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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met at the Military Demarcation Line Friday for the two countries first summit in more than 10 years.
Kim, the first North Korean leader to enter South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War, approached Moon with all smiles before the two shook hands on their respective sides.
“I was excited to meet at this historic place and it is really moving that you came all the way to the demarcation line to greet me in person,” Kim told Moon.
After stepping over to the South, Kim went off script and brought Moon back to the North, clutching the hand of his quasi-counterpart.
The pair posed for photos as dozens of journalists looked on, frantically capturing the historic moment as it unfolded at Panmunjom.
Credit: Korea Summit Press Pool/Getty Images
The two leaders were then accompanied by a traditionally-dressed honor guard as they began towards the event’s opening ceremony.
Credit: Inter-Korean Summit Press Corps/Pool via Bloomberg
Kim was introduced to numerous members of Moon’s delegation before Moon was introduced to Kim’s.
Moon was saluted by North Korea’s top military men, clad in Soviet-era regalia.
Credit: Korea Summit Press Pool/Getty Images
Making their way to the newly-renovated Peace House, Kim entered and signed the guest book, a gesture reserved for all high-level visitors.
A photo of Kim’s message reads: “A new history begins now – at the starting point of history and the era of peace.”
Here’s a message Kim Jong Un wrote on the guestbook at the Peace House summit venue, which reads “A new history begins now – at the starting point of history and the era of peace.” #interkoreasummit
Upon finally reaching the negotiating table, Kim and Moon exchanged their opening remarks, both advocating for a long-sought peace in the divided region.
Amazing: live feed of Kim Jong Un making opening remarks at the start of inter-Korean talks, even making jokes about how far the cold noodles have had to come today
Halfway through the summit, the two took a break to plant a tree commemorating the unprecedented occasion.
After hours of deliberation and talks, the two leaders released a joint declaration. Among other things, the two countries promised to increase diplomatic relations and work towards the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
“The two leaders solemnly declared before the 80 million Korean people and the whole world that there will be no more war on the Korean Peninsula and thus a new era of peace has begun,” the declaration triumphantly announced.
To celebrate the accomplishment, the leaders of the DPRK and ROK sat down for a banquet, complete with traditional Korean music, celebratory toasts and small talk.
As darkness eventually fell on the Korean Peninsula, Kim stepped inside a limousine surrounded by security personnel and slipped back into the Hermit Kingdom.
Kim is now set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in late May or early June.
While analysts are skeptical North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons, the summit could fulfill some short term goals, including an official end to the Korean war and the release of U.S. hostages, as Trump and Kim lay out plans for the future.
In a series of tweets Friday, Trump congratulated the two Korean leaders on their landmark proceeding.
“After a furious year of missile launches and Nuclear testing, a historic meeting between North and South Korea is now taking place,” Trump said. “Good things are happening, but only time will tell!”
View some of the Kim-Moon Summit’s historic photos below:
North and South Korea will seek a ‘peace regime’ to end the Korean War after 68 years as Kim Jong-un agreed to ‘complete denuclearisation’ during historic talks today.
Kim Jong-un became the first North Korean leader to step into the South for 65 years as he met with President Moon Jae-in for a peace summit today.
The two sworn enemies exchanged a warm greeting at the 38th parallel in the truce village of Panmunjom before Moon led Kim by the hand to cross into the South for the first time ever.
North and South Korean Leaders Hold Historic Summit
Kim Jong-un crosses DMZ, welcomed by South Korea
In a historic meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un crossed the demilitarized zone and was welcomed by South Korea President Moon Jae-in. It’s been over 10 years since the two countries’ leaders last met, and Kim’s eagerness to negotiate is sparking some optimism of a united Korea.
The U.S. Catholic bishops submitted a brief to the Supreme Court declaring that President Donald Trump’s ban on migration from five Muslim countries was “blatant religious discrimination.”
One learns from childhood to discriminate between what is harmful and what is benign. Trump’s ban was from “countries of concern” that were chosen by the Obama administration due to the security threats emanating from them, not because of anti-Muslim bigotry.
There is no discrimination against Muslims in America, based solely on faith. Muslims are free to practice their faith in peace, despite the fact that many Islamic preachers are spewing hatred against Christians, Jews and Zionism.
Attorney Neal Katyal referred to the bishops’ strongly worded friend-of-the-court brief as Justice Samuel Alito pressed him for evidence that a “reasonable person” would view Trump’s proclamation as discriminating against Muslims.
