Day: November 14, 2020
Leftist MUSLIM privilege: Ilhan Omar has paid husband’s political consulting firm nearly $2,800,000
BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
If there were an investigation, which there almost certainly will not be, Ilhan Omar would likely be found completely innocent of any wrongdoing, no matter what the facts of the case may be. Why? Because as a quadruple victim — female, migrant, black, Muslim — she has a coveted protected status in American society today, and privilege to do essentially whatever she wants. I’m not saying she is guilty of violating any laws here, as there is no law against a political campaign hiring a relative or spouse. But this is the same sort of situation as that of Hunter and Joe Biden. Hunter Biden was hired by a Ukrainian oil company for a massive salary despite having no experience in the industry. Even if no actual laws were broken, it was quite clearly a case of buying influence in the U.S. government, just as Omar here is taking advantage of a lacuna in the laws to funnel campaign money into her personal account. And of course, there is plenty of evidence of her violating other laws. Nonetheless, no matter what she has done, she is golden. If she were a Christian male born in the U.S., and a conservative, there would be heavy pressure on her to resign in disgrace, she would be vilified in the media on a regular basis, and legal proceedings would be underway against her.
“Rep. Omar has paid husband’s political consulting firm nearly $2.8M,” by Mark Moore, New York Post, November 11, 2020:
Rep. Ilhan Omar has funneled nearly $2.8 million to her husband’s political consulting company since the beginning of 2019, according to a report.
Omar’s campaign paid $1.6 million to E Street Group LLC, which is owned by her husband, Tim Mynett, from the start of 2019 to July 22, 2020, Fox News reported Tuesday, citing Federal Election Commission data.
Another $1.1 million was sent to the firm in the third quarter and $27,000 in the following weeks.
The $1.1 million figure represented nearly 70 percent of the $1.6 million that her campaign spent in those three months, the report said.
The expenses were for a range of campaign services, including cable advertising, “digital consulting,” video production and editing, Fox News said.
Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, easily won re-election last week.
Her campaign and E Street Group did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News.
Omar has defended her expenses and said her campaign worked with Mynett’s firm long before they began a relationship.
“We consulted with a top FEC campaign attorney to ensure there were no possible legal issues with our relationship,” she said in a Twitter post in March, just days after she married Mynett. “We were told this is not uncommon and that no, there weren’t.”…
DEMOCRATS, VACCINE PUSHERS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ELECTION CHAOS: AIRLINES TO REQUIRE VACCINATION CERTIFICATES FOR BOARDING; OPEN STRIP CLUBS; CANCELLING THANKSGIVING; NO FOOD STAMPS WITHOUT VACCINES; INCREASE MUSLIM IMMIGRATION
Airlines to Require “Health Pass,” Vaccine Certificate Before Allowing Passengers to Fly
BY PAUL JOSEPH WATSON
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
Airlines are likely to require passengers to sign up for a “health pass” which includes a digital certificate of vaccination against COVID-19 before allowing them to fly, according to a new report.
The system would be similar in nature to that being considered by Ticketmaster, who it was revealed earlier this week are considering making customers prove they’ve had the vaccine or a negative coronavirus test before allowing them to purchase tickets.
Ticketmaster later clarified that a final decision on such measures would be up to event organizers but that they were still mulling over the implementation of the system.
Now according to a new report by Axios, airlines are likely to follow the same model.
“Three global alliances representing 58 airlines are pushing governments to allow widespread COVID-19 testing of passengers instead of existing quarantine restrictions that they argue are ineffective and have killed travel demand,” states the report.
Airline passengers would be subject to similar measures being considered by Ticketmaster whereby they would have to verify they’ve been vaccinated or tested negative 24 to 72 hours before the flight.
“The bottom line: No heath pass? No admittance. And perhaps, no flying,” states the report.
The system would likely be organized under the auspices of CommonPass, a program sponsored by the World Economic Forum, which is pushing for a post-COVID “Great Reset” that would transform the world.
With Uber and other companies also beginning to refuse services to people who fail to comply with coronavirus restrictions, the “new normal” will likely create a lower caste of refuseniks who are barred from traveling, any form of social life, and in the future even basic financial services.
