Tag: oppression

Trump threatens shutdown in September after caving in May

9:39 am

Paper tiger: After agreeing to a budget deal that gives everything to liberals but nothing to conservatives, Trump today threatened to force a government shutdown in September when this deal expires.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday appeared to call for a government shutdown later this year in response to a bipartisan spending deal that looks set to pass Congress this week.

In tweets, the president contended that the agreement — which funds the government through Sept. 30 — shows that Republicans must get more senators elected or change the Senate’s rules so they can push spending through with only a majority vote, rather than 60. He then wrote that the country “needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September” to fix a “mess.”

The last sentence of the article tells it all, however: “It is unclear if Trump truly wants a shutdown, as he has often taken extreme positions on issues before backing off. “

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Anti-white protests shut down Minnesota college

9:10 am

Bigots: Anti-white students have shut down St. Olaf College in Minnesota, protesting the receipt by one black student of a note calling her names.

This quote gives just a feeling of the situation, but does not describe it entirely:

Protesters also allegedly visited the campus library to gather more students for their protest. A source who reached out to The College Fix on Monday via email said a friend of hers was working in the library Saturday evening and was allegedly pushed aside by a throng of student protesters who demanded she turn over the library intercom for them to make an announcement. “When she refused, they stormed the circulation desk and forcibly grabbed the intercom mic to make their announcement,” said the source, who wished to remain anonymous for safety concerns. “They also ripped the phone out of her hand and off the wall when she tried to call the police.”

Then there’s this:

Over the last three days, protesters also put up signs that included language such as “I’m sick of white tears” and “F*ck your white complacency,” and additional signs have since been added, images provided to The College Fix show.

“The campus admins are allowing the commons area to become a bulletin board of complaints against white people. No action has been taken to remove the signs, and no students dare to touch them since there are newly-installed cameras everywhere,” the student who emailed The Fix said.

Note again that these attacks and bigotry are not coming from the administrators but from the students, who represent the future.

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To celebration May Day and communism, leftists riot in Portland

8:55 am

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you! As part of their May Day celebration of communism, demonstrators in Portland decided to riot, burning buildings, throwing rocks, and attacking police.

It is amazing to me the increasing similarity between the techniques and goals of radical Islam and modern leftists. Both hate. Both use violence. Both oppose any dissent. You would think they were allies, though we all know that they would also kill each other if given the chance.

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Iranian owner of Middle East satellite TV company assassinated in Istanbul

8:40 am

Coming soon to your local neighborhood! The Iranian owner of GemTV, a Middle East satellite TV company that is banned in Iran, was assassinated in Istanbul on Saturday.

Saeed Karimian, a 45-year old Iranian-British citizen living in Istanbul, and his as yet unnamed Kuwaiti business associate, were driving in a car in an Istanbul suburb on Saturday evening when another car driven by unidentified assailants blocked their way and its occupants opened fire. Karimian was pronounced dead at the scene while his Kuwaiti associate died later that evening from his wounds in hospital.

Karimian was the founder and owner of Gem TV, a satellite television company that broadcast multiple channels in Farsi, Arabic, and Azeri. Gem TV maintains offices in London, Istanbul, and Dubai, and broadcasts numerous Turkish and other foreign soap operas, and Western programming, into Iran. Karimian was sentenced to six years in prison in absentia in January 2017 by the Iranian government for broadcasting banned content in Iran, described by Tehran as “propaganda.”

While it is not certain whether this was a hit job by Iran, or by business competitors, it seems the circumstantial evidence makes Iran the prime suspect.

Increasingly, the free world is under siege by those who do not like it, whether on American college campuses or on the streets of Istanbul. Worse, that it is increasingly becoming acceptable that a businessman could be gunned down so nonchalantly, whether by a foreign power or by business rivals, bodes badly for freedom and civilization. We are not fighting back, and the bad guys are beginning to realize it.

Update: In related news, Boeing officials travel to Iran to negotiate airplane deal.

