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May 2021

Germany: New Strategy to Combat ‘Political Islamism’ by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17404/germany-political-islamism

The policy paper, “Preserving Free Society, Promoting Social Cohesion, Fighting Political Islamism,” which whole-heartedly commends law-abiding Muslims who respect Germany’s democratic order, argues that the debate about Islamism in Germany is often reduced to violence and terror, but that it is necessary to focus more on ideology. The proposals include improving research and analysis of political Islam in Europe and the methods by which it spreads; banning the foreign funding of mosques; and reducing the number of foreign imams active in Germany.

“Focusing only on the violent part of Islamism, Islamist terrorism, does not do justice to the overall problem…. This political Islamism, which ostensibly acts non-violently, but stirs up hatred, agitation and violence and strives for an Islamic order in which there is no equality, no freedom of opinion and religion and also no separation of religion and state, has spread far and wide in parts of our society.” — CDU/CSU policy paper.

“We owe the fight against political Islamism not only to our free-democratic ideals and values, but also to most of the Muslims in Germany who share these ideals with us and want to live with us on their basis. Because it is precisely liberal, secular Muslims who are victims of this illiberal, anti-democratic ideology. Those who publicly oppose political Islamism and its strategies are particularly at risk.” — CDU/CSU policy paper.

“These politically extremist, non-violent groups aim to establish an order according to their Islamist ideas by actively preventing integration, dividing Western societies into ‘believers’ and ‘unbelievers,’ rejecting equality and religious freedom…. They use democratic structures to undermine and ultimately abolish democracy.” — CDU/CSU policy paper.

“The present focus on groups prepared to use violence has led to disregarding the ideological justification of violence. These politically extremist, non-violent groups aim to establish an order based on their Islamist ideas by actively preventing integration, dividing Western societies into ‘believers’ and ‘unbelievers,’ rejecting equality and religious freedom, and alienating Muslim youth from Western societies. They use democratic structures to undermine and ultimately abolish democracy.” — CDU/CSU policy paper.

“Religious extremism doesn’t come out of nowhere. On the contrary, it thrives in isolated parallel worlds that have nothing in common with our values. We urgently need to shed light on this and not only wake up when violence erupts.” — Bundestag Member Nina Warken, Integration Commissioner, CDU/CSU parliamentary group.

The German-Moroccan author Sineb El Masrar, in an interview with the public radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur, said that the policy paper is clearly directed against “reactionary, Islamist organizations” and “that it is not aimed at all Muslims, but at those with a radical agenda.”

“Islamists are not interested in democracy. On the contrary. They reject democracy because they only consider politics to be legitimate if it follows regulations that adhere to the politics of Mohammed in the 7th century. — Susanne Schröter, Islam scholar, Die Tagespost.

“The decisive question is to what extent imams are willing and able to explain that these warlike verses and suras are only to be considered in their historical context and that they no longer have any meaning today, i.e. in principle could be deleted…. It should be added that the implementation of the strategy is only possible if, for example, mosque communities or Muslims as a whole are willing to actively contribute, because they understandably know the segregation efforts of many association representatives much better and more closely than most German observers.” — Bundestag Member Hans-Jürgen Irmer, member of the Interior Committee, CDU/CSU parliamentary group.

The largest parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, the faction of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), has approved a wide-ranging strategy to contain the spread of political Islam in Germany.

The plan, outlined in a new policy paper, “Preserving Free Society, Promoting Social Cohesion, Fighting Political Islamism,” warns that a growing number of areas in Germany, where German law is overruled by Sharia law, are in danger of becoming “parallel societies.”

The document also warns that many mosques and Islamic associations in Germany are controlled by foreign governments and that they are producing a generation of German jihadists who extol martyrdom and threaten Germany’s liberal democratic order.

The authors of the report argue that a recent wave of jihadist attacks in Germany and elsewhere in Europe — including the beheading of a schoolteacher in Paris, a crime celebrated by many Muslim pupils in Berlin — requires urgent measures to stop the “poison” of extremist ideology from gaining further ground on the continent.

The policy paper, which whole-heartedly commends law-abiding Muslims who respect Germany’s democratic order, argues that the debate about Islamism in Germany is often reduced to violence and terror, but that it is necessary to focus more on ideology. The proposals include improving research and analysis of political Islam in Europe and the methods by which it spreads; banning the foreign funding of mosques; and reducing the number of foreign imams active in Germany.

