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Archive for September 2017
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September 30, 2017Madrid struggles to close Catalonia polling stations on eve of referendum
September 30, 2017Source: Madrid struggles to close Catalonia polling stations on eve of referendum — RT News
Catalonia is gearing up for an independence referendum on Sunday despite attempts to hinder the process by the government in Madrid, which considers it illegal. Police trying to seal polling stations have faced resistance from occupiers keen to vote.
Catalans have staged numerous protests and occupied polling stations to secure their right to vote. Over six thousand ballot boxes will be used, and there are more than 2,300 polling stations across the region.
The referendum was not authorized by the federal authorities and Spain’s Constitutional Court has ruled that it is illegal. Police have been ordered to remove people occupying polling stations, located in schools and other facilities, Reuters reports citing a government source.
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The federal authorities said on Saturday that police had sealed off 1,300 of 2,315 schools in Catalonia which had been designated as polling stations, according to Reuters.
Prior to the vote, Madrid launched a crackdown on Catalonia, local government buildings were raided and top-ranking Catalonian officials, including Junior Economy Minister Josep Maria Jové, were arrested over referendum documents.
The government also wanted to take direct control over the local police force in a bid to halt the upcoming vote. The action was denounced it as “intervention attempt” by Catalonia’s Interior Minister, Joaquim Forn, who also said that the local police refused to comply with the order.
The Spanish government forced Google to block an application which provided information to the citizens on where and how to vote. Madrid also ordered the shutdown of all polling stations and deployed thousands of its troops to the region.
On Saturday, the Civil Guard raided the Center of Telecommunications and Technologies of Information (CTTI) to switch off applications that could be used to count the results.
READ MORE: Catalan president gives instructions on Twitter after referendum website blocked
However, to make sure the vote happens locals staged numerous sit-ins at schools and other sites that are supposed to serve as polling stations.
“What you see here was not planned beforehand. We are all neighbors of this area of the city and we are defending the place where we want to vote on Sunday. If you turn around you will see more people, when the doors of this school open-we will just swap places in order to keep defending this voting place,” Juan Sebastian, one of the locals staying at a school, told RT.
“Due to the threat of the sealing of schools, people from the educational community have organized themselves, not only here, but all over Catalonia, to make sure we can vote freely on Sunday,” Miguel Angel Torrijos, a father of one of the school children, told RT’s Ruptly news video agency.
People across the region have been protesting the crackdown on the vote. Earlier this week, farmers staged a protest in Barcelona, flying Catalonian flags on their tractors and chanting “we will vote.”
On Thursday, Catalan firefighters unfurled a giant banner in front of the Museum of Catalan History in Barcelona, depicting a ballot box with the words “love democracy” written across it.
The Spanish government still says the referendum is illegal and vows that it will not allow this to happen.
“I insist: there will be no referendum on October 1st,” government spokesperson Inigo Mendez de Vigo said on Friday during a press conference following the weekly cabinet meeting.
Meanwhile, not everyone is happy over the upcoming referendum. On Saturday, the day before the vote, a protest was held in Barcelona to protest against the referendum.
Crowds gathered outside the Catalan government headquarters in Barcelona Thursday to protest against Sunday’s vote.
Activists held a mock referendum in the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Friday, giving residents the opportunity to “vote” on whether they want “Catalonia to remain part of Spain” and place their “ballots” into an improvised ballot box. Hundreds of anti-referendum activists took part.
As the division in Spanish society grows, Spain’s European partners are apparently not eager to intervene.
“I believe this is a Spanish problem in which [sic] we can do little. It’s a problem of respecting Spanish laws that Spaniards have to resolve,” Antonio Tajani, European Parliament President said answering journalists’ questions on whether any form of mediation could be offered.
Member of the European Parliament Stelios Kouloglou believes that the EU should intervene as the actions of the Spanish federal government are unreasonable, he told RT. Kouloglou will observe Sunday’s vote and has spoken with Catalan officials, who complained about “very brutal violations of the democratic rights” by Madrid.
“The EU should interfere not to take sides…but just to say that those measures taken by the government of Madrid are not acceptable,” Kouloglou said.
Illegal Alien Sentenced for Stealing Identities to Collect $800K in Tax Refunds
September 30, 2017Illegal Alien Sentenced for Stealing Identities to Collect $800K in Tax Refunds, Breitbart, John Binder, September 29, 2017
(The DOJ press release on which the article is based is dated September 27, 2017, so the information is current. Please see also,
Feds Slap Tree Company With $95 Million Penalty For Hiring Illegal Aliens. I don’t recall such actions by the Obama Justice Department.– DM)
Following Adissa’s release from federal prison, he will be handed over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for deportation.
