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March 2018

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: February 2018 “The best place to hide a tree is in a forest.” by Soeren Kern

“I’d like to know whose bright idea this was. It is ridiculous and not the business of a Government department. I can’t see the Foreign Office promoting Christianity or the handing out of crosses.” — Tory MP Andrew Bridgen in response to a decision by Foreign Office officials to give away taxpayer-funded Islamic headscarves, claiming they symbolized “liberation, respect and security.”

A review chaired by Professor Mona Siddiqui, a professor of Islam, proposed legislative changes that would require Muslim couples to undergo a civil marriage before or at the same time as their Islamic ceremony, to provide women with legal protection under British law. Nearly all those using Sharia councils were females seeking an Islamic divorce.

“We, the United Kingdom, produced Jihadi John. Something in our cities and towns… have produced the most infamous terrorists. We need to start asking: what is it in our culture, in our cities, in our towns that is producing these sorts of monsters.” — Maajid Nawaz, British counter-extremism activist.

Islamic charities vulnerable to extremists receive £6 million a year from taxpayers in gift aid, according to a new report. The report accused charities of supporting “the spread of harmful non-violent extremist views that are not illegal; by providing platforms, credibility and support to a network of extremists operating in the UK.”

February 1. Foreign Office officials invited 1,800 female staff members to wear Islamic headscarves to mark World Hijab Day. The department gave away taxpayer-funded headscarves, claiming they symbolized “liberation, respect and security.” Critics, citing the compulsory veiling of women in Islamic countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, said the garment is a symbol of male oppression. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said, “I’d like to know whose bright idea this was. It is ridiculous, a complete waste of taxpayers’ money and not the business of a government department. I can’t see the Foreign Office promoting Christianity or the handing out of crosses.”

ELECTIONS ARE COMING: MONTANA- DEM. SENATOR GETS ZERO ON TRUMP AGENDA VOTES BY JOSEPH SMITH

Two-term Montana Democratic senator Jon Tester has joined a chorus of red-state Democrats with a newfound affinity for Trump voters after continually voting with the Democratic caucus against the president’s agenda.

In his quest for re-election in a state that President Trump carried by 21 points, Tester has released a new campaign ad “highlighting the 13 pieces of legislation he’s co-sponsored that the president signed into law,” as James Hohman at washingtonpost.com reports.

The new ad features “[v]eterans, a cop, a firefighter and an elderly couple” counting off “the bills and resolutions,” with Tester declaring that “Washington’s a mess, but that’s not stopping me from getting bills to help Montana signed into law by President Trump.”

But Hohman also notes that, while Tester’s 13 bills include naming “a mountain peak” and amending “the U.S. Flag Code,” “Tester has stuck with the Democrats on the major issues”:

He opposed the tax cuts on the rationale that they blow up the national debt by more than $1 trillion and fought efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act because Montana benefits from Medicaid expansion.

Tester and other red-state Democrats are attempting to cozy up to Trump voters, but their records show they vote in lockstep with the Democratic caucus against the president’s priorities. A review of Senator Tester’s votes on big-ticket Republican bills and nominees in Trump’s first year is instructive.

The Ongoing Plight of Christians By Eileen F. Toplansky

In the CQ Researcher issue titled “Religious Persecution,” dated November 21, 1997, Kenneth Jost highlighted the “well-documented cases of churches being bulldozed or burned down, clergy and lay leaders [being] arrested and imprisoned and clergymen being murdered by [Sudanese] government troops.” In the 21 years since this article was printed, global Christian persecution has increased exponentially. The following is a small sampling of what Christians are facing, and the sad truth is that no one seems to be stopping the oppressors and punishing them.

In Sweden, Muslim migrants often persecute Christian migrants, or immigrants who convert to Christianity. Thus, “Open Doors Deutschland documented 743 attacks on Christians in Germany in 2016, and German police documented another 100 in 2017. Similar violence plagues Christian refugees in Sweden, but the Scandinavian country has yet to issue an investigation. A survey published by Open Doors Sweden last year found that … one hundred and twenty-three Christian asylum-seekers reported religiously motivated persecution, and 512 separate incidents. Christian refugees suffered 65 violent assaults, 55 death threats, 7 cases of sexual assault, along with instances of social exclusion, insults, contempt, and threats. More than half, 53 percent, said they had been violently attacked at least once. Almost half, 45 percent, reported receiving at least one death threat. More than three-quarters of those who faced such persecution were converts to Christianity, and almost all of the perpetrators were Muslim.”