Any reasonable person should ask the question of why there is concern about Islam and none about Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, etc. No reasonable person has anything against a Muslim’s private faith if it is benign, but any reasonable person has concerns about jihad and the global Islamic war that has been declared against infidels.
The next question that comes to mind is this: what possible motive could the bishops have?
In the Fiscal Year 2016, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) received more than $91 million in government funding for refugee resettlement. Over the past nine years, the USCCB has received a total of $534,788,660 in taxpayer dollars for refugee resettlement programs
These bishops have abandoned persecuted Christians and abdicated their role as Christian leaders. They are unfit for their ecclesiastical duties.
“The Bishops’ Brief Against the Ban,” by Paul Moses, Commonweal, April 26, 2018:
The U.S. Catholic bishops submitted a brief to the Supreme Court declaring that President Donald Trump’s ban on migration from five Muslim countries was “blatant religious discrimination”—and the lawyer representing opponents of the measure reminded the justices of that line in oral arguments held Wednesday.
Attorney Neal Katyal referred to the bishops’ strongly worded friend-of-the-court brief as Justice Samuel Alito pressed him for evidence that a “reasonable person” would view Trump’s proclamation as discriminating against Muslims.
“This is a ban that really does fall almost exclusively on Muslims,” Katyal said. “…Look at the wide variety of amicus briefs filed in this case from every corner of society, representing millions and millions of people, from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which calls it, quote, ‘blatant religious discrimination’”—
He was cut off, but the point was made before a court with five Catholic justices and one Episcopalian who was raised Catholic, Neil Gorsuch. The bishops’ brief cited Trump’s anti-Muslim tweets as evidence that the president’s order “arises out of express hostility to Islam,” and violates the First Amendment’s free exercise clause.
“Such blatant religious discrimination is repugnant to the Catholic faith, core American values, and the United States Constitution. It poses a substantial threat to religious liberty that this Court has never tolerated before and should not tolerate now,” the brief says. “Having once borne the brunt of severe discriminatory treatment, particularly in the immigration context, the Catholic Church will not sit silent while others suffer on account of their religion.”
Much of the news coverage of the hearing took the justices’ questioning as evidence that the court’s five-member conservative majority would rule in Trump’s favor. On the face of it, the justices need to decide if the core element of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965—abolishing discriminatory national-origin quotas passed in the 1920s—is trumped by a paragraph in the same law that, if the Trump administration is right, gives the president unlimited power over who can enter the country.
Whether the religious discrimination argument will move the justices in this case remains to be seen—and it’s best not to speculate on a justice’s thinking based on his or her questions.
But however the court rules, the USCCB’s brief is important in staking out an authentic Catholic position on Islam and immigration at a time when many anti-Islam voices are able to find a platform in Catholic media and institutions. And it counters the bishops’ past failures to include discrimination against Muslims as a cause for their campaign for religious liberty, as seen in the statement “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” which was issued before the 2012 presidential election. With a few exceptions, Catholic institutions were slow to respond to the nativist strain in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and the first nativist president was elected with a majority of the white Catholic vote. More recently, the USCCB released a statement in February 2017 urging Trump to fulfill his promise to protect religious liberty—but without mentioning his plans for immigration or his anti-Muslim comments……
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As Jihad Watch reported Saturday, “The U.S. Catholic bishops submitted a brief to the Supreme Court declaring that President Donald Trump’s ban on migration from five Muslim countries was ‘blatant religious discrimination.’” Is it really?
And do the U.S. Catholic bishops feel any obligation to support measures that would protect Americans from jihad attacks? Apparently not. The message that the bishops are sending to Americans is simple: drop dead. The U.S. Catholic bishops appear to be absolutely unconcerned about the following facts:
Somali Muslim migrant Mohammad Barry in February 2016 stabbed multiple patrons at a restaurant owned by an Israeli Arab Christian; Ahmad Khan Rahami, an Afghan Muslim migrant, in September 2016 set off bombs in New York City and New Jersey; Arcan Cetin, a Turkish Muslim migrant, in September 2016 murdered five people in a mall in Burlington, Washington; Dahir Adan, another Somali Muslim migrant, in October 2016 stabbed mall shoppersin St. Cloud while screaming “Allahu akbar”; and Abdul Razak Artan, yet another Somali Muslim migrant, in November 2016 injured nine people with car and knife attacks at Ohio State University. 72 jihad terrorists have come to the U.S. from the countries listed in Trump’s initial immigration ban.