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An illegal alien living in the sanctuary city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was sentenced for stealing Americans’ identities to collect more than $800,000 in tax refunds.
Abdou Koudos Adissa, an illegal alien from the Republic of Benin, was sentenced to four years in federal prison for his part in a tax fraud scheme, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.
According to court records, Adissa was convicted of conspiring to commit access device fraud in March for his involvement in the tax scheme that ran from February to June 2014. During that time, Adissa was a part of a group that stole Americans’ identities to file tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.
Adissa’s co-conspirators filed the fraudulent tax returns, stealing more than $800,000 in refunds which was then deposited onto Green Dot pre-paid debit accounts. That money was eventually sent to Nigeria through Western Union.
When federal officials raided Adissa’s apartment in Philadelphia, they found 106 of the Green Dot cards. The illegal alien registered all the debit cards using stolen American IDs before giving co-conspirators the cards’ direct deposit information so they would be able to direct the fraudulent tax refunds to the cards.
Adissa called Western Union some 63 times to transfer the stolen $800,000 to Nigeria.
Following Adissa’s release from federal prison, he will be handed over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for deportation.
The Quiet Islamic Conquest of Spain
September 30, 2017The Quiet Islamic Conquest of Spain, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, September 30, 2017
Islamic rogue regimes, such as Iran, have also been able to infiltrate Spanish political parties. According to an investigation, Tehran gave money to Podemos, the leftist party which emerged as a new contender in the Spanish political arena.
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“Evicted five centuries ago by crusading Christians, the Arabs are back in Spain, using their oil dollars to buy land that was seized from their ancestors by the sword”. — James M. Markham, The New York Times, 1981.
The Madrid daily ABC wrote that 800 mosques in Spain are out of control. The Spanish daily La Razon charged that Gulf donors, such as Qatar, were a source of Spain’s Islamization. The Saudis also launched a new Spanish television channel, Córdoba TV, as did Iran.
They dream of, and work to, regain the “lost Caliphate” of Spain. Some Islamists do it with bombs and car-ramming attacks. Others, more surreptitiously, do it with money and dawa, Islamic propaganda. The second way may be even more effective than the first.
The ceremony in 2003 was announced with bombastic headlines: “After a wait of more than 500 years, Spanish Muslims, have finally succeeded in building a mosque of their own in the shadow of the Alhambra, once the symbol of Islamic power in Europe”. A troupe from al Jazeera was sent to follow the event: a muezzin climbed to the minaret of the Great Mosque of Granada to call the faithful to prayer for the first time in five centuries.
From Osama bin Laden to the self-proclaimed Caliph, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, all the leaders of the global jihad — including the terror cell that killed 17 people in Barcelona — have mentioned Spain among the lands to be conquered by Islam. There is, however, not only jihad. There is also “the quiet conquest“, as it has been dubbed by the French magazine, Valeurs Actuelles. The quiet conquest is a sinuous attempt to re-Islamize Spain through cultural centers, mega-mosques, proselytizing, conversions and financial investments. This pacific attempt to elicit submission has been underway for some time and has been backed by a flow of money from countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. According to a former commander of British forces in Iraq, General Jonathan Shaw, these two countries in particular have ignited a “time bomb” by funding the global spread of radical Islam.
The New York Times first detailed in 1981 that, “evicted five centuries ago by crusading Christians, the Arabs are back in Spain, using their oil dollars to buy land that was seized from their ancestors by the sword”. Spain back then did not even recognize the State of Israel, and the Spanish monarchy regularly visited Saudi Prince Fahd while he was relaxing in the south of Spain. After that, it was Kuwait’s turn: “During the late 1980’s, when Spain was booming, Kuwait came shopping for corporations and investments”.
Since then, the Arab monarchies have targeted Spain with huge investments. Some emblematic buildings in Madrid and Barcelona, not to mention the Costa del Sol, are now owned by Arab investment groups, from the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid to the W Hotel in Barcelona. In Marbella, just a few meters away from the King Fahd Mosque, there is the Alanda Hotel, which offers halal food and services to meet the demands of the Muslim clients. In 2011, the International Petroleum Investment Company, controlled by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, purchased Cepsa, the second-largest Spanish company in the oil sector.