Open Door’s top countries where Christians face the most persecution are:

North Korea (94 points) – Christians and Christian missionaries are routinely imprisoned in labor camps.
Afghanistan (93 points) – The government of this Muslim country does not recognize any of its citizens as Christian.
Somalia (91 points) – The Catholic bishop of Mogadishu has described it as “not possible” to be a Christian in Somalia.
Sudan (87 points) – The Muslim government has slated Christian churches for demolition.
Pakistan (86 points) – Christians and other non-Muslims sit on death row, facing charges of blasphemy.
Eritrea (86 points) – Only four religions are officially recognized (Sunni Islam and the Eritrean Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Evangelical Lutheran churches). Those belonging to other faiths are persecuted, and those of recognized faiths are routinely harassed by the government.
Libya (86 points) – The government is reportedly training militants to attack Coptic Christians.
Iraq (86 points) – Iraqi Christians have yet to return to their homelands after expulsion by ISIS.
Yemen (85 points) – The ongoing political and humanitarian crisis has further squeezed Christians and other religious minorities, who already faced severe restrictions on practicing their faiths.

As Always, the Left Begins to Destroy Itself By Tom Knighton

Lately we’ve seen a lot of hysterics from the Left, particularly on college campuses. But there are some people with left-leaning ideals who are disgusted by the nonsense from the social justice warrior faction. The loons aren’t the entirety of the left, they just sound like it.

Not to worry, though. There are indications that the pendulum is swinging back, away from the insanity.

The Independent recently published an article from self-described Occupy supporter Bailey Lamon. In it, she takes issue with what she sees as serious problems within the Left: “While I will always be part of the movement and believe in creating a better world through people power, over the years I have become increasingly frustrated with modern activist culture and the way that today’s left conducts itself,” Lamon writes.

A quick look at Lamon’s Twitter feed makes it clear she’s not in the midst of an ideological shift towards conservatism by any stretch of the imagination. She’s just fed up with the Left’s extreme antics.

“I’ve witnessed incidents where people have lost their jobs because of mistakes they’ve made in the eyes of left-wing activists,” Lamon notes. “I’ve seen relationships and friendships destroyed. I’ve known people who have been banned from participating in certain places, and become so alienated from ‘the community’ that they are afraid to go out in public at all. This has caused serious mental distress to people I’ve worked alongside, and has even resulted in suicide. Social ‘justice’ indeed.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Russia Produced Nerve Agent That Poisoned Pair in UK, Confirms May By Bridget Johnson

British Prime Minister Theresa May said Russia owes the UK an explanation by Tuesday of how their nerve agent poisoned a former spy and his daughter on British turf, while the White House said it’s hanging back to see how the situation develops.

Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who fed intelligence to the Brits from 1995 to 2004 and was sent to the UK in a spy exchange in 2010, and his daughter Yulia collapsed March 4 at a shopping center in Salisbury. Both are in critical condition. A restaurant and a pub in the center have tested positive for traces of the nerve agent as military personnel clean up the crime scene and surrounding area.

Speaking to the House of Commons today after receiving an update on the investigation, May said it was “now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia.”

“This is part of a group of nerve agents known as ‘Novichok,'” the prime minister said. “Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down; our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so; Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations; the government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal.”

“Mr. Speaker, there are therefore only two plausible explanations for what happened in Salisbury on the 4th of March: Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others,” May added.

Russia’s ambassador to the UK was told that the Kremlin “must immediately provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok program to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.”

May said that if there’s “no credible response,” from the Russian government, NATO allies should stand together as “we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom.” CONTINUE AT SITE

House GOP ending Russia probe, says no collusion found By Olivia Beavers and Katie Bo Williams

House GOP ending Russia probe, says no collusion found The House Intelligence Committee is shutting down its contentious investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the top Republican leading the probe announced on Monday. The committee will interview no more witnesses and Republicans are in the process of preparing their final report, Rep. […]

House Intel releases verdict in Russia probe: No collusion by Byron York |

The House Intelligence Committee has released findings from its upcoming report on the Trump-Russia affair — and its main conclusion is that it has discovered no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.

“We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians,” the committee said in a one-page summary of its findings released Monday afternoon.

In addition, the committee took issue with the intelligence community assessment of Russian motivations in the 2016 election. The committee agrees with the assessment that the Russians did, in fact, try to interfere — the findings cite “Russian cyberattacks on U.S. political institutions in 2015-2016 and their use of social media to sow discord.” But the committee disagrees with the intelligence community judgment that Russian President Vladimir Putin specifically tried to help President Trump win the election.

The committee’s findings say investigators came to “concurrence with the Intelligence Community Assessment’s judgments, except with respect to Putin’s supposed preference for candidate Trump.”

On the question of collusion, Republican Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas, who has formally run the committee’s probe, told reporters Monday that, “We found no evidence of collusion. We found perhaps bad judgment, inappropriate meetings, inappropriate judgment in taking meetings.”