Representatives from Boeing traveled to Iran last month to meet with Hossein Alaei, CEO of Aseman Airlines, which is owned and controlled by the state. Boeing is moving forward with a $3 billion dollar deal to sell new planes to Aseman despite fierce opposition on Capitol Hill and direct evidence Iran has used commercial aircraft to ferry weapons and fighters across the region.

A photograph from the meeting shows a Boeing representative shaking hands with Alaei, who has been identified by Congress as a “prominent and longtime member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” which is responsible for killing and wounding scores of U.S. troops. The Boeing representative was not named in reports from the Iranian-controlled press or in information provided by U.S. foreign policy insiders.

Alaei, who was a senior figure in the IRGC before being installed as CEO of Aseman Airlines, served as commander of the IRGC Navy until 1990. Alaei oversaw the harassment of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf and efforts by the IRGC Navy to plant mines in international waters. Alaei was quoted during this time as threatening to “destroy” U.S. Navy assets in the region. “We have drawn up plans whereby we will utilize all our military capability to destroy the U.S. fleet and solve the Persian Gulf issue once and forever,” Alaei was quoted as saying in 1987. “The Americans are here to fight us.”

I am somehow reminded of the phrase, “buying from them the rope to hang them.”

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North Korean missile explosion part of planned test

12:27 pm

South Korean government officials said today that they do not believe the most recent North Korean missile test, which exploded shortly after launch, was a failure.

“We don’t believe the mid-air explosion was an accident,” cable news channel YTN quoted a government official as saying. “It’s believed the explosion was a test to develop a nuclear weapon different from existing ones.”

The nuclear-armed isolated country fired a ballistic missile on Saturday morning from near Pukchang in Pyeongannam-do (South Pyeongan Province). The missile climbed to 71 kilometers before exploding within North Korean territory, according to the South Korean and U.S. defense ministries. The explosion happened two or three minutes after blast-off.

Military experts say mid- or long-range missiles normally stabilize at 20 or 30 kilometers above ground. In the latest test, the missile climbed to three times the so-called “stabilizing height, which means the chances that any internal mechanical failure caused the explosion were “very low,” according to experts.

The officials also added that they think this test flight is preparation for a future nuclear bomb test that would take place above ground.

Update: This detailed essay takes a look at North Korea’s military capabilities for attacking its neighbors by short and long range artillery and missiles.

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New bipartisan budget deal cuts nothing from bloated federal government

9:44 pm

The swamp wins! A bipartisan budget deal worked out by Republicans and Democrats in Congress will cut nothing from the bloated federal government.

While losing on the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump won a $15 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military.

GOP leaders demurred from trying to use the must-do spending bill to “defund” Planned Parenthood. The White House also backed away from language to take away grants from “sanctuary cities” that do not share information about people’s immigration status with federal authorities.

The measure funds the remainder of the 2017 budget year, rejecting cuts to popular domestic programs targeted by Trump, such as medical research and infrastructure grants.

In other words, these corrupt bastards are doing nothing to reduce the budget, even though that is exactly what they were elected to do. Instead, they are growing it.

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The coming fascism

11:02 am

This post will be a very pessimistic one. In the last twenty-four hours I watched two different videos, both of which illustrated the growing close-mindedness in American society. On one hand we watch while a high school assistant principal does everything he can to not talk reasonably to two students holding signs opposed to abortion. First he tries to get them to leave, claiming they don’t have the right to stand there (they do, as it is a public street and there is something called the first amendment protecting their right to speak). Then he accuses them of harassing people, which it is very clear from the video they are doing no such thing. Finally, he stands there trying to prevent others from seeing their signs, while yelling “La-la-la-la-la-la-la!” loudly to keep others (and himself) from hearing what they say. He really does this.