Nigel Farage Has a Message for the Democratic Party in America

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/nigel-farage-has-a-message-for-the-democratic/91524/

The heads-up this week to American Democrats from Nigel Farage strikes us as more newsworthy than its coverage so far would suggest. He’s warning that left-wing hostility to Israel could deliver to Democrats the kind of political catastrophe that befell Labor in Britain in December 2019. That’s when voters, reacting in part to Labor’s hostility to the Jewish state, gave Conservatives such a victory that Jeremy Corbyn was forced to resign.

On a visit here, Mr. Farage, a founding father of the Brexit movement, issued his warning in an interview Monday with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. He reckoned that Mr. Corbyn’s taking the Labor Party “in the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel but clearly also anti-Semitic direction” had prompted voters in “Middle England” to say “‘we don’t like this kind of extremism,’ and it did hurt the Labor Party.”

“I think,” Mr Farage also said, “there are many instances here in the USA of members of Congress who are supporting these Palestinian protests.” He scored the Democrats for failing to condemn attacks on Jews “in strong enough terms.” He suggested that “across the western world” the left has “openly supported a Palestinian cause that behaves more like a terrorist organization,” and “decent people don’t like this sort of thing.”

Biden Administration Will Import Metals and Close U.S. Mines To Appease Environmental Wing of Party

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2021/05/25/biden-administration-will-import-metals-and-close-u-s-mines-to-appease-environmental-wing-of-party/

When Obama said “share the wealth” he wasn’t speaking exclusively toward domestic socioeconomic policy; he was also pointing out that America needed to share wealth with other nations.  This is the ideological alignment between Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden.  Above all other issues Osama Bin Laden despised the wealth the U.S. carried as a result of the dollar being the international trade currency.  Thus the 9/11 attack was directed at the World Trade Center first, then DC second.

If you accept Biden is an avatar for Obama’s third term, then everything in the economic policy makes sense.   Including this:

“U.S. President Joe Biden will rely on ally countries to supply the bulk of the metals needed to build electric vehicles and focus on processing them domestically into battery parts, part of a strategy designed to placate environmentalists, two administration officials with direct knowledge told Reuters.” (link)

Beyond the hypocrisy of ‘global’ climate change being irrelevant to where the mining takes place (duh), what the administration is doing is letting our mining operations close while importing the same product. This is a continuation of what policies created the “rust belt”.  Then there’s the pesky problem of the cars actually being built in Mexico, not the U.S…. but we need to ignore that part.

Example #2 of JoeBama policy comes from the Emerald Isle laughing at the U.S.A. as Biden kicks out U.S. companies by raising corporate taxes.

“Ireland has no plans to increase its corporate tax rate – one of the lowest in the developed world – the country’s finance minister has told Sky News, which could scupper Joe Biden’s radical scheme for a global minimum rate.”

[…] “He predicted that Ireland will maintain its 12.5% corporate tax rate for many years to come.

In an exclusive interview with Sky News, Mr Donohoe said: “We do have really significant reservations regarding a global minimum effective tax rate status at such a level that it means only certain countries, and certain size economies can benefit from that base – we have a really significant concern about that.” (read more)

Critical Race Theory or Crazy Radical Tantrums? Whatever you call it, there’s a culture war being waged, and the citizenry is fighting back. By Larry Sand

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/26/critical-race-theory-or-crazy-radical-tantrums/

Just four weeks ago, I wrote about the rising resistance to the woke craze and critical race theory, and much has transpired since then.

Here in California, even Disneyland has not been spared the wrath of the crazies. On May 7, the incomparable Christopher Rufo reported that “The Wokest Place on Earth” now includes employee trainings on systemic racism, white privilege, white fragility, and white saviors, and also launched racially segregated “affinity groups” at the company’s headquarters.

But just five days later, Rufo disclosed that Disney “has removed its entire antiracism program from the company’s internal portal, effectively scrubbing it out of existence.” Rufo added, “This is a major victory in the war against ‘woke capital,’” and noted that a “significant backlash from the public” was responsible for the shift. While some skeptics suggested that the policy was being “tweaked or rebranded, not scrubbed,” Rufo responded, “Possibly, but small victories start to add up. We’ve set the precedent—and forced a $329 billion company to back down.”

