Latest news from the U.K. on how well Muslims are "assimilating" there

How's the U.K. doing in trying to coexist with its huge crowd of Muslim immigrants?

• Hospitals across Britain are dealing with at least 15 new cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) every day. Although FGM has been illegal in Britain since 1984, and a host of proven cases of the act, there has not been a single conviction.
• At least 1,400 children were sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013 in the town of Rotherham, mostly by Muslim gangs.  But as you could have guessed, police and city officials avoided admitting or prosecuting the offenders because they feared being branded "racist" or "Islamophobic."
• Reverend Giles Goddard, vicar of St John's in Waterloo, central London, allowed a full Muslim prayer service to be held in his church. He also asked his congregation to praise "the God that we love, Allah."
• Over the last 4 years reports of child sexual abuse are up 60 percent.
• A Muslim worker at a nuclear power plant in West Kilbride, Scotland, was "removed from the premises" after he was caught studying bomb-making materials at work.  No word on whether the worker was allowed to keep his job after being caught.
• "We try to avoid describing anyone as a terrorist or an act as being terrorist." – Tarik Kafala, the head of BBC's Arabic section.

Leftist rag cites "anti-Muslim violence" in Houston mosque arson, doesn't apologize when perp found to be Muslim

One of the constant tactics of the Left is lying about...well, everything.  So it came as no surprise when, after someone set a fire at the door of a Houston mosque, the charming left-wing assholes at Salon ran this story (reported as by Ben Norton):

Amid escalating anti-Muslim violence, suspect arrested for allegedly setting Houston mosque on fire on Christmas

While Christians around the U.S. were celebrating Christmas, Muslims in Texas were terrorized. After Friday prayers, the Islamic Center of Houston was set on fire in a suspected arson attack.

OMG, yet another hate crime against what your betters constantly call "the religion of peace."  See?  We been tellin' ya that crazy right-wing Islamophobes have been terrorizing our poor Muslim brothers!

Then a funny thing happened:  Security-cam tapes showed that the guy who lit the fire had been a member of the mosque for a couple of years.

In a demonstration of "journalistic" integrity Salon admitted they'd jumped to an incorrect--and hateful--conclusion, and retracted the headline ("amid escalating anti-Muslim violence") and the claim that "Muslims in Texas were terrorized."

Hahahahahahahahaha!  Yeah, you totally believed that, right?

What Salon did was temporarily "disappear" the story, without a word of explanation.  Then a few hours later it reappeared, this time with the note that

The fire was allegedly set by a man who attended the mosque — but other mosques have been attacked in recent weeks

 So instead of apologizing for the gross and hate-fanning error, Salon changed the underlying story to "well, there have been attacks on other mosques."

But the topper was that when the Daily Caller tweeted fabricator Ben Norton to ask why the story had initially vanished, Norton e-mailed this reply:

The piece was not ‘taken down.’ It was temporarily reverted to a draft, in order to be edited.

One marvels at the deftness of the lie:  The piece was NOT 'taken down.'  Oh no, citizen, not at all.  Rather, it was merely "temporarily reverted to a draft." 

Apparently the story took itself down.  On-line stories can be edited without making them disappear first.

But hey, "at this point what possible difference could it make?"

Time Mag claims temp at "the North Pole" hit +42 degrees, won't correct error

Time Magazine has been one of the major mainstream outlets pushing the notion that humans are causing "catastrophic global warming."  And yesterday Time posted the following story on-line:

North Pole Set to Unfreeze as Temperature Soars

• Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin  10:46 AM ET 

Storms in Iceland and Greenland pushing warm air northwards

Stormy weather in the North Atlantic is set to bring balmy weather to the world’s northernmost point.

Temperatures at the North Pole could hit 40 degrees, according to Discovery News, which would be about 50 degrees higher than average for this time of year. Storms over Iceland and Greenland, fairly common in winter, are pushing warmer air to the Arctic region.

Fluctuations in temperature are actually not uncommon in the Arctic region, Mashable reports, but a 50 to 60 degree shift would be very notable. There have reportedly only been three other times since 1948 that temperatures in the North Pole have hit or risen above freezing in December.

These high temperatures could impact sea ice formations that are already at historic lows in other seasons.

Did you see where Time said the temperature at the North Pole could hit 40 degrees, which is a whopping 50 degrees higher than average for this time of year!

Wow!  How much more proof does anyone need of "catastrophic global warming"?  If the North Pole is at 40 degrees on the next to last day of December, it's surely proof that...

Wait...what?  Y'say the first version of Time's story had a sliiightly different text?  And that blogger Patterico discovered it and saved it?  Well...how was the first version different?  Here it is:

The temperature in the North Pole hit 42 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday morning, which Discovery News says is 50 degrees higher than average for this time of year.

Okay, so Time changed the story from "The temperature at the North Pole hit 42 degrees..." to "...could hit 40 degrees..."  So this blogger is gonna nit-pick over two lousy degrees?  I'm not very... wait...what?

See the link that starts "42 degrees"?  It was in Time's original story.  And guess where it takes you?

To the current weather for a town called North Pole, Alaska.

Which indeed made it to 43 degrees Wednesday.

Of course to a Time reporter, North Pole Alaska must be really close to the real north pole, right?  And sure enough, one click shows it's at 64.7 degrees north.  Of course no one at Time bothered to do that, or knew what it meant.

It means the town is roughly 1500 miles from the geographic north pole.  And this isn't an unusual temperature there.

But wait, isn't Time part of the Mainstream Media?  And aren't the members of that "elite" group constantly telling us ordinary folks that we need to trust the... because they have "all these layers of fact-checkers and editors" n' shit.  So how in the world did such a gross error make it through all those...oh, yeah, I see:

It supported the Narrative.  So no fact-checking was necessary.  Or done.

Okay, so maybe the story had a few trivial errors in it.  But you nutty climate deniers shouldn't make a big deal out of it, cuz all the folks at Time all wonderful Democrat elites with the right thoughts.

And of course Time admitted the error and highlighted the correction and took down the original scare headline, right?

What?  You say the only admission they made was to say "Correction appended," and to add this:

This article originally misidentified a temperature reading as belonging to the North Pole.

And you say the text of the allegedly-corrected article still reads "Temperatures at the North Pole could hit 40 degrees"?

Wow, that's no admission of any error at all, let alone a correction.  It's like they're standing by the original, false scare story.

Wait, wasn't the original claim a flat-out lie?  Or do Time's editors still not understand the difference between the geographic north pole and the Alaskan town?


H/T Patterico

BBC host fired after interviewing "climate skeptics" without being scathing enough

In the brave new world of left-wing Nazis you can be fired for...well, practically anything, but in particular for questioning whether global warming is actually happening.

Of course you don't believe that.  You think this is hyperbole, tinfoil-hat conspiracy stuff.  And I don't blame you:  It's hard to imagine that the "OMG you nasty westerner peasants are destroying our precious Mother Earth!" warriors can actually fire people who question their religion.  But you'd be wrong.

BBC radio host Quentin Letts was fired after he questioned the premise of global warming and the religious Leftist agenda behind it. Writing in the UK's Daily Mail Letts describes how he was fired  after he dared to challenge the theory of global warming. On his program Letts interviewed global warming skeptics, and made the fatal mistake of failing to call them dirty climate deniers.

The program so upset the Leftists at the BBC that they removed it from their archives.  Otherwise people with internet connections might have been able to listen to well-spoken scientists questioning the Left's dogma that capitalist countries have to stop using electricity and petrol, and stop flying in order to keep from pushing our climate into fatal warming. 
Of course China, India and all the small nations can keep using as much coal and oil and CFC's as they wish, because...well...WOW, look at the time!  I have to catch a plane!

Now it all makes sense

Now it makes perfect sense:

H/T Weasel Zippers

NY Times praises NYC ID card that anyone can get, then claims it's got "rigorous" anti-fraud measures

Almost every day brings yet another proof that the editors of the NY Times are anti-American idiots.

The latest is an editorial titled "New York's ID card deserves respect."  Highlights:

More than 700,000 residents have received [one of the city's ID cards] since the program began last January.

 And I'm sure not one was an illegal alien.   Certainly the Times doesn't raise a single concern about this.  Because...?