On the other we have a detailed video report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) about the alarming hostility to free speech at Tufts University. This quote from the video struck me as downright terrifying for our future:

The climate at Tufts embodies several trends FIRE has seen growing in recent years. There is a shift away from the heavy-handed administrators posing the biggest threat to free speech on campus. Now the loudest calls for censorship are coming from the students themselves. … And in some cases like we saw first hand at Tufts, students are equating offensive or uncomfortable speech with violence. [emphasis mine]

Both videos are embedded below the fold. Please spend the time to watch both. I think you will be equally terrified. The left not only can no longer tolerate listening to any dissenting opinions, they have created a culture and mindset among the younger generation that makes dissent and freedom of speech downright impossible. And both the adults and the students of this intolerant culture are moving with increasing aggressiveness to try to shut down any opposing speech, sometimes with outright violence.
» Read more

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Fascist California abandons the Constitution

3:54 pm

Link here. Key quote:

In short, California public officials at every level of state and local government have taken it upon themselves to replace core constitutional protections with their own radical vision of social justice. This isn’t federalism; it’s lawlessness. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and every state law, ordinance, regulation, or practice that conflicts its guarantees of individual liberty must be struck down.

Read it all. The fascist culture that is taking over California is not limited to its academic campuses. State and local elected officials there are increasingly using the power of the government to oppress anyone opposed to them, including harsh prosecutions.

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North Korea ballistic missile test ends in failure

2:53 pm

North Korea on Saturday local time once again attempted and failed to launch a ballistic missile.

Some details here. The missile flew 25 miles, and was a short range missile.

While previously I attributed the consistent failures of every single North Korean missile test to the inherent incompetence of that society’s totalitarian regime, I am now beginning to wonder if espionage from either the U.S. or China might be a contributing factor. It seems unlikely, and the simplest explanation remains engineering failures with North Korea’s aerospace industry. Yet…

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Portland parade cancelled because of threats by leftist fascists

10:00 am

The fascists win: A family parade in Portland Oregon has been cancelled because of threats of violence from leftist protesters because the Republican Party was participating.

The participation by local political parties in these kinds of events has been a normal part of American life since the nation’s founding, all based on the first amendment and freedom of speech. To these left wing brown-shirted thugs, however, freedom of speech by their opponents is unacceptable, and requires the threat of violence to shut it down.

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Report finds NASA spacesuit development over budget, behind schedule, and inadequate

7:29 pm

Government in action! A NASA inspector general report has found that NASA’s program for developing new spacesuit is behind schedule, over budget, and unable to provide the necessary spacesuits needed for the agency’s future projects.

NASA’s spacewalking suits are in short supply, and a replacement is still years away despite the nearly $200 million spent on new technology, the space agency’s inspector general reported Wednesday. A next-generation suit for spacewalking astronauts is needed for future space travel, including trips to Mars. But a lack of a formal plan and destinations has complicated suit development, according to the report . At the same time, NASA has reduced funding for suit development, putting more priority instead on space habitats.

According to the report, NASA is dealing with a variety of design and health risks associated with the spacewalking suits used by astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The suits were developed more than 40 years ago and intended for 15 years.

More here. Essentially, the suits NASA presently uses on ISS don’t work well, there aren’t enough of them left, and they are difficult to maintain because they were designed for transport up and down on the space shuttle. At the same time NASA’s entire program to replace these suits has been mismanaged so badly that no replacement suits are anywhere on the horizon,even after spending hundreds of millions of dollars.

I predict that the next new spacesuit Americans use will be built in less than five years for a tenth the cost, by private companies.

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Ann Coulter has cancelled her speech at UC-Berkeley

11:15 am

The fascists win: Ann Coulter has cancelled her speech at UC-Berkeley, scheduled for April 27.

She cites as her reason for cancelling as the fact that the two groups that had sponsored her lecture had both cancelled that sponsorship out of fear of violence and the refusal of the university and the local government to provide protection. Their lawsuits against the university however will go on.

Regardless, this is now what urban California has become, a fascist state where expressing conservative views leaves you vulnerable to violence, with the local authorities working with the violent brown-shirted thugs to help them squelch freedom.

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Bigoted professor to accept students in course based on race

9:04 am

Bigot: A professor at Pomona College in California has announced that she will give preferential treatment to “students of color” in deciding who can attend her class on geology.

“I encourage students who PERM this course to indicate how their background, experience, and/or interests could contribute to diversifying perspectives in the course,” she states in the flyer. “In resolving PERMs I will strive to identify students for whom the small-section setting has the potential to be of particular benefit,” she adds, stressing that “I am especially interested in seeing PERM requests from students of color, first generation or low-income students, international, and students early in their college career (first two years); such students are especially encouraged to apply” [emphasis in original].