What’s more, all of the jihadis who murdered 130 people in Paris in November 2015 had just entered Europe as refugees. In February 2015, the Islamic State boasted it would soon flood Europe with as many as 500,000 refugees. The Lebanese Education Minister said in September 2015 that there were 20,000 jihadis among the refugees in camps in his country. On May 10, 2016, Patrick Calvar, the head of France’s DGSI internal intelligence agency, said that the Islamic State was using migrant routes through the Balkans to get jihadis into Europe.
The bishops have never expressed any concern about any of this. They are completely in line with Pope Francis, who has claimed risibly that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” This has become a super-dogma in the Catholic Church: if you don’t believe that Islam is a Religion of Peace, you will be ruthlessly harassed and silenced by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the hierarchy elsewhere as well. The bishops of the Catholic Church are much more concerned that you believe that Islam is a religion of peace than that you believe in, say, the Nicene Creed. And so what possible reason could there be to be concerned about these “refugees”? It’s a religion of peace!
The bishops, of course, have 91 million reasons — indeed, 534 billion reasons — to turn against the truth and disregard the safety and security of the American people: “In the Fiscal Year 2016, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) received more than $91 million in government funding for refugee resettlement. Over the past nine years, the USCCB has received a total of $534,788,660 in taxpayer dollars for refugee resettlement programs.”
“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)
It was not always thus. For centuries, in fact, as I detail in my forthcoming book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, the Catholic Church was at the forefront of efforts to resist jihad aggression in Europe. In it, you’ll discover:
The Pope who was a true precursor of Pope Francis: he was harshly criticized by the Romans for failing to keep them safe from jihad attacks;
The Pope who answered a Byzantine Emperor’s call for help against the jihadis not by scolding him about how Islam was peaceful, but by calling on the rulers of Europe to send troops;
The Medieval Pope who called Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, a “son of perdition,” and called for Christians to unite against the advancing jihad;
What happened when a Mongol ruler sent an emissary across Central Asia and into Europe to meet the Pope and seek an alliance with the Christians against the forces of jihad;
The Pope who haughtily refused to come to the aid of the Christian Byzantine Empire when it was mortally threatened by jihadis, because of doctrinal differences;
The Pope who took a solemn oath at his consecration to “extirpate the diabolical sect of the reprobate and faithless Mahomet”;
The Pope who touched off worldwide Muslim riots by noting that “God is not pleased by blood”;
Ken Isaacs once proposed building a wall in the Alps to keep out migrants. Trump wants him to lead the world’s principal migration agency.
Some things should go without saying. One of them is that no one would ever leave their front, back, and side doors, and their windows, open to anyone who wishes to enter their homes.
Every productive, law-abiding immigrant who has been through the necessary process of vetting understands the reasoning behind the two-way street principle of immigration.
In the case of those claiming to be refugees, if they’re genuine refugees the emergency creates a different situation, but it is still basic prudence to consider the well-being of the citizens of the nation to which the refugees are arriving, and not just that of the refugees alone.
Groups such as the Islamic State and al Qaeda have already infiltrated the refugee stream. It is the the duty of authorities to protect their citizens against these “refugees.”
For the past few weeks, Isaacs has been traveling to foreign capitals in Europe and Africa in the company of White House and State Department escorts, seeking forgiveness.
Isaacs should not be apologizing for his prior concerns about public safety, given the flood of Muslim migrants into Europe and the subsequent well-documented ills that followed. Isaacs is unwittingly sending a message that leaders who care about their populations, and who have opted to try to curb or block the streams of unvetted refugees, are wrong or offensive for doing so — including President Trump, who has caused “offence” over his temporary Muslim ban from countries of concern for jihad activity.
Muslims are not being targeted worldwide, except by fellow Muslims. Over 11 million Muslims have been murdered since 1948 by their coreligionists. It is infidels and apostates who are being victimized by Muslims, not the other way around.
Responsible immigration policy is essential, and Isaacs should be advocating for it. Concern for the victims of Islamic supremacism and jihad is valid, no matter how loudly the media claims that such concern renders one evil. There is a systematic war being waged against free societies. The first step in effectively fighting it is to stand firm on Judeo-Christian values and genuine human rights for all people, including, of course, genuinely peaceful Muslims. No apologies are needed for protecting human rights and the free societies that protect those rights.
“A Trump U.N. Pick Tries to Make Up for Anti-Muslim Tweets,” by Colum Lynch, Foreign Policy, April 26, 2018:
If there were ever a candidate for Twitter purgatory, it would have to be Ken Isaacs, who upended his White House-backed campaign to lead the U.N. migration agency with a series of tweets denigrating Islam.