With the card as government-issued photo identification they can open bank accounts, enter schools and other government buildings....[get] free memberships to museums, concert halls and other cultural institutions, and entertainment and pharmacy discounts...

[These benefits] have made it appealing to a wide swath of New Yorkers, rich, poor and in between.

Yes, dahlink, I'm sure all the folks in the middle class rushed right out to get one of these gems, probably for the drug discounts.  "Rich, poor and in between."  Yes, certainly.

But there is one troubling hitch.  Several of the city’s biggest banks...refuse to accept the card as a primary form of identification. They either demand another form of government ID, like a driver’s license, from someone seeking to open an account or cash a check — or they refuse to accept the NYC card at all.

Their unwillingness, presumably prompted by concerns about fraud, is outrageous. Federal regulators have already declared that the NYC card may be used to verify a customer’s identity, and many smaller banks and credit unions accept the card without hesitation, as does the New York City Police Department.

Wow, the NYPD accepts the card shoved down its throat by the socialist mayor?  What a surprise!

The card’s documentation requirements and fraud-prevention features are rigorous.

Horseshit--as you could have guessed.  Clicking on this link takes you to the NYC.gov page that specifies the allegedly-rigorous requirements to prevent fraud.  The first few may look rigorous, but as always the ridiculous loopholes are at or near the bottom of the list.  Short answer:  Anyone with a pulse who wants one can get one.

What good reasons could there be for the city’s major banks to resist IDNYC?  Could it be that those who need to use it as a primary ID card, including undocumented immigrants, might have lower incomes, hence lower bank balances, and thus present less of an opportunity to be squeezed for fees and charges?

Classic leftist "journalism":  "Could it be that..." JFK was killed by evil Republicans provided with a cloaking device by aliens from the planet Zargon???"   If you want to plant a seed and not get sued, there's no better way than "Could it be that...," followed by a charge without a shred of evidence.  It gets the Left fired up every time.

Is it really overriding worry about identity theft and money-laundering, or is it more the force of habit in an industry that has long shunned poor neighborhoods and customers?

Maybe. But those are bad reasons, not good ones.  Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer should press the reluctant banks [to justify] why they would make it harder for thousands of potential customers to gain an economic foothold. As Mr. Stringer has noted, an estimated 825,000 adults in New York City lack even a basic checking account. That this capital city of banks and bankers should have so many residents without access to simple, affordable banking services — even those who have valid, government-issued ID cards like IDNYC — is deplorable.  Typical, given the long history of banking discrimination against minorities and the poor — but still deplorable.

IDNYC is one of the de Blasio administration’s strongest achievements, a clear example of follow-through on a promise to make practical improvements in people’s daily lives. Anything that needlessly limits its usefulness — and access to banking is a crucial part of the card’s great potential — should be resisted.  IDNYC is so much more than just a discount card for museums and movies. It could be an economic lifeline for countless New Yorkers — if only more banks would do their part.

A version of this editorial appeared in print on December 29, 2015, on page A18 of the New York edition.

Ah yes, a handful of banks insisting that illegal aliens wanting to open bank accounts show more than just NYC's ridiculously-easy-to-get ID card is proof of discrimination.  Of course the banks' reluctance *could* be due to being fined hundreds of millions by federal regulators for allowing illegals to open accounts to launder drug money a decade ago.  But let's not mention that, Times propagandists, because your version is Sooo much more useful!

All ISIS really needs to stop beheading people is...good jobs!

The person below was spokesperson for your emperor's state department, one Marie Harf.

Ms. Harf achieved a certain amount of fame for claiming the insane, inhuman thugs of ISIS would stop beheading people if only they had...good jobs.

Of course half a dozen sane members of the emperor's entourage--a couple of combat-hardened generals, the national security advisor, head of the CIA and others immediately called this out for the utter, fatuous bullshit it was, prompting a quick apology from...

Hahahahahaha! Surely you didn't believe that! Because not one of the emperor's team said jack-shit about this absurdity.  Cuz, you know, every member of the emperor's entourage is keenly aware of what happens to cadre members who say anything that would put the emperor's policies in a bad light.

But don't worry, citizen:  The emperor is an expert on foreign policy.  So whatever happens, it was all foreseen by him and part of his brilliant plan.

Wow, I feel so much better now!

The emperor before the 2008 election, vowing to close coal-fired powerplants

The clip below shows your emperor before the 2008 election, vowing to close coal-fired powerplants and admitting this would cause your electricity bill to rise significantly.



Did you see that before the election? Cuz, ya know, a plan like that would have been of huge interest to virtually all Americans, all voters. Important to know.

But of course you never saw it until now, did ya?

You might ask yourself why such a critical announced goal drew no network news coverage at all.

Oh, and nationwide, utility bills are an average of % higher than at the end of 2008. But of course for middle-class folks that's only maybe ten or 20 bucks a month, so no big deal. In fact, probably entirely due to inflation, eh? Like gasoline, which is a *lot* more expensive than...

Wait, what? You say gasoline is less expensive than it's been in 15 years? Whoa, how could that be if inflation has been forcing electric rates up?

Good damn question.

House Democrats introduce resolution condeming violence against...Muslims??

Barely two weeks after a pair of muzz terrorists murdered 14 unarmed civilians in San Bernardino, 82 members of the cesspool called "congress"--every one a member of the Democrat party--have introduced a clever resolution.  While its nominal purpose is to condemn violence against Muslims in the U.S, the real purpose is two-fold: To pander for votes, and eventually to make it illegal for Americans to criticize Islam or the implementation of sharia law in the U.S.

Naturally you don't believe that, and I don't blame you.  Most of you literally cannot believe that "your" representatives would introduce a resolution that would further the goals of turning the U.S. into an Islamic state. It's crazy talk! Tinfoil-hat territory!

That's because you don't know how liberals use the legislative process (and the executive, of course, but that's documented elsewhere) to advance their agenda incrementally, and by burying language deep in a bill or resolution that can be used later "because the 114th congress agreed that..." whatever they want.

So since you can't see it, here's the resolution. And I'll show you the language that they'll use later to make it illegal for Americans to criticize any aspect of Islam--as is already the case in Canada.

House Resolution 569, December 17, 2015

    Condemning violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States.
    Whereas the victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes and rhetoric have faced physical, verbal, and emotional abuse because they were Muslim or believed to be Muslim;
    Whereas the constitutional right to freedom of religious practice is a cherished United States value and violence or hate speech towards any United States community based on faith is in contravention of the Nation’s founding principles;
    Whereas there are millions of Muslims in the United States, a community made up of many diverse beliefs and cultures, and both immigrants and native-born citizens;
    Whereas this Muslim community is recognized as having made innumerable contributions to the cultural and economic fabric and well-being of United States society;
    Whereas hateful and intolerant acts against Muslims are contrary to the United States values of acceptance, welcoming, and fellowship with those of all faiths, beliefs, and cultures;
    Whereas these acts affect not only the individual victims but also their families, communities, and the entire group whose faith or beliefs were the motivation for the act;
    Whereas Muslim women who wear hijabs, headscarves, or other religious articles of clothing have been disproportionately targeted because of their religious clothing, articles, or observances; and
    Whereas the rise of hateful and anti-Muslim speech, violence, and cultural ignorance plays into the false narrative spread by terrorist groups of Western hatred of Islam, and can encourage certain individuals to react in extreme and violent ways: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives—

    (1) expresses its condolences for the victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes;

    (2) steadfastly confirms its dedication to the rights and dignity of all its citizens of all faiths, beliefs, and cultures;

    (3) denounces in the strongest terms the increase of hate speech, intimidation, violence, vandalism, arson, and other hate crimes targeted against mosques, Muslims, or those perceived to be Muslim;

    (4) recognizes that the United States Muslim community has made countless positive contributions to United States society;

    (5) declares that the civil rights and civil liberties of all United States citizens, including Muslims in the United States, should be protected and preserved;

    (6) urges local and Federal law enforcement authorities to work to prevent hate crimes; and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those perpetrators of hate crimes; and
    (7) reaffirms the inalienable right of every citizen to live without fear and intimidation, and to practice their freedom of faith.