Increasingly in the modern leftist-controlled academic community, it is becoming popular to treat whites in the manner that bigots treated blacks before the civil rights movement, oppressively and with contempt.

I must add that not only is this professor’s policy bigoted, it is almost certainly illegal. I wonder if Pomona College will take action against it. I suspect not, because after all, this is California, a place that considers the oppression and the squelching of free thought to be a good thing.

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European push for more space regulations under international law

8:46 am

In the European space community and governmental circles, there appears to be a new push to revise the Outer Space Treaty, focused specifically on increasing the treaty’s regulatory power in the area of large satellite constellations and space junk.

This week [the city of] Darmstadt hosts a closed-door, governmental meeting of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC). Whether it was planned or not, the IADC is set to discuss a much-needed renewal of international space law, which is, experts admit, rather vague. But how far they will go is anyone’s guess.

…There is a palpable sense that the space community needs enforceable international laws and regulations, rather than – or merely to bolster – its current inter-agency agreements. They’ve served us so far, but few countries have actually signed up to them. That leaves a lot of wriggle-room, especially as space becomes increasingly commercialized.

Most of our space activities are governed by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. It’s a short document that primarily seeks to ensure space operations are “peaceful” and for the good of all humanity. It is complemented by other agreements, including a set of documents on mitigating space debris. “We have a good, coherent set of justified rules and we don’t intend to alter them drastically,” said Christophe Bonnal of the French Space Agency, CNES, and the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) in closing remarks last week. “But we will improve them at the IADC meeting to include mega-constellations.”

It appears to me that this is a push-back against Luxembourg’s recent announcement that it is going to request a renegotiation of the Outer Space Treaty to allow for property rights in space. What this article is advocating instead is that the treaty increase its control and regulatory power over private satellite constellations, which at present are not covered by the treaty.

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Liberated Mosul districts reconnect with satellite television

8:34 am

This story from SpaceWatch Middle East outlines the effort by the Islamic State to block access to information in Mosul, and how the recent liberation by Iraqi forces has allowed citizens to regain access to satellite television and the internet.

This website by the way is an interesting one. It is based in Switzerland, and appears focused on covering the business of space from a European/Middle East perspective.

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A look at some Israeli West Bank settlements

2:22 pm

As my regular readers know, I periodically take trips to Israel to visit family. When I return, I then post my impressions and what I have learned, thereby providing an eye-witness perspective to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous essays from earlier visits are as follows, with the first five from my 2013 visit and the last from my visit in 2014:

Map of the West Bank settlements that I have visited

Having just returned from another visit, I have some new impressions. Above all, I think it worthwhile to note that in all these visits, I have routinely stayed with relatives who live in West Bank settlements. In fact, I have now visited or stayed in five different settlements. The map on the right shows the locations of these settlements, marked with an X. If you click on the image you can see a higher resolution version.

Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the settlement from my 2003 visit, though I know it was west of Hebron. It might have been Carmel, but I am not sure. I do know I have indicated its location with reasonable accuracy.

Regardless, there are a number of things we can learn from my visits. The largest settlements, Alon Shvut, Kiryat Sefer, and Beitar, are all close to the 1949 Armistice border. They are also all relatively close to Jerusalem and thus act for many as suburbs of that larger city. As I wrote in 2013,
» Read more

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Clemson administrator proposes that candidates be prescreened for ideology

9:09 am

Fascist: An administrator at Clemson University has proposed the student government consider prescreening candidates for the proper multicultural ideology prior to elections to prevent the wrong candidates from reaching office.

“So when it comes to this whole idea of intercultural competence, what would it look like to have a standard for if you’re going to be elected as an officer, or hold a seat within CUSG [Clemson University Student Government], that you have to demonstrate that you have a certain level of intercultural competence, before you’re allowed to take that office, or that seat,” Richardson stated, according to CUSG Senate’s public livestream.