For the past few weeks, Isaacs has been traveling to foreign capitals in Europe and Africa in the company of White House and State Department escorts, seeking forgiveness as he tries to rescue his bid by persuading foreign dignitaries, including Pope Francis, that he is not the sum of his tweets and that he can be trusted to lead the International Organization for Migration (IOM) without religious bias. In a sign of the importance of his candidacy, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will host a reception on May 3 to introduce U.N. ambassadors to Isaacs in New York.
The State Department declined to make Isaacs available for an interview. But Isaacs agreed to respond to written questions.
“I have apologized publicly for social media comments that have caused hurt,” he writes. “I ask people to judge me on my professional record and the decades of work I have done to help people in need around the world.”
Despite persistent misgivings about the U.S. candidate’s temperament, Isaacs maintains the edge as the front-runner because key powers, particularly in Europe, are unwilling to challenge the Americans’ traditional hold on the job out of concern that it might provoke the United States to pull IOM funding or cost them Washington’s support for other national priorities, several diplomatic sources say.
The United States is the single largest donor to IOM, contributing more than 30 percent of the some $1 billion the organization receives in voluntary donations each year.
“We are not going to take the fight [to the United States] out of fear of pushing the U.S. away and [damaging] our bilateral relations,” one senior European diplomat says. That view, the diplomat says, is “fairly widely held” among European governments.
The nomination of such a controversial candidate will serve as a test of the United States’ ability to maintain its leadership position on the multilateral stage at a time when the White House has expressed disdain for international institutions from the International Criminal Court to the World Trade Organization. It will also determine whether the United States will be forced to pay a diplomatic cost for imposing sharp budget cuts on key agencies, including the U.N. Population Fund and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency…..
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Trump pick under fire from “CNN’s resident smear merchant” Andrew Kaczynski for retweeting Jihad Watch
“The Trump administration’s pick to head the United Nations organization that coordinates assistance to migrants worldwide regularly pushed anti-Muslim sentiment, including claims that Muslims were trying to impose Sharia law in the US.”
“A CNN KFile review has turned up previously unreported tweets that reveal Ken Isaacs has an extensive history of sharing anti-Muslim sentiment. Isaacs pushed a conspiratorial view of Islam and promoted the fringe views from prominent anti-Muslim activists, the review shows….”
“Asked about the tweets in this story, the State Department sent CNN’s KFile a statement that spokeswoman Heather Nauert gave to the Post in February.”
““Mr. Isaacs has apologized for the comments he posted on his private social media account. We believe that was proper for him to do so,” Nauert said last month. “Mr. Isaacs is committed to helping refugees and has a long history of assisting those who are suffering. We believe that if chosen to lead IOM, he would treat people fairly and with the dignity and respect they deserve. I would refer you to Mr. Isaacs for any information on his statements.””
The Qur’an has Allah telling Muhammad that he has given him girls as sex slaves: “Prophet, We have made lawful to you the wives to whom you have granted dowries and the slave girls whom God has given you as booty.” (Qur’an 33:50)
Muhammad bought slaves: “Jabir (Allah be pleased with him) reported: There came a slave and pledged allegiance to Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) on migration; he (the Holy Prophet) did not know that he was a slave. Then there came his master and demanded him back, whereupon Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: Sell him to me. And he bought him for two black slaves, and he did not afterwards take allegiance from anyone until he had asked him whether he was a slave (or a free man).” (Muslim 3901)
Muhammad took female Infidel captives as slaves: “Narrated Anas: The Prophet offered the Fajr Prayer near Khaibar when it was still dark and then said, ‘Allahu-Akbar! Khaibar is destroyed, for whenever we approach a (hostile) nation (to fight), then evil will be the morning for those who have been warned.’ Then the inhabitants of Khaibar came out running on the roads. The Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives. Safiya was amongst the captives. She first came in the share of Dahya Alkali but later on she belonged to the Prophet. The Prophet made her manumission as her ‘Mahr.’” (Bukhari 5.59.512) Mahr is bride price: Muhammad freed her and married her. But he didn’t do this to all his slaves:
Muhammad owned slaves: “Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah’s Apostle was on a journey and he had a black slave called Anjasha, and he was driving the camels (very fast, and there were women riding on those camels). Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Waihaka (May Allah be merciful to you), O Anjasha! Drive slowly (the camels) with the glass vessels (women)!’” (Bukhari 8.73.182) There is no mention of Muhammad’s freeing Anjasha.