Hey, who could possibly object to any of those ideas, right?  All of them seem to be very affirming of American founding priniciples, right?  I mean, declaring that civil rights and "civil liberties" of ALL U.S. citizens should be protected is pretty unexceptional stuff.

But in (6), resolving that "hate crimes" should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  Where does the resolution define a "hate crime," and how is that defined?

It's not there, of course.  Nor does this resolution reference any other legislation or court decision defining a so-called "hate crime."  That's because the term "hate crime" is infinitely malleable, and can be used to fine or imprison anyone who dissents from whatever liberals and Democrats want to do.

And as if on cue, the Muslim Student Association at San Diego State University has demanded that the university ban “Islamophobic speech.” 


To see how laws regarding "hate crime" or "hate speech" can be used for...anything the government wants, consider the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)).  This law made it a federal crime to injure, intimidate or interfere with another person, by force, because of the other person's race, color, religion or national origin, if the victim was attempting to engage in one of six types of federally protected activities such as attending school, "patronizing a public place/facility," applying for employment, voting, or acting as a juror in a state court.

On October 28, 2009 the emperor signed a law hugely expanding federal hate crime law, adding crimes motivated by a victim's "actual or perceived gender," sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, and dropped the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity.

While no rational person wants to see people attacked for their race or sexual orientation, clearly any such attacks were already unlawful under all existing state laws.  Thus one might wonder what the rationale for an expansion of federal "hate crime" power was.  In weighing this question it's worth noting that the Democrats had to attach this law to the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2010 to pass it.  (Of course the practice of attaching a controversial or unconstitutional provision to a must-pass bill is a well-known legislative tactic.)

In nations as modern and civil as Canada such language has been used to levy huge fines against anyone criticizing Islam in even the mildest way.  For example, a Canadian "rights" commission charged commentator Mark Steyn with a hate crime for writing a book with parts critical of Islam.

After the popular Canadian magazine Maclean’s reprinted a chapter from the book, five Muslim law-school students, helped by the Canadian Islamic Congress, demanded that the magazine be punished for spreading “hatred and contempt” for Muslims.

The Muslim plaintiffs claimed Steyn and Maclean’s had claimed that Islamic culture is incompatible with Canadian and western civilization.  They insisted that magazines and authors be barred from publishing such opinions.

Two separate panels, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, agreed to hear the case. 

Canadian "human rights" tribunals had a 100% conviction rate when they'd brought "hate speech" charges.  They had banned a Christian preacher for life from ever citing Bible verses regarding homosexuality in his sermons, or "in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet."


Canada's liberal mainstream media--all politically-correct and not wanting to cross the human-rights warriors--shrugged.

Unable to refute Steyn's statistics and facts, or to deny that the portions of the article they found most offensive were in fact chilling quotations made by radical Muslims themselves, Steyn's accusers condemned his "tone," use of "sarcasm," and reliance upon "subtle intellectual arguments."

Of course that's Canada.  Couldn't happen here, right?

Socialist/leftist: "White men must be stopped."

Headline on an article in the left/socialist rag Salon:

And here's the first sentence, by one "Frank Joyce" writing for something called Alternet:

The future of life on the planet depends on bringing the 500-year rampage of the white man to a halt.

Hey Frank, you've got a great idea there!  White males have just oppressed the hell out of everyone for, oh, centuries!  You have every right to be furious!

In fact, why don't you take your justifiable outrage to the next level:  Why not organize a boycott of every one of whitey's oppressive, eeebil devices--cunningly and deceptively called (by white males, naturally)-- "inventions"?   Of course every feeling person knows all those things are really just sly traps to enslave minorities and good socialists and trap them under the yoke of other white males.

So...to the barricades, comrades!  Use your bully pulpit to teach whitey not to oppress minorities and women and socialists!  Boycott the airlines!  After all, airplanes were invented by white males!  Urge all good socialists to stop driving!  Because after all, automobiles were invented by you-know-who.

Don't get an X-ray, or a Cat-scan, or an MRI, because all those things were invented by....

Throw away your cell phone, and get your good socialist friends to do the same!  Because....

Throw out your television--of course as a good socialist you surely did that years ago, but urge your oppressed friends to do the same.  Because....

Throw out your lightbulbs--including fluorescents and LED's.  Hey, if candles were good enough for Africa they should be good for everyone, right?

And of course, give away any computers you have.  Because--well, you know....

Don't buy any food that's been transported in one o' them nasty Diesel trucks, cuz you can't get much more white-European-male than Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel.  In fact, don't buy any food that's cultivated or harvested with a tractor, because the farm tractor was the cunning invention of...you know.

This is gonna' be SO awesome!  You and your good socialist friends are really gonna stick it to those white males, eh?  You'll show those nasty oppressors, right?

And with jetliners and the highways so empty, whitey will realize how oppressive he's been, and how important y'all are by comparison.  It's gonna be so lonely on commercial planes and on the roads!

Power to the [right] people, comrade!

Has the CIA been compromised for decades?

The CIA has probably been compromised from day one.  Which would explain why the agency has so often seemed to sabotage Republican policies.  Following is adapted from the Washington Free Beacon:

A former operations officer and chief historian of the CIA says that agency has been totally duped by "scores" of double agents--agents who pretended to work for the agency but actually remained loyal communists. 

These agents fed false information to the CIA to mask the Soviets' true intentions.

The deception was huge, including nearly 100 fake CIA recruits in East Germany, Cuba, as well as the Soviet Union.  The network supplied false intelligence that was passed on to senior U.S. policymakers for decades.

The deception “wreaked havoc” on the agency, according to an article by Ben Fischer in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence.

Fischer said the CIA dismissed its failure to detect the double-agent deception as insignificant.

Fischer was a career CIA officer who joined the agency in 1973 and worked in the Soviet affairs division during the Cold War. He later sued the agency in 1996, charging he was mistreated for criticizing the agency for mishandling the 1994 case of CIA officer Aldrich Ames, a counterintelligence official, who was unmasked as a long time KGB plant.

One of the CIA’s major double-agent failures was revealed by Cuban intelligence officer Florentino Aspillaga, who defected to the CIA in 1987.  Aspillaga revealed that some four-dozen CIA recruits over a 40-year period secretly had been working for the communist government in Havana and supplying disinformation to the CIA.

Later that year, Cuban state television confirmed the compromise in a documentary revealing the existence of 27 phony CIA agents, along with their secret CIA communications and photographic gear.

This ghastly failure was covered up by the congressional intelligence oversight committees, according to Fischer.

In East Germany, every one of the recruited CIA agents working there was ultimately found to be a double-agent.

According to two East German Stasi officers, Klaus Eichner and Andreas Dobbert in their 2009 book, “There was not a single CIA operation...that we were not able to detect using [double agents] and counterespionage operations.”

The late East German spymaster Markus Wolf wrote that by the late 1980s every purported CIA asset in East Germany was either a double agent or working for the communists from the start.

“On our orders they were all delivering carefully selected information and disinformation to the Americans,” Wolf said.

Fischer says former U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the failure.  Former deputy CIA director Bobby Ray Inman said the double- agent fiasco spanned over 20 years.  [This is a huge underestimate.  The Soviets had agents in the CIA from the outset.]

Former CIA Director Robert Gates confirmed that the agency was “duped by double agents in Cuba and East Germany.

Fischer says the East German failure was “wall-to-wall,” from the lack of advance warning in 1961 of plans to build the Berlin Wall, to 1989, when the first indication the CIA had that the wall was coming down came from cable television.

Other failures were simple defectors:  In 1994 the American public learned that CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Ames had been secretly spying for Moscow since the 1980s.

Let that sink in for a minute:  One of the top CIA officers assigned to smoke out moles in the CIA spent roughly seven years secretly working for the Soviet Union.

From that trusted position Ames was able to expose all Soviet and East European intelligence operations, allowing Moscow to pass “feed material”—a combination of accurate information and false data—through controlled double-agents.

The KGB operation involving Ames began in 1986 and continued through 1993, when he was handled by the post-Soviet SVR intelligence service.

During that period, the KGB sent a false defector to the CIA, Aleksandr Zhomov, who fooled the agency into believing he could supply information on how the KGB had unmasked and arrested almost all CIA recruited agents during the mid-1980s.