And then there is the math craziness. As a former teacher, I loved teaching math because there was a right and wrong answer. Feelings, opinions, and political dogma were irrelevant. 2+2=4. Period. If you have another take, sorry but you’re wrong. Now that the crazies are in charge, however, if you insist on right and wrong answers, you are racist. Really.

Until last week, in fact, the proposed California math framework recommended eight times that teachers use A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction as a resource. This radical drivel insists that addressing student errors, focusing on getting the right answer, and requiring students to show their work is a form of white supremacy. Objectivity is now racist, apparently.

However, due to citizen outrage during the “public comments” period, the state walked back some of its new math mandates, notably dropping the over-the-top Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction. The commission agreed to remove references to the toolkit from the draft framework last week, stating it was “inconsistent with teaching to the standards.” But the war is not over.  The framework has not been finalized, and the California Department of Education will hold a second public review in June and July.

Will the 2020 Madness Last? As Americans sober up, will they reject the frenzy that took the country over the cliff during the most unhinged year in American history? By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/26/will-the-2020-madness-last/

The COVID-19 pandemic is ending with mass vaccinations. So is the national quarantine. The riots, arson, and looting of the 2020 summer are sputtering out—leaving violent crime in their wake.

The acrimony over the 2020 election fades. Trump Derangement Syndrome became abstract when Donald Trump left office and was ostracized from social media. 

In other words, the American people are slowly regaining their senses after the epidemic of mass hysteria and insanity that gripped the nation in 2020. 

But Americans will wonder whether what Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and the hard Left wrought last year will last when the nation is no longer gripped by 2020 madness. 

Teachers and academics are notorious for furious opposition to administrative bloat. For the last 50 years, administrations have proliferated, while the ratio of non-teachers to teachers has skyrocketed—to the chagrin of teacher unions. 

But in the last year, schools and colleges have gone mad in hiring thousands of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” administrators. Their job descriptions may be vague. But certainly, they will not contribute to classroom education. Instead, they will monitor the speech and thoughts of those who do. 

How long will mostly left-wing teachers’ unions continue to support such vast diversions of money to armies of new left-wing non-teaching administrators?

Before 2020, the Left demanded “proportional representation” in hiring and admissions. And if minority groups and women were not represented in the workplace according to their percentages of the American population, then prejudice was automatically assumed (“disparate impact”). Reparatory measures were then made to hire by race and gender. 

“Affirmative action” was the euphemism for such quotas. It was nevertheless more or less institutionalized because proportional representation was not entirely illogical in a multiracial society. And there was still the common goal to follow Martin Luther King, Jr.’s notion of integration and assimilation to make race incidental not essential to who Americans are. 

John Oliver and Israel’s ‘War Crimes’ Late-night’s useful idiot. Hugh Fitzgerald

John Oliver is the host of the late-night talk-show “Last Week Tonight.” On May 12, after two days of fighting between Hamas and Israel — the war started with a volley of 140 rockets that Hamas, in Gaza, launched against Israel — Oliver delivered his thoughts on the conflict. He came down hard on Israel. Yuval Yoaz reports on Oliver’s palpable want of sympathy for the Jewish State here: “What John Oliver doesn’t get about the war in Gaza,” Times of Israel, May 21, 2021:

“There is a lot to unpack there,” John Oliver began his opening monologue of “Last Week Tonight” last Sunday, where he sharply criticized Israel for its crushing airstrikes on Gaza strip. “From the use of the phrase ‘tit for tat’ war in a conflict in which one side has suffered over 10 times the casualties, something that speaks to the severe power imbalance that played here.” Oliver’s conclusion: this”severe power imbalance“ often “gets obscured by how we choose to talk about it.”

Oliver is, of course, free to criticize Israel, and, although he himself attests to the great difficulty in judging “the latest chapter in a long story you haven’t read” regarding the conflict in the Middle East, he is also free to draw conclusions and formulate a moral position. But Oliver should do this with the same standard he sets for others. Specifically, he’d better avoid obscuring essential facts in the way he chooses to talk about them.

The prism through which Oliver observes the latest flare-up between Israel and Hamas is that of power disparity. Israel has a strong and sophisticated army, fighter jets, and missile defense systems; Hamas does not. This much is true — there are huge, undeniable gaps in military power between Israel and Hamas.