Last January, Spain’s King Felipe VI visited Saudi Arabia and announced that Spain would boost economic, trade and investment relations with the Islamic kingdom. Before that, in 2012, Saudi Aramco awarded Spanish companies projects worth $700 million. Spain and Qatar are now discussing the formation a $1 billion joint investment fund that would help the Gulf state invest in Latin America. The Arab Emirates’ media called Spain “a hotspot for investment from the Arab world”. After Qatar, it was the Oman’s turn to invest in the Spanish market: Oman just agreed to invest up to $120 million in a uranium mine in Spain, to be used for Omani nuclear energy plants.
Demographically, Muslims are witnessing a shocking population increase in Spain. In 1990, Muslims in the country numbered 100,000. By 2010, the number had increased to 1.5 million. In 2017, the number was nearly two million. It is a growth of 1,900% in 27 years.
Today there are 1,400 mosques in Spain. According to the Observatory of Religious Pluralism in Spain (an initiative of the Ministry of Justice), “this figure represents 21% of all places of worship for all religions present in Spain”.
The most prolific funder of mosques in Spain is Saudi Arabia. In 1985, using only its own money, the Saudi kingdom opened the Islamic Cultural Center in Madrid, Europe’s largest mosque, followed by the Islamic Center of Malaga, which the Saudis financed with 22 million euros (today the Madrid area has 112 mosques and Islamic cultural centers). As Gatestone’s Soeren Kern detailed, the Saudis have built mosques everywhere, from Marbella to Fuengirola.
Islamic rogue regimes, such as Iran, have also been able to infiltrate Spanish political parties. According to an investigation, Tehran gave money to Podemos, the leftist party which emerged as a new contender in the Spanish political arena.
The Madrid daily ABC wrote that 800 mosques in Spain are out of control. The Spanish daily La Razon charged that Gulf donors, such as Qatar, were a source of Spain’s Islamization. The Saudis also launched a new Spanish television channel, Córdoba TV, as did Iran.
The details of this religious proliferation are detailed The Spain of Allah, a book by Ignacio Cembrero. While the number of Catholic churches in Spain has not undergone much variation for many years, Muslim mosques have been growing at a rate of 20% percent annually. Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani has also offered to buy La Monumental Arena in Barcelona to turn it into Europe’s biggest mosque. The United Arab Emirates funded the construction of the Great Mosque of Granada.
Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani has offered to buy La Monumental Arena in Barcelona, with its nearly 20,000 seats, to turn it into Europe’s biggest mosque. (Image source: Sergi Larripa/Wikimedia Commons)
They dream of, and work to, regain the “lost Caliphate” of Spain. Some Islamists do it with bombs and car-ramming attacks. Others, more surreptitiously, do it with money and dawa, Islamic propaganda. The second way may be even more effective than the first.
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
Feds Slap Tree Company With $95 Million Penalty For Hiring Illegal Aliens
September 30, 2017Feds Slap Tree Company With $95 Million Penalty For Hiring Illegal Aliens, Daily Caller, Will Racke, September 29, 2017
AUBURN, AL – APRIL 23: Crews from the Asplundh tree service inspect a oak tree after it was cut down on April 23, 2013 at Toomer’s Corner in Auburn, Alabama. Auburn University decided to remove the dying oaks after they were poisoned by a rival fan shortly after the 2010 Iron Bowl. (Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images)
“Today’s judgment sends a strong, clear message to employers who scheme to hire and retain a workforce of illegal immigrants: we will find you and hold you accountable,” acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said in a statement. “Violators who manipulate hiring laws are a pull factor for illegal immigration, and we will continue to take action to remove this magnet.”
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A national tree services company will have to pay a record fine after admitting that it engaged in a scheme to hire illegal aliens, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
Asplundh Tree Expert Co., a suburban Philadelphia-based contractor that trims and removes trees around power lines, pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal criminal charge and was ordered to pay a total of $95 million, the biggest penalty ever levied in an immigration case.
Federal Judge John R. Padova ordered the company to pay a criminal forfeiture judgment of $80 million, plus a $15 million civil penalty to satisfy additional civil claims for failure to follow immigration law.
Asplundh hired thousands of unauthorized workers between 2010 and 2014, using knowingly fraudulent identification documents, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia. Prosecutors said the company’s upper management was “willfully blind,” while mid-level regional supervisors knowingly violated immigration law and hired illegal aliens.