Zhomov, who was paid an estimated $1 million by the CIA, made the fake offer in 1987 and according to Fischer, was dispatched by Moscow in a bid to protect Ames from being discovered as the source of the earlier leak.

In 1995, the CIA admitted that for eight years since 1986, it produced highly classified intelligence reports derived from “bogus” and “tainted” sources, including 35 reports that were based on data from assets later shown to be double agents.  Another 60 reports came from sources suspected of being controlled by Moscow.

The CIA’s inspector general urged reprimands for several senior CIA officers and directors William H. Webster, Robert M. Gates, and R. James Woolsey.

Predictably the three claimed they shouldn't be blamed for the compromises because they were unaware of them.

Fischer said the CIA defended its alleged "recruiting" of people later shown to be double-agents by asserting that even though they were controlled by the Soviets, the doubles "provided some good intelligence."  The total absurdity of this claim shouldn't need any explanation.

The CIA continued to handle agents the CIA knew were fraudulent and allowed the division in charge of Soviet affairs to “cover up the loss of all its bona fide agents,” Fischer concluded.

Astonishingly--or more accurately, "significantly," none of the discoveries of double-agents and the CIA's total failure to detect them for years resulted in a serious inquiry into the reasons for that failure.  This suggests that the communists still have assets feeding disinformation to the CIA.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment.

Anatoli Golitsyn was a KGB major.  On 15 Dec 1961 he defected to the U.S.  He had a major message for the Americans: "Your CIA has been the subject of continuous penetration."  He also told the Americans that this message was so potentially damaging to the Soviets that they would order other agents to pretend to defect, with the sole objective of trying to discredit Golitsyn--and thus to get the agency to ignore his warning.

Sure enough, in November of 1962 KGB head Vladimir Semichastny approved a plan to assassinate Golitsyn.

Golitsyn provided information about many famous Soviet agents including Kim Philby, Donald Duart Maclean, Guy Burgess, John Vassall, double agent Aleksander Kopatzky who worked in Germany, and others. While unable to identify some agents like Philby specifically by name, Golitsyn provided sufficient information that SIS was able to determine the culprits. Thus, Golitsyn's defection in 1961 set in motion the process that confirmed Philby as a Soviet mole.

In June of 1962 Yuri Nosenko, a KGB agent serving in Geneva, contacted the CIA there.  He claimed a prostitute had robbed him of $900 in Swiss francs, said he was deputy chief of the Seventh Department of the KGB, and offered to work for the CIA for a small amount of money.  He provided some information that would only be known by someone connected to the KGB.

The CIA gave him the money he requested and promised more.

Then in January of 1964--just 18 months after volunteering to work for the CIA--Nosenko suddenly claimed the Geneva KGB residence had received a cable recalling him to Moscow.  He said he feared the Soviets had discovered he was working for the CIA, and he wanted to defect immediately.

Years later the NSA was able to determine that no such cable had been sent.  When confronted about this, Nosenko admitted making up the story about being recalled, saying he did it to persuade the CIA to let him defect.  This should have been a warning flag to the CIA, but was glossed over.

It would be interesting to learn who in the CIA made the decision to allow Nosenko to defect.

Nosenko made three bombshell claims:  First was that Golitsyn--who had seemingly defected a year earlier--was not actually a defector but a KGB plant.  Second, he claimed to have information on the JFK assassination, and in fact claimed to have been put in charge of the KGB's investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald while Oswald lived in the Soviet Union.
Gosh, what were the odds of that?  If one wanted to bait the CIA it's hard to imagine anything better than offering them the agent who was supposedly in charge of the KGB's investigation of Oswald.

Finally, Nosenko is said to have claimed that James Angleton might have been directly involved in the conspiracy to murder Kennedy. It was known, according to Lane, that under Angleton's counter-intelligence staff was a team of assassins under the command of a US Army colonel named Boris Pash.

Regarding the first claim, Golitsyn--who had defected three years before Nosenko--had said from the outset that the KGB would send false defectors to try to discredit him.

Regarding the second claim, Nosenko told his debriefers that he had personally handled Oswald's case, and claimed the KGB had not even attempted to debrief Oswald about his work on the then-very-high-tech U-2 spy plane while Oswald was in the Marine Corps.

Although other KGB sources corroborated Nosenko's story [as you'd expect, if the KGB wanted to establish Nosenko as a bonafide defector], he repeatedly failed lie detector tests.  Almost no one in the CIA believed Nosenko's claim that the KGB hadn't interrogated Oswald about his knowledge of the then-high-tech U-2.  Nosenko also falsely claimed to be a lieutenant colonel, when in fact he held a rank two levels lower.  As a result of this and other discrepancies, the head of the CIA's Soviet Division ordered Nosenko held in solitary confinement for three-and-a-half years.

One indicator supporting Golitsyn is that in 1967 there was a failed assination plot against him by the KGB in Canada.  It is believed that Viktor Vladimirov, then head of KGB assassination and sabotage section, was behind the operation.

A second indicator that Golitsyn was telling the truth was information supplied by another alleged defector controlled by the FBI, Yerbas Lichi, codenamed Fedora, a KGB-agent under cover as a diplomat to the United Nations.  Fedora supported Nosenko's claim to be a KGB Lt.Colonel.

At that point the question of which purported KGB defector was genuine became an argument between the FBI and the CIA. Wiki [I know] claims that to the CIA, Nosenko was a plant since he lied about his rank and about the KGB recalling him to Moscow.  By contrast the FBI believed Nosenko was genuine and that Golitsyn was the fake.  The FBI believed this because Fedora was their most valuable asset, so if Nosenko was deemed to be a plant it would mean the FBI's most valuable asset--Fedora, who had "confirmed" Nosenko's false story about his rank--was also plant, and thus that all the information Fedora had given the FBI was useless.

Yet another reason to think Nosenko was a plant was that although he finally admitted that he was only a KGB captain instead of a Lt. Colonel, and that he'd exaggerated his rank to make himself attractive to the CIA, the official KGB documents Nosenko had provided to the CIA--which were carefully examined and deemed to be authentic--said Nosenko was indeed a Lieutenant Colonel.

If Nosenko was really just a captain, how would he have obtained official documents saying he was a Lt.Colonel?

The question of which alleged defector was genuine isn't just a bit of cold-war arcana, but is a huge deal...because one of Golitsyn's main claims was that the KGB had a mole deep in the CIA and Nosenko adamantly claimed this was false.

Let that sink in for a minute:  First guy claims the Sovs will send later alleged "defectors" to try to discredit him, and oh by the way the communists have a mole in your agency.  Second guy says the first guy is a plant, and oh by the way there is NO communist mole in your agency.  Which of these is more likely to be true?

Nosenko's case officer was Tennent H. "Pete" Bagley.  Bagley, later chief of counter-intelligence for the CIA's Soviet Russia division, wrote a book that was substantially about the Nosenko case. In response to Bagley's book, and in 2013 Bagley wrote another book, revealing new details he acquired by comparing notes with Soviet KGB Chief Sergey Kondrashev.  Bagley says he had always suspected that Nosenko might be a plant and was glad to have this confirmed by Kondrashev. Both he and Kondrashev expressed surprise that the CIA had accepted Nosenko as genuine for as long as they had, despite more than 30 warning signs.

So at the end of it all, the question remains:  Was Golitsyn--who by all indications was telling the truth about everything else--also being truthful about the Soviets having a high-ranking mole in the CIA?

This isn't trivial, because high-placed moles can arrange for other spies to be promoted to key positions in key agencies.  This would explain a lot about CIA actions, reports and so on.

This past Oct and Nov 10,500 illegal alien *children* sneaked into the U.S.

In October and November 5,129 unaccompanied "children" illegally crossed into the U.S. from Mexico.  So it looks like Captain Faabulous has finally found a program that...

Wait...my bad:  That figure was for 2014.  In the same two months this year that figure doubled, to 10,588, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Wow, that's...interesting.  So just over 5,000 "children" per month?  And of course under the emperor's "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans" executive order, kids in the U.S.--even illegally--can bring their parents into the country.

Cuz we can't go breaking up families, right?  That would be just terrible.

Wait...parents send their kids north to sneak into the U.S. illegally and the Left/socialists/Democrats wail that we're the ones breaking up families?  That's...nuts.  Why not just send 'em back to their parents, in their home countries?