In fact, the common notion is that these gaps are the exact reason the State of Israel exists: had it not built from the ground up a stronger army force than those of its enemies in the region, it is likely that it would have been erased from the map long ago.

University Denies 1619 Project Creator Hannah-Jones Immediate Tenure Why University of North Carolina trustees made the right decision. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/university-denies-1619-project-creator-hannah-joseph-klein/

The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill (UNC) declined to approve Nikole Hannah-Jones for a tenured teaching position immediately. She is the prominent New York Times investigative journalist who created the controversial 1619 Project. UNC offered Hannah-Jones instead a fixed five-year contract to teach at its prestigious Hussman School of Journalism and Media as “Professor of the Practice,” which she accepted, with the prospect of future tenure consideration. UNC’s Board of Trustees made the right call by declining to offer Hannah-Jones a tenured professorship for now. Aside from Hannah-Jones’ lack of academic experience, she has shown herself to be ethically challenged as a journalist.

Hannah-Jones was not cancelled from teaching at UNC. She still is eligible for a future tenured position after review of her teaching and academic research record at the university. Nevertheless, there was outrage on and off campus at the cancelling of Hannah-Jones’ hopes for immediate tenure.

The Raleigh-Apex NAACP issued a statement saying the decision not to approve immediate tenure for Hannah-Jones is a “real case of cancel culture.” Faculty members and student government leaders wrote letters of protest.

The faculty letter claimed that the failure to offer Hannah-Jones tenure “unfairly moves the goalposts and violates long-standing norms and established processes relating to tenure and promotion at UNC Chapel Hill.” The student letter stated: “We cannot stand by as our University routinely diminishes and undercuts marginalized and BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] voices in academia in an effort to bend toward partisan pressures rooted in a fear of America’s historical truths.”

Over three dozen students, faculty and community members protested as the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees was meeting on May 20th. Some of the signs they held said “Abolish the BOT,” “#BlackHistoryMatters,” “#BlackWomenMatter,” “Nikole Hannah Jones is all of us,” and “UNC = Klan University lovers of racist ignorance!!”

Over 200 academics, journalists, and celebrities published a letter on May 25th condemning the failure to grant immediate tenure to Hannah-Jones. “The University’s Board of Trustees has failed to uphold the first order values of academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas,” the letter said. 

Biden Frees Al Qaeda Ally Who Plotted to Smuggle Nukes Into US Why settle for helping Iran nuke America, when you can also help Al Qaeda nuke America? Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/biden-frees-al-qaeda-ally-who-plotted-smuggle-daniel-greenfield/

With inflation rising almost as fast as gas prices and the cost of a home, Joe Biden ain’t doing much for most Americans. But if you’re an Al Qaeda terrorist, he’s got your back.

Just ask three of Gitmo’s finest who are benefiting from Biden’s generosity.

Saifullah Paracha (pictured above) was a Pakistani businessman and New York travel agent with some big plans. The Gitmo inmate now being set loose by Biden wanted to “do something big against the US.”

9/11 was in Al Qaeda’s rearview mirror and its mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was plotting a sequel. The Gitmo dossier for Paracha first details a plan to use his “textile business to smuggle explosives into the US” and these “ready-made explosives, specifically C4” would go into shipping containers full of “women and children’s clothing”.

Shipping Al Qaeda’s C4 to America would be more lucrative than dumping sweatshop labor sweatpants because “if al-Qaida used detainee’s textile company for shipping explosives to the US, he would likely be paid additional money beyond the standard shipping fees”. No word on whether there would have been a bonus for every American blown up.

And then things escalated from there with testimony that Paracha allegedly claimed that he, “believed he could obtain unspecified chemicals from Chinese sources”. The fellow he was talking to about the unspecified chemicals, Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the few Gitmo Jihadis whom neither Obama nor Biden had managed to release yet, had helped out the 9/11 hijackers with flight simulators, and manuals, and allegedly chatted with Mohammed Atta.

After 9/11, Al-Baluchi was looking at all sorts of plans for crashing planes into things, like the American consulate in Karachi or London’s Heathrow airport, but there were other options on the table. The nature of the chemicals out of China was never specified, but the KSM lieutenant believed they were” chemical or biological agents” that could be used “as a weapon”.