“Son of Guinea’s first president charged with forced labor in Texas,” by Laura Koran and Laura Jarrett, CNN, April 26, 2018 (thanks to Robert):
Washington (CNN)A Texas couple with deep political connections in the West African country of Guinea was charged Thursday with forced labor after a young woman they allegedly enslaved for more than 16 years managed to escape their home in Southlake with help from neighbors.
Mohamed Toure and Denise Cros-Toure, both 57, allegedly brought the victim from Guinea to Texas in 2000, when she was just 5 years old. She has not been named.
They allegedly then forced the girl to do housework and care for their children, subjecting her to emotional and physical abuse, the Department of Justice said in a press release.
“Although the victim was close in age to the children, the defendants denied her access to schooling and the other opportunities afforded to their children,” the department alleges.
The couple originally hail from Guinea, where Mohamed Toure is an influential figure and son of Guinea’s first President, Ahmed Sekou Toure.
The younger Toure was also a leader of the political opposition party in Guinea, although he has no diplomatic immunity or status, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Following his father’s death in 1984, Mohamed Toure was imprisoned along with other members of his family, according to the authors of Historical Dictionary of Guinea. He was later exiled to Morocco and Ivory Coast before settling in Texas with his wife and children.
He later returned to Guinea, where he was named secretary general of his father’s old political party.
Now, Toure and his wife face up to 20 years in prison on the forced labor charge.
“As part of their coercive scheme to compel the victim’s labor, the defendants took her documents and caused her to remain unlawfully in the United States after her visa expired,” the Justice Department alleges in its press release. “They further isolated her from her family and others and emotionally and physically abused her.”
In the criminal complaint against the Toure, the lead investigator alleges that the victim — referred to only as Female Victim 1 or FV-1 — was forced to sleep on the floor for years, and was only taken to see a medical professional once.
The complaint also alleges disturbing incidents of physical abuse by Cros-Toure, who allegedly beat the victim, sometimes with a belt or electrical cord. In one incident, the victim alleged an earring was pulled out of her ear by Cros-Toure with such force that it tore her earlobe, leaving a visible scar….
In the UK as in the US, only one political opinion is acceptable to the political and media elites. They blather on and on about “diversity,” but that just means they want people of many races, ethnicities and religions all saying the same thing.
“Small Town Mayor Forced to Quit for Following Kassam, Steyn, Wilders on Social Media,” by Oliver JJ Lane, Breitbart, April 26, 2018 (thanks to Inexion):
The mayor of a small British town quit his post for “personal reasons”, reportedly after a single complaint was made about his social media activity, including expressing concern about mass migration, and being subscribed to right-wing personalities on Facebook.
Councillor Peter Lucey stood down from his post as Mayor of Wokingham and resigned from the Conservative Party Wednesday after a fellow Councillor from the left-wing Labour Party wrote a letter of complaint about the Mayor’s online activity, reports the Wokingham Paper.
According to the report, the Mayor had expressed concern about mass migration and subscribed to right-wing personalities on Facebook, including Breitbart London Editor in Chief Raheem Kassam, Dutch populist Geert Wilders, and New York Times-bestselling Canadian author Mark Steyn, which the Wokingham Paper described as being “controversial” and holding “anti-Islamic views”.
The report also made specific mention of Kassam’s newly released book on mid-20th century conservative political giant Enoch Powell, Enoch Was Right: ‘Rivers of Blood’ 50 Years On in the context of Lucey’s resignation.
It is claimed in addition to the personalities followed by Lucey, he also followed the now largely dormant street-marching group the English Defence League, and think-tank the Gatestone Institute.
Speaking to local newspaper the Bracknell News, Labour councillor Andy Croy claimed the Mayor had made Islamophobic communications online, although the only message quoted by papers surrounding the now-deleted accounts specifically referenced immigration, not Islam. The politician said: “I saw the messages and wrote to The Wokingham Conservatives, pointing out that I thought it was islamophobic [sic] and that they needed to deal with it.
“I demanded his resignation. He posted something along the lines of ‘mass immigration has destroyed your future’.”…
Pamela Geller posted an accurate news story, accompanied by a genuine photo of two niqab-wearing Muslimas carrying a sign saying “God Bless Hitler” — a vivid, and sickening, illustration of Islamic antisemitism. For doing this, she has been blocked from posting at Facebook yet again, in what is just the latest indication of the social media giant’s determination to silence all voices that dissent from its hard-Left agenda.