I know, I know...far too logical for leftists to allow.

What's the over/under on how long before they'll all be allowed to vote in U.S. elections?

Think that's a joke?  Cities in California have already pushed to let non-citizens vote in local and state elections.

Already too late, citizen.

Remember conservative warnings that Obamacare contained some economy-killing provisions?

Conservatives warned y'all that Obamacare was absolutely filled with land-mines:  Crippling fines on businesses that failed to totally comply with every detail, even the ones that required their owners to violate their religious beliefs; penalties on individuals who didn't buy a product, no matter how much they might not want that particular product at that price; and perverse disincentives that would make it ruinous for a small-business owner to expand his or her business to 50 or more employees.

Liberals/Democrats/socialists laughed uproariously.  "You wingnuts are so paranoid!  You're only saying these things to scare Americans!  Nothing like that would ever happen!"

But like most crap ideas rammed through by Democrats, using totally illegal means (like Harry Reid taking a totally unrelated bill, passed by the House, removing every word from it, and substituting the text of Obamacare), Obamacare has had exactly the effects conservatives warned about seven years ago. 

For example, on November 18th the NY Times ran a story about a woman who had done well with a hair salon, and had expanded to four locations and 45 employees.  She believed she could open a fifth location, but then put that plan on hold when she realized this would put her over the 50-employee threshhold that would trigger far higher costs under Obamacare.

Not to worry, citizen:  Liberals and Dems told you this would never happen, so...wow, have you heard about how crazy-dangerous all those drones are that wingnuts are flying?

As everyone surely knows, the NY Times has always supported Democrats, and their faabulous emperor, and every single one of his ill-conceived, unconstitutional programs.  So when a Times editor allows the paper to print a word infinitesimally critical of one of the emperor's programs it's...well, someone's probably gonna lose their job over this.

Michael Ramirez is worth checking out every day.

New "law" in NYC: Human-rights dweebs can fine employers $250,000 for WHAT???

New York City has arrogated unto itself the right to fine employers who don't call trans-gender employees by whatever name the employee wants, regardless of the employee's actual, legal name.

Wait, it gets better:  Employers can also be fined for failing to use "proper pronouns."  While the nazi's don't give examples, one might reasonably guess that would include "xir" or "xim" or any of the nutty made-up words that issue from outfits such as the New York City Commission on Human Rights.

Wait, it gets still better:  Employers can be fined up to...a quarter of a million dollars.

Yes, you read that right.  For calling a trans-gender employee by their legal name.  Or for failing to use whatever bullshit, made-up pronoun a trans-gender employee demands the employer use.

When I first read this story I was certain it was satire--that no city could possibly be that dumb.  So I went to "nyc.gov" and searched...and sure enough, there it was.  Go clear to the end to find the quarter-million fine.

Interesting.

Okay, a modest prediction:  Plaintiff's attorneys will instantly see this as a pot of gold and will jump on this gravy train. A couple of well-advertised awards and the floodgates will open, with thousands of "victims" magically coming out of the woodwork.

The "success" of this "law" will result in increased staffing at the NYCHR commission, and higher salaries.  And every one of the new hires will vote Democrat.

A look at some of the "refugees" milling around Europe--and coming here

Ah, the plight of the poor "refugees," allegedly fleeing their war-ravaged home nations for Europe.

Your emperor tells you virtually all are helpless women and children, and chides you: "Why would you be afraid of women and children?"  It's an argument designed to make you feel sheepish and guilty.

So why is it that in the hours of film of the so-called refugees--most of whom your emperor has assured you are "women and children," you never see any, y'know, women and children?  F'rinstance, take this charming crew:


And why do they bypass safe countries further south in favor of trying to get to Germany or England?  Surely it wouldn't be because those two nations have more generous benefit programs for "refugees."  Perish the thought!


Eh, I'm sure there's a good explanation for all this.  After all, it's not like the emperor has ever lied to us before, right?

Someone else's prognosis

Adapted from a comment at Belmont:

In every society on the globe save two, the people in power are using laws, rules, deadly force, a lying media and mass deception to drive their countries in a direction most of the rest of the population doesn't want to go.
    Pretty much the only places where this isn't happening are the Islamic world and Russia. 
    Our own Nomenklatura--government and self-styled elites--have clearly sided with our enemies rather than their own people.
    We cannot vote our way out of this, because the establishment wing of both parties appears to have the same agenda.  It's why GOP speaker of the House Paul Ryan supported every single item of the Democrats' and Obama's budget.  The nominal Republican speaker didn't oppose a single spending item requested by the emperor.
     I am guessing that our society has anywhere from a few months to 11 months, with a theoretical outer limit of 13 months before reaching a cusp.

I agree with everything up to the time estimate.  But I don't think the U.S. electorate will ever rise up to overthrow the ruling class.  No one wants to get killed, or lose their job or pension.  No more than two or three percent of the population are self-employed and don't have families, and even if all those folks took up arms it almost certainly aren't enough to bring down the Nomenklatura. 

But hey, no big deal, citizen:  Statistics say you aren't religious, not homosexual and can easily live without cigarettes, alcohol and music.  Free speech was never a big deal to ya.  So all it takes is reciting two short sentences and showing up for prayers five times a day, and you and your family will get along just fine under your new Islamic masters.

Oh, and you can expect to see a lot of familiar faces at the top of the Islamic government:  The emperor's national security advisor, the head of the CIA, the head of Homeland Security and dozens more.  Frankly, not a lot of change.

You'll feel right at home.

A sample of posts from 2015

If you're curious as to the kind of analysis you'll see here, here's a sampler of some of my posts over the past year:

•  What South Africa's agony can teach us
•  One woman--in the entire U.S.--has the courage to tell the truth about the government
•  OMG!!  Republican senator missed 12% of senate vote.  Of course this wasn't important when Obozo missed twice as many senate votes...
• Wealthy, influential U.S. political cartoonist weighs in against free speech.  Guess which cases?
• The emperor ignores both the Constitution and court orders; Democrats and MSM yawn.
• University students decide concealed-carry would reduce incidence of rape; wacked-out liberals decide to veto this "because it wouldn't address the root causes of rape"
• Dem congresswhore prints up cards for illegals reading "You can't arrest me, I've got amnesty!"

The emperor's devotion to Islam, in his own words

The mainstream media has been increasingly horrified that so many Republicans think the emperor is a Muslim.  But reading the emperor's own words suggest where his loyalties lie:

“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
   --from “The Audacity of Hope,” B. Hussein Obama, p. 261.


“I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”.
   --from “Dreams of My Father,” B. Hussein Obama

“I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race”.
   --“Dreams of My Father”

“I never emulate...men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, a Muslim and son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela”.
(Did you get that? Malcolm X, racist muslim who despises white people, is his hero.)
   --“Dreams of My Father”

Documented quotes from Barrack HUSSEIN Obama while serving as president (emperor):
*1. “The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim call to prayer”
*2. “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country.”  [Really?  "So much to shape the world?" 
*3. “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.”  [This is utter horse-shit!  There is NO tolerance in Islam.  Even presumably sophisticated Saudi Arabia has laws against Christians building churches or even worshiping openly.]
*4. “Islam has always been part of America”
*5. “As a student of history, I know civilization’s debt to Islam.”
*6. “we will encourage more Americans to study in Muslim communities”
*7. “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”
*8. “These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.”  [Again, total horse-shit.  Islam has zero tolerance for other beliefs--including freedom of speech, democracy, etc.]
*9. “America and Islam...need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”  [The emperor clearly believes that if he just repeats that enough times, liberals will believe it.  Of course they already do.]
*10. “I made it clear that America is not – and will never be – at war with Islam.”
*11. “Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.”  [Utter horse-shit.  How many Islamic governments have condemned attacks by Islamic terrorists?  None.]
*12. “In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.”  [As long as it's not education of *girls*--which huge numbers of Muslims oppose.]
*13. “Throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”  [See comment on #s 3, 8 & 9 above.]
*16. “We’ve seen those results in generations of Muslim immigrants – farmers and factory workers, helping to lay the railroads and build our cities, the Muslim innovators who helped build some of our highest skyscrapers..."  [The only link I'm aware of between Muslims and "some of our highest skyscrapers" is the role Muslims played in destroying two of 'em.  And Democrats are trying hard to get Americans to believe that the WTC wasn't destroyed by hijacked jetliners, but by a government plot orchestrated by G.W. Bush.  And of course no Dem wants anyone to remember the truck-bomb Muslims detonated in the WTC parking garage in 1993, cuz that would suggest destroying it was a goal.]
*17. “I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
*18. “I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story.”
*19. “Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality.”  [Only equality for Muslims; non-believers must submit or convert.]

