristina city have become “Sister Cities”, Anatolia news agency reports. According to a statement issued by the Bursa Municipality, the “Sister City Protocol” was signed by Bursa Mayor Recep Altepe and Pristina Mayor Isa Mustafa. Altepe said that they visited Pristina very frequently in the past five years.
“Pristina is a part of us. We consider Pristina to be our own city. With the protocol, Bursa and Pristina have become ‘Sister Cities’ and they will contribute to relations between Turkey and Kosovo,” Altepe said. Isa Mustafa, in his part, said that they felt at home while in Bursa. There is a tie between Turkey and Kosovo. This tie is an historic and cultural legacy. Turkey’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence and your support extended to us during times of war is an indication of such an historic and cultural legacy,” Mustafa said. We want to carry our cooperation to fields such as culture, education and social affairs, Mustafa also said. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
USA Cheerleaders Forced to Cover Up for Iran vs USA FIBA B-Ball Game
It was the Turkish Gov’t that actually asked that they cover up so the criticism isn’t directed at the US team as much as it is the so called “secular” government of Turkey whose President and Prime Minister are both sympathizers to the radical Muslim cause.
[…]
Photo: The Iranian fans held up a US flag during the game.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Property Barons Gave Airline Freebies to Labor Minister
EXCLUSIVE
ONE of Sydney’s powerful Kazal property family, Charif Kazal, arranged more than $6000 worth of business-class airline upgrades for the Fair Trading Minister, Virginia Judge, on a trip to the Middle East last year.
A Herald investigation this week revealed the Kazals had retained a senior official from the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority in a secret arrangement during 2007 and 2008 while negotiating over a multimillion-dollar taxpayer-owned property at The Rocks.
New details are now emerging of their extensive influence among Australia’s political elite.
The Herald has also learnt that Karl and Charif Kazal hosted the former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, and Julia Gillard, when she was deputy prime minister, at separate functions in 2008 and last year at their restaurant in The Rocks called Amoroma.
Both functions were intimate affairs of 10 to 16 people and were arranged in support of Chris Hayes, the federal member for Werriwa, who also has a friendship with the Kazals. The cost of all food and drink was borne by the Kazals, Mr Hayes confirmed.
A spokesman for Ms Gillard said: “The Prime Minister’s recollection is that discussion over lunch revolved around the global financial crisis.”
Mr Hayes also said the Kazals had offered him a trip several years ago to the United Arab Emirates but he had turned it down. He said he was introduced to the Kazals by John McLaughlin, who is registered as their paid NSW government lobbyist. Mr Hayes said the family owned property in his electorate.
It also emerged yesterday that the Minister for Planning, Tony Kelly, who has responsibility for the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority and the Land and Property Management Authority, has a personal friendship with the father of Andrew Kelly.
Mr Kelly, a former SHFA executive, was suspended on Wednesday after revelations in the Herald that he had accepted incentives from the Kazals and had taken up a lucrative position with one of their companies in Abu Dhabi after leaving the government’s employment.
In 2007 he was responsible for signing a lucrative lease agreement with the Kazals on behalf of taxpayers. After the Abu Dhabi venture collapsed, Mr Kelly was re-employed as a consultant to Tony Kelly’s department last June.
Andrew Kelly’s father, also named Tony Kelly, was a long-serving general manager of Dubbo City Council, and became friendly with the minister Tony Kelly when he too was a bureaucrat at the neighbouring council of Wellington.
In March, Ms Judge told Parliament that her trip to Beirut in July last year was largely paid for by third parties.
The Committee of the International Festival for Lebanese Emigrants paid for her to attend a festival it hosted, her office confirmed yesterday.
“The committee paid for all associated costs with the exception of flights, which were paid at the minister’s personal expense,” said her spokeswoman. “A business upgrade was provided and declared.”
But the Herald has learnt that Charif Kazal arranged for the upgrade before the trip. The Kazals have extensive contacts in the UAE, including with the ruling family of Dubai, which owns Emirates Airlines.
One of their contacts, the Herald has learnt, is a senior executive at Emirates who, it has been claimed, has arranged a number of airline upgrades for politicians on behalf of the Kazals.
Ms Judge’s spokeswoman confirmed that Ms Judge paid for an economy airfare but declined to discuss Ms Judge’s personal friendship with the Kazals.
Ms Judge twice refused yesterday to answer questions about this friendship and about the fact that Ms Judge knew Charif Kazal would be arranging an airline upgrade for her.
In late 2008 the minister also attended a lavish opening of the Kazals’ second Guylian chocolate cafe at Circular Quay.
Ian Macdonald was sacked as a minister after the Herald revealed he had accepted $30,000 worth of upgrades on the same airline and later lied to the Premier, Kristina Keneally, about the details of the trip.
Mr Macdonald also had extensive connections with the Kazal family, improperly appointing Charif’s older brother, Karl, as a trade envoy to the Middle East.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Arizona vs. The U.N. Human Rights Police
An indignant President Obama complained last week, “I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.” Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — not international law or global diktats.
Case in point: Last week, Obama’s State Department handed in America’s first-ever report to the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in conjunction with something called the “Universal Periodic Review.” In short, the 29-page document is a self-aggrandizing report card touting the administration’s far-left domestic and foreign policy initiatives for the world’s approval. The report boasts of racial- and gender-bean-counting in the executive branch; Justice Department outreach to Muslim grievance groups opposed to post-9/11 security measures; teachers’ union payoffs in the federal stimulus law; continuing commitment to closing the Gitmo detention facility for enemy combatants; and the illusory lifesaving effects of Obamacare on minorities through “expanding community health centers” (which have yet to be built, but not that it matters in our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president’s age of post-achievement).