Asplundh allegedly used word of mouth referrals instead of a systematic application process, allowing supervisors to hire a compliant workforce of illegal laborers.
“This decentralized model tacitly perpetuated fraudulent hiring practices that, in turn, maximized productivity and profit,” prosecutors said in a statement. “With a motivated work force, including unauthorized aliens willing to be relocated and respond to weather related events around the nation, Asplundh had crews which were easily mobilized that enabled them to dominate the market. Asplundh provided all the incentives to managers to skirt immigration law.”
Asplundh employs 30,000 workers in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to the Associated Press. The company was the subject of a six-year audit by investigators with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which discovered in 2009 that company managers were accepting sham driver’s licenses, Social Security numbers, green cards and other fake identification documents.
Three Asplundh managers, including a vice president, had previous pleaded guilty to felony charges in the case, the AP reported.
“Today’s judgment sends a strong, clear message to employers who scheme to hire and retain a workforce of illegal immigrants: we will find you and hold you accountable,” acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said in a statement. “Violators who manipulate hiring laws are a pull factor for illegal immigration, and we will continue to take action to remove this magnet.”
Is the Argument for Regime Change in Iran Well Founded?
September 30, 2017Is the Argument for Regime Change in Iran Well Founded? American Thinker, Shahriar Kia, September 30, 2017
(Nearly all of the comments associated with the American Thinker article contend that Iran under its current regime is a wonderful, happy place, all opposition to which is a vile Jewish-Israeli conspiracy. — DM)
During his first address to the UN General Assembly in September, President Donald Trump offered a perspective on the people and the regime of Iran that starkly differed from that of his predecessors. He accurately attested that “The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want to change.” He described the Iran nuclear deal as “an embarrassment,” called off the Iranian regime for its export of “violence, bloodshed, and chaos,” and underlined that “Iran’s people are what their leaders fear most.”
These remarks from the president of the United States are a positive signal after three decades of failed appeasement toward the mullahs ruling Iran. And the testament to the fact are the reactions of Iranian officials, which betray their fear and consternation.
In a meeting with the Assembly of Experts, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Iranian regime called Trump’s speech “foolish, extremely ugly and hideous” and “gangster and cowboy language fraught with sheer lies.”
“Mr. Trump said the wrong things in the wrong place to the wrong people,” Rouhani said to the state television.
The question that remains is whether President Trump’s remarks at the UNGA were simply a reaction to the failure of the appeasement policy, or was it the result of the natural course of events and the geopolitical dynamics governing the Middle East? Has the explosion in connectivity and social media services been effective in conveying the message of the Iranian people, who want the world to know about their desire for freedom and human rights?
Without a doubt, all of these parameters have been effective. But what are the real foundations of Washington’s new approach to the desires of the Iranian people for regime change?
Uprisings
The first factor that challenges the power of the ruling regime is the looming threat of uprisings. From an economic and social perspective, there has always been a potential for nationwide uprisings in Iran.
The first big occurrence of widespread protests was in 1981 when more than 500,000 people took to the streets of Tehran and demanded the overthrow of the theocratic regime. The protest was brutally suppressed and ruthless executions of protestors and dissidents ensued.
In the summer of 1988 alone, 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members of the opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), were executed in the span of a few months and were buried in secret graves.
In 1999 and 2009, uprisings erupted again. While the regime smothered both instances with a brutal crackdown, yet the potential for another uprising remains, and the ashes wait to be stirred once again.
Presently, sporadic protests are slowly building up across the country and gaining momentum. An example is the staged protests against the Arman and Caspian foundations, two financial organizations run by the Revolutionary Guards, which have been plundering the people’s wealth at an unprecedented scale. Following the start of Rouhani’s second term as president, social dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs has increased.
Infighting
The second factor that is weakening the regime is the ongoing power struggle between the Supreme Leader and other factions within the regime. So long as the country’s constitution is based on the “guardianship of the jurist,” every key decision will be made by the Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader is also the commander in chief, which leaves the president with no substantial power.
This religious dictatorship is founded on fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and sees its survival as bound to domestic suppression and foreign terrorism. However, the mullahs’ crimes in the past four decades have intensified the hatred of the Iranian people toward them.
Earlier this year, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation revisited the mass execution of 30,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988 in her report to the Secretary-General. Moreover, activists and international human rights organizations have called for an independent investigation into this crime against humanity, placing the Iranian regime in another political and social dead end.