For those who blasted Trump's proposal: What if Westboro members wanted to...

The NY Times, Obama's press secretary and all liberals have reacted with horror to Trump's comment recommending that the U.S. stop admitting Muslim immigrants.  "That's not who we are," all of the above have exclaimed--with tones of righteous indignation.

Really, darlings?  You support continuing to allow Muzz immigrants because you support freedom of religion and loathe discrimination?  Excuse me for being...skeptical, and for thinking you're all hypocritical rat-bastards.

Think that's too harsh?  Well here's a question for everyone who supports the liberal position on this:  Suppose the infamous Westboro "church" had a billion members, and a few thousand of those had murdered, oh, a few tens of thousands who weren't members of their cult, and kidnapped hundreds more.  And suppose Westboro members in the U.S. insisted on bringing in tens of thousands of other members of their "religion."  Would the Times and your emperor and congressional Democrats all be supporting this idea, or would they suddenly find a reason to oppose it?

C'mon, liberals:  Let's see you try to argue with a straight face that you and your leader and the Times would support the ghastly Westboro cult's proposal.

And Westboro members don't even kill folks who don't believe as they do.

Uh-oh: Solid evidence of globull warming found. Looks like Al Gore was right. Wait...

This just in:

      The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are becoming scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from our consulate at Bergen, Norway.
      Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.
      Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes.
      Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
      Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
      Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
      Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.

Oh wait--seems this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post 93 years ago!

But trust your betters in the elite media and government:  Globull warming is reeeally happening, and it's being caused by YOU, because you insist on driving your own car!  You must hate the planet!

And your great-grandparents must have been driving a huge stealth fleet of SUV's back in 1920 to cause all that warmening back then.  Shame on you, and them, and all you Americans!

Boy it's a good thing big jet airliners don't emit any CO2, cuz if they did some of you dumb commoners might insist that we elites stop flying to all those worldwide conferences on how to cut CO2 emissions so we can save the climate from global warming!

Wait...what?

Trump saying Hillary was "schlonged" in loss of 2008 nomination is top story; but what if a Dem said it?

I notice that the broadcast networks are making a huge deal out of Trump's observation that although Hillary was far more experienced than Obama, and with her husband's help seemingly had the Dem nomination sewn up in 2008, she nevertheless lost the nomination to Obama--or as Trump put it, she was "schlonged."

Let me quickly say I'm not a Trump fan, but I think it's pretty clear that if a Democrat had said this, the media would have totally ignored it.  But since it was Trump, who shows every indication of being popular with the public, the media was determined to make this a big story.

You probably think I'm just being hyperbolic about that claim.  In that case you'd be enlightened to know that someone *did* use this exact expression--about a female candidate, on a national radio network!

You didn't hear a peep about that, of course--because the network was National Public Radio and the speaker was a liberal Democrat.

Huh...can you say "double standard"?

This guy could use the same expression Trump used, and no liberal or Democrat bats an eye.  But when they can use it as a weapon against Trump, fire away!

But wait, it gets better:  The speaker in question--one Neal Conan--has hastily written a piece for the staunchly Democrat-loving LA Times in which he defends *his* use on the grounds that *his* use was comparatively more accurate, since...well let's let Neal speak for himself:

I sent out a tweet suggesting that Trump had misused the word. Clinton, after all, came pretty close to the Democratic nomination in 2008, while the Mondale/Ferraro ticket really had been schlonged in 1984.

Get the difference?  Neal feels his use of "schlonged" is reasonable rather than crude, because Clinton came close to getting the nomination, while Mondale and Ferraro lost 49 states.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

But the topper is his final 'graf--the kind of non-apology "apology" liberals are famous for:

since my previous use of this word has apparently provided Donald Trump a veneer of respectability for yet another in a disturbingly long series of nasty, hateful diatribes, I apologize.

So in Neal's opinion Trump's use of the term was "yet another" in "a long series of nasty, hateful diatribes," but Conan says he's only apologizing for the fact that his earlier use provided Trump with a "veneer of respectability" for using the term.

It would be hard to find a more amazing display of hypocrisy.  But certainly no surprise.

The Left claimed the real reason the U.S. invaded Iraq was to steal their oil. So did that happen?

Remember the Leftist meme that the real reason the U.S. invaded Iraq was to steal their oil?

Surely you must.  That brilliant piece of propaganda was a staple of virtually every leftist publication for years, stopping only when the emperor ascended to the throne.

So...have you seen or heard any stories about the U.S. stealing Iraq's oil?  

Leftist:  Well of course you wouldn't see anything about that in the U.S. media because all the mainstream media outlets are owned by...wait for it... corporations.  And everyone knows what that means, eh?

Me:  Okay, but would you expect foreign media to similarly ignore such a blockbuster story?

Leftist:  Of course, because they're also owned by...corporations.

Me:  I thought a whole slew of countries had state-owned media.  Are they in on the coverup too?

Leftist:  Uh...they're probably being pressured by the CIA to keep quiet.  To get the truth, citizen, you need to read Leftist sources like, oh, Salon.  They've done lots of stories exposing all the theft of Iraqi oil by the U.S...

Me:  Really?  Got a link for any of those stories?  Isn't it true that no publication has published or broadcast a single word about any theft of Iraqi oil?

Leftist:  Wow, look at the time!  I gotta catch a plane.

Does this puzzle you?  I mean, the Left assured us that the real reason the horrible Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq was to steal their oil, remember?  If they haven't reported any actual, you know, thefts, does that mean Leftist media are part of the coverup, or does it mean the U.S. hasn't stolen any Iraqi oil?

Hey, I'll go either way on that one.

Leftist outlet assures you Islam isn't a threat--all in your fevered imagination

Wanna know who's bent on killing your kids?  Take a look at this article in Salon by one Raymond William Baker, who's written a book that the pro-Muslim asshole editors at Salon evidently consider to be revealed Truth.

Here's the first graf of the Salon article (all italics mine):

The United States is at war with a...mythic Islam of its own making that has nothing at all to do with this Islam of the Qur’an.

Now where have you heard that before?  Remember "This has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam"?  Or "This is not true Islam."  Or "Those who did this are perverting a noble and peaceloving religion."  One of the imperatives of your betters in the Democrat/"elite media" group is that you never connect Islam with any of the attacks around the world by Muslims shouting Allahu snackbar.  Cuz, you know, the poor deluded murdering fucks aren't really Muslims.

To make sense of that conjured threat, scholarly studies of Islam or Islamic movements are of no help at all. Even the examination of the real-world history and practice of empire has limited value, unless the perceived Islamic dimension is considered. The American imperial project cannot be brought into clear view without assessment of the distinctive rationale that the Islamist Imaginary provides.

See, there is no threat, citizen.  It's "conjured"--imaginary, all in your poor feverish mind.  You've been tricked by clever propaganda--created by "neoconservatives," of course--to think Islam has some sort of militant core that commands true believers to murder unarmed civilians.  Of course that's total nonsense.

And why do the Republicans try to make you fear "Islamic terror"?  Why, to further the goals of the "American imperial project," of course.

The task is not an easy one. The Islamist Imaginary [see a theme here?] has no simple and unitary existence. Rather, it is a complex amalgam that shapes both the delusions of empire and a conjured threat to imperial power into a co-evolving composite. It is a “difficult whole,” in the helpful language of complexity theory. The Islamist Imaginary, unlike Islam itself and political movements of Islamic inspiration, does not exist outside of the imperial interests that shape it.