Mark Zuckerberg recently claimed, risibly, that Facebook’s censors had no political bias. He actually had the audacity to say this in a Congressional hearing. No one asked him why Facebook’s Vice President Joel Kaplan traveled to Pakistan in July 2017 to assure the Pakistani government that it would remove “anti-Islam” material. That endeavor had already started before Kaplan’s trip. In mid-February 2017, traffic to Jihad Watch from Facebook dropped suddenly by 90% and has never recovered. And there are so many other sites that have experienced a similar dropoff.
This was no accident. It has happened to counter-jihad sites and others that oppose the hard-Left agenda across the board. Either Zuckerberg perjured himself, or has no control over his company.
If Facebook is not broken up by anti-trust initiatives or stopped in some other way, the First Amendment freedom of speech will soon be a completely dead letter.
“Facebook Blocks Pamela Geller (Again!) for Reporting on Muslim Anti-Semitism in Germany,” by Allum Bokhari, Breitbart, April 27, 2018:
Days after Facebook, along with Google and Twitter, refused to attend a congressional hearing on social media censorship, the social network banned the account of author and free speech activist Pamela Geller for 30 days after she posted an article about Muslim anti-Semitism in Germany.
Geller’s article said that “thanks to the hijrah” [Jihad by immigration] “Islamic antisemitism will drive the Jews out of Europe, succeeding in achieving Hitler’s dream — a judenrein Europe.”
The rest of the post featured an Associated Press article about a German Jewish leader advising Jews in the country to avoid wearing skullcaps in cities due to anti-Semitic attacks in the country.
At the congressional hearing on social media censorship this week, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee accused conservatives of believing a “conspiracy theory” about social media censorship. They claimed there is no pattern of bias against conservatives on major tech platforms.
And yet, the targeting of major figures on the right continues. This is not the first time Geller has been banned by Facebook for political posts. After the Islamic terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida in 2016, the social network banned both her personal account and one of her organizations, Stop Islamization of America.
Freedom Defence Initiative, another conservative organization run by Geller, was also banned by PayPal, along with Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch, a site monitoring Islamic extremism. PayPal reversed their decision following a public backlash.
Finally, Twitter refused to enforce its content rules when Geller’s daughters were the targets of a vicious harassment campaign on the app. Many of the abusive tweets remain on their platform, their authors unpunished….
In his famous outreach speech to the Islamic world from Cairo on June 4, 2009, Barack Obama said: “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country.”
The Christian Patriarch who lamented that the Arab conquest of Jerusalem was characterized by “so much destruction and plunder” and “incessant outpourings of human blood”;
The Muslim leader who had the Colossus of Rhodes sold off as scrap metal because for him, it wasn’t a “wonder of the world,” it was just an artifact of jahiliyya, pre-Islamic ignorance;
The Muslim leader who wrote to the Byzantine Emperor, a Christian, demanding that he “renounce this Jesus and convert to the great God whom I serve. If not, how will this Jesus be able to save you from my hands?”;
The caliph who exhorted his governors not to lenient on the non-Muslims, saying: “The non-Muslims are nothing but dirt. Allah has created them to be partisans of Satan”;
The Muslim leader who gave ruthless orders to the Muslim invaders of India: “Kill anyone belonging to the combatants; arrest their sons and daughters for hostages and imprison them”;
How the Muslim Spain that Obama praised became a center of the Islamic slave trade, where Muslim buyers could purchase non-Muslim sex-slave girls as young as eleven years old, as well as slave boys for sex as well, or slave boys raised to become slave soldiers;
The Islamic warrior who fought without mercy against the Hindus in India: “the blood of the infidels flowed so copiously that the stream was discolored”;
The Islamic caliphate that made it a regular practice to seize the children of Christian families, convert them to Islam, and train them as slave soldiers;
The Muslim reformer who gained a large following among Muslims by personally stoning an accused adulteress to death;
The real story of how the Sphinx lost its nose (no, Napoleon’s troops did not shoot it off during target practice);
Much, much more.
“Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance” — Barack Obama is gone from the White House, but many people believe that to this day, and such assumptions influence public policy. Discover what really happened and get the whole truth in The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. Click here to preorder now.
LIVERPOOL —Alfie Evans, the 23-month-old boy whose parents fought in court to transfer him to another hospital for experimental treatment, has died.
“Our baby boy grew his wings tonight at 2:30 a.m. We are heartbroken. Thank you everyone for all your support,” wrote mother Kate James on Saturday.