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Joe Biden’s Covid-19 Taskforce Member Recommends Withholding Food Stamps, Rent Assistance From Those Who Refuse Vaccines
Get ready for an Orwellian medical police state run by fascist vaccine pushers & Big Tech censors
BY MIKE ADAMS
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
If you vote for tyrants, you get tyranny.
This is what millions of Joe Biden supporters are about to discover if their candidate manages to steal the election and seize control of the White House.
A prominent member of Biden’s Covid-19 taskforce, a CIA-linked operative named Luciana Borio, says that people who refuse to be vaccinated should be deprived of food stamps and rent assistance.
And in order to convince Black Americans to take the vaccines, influencers should be hired to brainwash Blacks with special compliance messages that are scientifically tested in social engineering focus groups.
In other words, obey or starve. This is all contained in the report linked in this story, by the way.
This is on top of another Biden taskforce member now calling for a 4-6 week national lockdown for all Americans — a kind of national economic suicide to finish off whatever small businesses might have survived the covid nightmare so far.
This covid tyranny is exactly what we’ve warned was coming: Lockdown tyranny and vaccine tyranny, enforced through a horrifying new “medical credit scoring” system that tracks your compliance with government mandates for vaccines, lockdowns and masks.
The task force member in question here is Luciana Borio, MD, the Vice President of In-Q-Tel, a CIA-linked propaganda front that uses social engineering tactics to enslave humanity. She’s listed as the top member of the “Working Group of Readying Populations for COVID-19 Vaccines” as described in a document from the Center for Health Security, released in July of this year by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. A copy of this PDF has been saved at the Natural News servers, in case they try to take it down from its original location.
The document says that federal agencies should collude to develop a “national promotion strategy” — which might as well be called a “national propaganda strategy” — for convincing people to take potentially dangerous and deadly covid-19 vaccines which have skipped any real rigorous testing.
“Bundling” of vaccinations with food stamps, health care and rent assistance
The document recommends that vaccine mandates get “bundled” with other social services such as food stamps (WIC program), rent assistance and health care services. The report explains:
Local and state public health agencies should explore collaboration with interagency and nongovernment partners to bundle vaccination with other safety net services.
It also says that “bundling” vaccines with food stamps would be, “a way to build trust and streamline vaccine provision” among low-income people such as “Blacks and minority communities.”
Yes, just as we’ve all known for quite some time, the depopulation vaccines will be targeting Blacks in America, which is exactly what the abortion industry targets as well. But anyone who criticizes the forcing of vaccines onto Black Americans will be called racist, of course. The report also talks about putting in place a medical police state monitoring infrastructure to surveil Blacks and minorities in real time, making sure they surrender to forced immunizations:
It will also be critical to monitor in real time who has gotten the vaccine and what the key facilitators and barriers to vaccination have been within communities, so local public health departments can adapt their approaches accordingly.
The document even talks about Blacking-up the vaccine propaganda language in order to appeal to Blacks and so-called anti-vaxxers:
Given the diverse nature of social identities in the United States, vaccination communications will need to be tailored to specific audiences that are key to an equitable and effective COVID-19 response (eg, essential workers, parents, groups with high comorbidity rates, communities of color, vaccine-hesitant persons).
In order to brainwash Blacks and minorities into accepting dangerous, experimental covid-19 vaccines, document authors say that influential celebrities (such as Hollywood stars and music stars) should be recruited to deliver messages so that uninformed people can be influenced:
Engage a broad network of trusted spokespersons who can deliver and reinforce a unified message about COVID-19 vaccination… To motivate people to take protective actions like vaccination requires that they hear a salient and specific message repeatedly, delivered by multiple trusted messengers and via diverse media channels.
The report even admits that Blacks and minorities have been lied to and abused by the government before, especially involving public health issues: “…minority groups have often experienced a history of government abuse that may make it harder build trust.”