A War of Attrition in the Middle East
The Iranian regime is stuck in three long regional wars, involving Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Some analysts and politicians perceive the Iranian regime’s meddling in these three countries as a sign of power and stability. However, contrary to what Khamenei and other regime officials have insisted on time and again, if they abandon their intervention in the countries of the Middle East, they’ll be fighting their wars in the streets of Tehran. Therefore, the sole purpose of the Iranian regime’s regional forays is to avoid its collapse. The regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile project is for the same purpose.
The Coalition of Arab Countries and U.S. Against Iran’s Regional Ambitions
The coalition of Arab countries and the U.S., the imposition of further sanctions against the Iranian regime’s regional meddling, and the end of the golden era of the Obama administration have faced the regime of Tehran with further challenges. Officials in the new U.S. administration rightly insist that the real threat of Iran comes not only from its nuclear ambitions but also from its ballistic missile program, its chaos mongering in the region and its human rights abuses. The only durable solution to those collective threats is regime change in Iran.
The Existence of a Reliable Alternative to Replace the Regime in Iran
What makes the replacement of a tyrannical regime viable is the presence of a recognized alternative that has a distinct political, social and economic platform for the future, which enjoys the support of the international community. The existence of such a resistance and its international recognition is one of the main parameters that will pave the way for uprisings against the ruling dictatorship.
Iran currently has a democratic alternative, led by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, a Muslim woman who opposes fundamentalism and bases her faith on tolerance.Mrs. Rajavi’s ten-point plan has been praised and acknowledged by many political personalities, jurists, parliamentarians, and human rights activists across the world.
Three decades of appeasement toward Tehran has not moderated the behavior of the Iranian regime — it has made it worse. However, the foundations for change in Iran exist. What makes regime change in Iran unique is the fact that it requires no foreign intervention. The people of Iran and their organized resistance have the potential to bring about change from Inside Iran.
Who by fire
September 30, 2017Saudi University Dismissing Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Academics
September 29, 2017Saudi University Dismissing Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Academics, Center for Security Policy,
A university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is dismissing academics who are believed to have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The university reportedly found evidence that a number of Saudi and foreign academics were linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. The removal of these academics is an attempt to protect The Saudi educational system from Brotherhood influence.
In the past two weeks, Saudi authorities have allegedly arrested over 30 clerics and intellectuals in an attempt to crack down on dissent. The State Security Presidency arrested these clerics and intellectuals after monitoring their activities in the belief that they were acting for the benefit of foreign parties against the kingdom.
Three prominent clerics who were arrested were Salman al-Ouda, Aidh al-Qarni, and Ali al-Omary. Al-Qarni has advocated jihad in the past and has been described as influential among al-Qaeda followers.
Salman al-Ouda was jailed in the 1990s in Saudi Arabia for radicalism and his association with Osama Bin Laden. Al-Ouda has been a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood and also a founding member of the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign which is a coalition of Salafi, Salafi-Jihadi, Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas leaders.
In the 1950s, Saudi Arabia was a shelter for thousands of Brotherhood activists facing repression in Egypt, Syria and other countries. The Brotherhood soon became engrained both in Saudi society and in the Saudi state.
When Brotherhood activists fled to Saudi Arabia, many were given positions in Saudi schools by Saudi leaders who were sympathetic to their cause. The Muslim Brotherhood’s doctrine of education focuses on indoctrinating activists whose manners, way of thinking and sense of duty were aligned with the Brotherhood’s objectives.
In 2015, Saudi schools removed about 80 religious books including books written by Muslim Brotherhood ideologues Hassan Al Banna, Yousuf Al Qaradawi and Sayyed Qutb. Hassan Al Banna was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt and Sayyed Qutb was a leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s.
Saudi Islamist movements, specifically the Sahwa (Awakening), grew in Saudi Arabia. The relationship between the Sahwa and the regime was harmonious in the beginning until the 1980s when the Sahwa began criticizing the regime’s policies.
In the 1990s the Sahwa movement attempted a political reform campaign which led to a strain on the relationship, with the regime expelling several Brotherhood members. In the early 2000s, the relationship improved, allowing the Sahwa back into religious and social aspects in the country as long as they avoided criticism of the government. The Arab Spring encouraged the Sahwa to attempt political reform again but they were unsuccessful.