“My gladiator lay down his shield and gained his wings at 02:30. Absolutely heartbroken. I LOVE YOU MY GUY,” also lamented father Thomas Evans.
As previously reported, Alfie was removed from life support on Monday evening, but had been breathing on his own for several days. Artificial ventilation was discontinued as all efforts in the courts to save his life were unsuccessful.
Justice Anthony Hayden ruled in February that while Alfie’s plight was “profoundly unfair,” he agreed with Alder Hey Children’s Hospital that treatment measures would be futile, and that the nearly two-year-old boy rather needs “good quality palliative care.” A court of appeals upheld the ruling last month.
Earlier this month, Hayden ordered the end-of-life plan to proceed, stating that while he understands the frustration of Alfie’s parents, he sees no chance of recovery and believes that Evans is hoping for an “entirely unrealistic solution.”
“On February 20, I gave a conclusion after six days of evidence after which Mr. Evans cross examined doctors with conspicuous skill and manifest sincerity,” he said. “But I came to the conclusion at the end of that hearing that Alfie’s brain had been so corrupted by mitochondrial disease that his life was futile.”
“By the time I came to conclude the case the terrible reality is that almost the entirety of Alfie’s brain had been eroded, leaving only water and spinal fluid,” Hayden stated. “Even at the end of February, the connective pathways within the brain had been obliterated. They were no longer even identifiable.”
As previously reported, Alfie, who was six months old at the time, was admitted to Alder Hey in December 2016 due to a chest infection. The child was born healthy by all indications, but began exhibiting unusual jerking movements months later.
While hospitalized, Alfie struggled to breathe due to a myoclonic jerking spasm, and was placed on life support. In January 2016, it was thought that Alfie would not make it, but he overcame the infection for a time and began to improve. However, the infant had to be intubated again after contracting another infection, and was stated to be in a semi-vegetative state.
In court proceedings, Alder Hey officials testified that they believed that Alfie’s brain was “entirely beyond recovery” and 70 percent damaged. They argued that it was in the child’s “best interests” to be withdrawn from life support.
However, Alfie’s parents wanted the boy to be transferred to another hospital to obtain experimental treatment—giving their son one more chance. They stated that they did not know specifically what was wrong with Alfie other than that he had a degenerative neurological condition.
Evans and James had also recorded their son opening his eyes, yawning and stretching, and believed it was evidence that they shouldn’t give up just yet.
The matter gained global attention, and a number of political leaders and other notable voices worldwide soon publicly backed the parents. Passionate supporters also gathered outside of Alder Hey Children’s Hospital to demand that the parents’ rights to their child’s treatment be respected. A helicopter was stated to be on standby to transport the boy to Italy.
On Thursday, after appeal efforts were again unsuccessful, Evans and James released a statement asking supporters to “return to their everyday lives” as they sought to “build a bridge” with the hospital. They had hoped that if matters settled down, they might be able to take their son home to obtain medical care there.
“In Alfie’s interests, we will work with his treating team on a plan that provides our boy with the dignity and comfort he needs,” the statement said.
USA ––(Ammoland.com)- The British government’s decisions to allow two critically ill babies to die in two years is a natural reflection of the culture of death and the steady increase in totalitarian tendencies among Western governments.
Last year, the British government ordered life support removed from Charlie Gard, ending his life when he was just 11 months old. Now, Alfie Evans – just 23 months old – has received what amounts to the same death sentence. On Monday, he was removed from life support by court order – against the wishes of his parents.
Then, something remarkable happened. The child confounded his doctors and refused to die.
As of the time I am writing this, Alfie Evans is still alive and is breathing unaided. This is despite the claim made by a medical professional during a court hearing that Alfie would die quickly – possibly in “minutes” – if taken off life support.
But even this display of the power of the human spirit to defy the expectations of the supposedly rational and objective state did nothing to sway the minds of the British courts and state-run medical apparatus.
On Wednesday, another legal appeal by the parents to be allowed to try and save their son’s life was denied.
The secular system has asserted its right to define what lives are worth living and is determined to prevent its authority from being questioned. Alfie Evans’ life – like Charlie Gard’s before him – has been determined to be limited by the standards of the secular state – and therefore without value.
These tragic government-imposed death sentences for innocent infants should frighten all of us about increasing secularism in society and the steady shift towards a totalitarian willingness to control our lives – down to and including ending them – on the government’s terms.
This is a direct assault on the core premise of the Declaration of Independence. We Americans asserted that we “are endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In the American Revolution, in our fight against the British crown, we asserted that rights come from God not from government.