Finally, the document proposes that scientific testing on “vaccination messages” should be openly published by the NIH, CDC and NLM (National Library of Medicine) so that all the authorities have access to all the social engineering experiments that attempt to brainwash Blacks with pro-vaccine propaganda.
Mandatory vaccine sites: Grocery stores, pharmacies, schools, workplaces, senior citizen centers and churches will all be used to force vaccines on everyone
The document not only recommends that food assistance and rent assistance be withheld from those who refuse mandatory coronavirus vaccines, it also says that “home visits” should be used to inject people on a door-to-door basis. In addition, workplaces, pharmacies, churches and schools are named as candidates for forced immunizations, and the document recommends that pharmacists be allowed to “administer a vaccine directly without a standing order.”
The document specifically states that vaccine efforts should include “nontraditional sites” such as “places of worship” or senior centers, and that covid-19 vaccines should be “bundled” with other essential social services such as food stamps (see below).
From the document: (emphasis added)
COVID-19 vaccination may require ramping up the use of sites that are already available and accessible to older adults but are used less frequently; widely placed community pharmacies, for example, are an underutilized site for routine vaccine promotion and administration,111 but they were used successfully for expanding access to pandemic vaccine in 2009 and 2010.112 Most adults in the United States live closer to a pharmacy than to a clinic, and pharmacy vaccination programs can be especially effective for harder-to-reach populations. Pharmacy immunization efforts work best when pharmacists are given adequate training in administering a new vaccine and when state-level policies allow pharmacists the ability to administer a vaccine directly without a standing order. Other nontraditional vaccination settings include grocery stores, senior citizen centers, health departments, mass vaccination clinics, and local corporations; these have been assessed as safe and acceptable sites for pneumococcal and influenza vaccines.113-115 After doctors’ offices, the next most common settings for influenza vaccination are pharmacies, stores (eg, supermarkets), and workplaces.116 To allow adults to be vaccinated directly in their workplaces seems prudent, especially for essential workers likely to be in the first tier for vaccination. Schools, which are trusted institutions present in every community and available on weekends and at night, are an additional candidate location; they were used during mass polio vaccination campaigns.117 In some cases, it also may be acceptable and feasible to deliver vaccination via home visits by community health nurses when vaccination is bundled with delivery of other preventive health services; this approach has received a strong recommendation in the past from the Community Preventive Services Task Force.118 Ensuring that all COVID-19 vaccination sites maintain safe physical distancing practices may require additional planning.
The report also urges vaccine pushers to plan for the “logistics” of using grocery stores as “frontline” sites in a “vaccine rollout.” Here’s the text from the report:
Federal, state, and local health officers and their strategic partners should actively involve experts on preparedness and planning in vaccine rollout preparations as early as possible, given that novel or nontraditional sites for vaccination may become the frontlines of a successful vaccination program. These experts can help coordinate efforts at heterogeneous sites and adapt strategies that suit each site accordingly. For example, the vaccination logistics and rollout at a grocery store site will require different planning and preparation than vaccine rollout in traditional physicians’ offices.
Get ready for the rolling out of an Orwellian medical police state run by fascist vaccine pushers and Big Tech censors
The bottom line in all this? If Biden is elected President and his covid-19 taskforce becomes a reality, America will be transformed into a vaccine-pushing medical police state where you can’t even go to the grocery store or go to church without being harassed by crazed vaccine zealots.
All independent journalism that questions the safety or efficacy of vaccines will be completely banned, and the CDC — using taxpayer money — will roll out an endless stream of pro-vaccine propaganda by hiring famous actors and recording artists to brainwash the masses into getting vaccinated.
This is what happens when you vote for tyrants: You get tyranny.
So roll up your sleeve, Biden supporters, and prepare to be forcibly injected with an experimental, potentially deadly vaccine cocktail that will make the Tuskegee experiments look like a cakewalk.
Blacks and minorities are about to be targeted with the ultimate depopulation weapon: An engineered euthanasia shot called a “vaccine,” that’s so deadly and dangerous, every propaganda trick imaginable has to be used to convince people to take it… even when it’s free.