Well, 130 Parisians might disagree with that damnable lie.  As might another 14 residents of San Bernardino.  And lest we forget, 164 unarmed civilians killed by Muslim attackers in Mumbai, India, in November of 2008.  Oh, and a further 2.900 or so who died when devout Muslims flew hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center in 2001.  Oh, and 68 unarmed shoppers murdered in Kenya's Westgate mall in 2013 during a coordinated attack by Muslims shouting Allah snackbar.  Oh, and 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014.

Salon wants you to believe none of these attacks had a thing to do with Islam.

[The Islamic Imaginary] has no independent cultural or historical reality, outside its role as predatory threat to Western global interests. The American empire, in turn, requires a hostile and threatening enemy, which today takes the form of Islam of its imagination, to realize and rationalize its expansionist project that must remain unacknowledged and unspoken. The two elements of the imaginary and empire co-evolve. The needs of a threatened empire as vulnerable victim change over time.

One almost thinks this must be satire:  The author claims--with the full approval of Salon's editors--that the idea that Islam is somehow a threat to westerners is entirely a myth constructed by "the American empire," because that empire "requires a hostile and threatening enemy."

The Islamist Imaginary transforms itself to meet those needs. Imaginary and empire circle one another in a dance of predator and prey. Their roles are interchangeable, a clear sign that they are not entirely real. The predator is prey; the prey is predator. They develop in tandem in a complex process of mutual adaptation. Boundaries give way between the real and the imagined. In the end it is the imagined that haunts our imaginations and drives our policies.

The crime against humanity committed on September 11, 2001, had the unintended consequence of serving the breathtaking expansionist plans of the neoconservatives who dominated the Bush administration. Only a plausible enemy was lacking to make their execution possible. From the storehouse of the Western historical imagination, age-old images of a hostile Islam were retrieved. Islamic terrorists conjured up in a believable form for a frightened America the “threat to civilization” that every empire requires to justify its own violent acts of domination.

The Islamist Imaginary in the service of the neoconservative version of empire was born. 

Got it?  Islam isn't a threat, it's all your imagination, fanned by neoconservatives "in the service of" empire.  Not Islam determined to establish a caliphate, but an American empire.  An empire being run by neoconservatives, of course.

Armed robber kills store owner in shootout, then claims he was forced to shoot--self-defense

Last January (2015) four armed men entered a gun shop.  They'd cased the place two days earlier and believed the only employee was a woman.  On entering one smashed the woman in the face, breaking her nose and knocking her unconscious.  Another then leaped over the counter and started grabbing handguns on display.

Moments later the owner--husband of the woman the robbers had knocked unconscious--came out of the back room shooting.  He managed to hit two of the perps while exchanging fire with another.  Four of the armed robber's shots hit the owner, and the latter hit the robber.

The owner died, while the robber who shot him was seriously injured.  At that point his wife regained consciousness and emptied her gun into the perp who had just killed her husband.

The entire exchange was captured on the shop's video system.

Now in a stunning move the killer's attorney has claimed he was forced to shoot the store owner in self-defense when the owner started shooting at him.

Now here's how a local television station (KCTV) reported things: 

One of the men accused of murdering a Shawnee gun shop owner said he had no choice but to shoot.

Four young men face murder charges for the deadly robbery attempt at She’s a Pistol. Becky Bieker lost her husband in the violent Jan. 9 shootout with armed gunmen.

Note the syntax:  She "lost" her husband.  Not "her husband was killed by would-be robbers."

Thursday, lawyers for De’Anthony A. Wiley insisted his involvement wasn’t murder, but self-defense.
 
Prosecutors say four men plotted to rob She's a Pistol.  Bieker owned the store with her husband.  He was in back when the robbers came in and made demands.

Bieker was hit and knocked unconscious. Jon got into a shootout with the gunmen.  Prosecutors said Wiley was captured on video as the person who killed Jon.

In July attorneys for Wiley announced he was willing to plead guilty to murder, but prosecutors rejected the deal.  Now, Wiley's defense lawyers filed the bombshell motion calling the killing of Jon Bieker self-defense.

The basis for the claim reads “…Wiley withdrew from any physical confrontation with the Biekers and he specifically communicated his intent to surrender to Jon Bieker. Despite that communication, Mr. Bieker continued to advance and/or fire upon the defendant and the co-defendants. The defendant was shot in the spine and paralyzed, therefore unable to further escape.  As such, the defendant was entitled to use force to protect himself…”

They went on to write, “The degree of force used by [the owners] exceed that which was lawfully necessary to protect property and a place of business in the face of the retreating defendants, all of whom were shot in the back. As the use of force by both Jon and Becky Bieker was unlawful, the defendant was justified in using deadly force in defense of himself and/or another.”

Outrageous, right?  But of course you didn't hear this, or see it on any national "news" broadcast--nor will you.  If you're curious about the reason, click the link at the top.  But you already know why.

Vox "editor" blames rape of Yazidi girls by ISIS on...Fox News??

The "culture editor" at the left-wing webzine Vox--a soul-poisoned asshole named Sean M. Davis--recently tweeted about ISIS thugs raping captured Yazidi girls and women.  Most of us correctly see this as a ghastly war crime, but in a leap worthy of the best defenders of Hitler and Stalin, Davis--presumably speaking for his employers, since no one in the management of Vox has criticized or rebuked him--blames another entity:

You read that right--the culture editor of Vox blames the rape of Yazidi women on...Fox News.

It's hard to fathom the depth of depravity that would author such a statement, but of course, it's Vox--one of the staples of the Left.

Yazidis are Christians, so in Davis's twisted, depraved mind this probably ranks as a war crime in itself.  That's one sick son of a bitch.  As is his buddy Max Fisher, apparently Vox's "foreign editor," who tweeted

Fox News and others have been dog-whistling all year that Yazidi's are Christian.  Inevitable that this would happen.

Not sure what this asshole meant to imply by "inevitable" but he's clearly trying to blame Fox "and others," perhaps for somehow tipping off ISIS that the Yazidis were Christians--as if that was somehow a secret.

Okay Sean and Max--you stupid fucks:  Where's your condemnation of ISIS for throwing homosexuals off buildings?  How about your condemnation of ISIS for burying women up to the neck and stoning them to death?  No?

Hey, glad to see your outrage is so damn inconsistent and selective.  But hey, it's what we expect from your type, and from those who follow your lead.

Visit "The Peoples' Cube"

The Peoples' Cube rivals The Onion for funny parody headlines.  Some examples:

• 'Wear hijab to school day' ends with spontaneous female circumcision and stoning of a classmate during lunch break
• Impressed by Fox News stellar rating during GOP debates, CNN to use same formula on Democrat candidates by asking tough, pointed questions about Republicans
• John Kerry proposes 3-day waiting period for all terrorist nations trying to acquire nuclear weapons
• Cuba opens affordable medical tourism for Americans who can't afford Obamacare deductibles
• US media to GOP candidates: 'Knowing what we know now, would you have had anything to do with the founding of the United States?'
• Hillary: DELETE is the new RESET
• Charlie Hebdo receives Islamophobe 2015 award; cartoonists couldn't be reached for comment due to their inexplicable, illogical deaths
• Obama finds out from CNN that Hillary Clinton spent four years as his Secretary of State
• Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males
• Obama: 'If I had a city, it would look like Ferguson'
• Obama signs executive order renaming 'looters' as 'undocumented shoppers'
• White House: Republican takeover of the Senate is a clear mandate from the American people for President Obama to rule by executive order

The comrades deliver a much-needed dose of humor during otherwise bleak times. 

Obama on NPR: ISIS not a threat to the U.S.

Your emperor gave an interview to guaranteed-friendly media outlet NPR on ISIS.  Here's how another friendly outlet (The Hill) summarized it:

[He said] it is important “to keep things in perspective.”

“This is not an organization that can destroy the United States.  This is not a huge industrial power that can pose great risks to us institutionally or in a systematic way. But they can hurt us, and they can hurt our people and our families.”

This is a classic "straw-man argument:"  The speaker describes a problem in an absurd way, as if that's his opponent's position, and then says that's absurd (which of course is true, because that's not what his opponent said).  But of course no one has ever claimed ISIS is "a huge industrial power."  At least he admitted the obvious: they can hurt Americans. 

Obama blamed the media in part for fears, saying that in the past month “all you have been seeing, all you have been hearing about is these guys with masks or black flags who are potentially coming to get you."