The 5 worst things about colleges in America: Bryan Caplan

When parents and teachers urge kids to go to college, they visualize the success stories: kids who graduate on time with marketable degrees. If every student fit this profile, college would be an outstanding personal investment. Unfortunately, most students don’t fit this profile, and their returns are mediocre or worse. Indeed, plenty would be better off skipping college in favor of full-time employment. What’s going wrong? BRYAN CAPLAN, professor of economics at George Mason University and the author of “The Case Against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money” (Princeton University Press), out now, outlines the five worst things about today’s college education.
1. A majority of college students don’t finish on time — and a large minority never finish at all.

Since the bulk of the payoff for college comes from graduation — not mere years of attendance — dropping out of school is like bankrupting a business. In both cases, you sacrifice years of savings and toil and walk away with scraps. And while under-achieving high-school students occasionally blossom into star college students, this is rare.

In school as in life, the best predictor of future performance is past performance. Think about high-school students in the bottom quartile of math scores. Nowadays, almost half try college; but when they do, only one in nine manages to graduate. College major is also a reliable predictor of student success. Degrees in engineering, computer science, finance and economics all pay well, boosting earnings by 60 to 70 percent. Degrees in fine arts, education, English, history and sociology do about half that.

Since all majors require four years of coursework and four years of tuition, the payoff for the average graduate with a low-earning major is unimpressive. And the payoff for below-average graduates in such fields is terrible; many end up working in jobs like waiter, cashier and cook that they could have easily done with no college at all.
2. Most of the curriculum is neither socially useful nor personally enjoyable.

Schools teach some skills almost every job requires — especially literacy and numeracy. But after the final exam, students never again need to know most of what they learn. Think about your years of coursework in history, social studies, foreign languages, higher mathematics, art and music. Colleges offer some majors — like engineering and computer science — that train students for well-paid careers.

Yet after graduation, plenty of students can safely forget their major; think about fields like history, literature, sociology and communications. Of course, every school subject leads to employment on occasion; at minimum, you could go on to teach the very subject you studied. But that’s a very low bar.

When confronted with these observations, defenders of college often protest, “The point of college isn’t to prepare students for jobs; it’s to enrich their lives.” But how often does this enrichment actually occur? Professors suspect — and researchers confirm — a dismal picture. In class, most students are bored, if they even bother to attend. As famed Harvard professor Steven Pinker confesses, “A few weeks into every semester, I face a lecture hall that is half-empty, despite the fact that I am repeatedly voted a Harvard Yearbook Favorite Professor, that the lectures are not video-recorded and that they are the only source of certain material that will be on the exam.” After graduation, few college graduates devote more than a tiny fraction of their leisure time to abstract ideas or high culture. School doesn’t have to be enjoyable. But if it is neither enjoyable nor useful, how can it be anything but wasteful?

DR. MORDECHAI KEDAR: TWO EXCELLENT VIDEOS

1. https://youtu.be/A8E77TrxWDA – VIDEO – Mordechai Kedar – Only weak sue for peace

2. http://mordechaikedar.com/a-taste-of-my-debate-on-al-jazeera-about-jerusalem/ – Dr. Mordechai Kedar interview on al Jazeera

U.S. Media Long Carried Putin’s Water – Odd, Given Facebook Uproar By Lee Smith

With special counsel Robert Mueller’s latest indictments of alleged Russian trolls, Facebook is facing heavy fire from prominent critics at the New York Times, Washington Post, and other legacy media for uncritically spreading Russian misinformation. But the probe’s newly lengthened chronology, stretching back well before the 2016 campaign, suggests social-media mischief was only part of a deeper Russian propaganda effort in which those same news organizations were also willing and paid participants.

In 2007, state-owned publisher Rossiyskaya Gazeta launched Russia Beyond the Headlines, a multi-page full-color broadsheet laid out just like a newspaper and distributed, typically monthly, as an insert by some of the most prestigious names in newspaper publishing, including London’s Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro in France and the Italian daily La Repubblica, reaching an audience estimated at nearly 6.5 million readers.

In the United States, the Russian-state media entity partnered with the Washington Post until 2015 and with the New York Times, which confirmed it still bundles the insert into its regular paper. Angela He, manager of corporate communications for the Times, sent an email “confirming that we do run these ads” and that they conform to Timesadvertising acceptability standards, but declined to elaborate.

Russia Beyond, as the insert was renamed in 2017, serves as a “gateway for all things Russia — from culture, travel, education, language, ways to do business, and much more.” Only a small disclaimer right below the masthead, in light typeface, explains that it’s an advertising feature.