The administrator, Altheia Richardson, Director of Clemson’s Gantt Multicultural Center, suggested that the student government could either prescreen the candidates, or demand that they be properly educated after winning, though she added that “I will say, once you’re in, it’s harder to hold people accountable for those things if it hasn’t been set as a standard before.”

In other words, this fascist doesn’t like the opinions of some people who have been freely and fairly elected to student government office, and wants to establish a system whereby she can prevent such people from ever obtaining office. How nice.

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Former Obama official confirms climate data manipulation by bureaucrats

10:18 am

A former Obama official has confirmed that during the Obama administrations bureaucrats in the federal government routinely misused or tampered with climate data in order to promote the theory that humans are causing global warming.

Former Energy Department Undersecretary Steven Koonin told The Wall Street Journal Monday that bureaucrats within former President Barack Obama’s administration spun scientific data to manipulate public opinion. “What you saw coming out of the press releases about climate data, climate analysis, was, I’d say, misleading, sometimes just wrong,” Koonin said, referring to elements within the Obama administration he said were responsible for manipulating climate data.

He pointed to a National Climate Assessment in 2014 showing hurricane activity has increased from 1980 as an illustration of how federal agencies fudged climate data. Koonin said the NCA’s assessment was technically incorrect. “What they forgot to tell you, and you don’t know until you read all the way into the fine print is that it actually decreased in the decades before that,” he said. The U.N. published reports in 2014 essentially mirroring Koonin’s argument.

This story does not prove that human-caused global warming is not happening. What it does tell us, as have many other stories previously, is that we can no longer trust the data issued by federal government sources, and that a major housecleaning is necessary in order to make that trust possible again.

Whether Donald Trump is the president capable of doing that housecleaning remains an open question. Some of his actions suggest he is. Some suggest he is not. Overall, he appears a transitional figure who will begin that housecleaning in a relatively superficial way, but lay the groundwork for someone in the future who will push it through with much more success.

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Donors and students fleeing Drexel University, home of genocidal professor

10:41 pm

Drexel University, faced now with loss of donations and students because the university took no action against a professor that called for the white genocide, the murder of police officers, and the squelching of the free speech rights of a conservative speaker, has finally opened “a special committee of inquiry” into the professor’s conduct.

It seems the public has decided that enough is enough.

“Numerous prospective students whom the university has admitted have written to the university stating that they will not attend,” [Drexel Provost Brian] Blake wrote, adding that “at least two potential significant donors to the university have withheld previously promised donations.” Indeed, Blake asserted that “the nearly unmanageable volume of venomous calls” that the administration received in the wake of the professor’s latest tweets even forced the school to “consider turning off its phones” for several days.

It appears from the story that Drexel, which initially poo-pooed Professor George Ciccariello-Maher’s comments, is now going to take a hard line. Whether they fire him or merely slap him on the wrist remains as yet unknown.

Normally, I oppose the firing or punishment of anyone for the things they say. At the same time, we are all personally responsible for what we say, and if you say things that are downright evil, you have to accept the consequences of those statements. Calling for genocide against whites and the murder of police officers to me fits very well the definition of evil. Ciccariello-Maher might have the freedom to say these things, but his university has no obligation to support him for doing so.

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Berkeley mayor belongs to group that organized riots against Milo Yiannopoulos

9:33 am

Fascist: It now appears that the mayor of Berkeley, Jesse Arreguin, belongs to the group that organized the riots that shut down the lecture of Milo Yiannopoulos.

Berkley Mayor Jesse Arreguin was revealed to be a member of the anti-fascist group, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), on Facebook. BAMN orchestrated the violence that shut down a scheduled lecture at UC Berkeley featuring Milo Yiannopoulos in early 2017. Arreguin is allegedly also friends with BAMN leader, Yvette Felarca, on Facebook.

They were also involved in the violent clashes earlier this month.

This might explain why the Berkeley police did so little during the first riots as well as during the violence that occurred on April 15 between pro-Trump and leftist demonstrators. In fact, there is even some evidence, not conclusive, that suggests the Berkeley police were helping the leftist demonstrators.

Meanwhile, Yiannopoulos has announced that he is planning a week long free speech event in Berkeley later this year. Good for him.

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