Let's see here:  Terrorists shouting Allah snackbar just got through murdering 130 unarmed civilians in one of Europe's most sophisticated capitals, and then seem to have inspired a Muzz couple in California to murder another 14 and shoot another 20.  But your concern is unfounded, citizen:  You're just worried--needlessly--because it's been all over the news.  There's not a real threat.  Well maybe a tiny one, but nothing to be concerned about.  And certainly not enough to temporarily stop importing Muslim refugees into your neighborhoods, without telling locals about it--let alone negotiating or seeking their agreement.

“The media is pursuing ratings....

See, citizen?  Your concern is over an illusion, created by the media because of "ratings."

Obama acknowledged "a legitimate criticism" about how he and his administration have gone about its attempts to allay fears among the public following recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.

"We haven't, you know, on a regular basis, I think, described all the work that we've been doing for more than a year now to defeat ISIL," Obama told NPR.

Translation:  "Those who criticize my response to ISIS just aren't aware of ALL the work we've been doing--for more than a year now!--to defeat them.  It's just a PR problem.  We need to do a better job of explaining all the work we've been doing."

Well, that and you could stop importing unvetted Muslims into the U.S. until your FBI director and others figure out a better way to ensure they're not terrorists.  Cuz right now the entire process consists of asking 'em their name and if they support ISIS or terrorism.  Somehow I don't think that'll quite have the result you think.

Or maybe it will, which it what more Americans are beginning to suspect.

Proof of NY Times lying to support Obama, example 34,967

Last Thursday the NY Times showed us proof of how utterly corrupt it is.

Most of you probably couldn't care less, of course, but for those who are remotely interest in truth it's an eye-opener.

The Times published a story on-line about a meeting between Obama and a group of left-wing reporters--including those from CNN.  Here's how CNN described the meeting:

The meeting...in the White House Roosevelt Room, included journalists, columnists and editors from the Times, The Washington Post and The Atlantic,...Yahoo, Slate, Vox and Mic. Per the ground rules, attendees were not allowed to discuss the meeting or attribute any remarks to the president (emphasis added).

So...the whole group consisted of strong Obama supporters.  Check.

Now here's what the Times published--at least the first version:

In his meeting with the columnists, Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments. 

Wait, did Obama actually indicate he wasn't able to "fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino--because he didn't watch enough cable TV?

Wow, that would show a stunning lack of awareness, empathy, common sense and so on.  Hey, can't have that for a Democrat pol!  So someone at the White Hut apparently picked up the phone and called the Times.  And the result was...the Times deleted the above passage from their on-line story and substituted a new 'graf far more favorable to Obozo.

This is hardly a shock--the Times has supported Democrat candidates and officeholders for decades.  But what happened next was even more revealing:  When questioned about the reason for the deletion and substitution, the Times replied

"That paragraph, near the bottom of the story, was trimmed for space in the print paper by a copy editor in New York late last night....Web stories without length constraints are routinely edited for print."

But the revised version--while deleting 66 words--added another 116 words.  So the line about 'Oh, this was just done by a copy editor in order to trim for space in the print version" was complete, utter bullshit.  And the chilling part is how brazenly they lied about the reason, hoping no one would bother to check the actual facts.

The deletion of the major passage and the substitution of text more favorable to Obozo wasn’t the only significant change made to the story:  Times editors also changed the story’s headline four times, according to Newsdiffs.org.  Each change either put Obama in a better light or put the GOP in a worse one.

When the story was first published the headline was “Obama visiting National Counterterrorism Center.”  Two hours later the headline was changed to “Obama, at Counterterrorism Center, offers assurances on safety.”  So now the Times is showing a more active president, taking...action.

Then the headline was changed to “Frustrated by Republican critics, Obama defends muted response to attacks.”  So now the story's lede, according to the Times editors, is "Republican critics."

Two hours later the headline was revised yet again: “Under fire from G.O.P., Obama defends response to terror attacks.”  Apparently, simply putting the blame on "Republican critics" wasn't a strong enough fellation, so the Times had those critics metaphorically shooting at their champion.

The most recent headline revision, which accompanied the deletion of the passage where Obama admitted he didn’t understand the American public’s anxiety about terrorism, now reads, “Assailed by G.O.P., Obama defends his response to terror attacks.”  Apparently just showing their hero as being "under fire" from Republicans wasn't strong enough; Times editors apparently thought "assailed" was better, showing their champion being assaulted by the GOP.

Hey Times editors, would you like to claim the four changes to the headline were also made to save space?  Do go ahead--we'd expect no less from ya.

Both the IAEA and WaPo are starting to imply that the Iranian nuke "deal" is skanky

Your emperor has been determined to get *some* sort of agreement with Iran.  He was prepared to lift all the painstakingly negotiated system of international economic sanctions, as well as unfreezing roughtly $150 Billion in frozen Iranian funds in western banks.  And he did.  And what did he get in return?

Nothing. 

But he and his munchkins haven't missed any chance to tell Americans what a faaabulous deal they made.  So who to believe?  Well, normally I wouldn't suggest this but how about the head of the IAEA?

Last month the president sent his Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to Vienna to try to persuade International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano into issuing a favorable report on the state of the Iranian nuclear program.

The question Amano faced was simple: Has Iran closed the military aspect of its nuclear program?

Being an honorable man, Amano could not provide the straight “yes” that Muniz was asking for, instead replying in classically ambiguous diplomatic code, “Much progress has been made, but much remains to be done.”  “More confidence building is needed, and verification of what Iran is doing may need many more weeks.”

The IEAE chief also hedged in his official report to the IAEA board of governors. In paragraph 79 of the report, he states that the IAEA cannot report that all of Iran’s nuclear program is entirely peaceful. That’s because the IAEA does not have access to all nuclear sites in the Islamic Republic--something Obama could have ensured if he'd wanted to do so.

Interesting: The IAEA can’t verify that Iran’s nuclear weapons programs have ended.  And certainly this can't come as a surprise, since under the terms negotiated by Team Obama, IAEA inspectors must give Iran 24 days notice of any inspection.  Even worse, facilities designated by the Iranians as “sensitive” can only be inspected by Iranian inspectors. 

Yes, that's not a typo:  The emperor's people agreed that specific provision.

The agreement is so bad that not even the Washington Post, a major Democrat supporter and cheerleader for the nuclear surrender, can’t ignore it:

IRAN IS following through on the nuclear deal it struck with a U.S.-led coalition in an utterly predictable way: It is racing to fulfill those parts of the accord that will allow it to collect $100 billion in frozen funds and end sanctions on its oil exports and banking system, while expanding its belligerent and illegal activities in other areas — and daring the West to respond.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s response to these provocations has also been familiar. It is doing its best to downplay them — and thereby encouraging Tehran to press for still-greater advantage.

 If the sycophants at the WaPo are...let's say "skeptical"...you might reasonable guess that the deal is *really* awful. 

But not to worry:  Your mainstream media has told you endlessly that Obama is the smartest preezy *evah,* so you can be sure that...that...that he got some sort of benefit out of it somehow.

And here's what your emperor said about his maahvelous deal on August 5, 2015, in front of a bunch of liberal rich kids at American University:

[the agreement] contains the most comprehensive inspection and verification regime ever negotiated to monitor a nuclear program.
…
For Iran to cheat, it has to build a lot more than just one building or covert facility like Fordo. It would need a secret source for every single aspect of its program. No nation in history has been able to pull of such subterfuge when subjected to such rigorous inspections. And under the terms of the deal, inspectors will have the permanent ability to inspect any suspicious sites in Iran.

Notice he didn't say *whose* inspectors.

There are those who say the inspections are not strong enough, because inspectors can’t go anywhere in Iran at any time with no notice.  Well, here’s the truth: Inspectors will be allowed daily access to Iran’s key nuclear sites.

If there is a reason for inspecting a suspicious undeclared site anywhere in Iran, inspectors will get that access even if Iran objects. This access can be with as little as 24 hours notice.

Notice that again he didn't specify whose inspectors.  And he said "can be with as little as 24 hours notice."  He carefully omits the loopholes, the stupid terms.

Hey, the MSM is right:  That's a cunning guy.  Oh wait, they said "smart." 

Eh, smart, cunning...what difference does it make, eh?