The report also includes a section on “values and immigration,” which essentially singles out Arizona’s immigration enforcement law as a human rights deficiency “that is being addressed in a court action.”
In response, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer rightly blasted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration for succumbing to “internationalism run amok.” Brewer pointed out in a letter to Clinton, “Human rights as guaranteed by the United States and Arizona Constitutions are expressly protected in S.B. 1070 and defended vigorously by my Administration. In fact, the Department of Justice has correctly not included these so-called ‘human rights’ issues in the current litigation against the State of Arizona.” Somehow, that inconvenient detail escaped the Foggy Bottom bureaucrats’ notice.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Municipalities Loath to Open Doors to Refugees
Municipalities are reluctant to open their doors to asylum seekers and refugees. Around 200 refugees, mostly living in refugee camps, are waiting to move to Finland. Although they have their paperwork in order, they need a municipality to take them in.
In addition, about 400 refugees who have been granted asylum in Finland are still living at refugee reception centres because no municipality has offered them a place to stay.
In total, Finland needs to find accommodations for 2,200 refugees and asylum seekers.
Tiina Pesonen, who works for the Migration Department at the Ministry of the Interior, says it’s clear that there are not enough places for everyone.
“The goal is too lofty. That is already evident. We won’t reach our goal this year either.”
Last year, Finland aimed to find 2,000 homes for refugees. Only 1,450 were secured.
Finland has committed to taking in 750 refugees annually. This includes 100 people who need immediate assistance.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
France: Roma: Doubts From EU on Legality of Deportation
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 2 — A report presented by Viviane Reding, the head of the EU Justice Commission, meeting to discuss their agenda, raised doubts on the legality of the procedures used by France to deport Roma people, which may not be in compliance with EU regulations.
According to the press, the indications in the report have to do with two cornerstones of EU law: the freedom of circulation of EU citizens within EU territory, which according to article 21 of the Treaty of Rome can only be limited for reasons related to public order, safety and health, and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
In order to establish whether the doubts are legitimate, Brussels is waiting to receive “more detailed information” from France on the procedures used to evacuate people from Roma camps and to deport illegal immigrants. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ICE Isn’t Cracking Down on Illegal Immigrant Employers
Immigration inspectors poring over the hiring paperwork of a California company last summer found that 262 employees — a whopping 93 percent of the total workforce — had “suspect” documents on file.
At an Illinois service company, auditors found dubious documents for nearly 8 in 10 of its 200-plus employees.
Inspectors examining records at a Texas manufacturing firm found suspicious paperwork for more than half of the 107 employees on the payroll.
But the companies didn’t pay a penny in fines. None of the employers was led away in handcuffs. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials didn’t even issue them a formal warning, the agency’s internal records show.
Instead, they were instructed to purge their payrolls of illegal immigrants. Armed with assurances that the employees with suspect documents were fired — or, in the Texas case, “self-terminated” — the ICE auditors closed the cases.
The cases are just a few examples included in ICE’s internal records on its audit initiative, an enforcement program launched last July by Obama administration officials.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Latest Report on IPCC Another Insult as They Move Deck Chairs on the Titanic
It’s time to stop the lies, deceptions, denials and fantasy that is the world of political climate science known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Official climate science recently offered more insults, comparable to the whitewash investigations of Michael Mann, and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) gang, with its latest ‘investigation’ of the IPCC.
They think a simple mea culpa will do the job and allow them to continue their corrupt and corrupting ways. It won’t and it can’t. Not even the full mea maxima culpa will solve the problem.
[…]
It’s no surprise they prepared a very shallow report that identifies some errors and makes recommendations for the ongoing IPCC, but it is grossly inadequate. Why didn’t they talk to people who have raised questions about the process? Why didn’t they review the extensive literature on problems with the IPCC and the entire process? Why didn’t they recommend the removal from office of Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC? His activities are well documented and clearly show his integrity is completely compromised. The scientist whose false report on retreat of Himalayan glaciers was used by the IPCC worked for TERI of which Pachauri is the chairman. Why do they avoid the connections between CRU and IPCC?
[…]
Maurice Strong used the UN to set up the IPCC and pursue his political goals
This is important because it was through them and their membership in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that IPCC was created, funded and perverted. Maurice Strong used the UN to set up the IPCC and pursue his political goals. Its entire purpose was political and not scientific at all. The IAC were chosen not to realize this and couldn’t know because they didn’t do their research. To their credit they acknowledge the political leanings when they report that the IPCC is “at the interface between science and politics”, but it appears more a comment to quiet complaints than expose the obvious. They say the political actions of some senior IPCC members are harmful. “Straying into advocacy can only hurt IPCC’s credibility”. The reality is it has none and should be disbanded immediately along with the government weather agencies used for its creation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
1 comments:
Regarding this story: 'Property Barons Gave Airline Freebies to Labor Minister'
The nominally leftist Sydney Morning Herald newspaper has been exposing these dealings a little more every day for a week. Every article reveals a little more of the rot that is the Labor Party at local, State and even a Federal level. The leftist anti-freedom mayor Clover Moore should be investigated also as all the real estate named is in her constituency.
The blatant bribery and patronage of this Kazal family smacks of the nepotistic business culture of the Middle East, being brought to a Western country.
Facilitated by a corrupt Party who has retained the name 'Labor' but has little remaining labour demographic base beyond Unions contracting in size but not in wealth. Need to find new support with the evolution of the Working Class into a broad Middle Class? Sure, there are plenty of dodgy operators out there willing to fund your party and your holiday junkets while you allow your new patrons to do as they please. Welcome to the Australian Labor Party.
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