However, our secular, liberal culture increasingly dismisses the concept of God and asserts that our rights come from a rational contract enforced by government. In the original American model, we asserted our God-given rights against the power of a potentially tyrannical government. In the emerging left-wing secular order, since there is no God, our rights depend on a secular state controlling itself.
Britain is giving us a vivid, tragic sense of how dangerous and heartless government tyranny can be once God is rejected and there is nothing between us and the government.
Ironically, this latest decision was made the same year Stephen Hawking died 55 years after he was diagnosed with ALS (commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) and told he had only two years to live. Apparently, the British government learned no lessons from Hawking’s remarkable lifetime of work and achievement, which he pursued despite having to battle an extraordinarily challenging illness. In fact, in 1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia while he was writing A Brief History of Time, and his wife was asked if his life should be terminated. She refused, and Hawking went on to live another 33 years and publish one of the most acclaimed books of the 20th century, which has since sold more than 10 million copies worldwide – all after it had been suggested he be taken off life support.
Hawking should be a permanent reminder that the human spirit is more important than the human body and that the will to live and achieve should not be destroyed by the state.
Yet, in the very country which produced and nurtured Hawking, the government still ordered the removal of life support from two babies. In both cases there has been an organized alternative to government-imposed death.
Charlie Gard’s condition was potentially treatable by an experimental process in the United States. An American hospital and other organizations were willing to treat him. Supporters gave more than 1.3 million pounds (about $1.8 million) to pay for the travel and treatment. His parents wanted him to have the chance to live. However, the British bureaucracy took time to consider if he could go. During that bureaucratic process, his condition worsened. Then, having allowed his condition to worsen by refusing to say yes, it was too late. During the bureaucratic deliberation, Charlie’s parents and those who wanted to try to save him were told they had no right to help their own child. The child belonged to the government, and the government would decide whether he had the right to live.
This year, Alfie Evans had international support for an opportunity to live. The “Pope’s hospital”, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, has offered to treat Alfie (as it did with Charlie), and Pope Francis has publicly appealed to the British government to allow the young child to be taken to Rome. An air ambulance was sent to Alfie’s hospital earlier this week to bring him to the doctors who wanted to try for a miraculous cure.
In a real sense: What better place is there to hope for a miracle than in the Pope’s pediatric hospital, which has helped many children with rare diseases?
This appeal for hope fell on the deaf ears of the state, which refused to allow Alfie’s parents to transfer their child to Rome. In fact, The Telegraph reported that despite a judge ruling that Alfie’s parents could “explore” taking the child home, doctors treating the child have been against this because they fear that “in the ‘worst case’ they would try to take the boy abroad.”
In other words, the “worst case” scenario would be for Alfie’s parents to seek medical help to save their child.
This is monstrous. It is difficult to understand the arrogance and coldness of British judges who prefer to order death rather than allow parents to fight for the lives of their children. Yet at least twice in two years we have seen a supposedly free country’s court system impose death on its most innocent citizens.
Some of this cruelty and inhumanity is a function of the growing culture of death and the expanding sense that secular values must drive religious values out of public life.
Some of it comes from a National Health Service which must bureaucratically define what is worth investing in and what is not. In a world of limited medical resources, little babies with rare conditions become expendable “for the greater good.” The fact that we are all diminished makes no difference to the atheist bureaucratic left.
Those who say they favor socialism must be made to confront this inhumanity, which is an integral part of socialist implementation. When the government controls everything, the government defines everything, and humanity is crushed beneath petty rules and petty rulers.
In America, we are watching the steady growth of intolerance and the totalitarian impulse. Look at the campuses which now seek to control speech. Look at the polls which show young people are being educated into support for censorship. Look at the California legislature which is considering legislation that, taken to its logical conclusion, will outlaw the sale and distribution of the Bible and the Koran (the secular society sees both as intolerant, dangerous documents).
When you read about these two babies being denied life support by a supposedly free government, remember what John Donne warned when he wrote “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
In these two years, we have seen two babies effectively sentenced to death by a government we would once have considered humane. What will the next horror be?
Newt Gingrich is well-known as the architect of the “Contract with America” that led the Republican Party to victory in 1994 by capturing the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. After he was elected Speaker, he disrupted the status quo by moving power out of Washington and back to the American people.
Gingrich Productions is a performance and production company featuring the work of Newt Gingrich and Callista Gingrich. Visit : www.gingrichproductions.com
Newt Gingrich