In February 2014, a royal decree was created to punish any person who was involved in, supported, or promoted a terrorist group. A month later, Saudi Arabia named the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The Saudi kingdom fears the Brotherhood seeks to topple the Saudi regime and has tried to build support inside the kingdom since the Arab Spring.
In June, Saudi Arabia was one of 5 countries to cut ties with Qatar over alleged efforts to undermine the stability of the Gulf States through Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and a variety of designated terrorist groups.
Academics have the capacity to exert great influence over students and are also capable of recruiting some students to support the Brotherhood’s efforts across communities throughout the Middle East and Africa. It remains difficult to determine the full extent of the effort by Saudi authorities to expel Brotherhood-linked academics from institutions in Saudi Arabia because it is unclear how many academics were expelled, and how many may remain.
Satire | How Everything is Racist, And You’re a Terrible Person
September 29, 2017How Everything is Racist, And You’re a Terrible Person, The Daily Bell, September 29, 2017
And here’s another way we know that President Trump is racist. His wife actually sent 10 Dr. Suess books to a school in Massachusetts. Can you believe it? That’s like, ten times the racism!
Unless you swear fealty to demolishing white privilege, then you are racist. And don’t try to end any race problems in your own way! It has to be through government intervention, and acquiescence to the demands of Black Lives Matter. If you do nothing, you are racist.
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Everything you do and think is racist, you probably just don’t realize it because you’re so super privileged.
You can’t just sit back and hide in your white supremacist neighborhoods anymore. There’s no more abstaining from taking a side on this one. The sins of your ancestors have caught up to you! (Or at least the sins of the ancestors of people who look like you, considering most white Americans are descended from post-Civil War immigrants.)
You may think that standing for the national anthem is a normal thing to do. You may have even gone on standing for the national anthem, ignoring the rest of the controversy surrounding the NFL. But it turns out that behaving in a standard traditional fashion is racist.
Yep, it’s the old, “you’re either with us or against us,” philosophy. You cannot sit out this manufactured controversy. The Huffington Post says that when you stand, you stand for white supremacy. For white people, the anthem represents freedom. White Americans are full citizens, and black Americans–especially extremely successful millionaire athletes–are second class citizens.
You probably just didn’t know that because your life has been lived in a bubble of white privilege. It’s okay, you didn’t know any better. But you’re still a terrible person. You should give your house away to a black family, since “You’re bound to make that money in some other white privileged way.”
Oh, Dr. Suess is also racist, by the way.
And here’s another way we know that President Trump is racist. His wife actually sent 10 Dr. Suess books to a school in Massachusetts. Can you believe it? That’s like, ten times the racism!
Luckily, the librarian at the school knew that the books were racist, and rejected them. She wrote Mrs. Trump a letter to explain her white supremacist folly.
Another fact that many people are unaware of is that Dr. Seuss’s illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes. Open one of his books (If I Ran a Zoo or And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, for example), and you’ll see the racist mockery in his art. Grace Hwang Lynch’s School Library Journal article, “Is the Cat in the Hat Racist? Read Across America Shifts Away from Dr. Seuss and Toward Diverse Books,” reports on Katie Ishizuka’s work analyzing the minstrel characteristics and trope nature of Seuss’s characters. Scholar Philip Nel’s new book, Was the Cat in the Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books, further explores and shines a spotlight on the systemic racism and oppression in education and literature.
Thought those were just innocent cartoon images? Think again!
I mean it’s so obvious that Dr. Suess was a racist. He clearly thought star-bellied Sneetches were better than plain-bellied Sneetches. They were so privileged walking around with those stars on their bellies. And then, when the plain-bellied Sneetches started acting all star-bellied, the privileged star-bellied Sneetches culturally appropriated the plain-bellied Sneetches’ style!
The point of the story certainly wasn’t that a third party came into town and exploited the natural differences of the Sneetches for personal profit! Dr. Suess couldn’t have been calling attention to the fact that people will seek to exploit divisions in society for their own motives.
So nice try attempting to sit this one out! Unless you swear fealty to demolishing white privilege, then you are racist. And don’t try to end any race problems in your own way! It has to be through government intervention, and acquiescence to the demands of Black Lives Matter. If you do nothing, you are racist.
Pentagon Chief James Mattis: Iran, Russia Still Arming Afghan Taliban
September 29, 2017Pentagon Chief James Mattis: Iran, Russia Still Arming Afghan Taliban, Breitbart, Edwin Mora, September 29, 2017
Getty Images
The Trump plan to end the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan is “determined” to force the Taliban to the peace negotiation table, said Gen. Nicholson.