Paracha reportedly advised Al Qaeda that “one should look for a similar looking chemical and put it in between the good chemicals and it would be very easy to get [through] customs.” With his business experience, he could offer Al Qaeda tips on smuggling such as warning them about the “radiological sensors at ports or places of entry into the US” that would make it difficult to smuggle radioactive materials into the country”.

But Biden’s newest charity case wanted something bigger. The dossier describes the 9/11 mastermind’s associate and Paracha chatting about Al Qaeda getting some “radiological or nuclear items several times” because Paracha wanted “to help al-Qaida ‘do something big against the US.’”

Paracha “also discussed nuclear attacks and attacks against nuclear power plants” and had an idea for “al-Qaida to attack a nuclear power plant”.

Locked and Woke: America’s Largest Defense Contractor Subjects Executives to Racist Reeducation By Bryan Preston

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/05/26/locked-and-woke-americas-largest-defense-contractor-subjects-executives-to-racist-reeducation-n1450010

Lockheed is the largest defense contractor the United States has. It’s the chief contractor on the F-35 Lightning fighter program. It builds and maintains much of the arsenal of our republic, and even builds advanced scientific systems such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

It is now another woke capture in corporate America, according to documents leaked to investigative reporter Christopher Rufo.

Last year, Lockheed Martin Corporation, the nation’s largest defense contractor, sent white male executives to a three-day diversity-training program aimed at deconstructing their “white male culture” and encouraging them to atone for their “white male privilege,” according to documents I have obtained.

The program, hosted on Zoom for a cohort of 13 Lockheed employees, was led by the diversity-consulting firm White Men As Full Diversity Partners, which specializes in helping white males “awaken together.” The Lockheed employees, all senior leaders in the company, included Aaron Huckaby, director of global supply chain operations; retired Air Force lieutenant colonel David Starr, director of the Hercules C-130 military transport program; retired Air Force lieutenant general Bruce Litchfield, vice president of sustainment operations; and Glenn Woods, vice president of production for the Air Force’s $1.7 trillion F-35 fighter jet program. (Lockheed Martin did not return request for comment.)

Perhaps this is among the reasons the F-35 is wasting so much taxpayer money. The company that makes it is not focused on its mission.

The same company that led the Lockheed training, White Men As Full Diversity Partners, also led similar racial training at the sensitive Sandia National Labs according to Rufo.

Is this company systematically targeting America’s defense contractors for its divisive racial trainings? Congress must investigate.

But with the Democrats in charge, Congress will do nothing.

Biden Administration Denies GOP Lawmakers Access to Border Facility By Caroline Downey

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-administration-denies-gop-lawmakers-access-to-border-facility/?utm_source=

The Biden administration denied a group of 12 Republican lawmakers access to a DEA migrant facility in El Paso, Texas Tuesday.

The GOP members were restricted from entering the El Paso Intelligence Center, Fox News reported, despite making multiple attempts. The Republican delegation said that by blocking access the Biden administration was preventing them from fulfilling their “constitutional duty to have oversight over these facilities that are paid for by taxpayer dollars.”

“All I can say is, I don’t know what they have to hide,” Representative Brian Babin remarked. “For some reason, we were not allowed in. I can only imagine what is it that they want to hide and not show the very representatives of the American people that have oversight over this facility that fund it and that authorize it. What don’t they want us to see?”

One legislator claimed the administration was trying to obstruct data regarding the severity of the border crisis created by the massive influx of migrants entering the country over the last few months.

“This is not something we surprised them with,” Representative Mike Garcia commented. “We’ve been trying to get in there for a couple of weeks and it’s coming from the top. It’s coming from the White House. They don’t want us to see what it is. You can make a conjecture about why they won’t let us in there. In my opinion, they have data they are gathering at this intelligence center which clearly indicates that our open borders are actually a more serious than the average American understands right now.”

Another congresswoman said that Biden is barring the group entry to obscure  information about the government’s initiatives to combat drug cartels.

“I would have liked to have the opportunity to visit with the FBI and the agents there to learn more about what the drug cartels are doing and what strategy we’re employing to stop them,” Representative Vicky Hartzler said, “but we were denied the opportunity.”

A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent stationed at the El Paso location told Fox News that U.S.-Mexico border experienced a surge in drug smuggler crossings in March and suggested that border officials are worried the situation could worsen.