Moreover, Trump’s plan is expected to pressure Pakistan to no longer harbor terrorist groups fighting and killing Americans in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and their ally the Haqqani Network, among others.
Unlike the failed policy of the previous administration, conditions on the ground will drive Trump’s strategy rather than arbitrary timelines.
In other words, the Trump administration has not set any timetables to draw down its forces, choosing to wait until it accomplishes its goals instead.
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Russia and U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism Iran continue to provide weapons and other military aid to Taliban jihadists in Afghanistan, reiterates United States Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, repeating accusations made by the United States armed forces.
During his first visit to Afghanistan since U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a new South Asia strategy last month, Secretary Mattis discussed the ongoing 16-year-old war in Afghanistan with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, and American Gen. John Nicholson, the top commander of U.S. and international troops in the conflict-ridden nation.
The Pentagon chief blasted Russia and Iran’s continued support to Taliban jihadists, echoing concerns previously expressed by U.S. officials, including Gen. Nicholson, who has also noted that Pakistan is assisting the terrorist group as well.
“Those two countries have suffered losses to terrorism, so I think it would be extremely unwise if they think they can somehow support terrorism in another country and not have it come back to haunt them,” declared Mattis, referring to Iran and Russia, reports the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Support from Russia and Iran is strengthening the Taliban and lending legitimacy to the jihadist organization, notes the newspaper, citing unnamed U.S. military officials.
“That’s a lot more dangerous right now than what they’re providing in terms of material,” a military official told the WSJ.
Russia and Iran have conceded sharing information with the Taliban to fight their mutual enemy, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), but both countries deny providing military assistance to the group.
Afghanistan’s neighbor Iran, which the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) recently said “remains the foremost state sponsor of terrorism,” has also dismissed accusations that it is providing sanctuary to the Taliban.
In December 2016, Gen. Nicholson told Pentagon reporters that the United States is concerned about the “malign influence of external actors” in Afghanistan, such as “Pakistan, Russia, and Iran,” noting that the countries are assisting the Taliban.
The general explained:
Russia has overtly lent legitimacy to the Taliban. And their narrative goes something like this: that the Taliban are the ones fighting Islamic State, not the [U.S.-backed] Afghan government… this public legitimacy that Russia lends to the Taliban is not based on fact, but it is used as a way to essentially undermine the Afghan government and the NATO effort and bolster the belligerents.
Soon after the top U.S. general made those remarks, Reuters learned from unnamed Taliban fighters that the jihadist group had maintained “significant contacts” with Russia since at least 2007, long before ISIS came into the scene.
An anonymous senior Taliban fighter told Reuters that the “sole purpose” of their cooperation with Russia is to push the U.S. military and their allies out of Afghanistan.
The Taliban alleges that Russia’s support is only “political.”
As part of President Trump’s new South Asia strategy, the United States has authorized the deployment of 3,000 additional American troops, bringing the total in Afghanistan to 14,000.
The Trump plan to end the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan is “determined” to force the Taliban to the peace negotiation table, said Gen. Nicholson.
Moreover, Trump’s plan is expected to pressure Pakistan to no longer harbor terrorist groups fighting and killing Americans in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and their ally the Haqqani Network, among others.
Unlike the failed policy of the previous administration, conditions on the ground will drive Trump’s strategy rather than arbitrary timelines.
In other words, the Trump administration has not set any timetables to draw down its forces, choosing to wait until it accomplishes its goals instead.
Gen. Nicholson has welcomed the changes, recently telling reporters the Taliban leadership has “atomized” as a result, reveals the WSJ.
“For years, they thought we were leaving,” he added, noting that new U.S. and NATO commitments have eliminated that notion.
Although the Taliban remains the most prominent terrorist group in Afghanistan, ISIS has strengthened its reach and influence in the country in recent months.
The Taliban contests or controls 45 percent of Afghanistan, reported the Long War Journal this week, echoing assessment by the U.S. military and the terrorist group itself.
Terrorists launched a rocket attack on the Kabul international airport soon after Mattis landed in Afghanistan on Wednesday, allegedly targeting the Pentagon chief.
The incident is a testament to the deteriorating security conditions Trump inherited from his predecessor.
Both the Taliban and its alleged rival ISIS have reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.
WarSclerotic 
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