And if you say no, you won’t be able to buy groceries, go to church, attend a concert, travel by air or even open a bank account. If you continue to resist, don’t worry: They’ll send “isolation teams” to your home to kidnap you and throw you in a CDC concentration camp, where you’ll be “recycled” into biosludge that’s deposited onto the food crops.
It sounds a lot like the Green New Deal, doesn’t it? Except it’s actually the Green New KILL.
Welcome to Covid-1984.
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California Judge Allows Strip Clubs to Open, Citing First Amendment, While Churches Remain Shuttered
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Chicago Mayor Cancels Thanksgiving
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AND ALSO:
GEORGIA: Republican Observers being cordoned off by “RINO” SECRETARY OF STATE USING Caution tape during the re-count process
'Won't be happening.' Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger scoffed at the demand that he should quit
Dick Morris flips out, calls Georgia secretary of state SOB.
H.R. 8424: Supreme Court Term Limits & Regular Appointments Act Taking Aim at SCOTUS
BY JOHN PETROLINO
SEE: https://www.ammoland.com/2020/11/hr-8424-supreme-court-term-limits-regular-appointments-act/;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
New Jersey – -(AmmoLand.com)- As the crack of freedom rings out across the nation in the wake of our election for President of the United States, all kinds of bills are popping up for the next legislative session.
It's clear that the people have spoken and Joe Biden is our president-elect!!… I jest, as we are wading into some of the muddiest waters in election history of most everyone’s lifetimes.
The crack of freedom is not only undermined by the continual speculation on what the actual results are but that this is or was, in fact, a very close race. What may come from Trump’s challenges to the election results remains to be seen. However, we need to be posed and positioned for an anti-freedom Biden Presidency.
The country is fairly split, and anti-freedom lawmakers should not be clicking their heels saying “the people have spoken” and thus introduce laws that would limit any rights of the people, specifically the 2nd Amendment.
More and more people are embracing firearm ownership and many of them may have voted for Biden.
It seems across the nation that lawmakers are emboldened by a Biden win, and all kinds of new legislation have been introduced. With these bills being proposed on the state and national level, of course, freedom limiting measures are being brought up. Beyond the legislative, there are murmurs that Biden’s team has already met with the head of the ATF with plans to do what? Speculation says the banning of arm-braces, a concern that was uncovered in a recent NJ state OPRA request shows the anti-gun group Moms Demand Action in correspondence with New Jersey policymakers (see OPRA W160618 Moms Demand Action Phil Murphy New Jersey 6-25-2020). Further, the regulation of 80% lowers, to make “ghost guns” unavailable might be on the menu. Rumors are flying.
What a Biden presidency would mean to the 2nd Amendment and what gets done executively remains to be seen, but we should take his word at it that he’s no friend to lawful gun ownership. The ATF has been running out of their lane as it is, and what other damage they’re going to do is up in the air. This is further compounded by legislation introduced to increase the scope of the ATF’s abilities to regulate.
Would a Biden presidency mean the United States entering back into the UN Small Arms Treaty (a scary proposition)?
One thing that continues to be clear, is the progressive agenda and its assaults on the system when America does not go their way. The progressive agenda does not try to work within the rules like Trump does with his vote count challenge that is within the rules. No, instead, they try to change them to favor one agenda.
Enter H.R. 8424: Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act of 2020
Scene in HR 8424, the Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act of 2020, introduced September 29, 2020. Interestingly enough, this bill did not pop up in the wake of this year’s election, as many have, but only a scant 11 days after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Not only is the introduction of this legislation telling because it’s a clear way to try and change the goal post concerning Supreme Court Justices, but it also highlights how disgusting and distasteful some could be by bringing such a bill up not even a full fortnight after RBG’s passing.
The bill proposes that Supreme Court Justices only serve 18-year terms and that every two years the president will get a chance to appoint two new justices. The current court would be exempt from these provisions, so this is clearly a long game that is being played. On a personal level, I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of justices having term limits, sure, this could be a good thing, potentially a bad thing.
I think before turning their sights on the courts, congress should be discussing instituting term limits for themselves, prior to projecting on another branch of the government. A little housekeeping perhaps?
The troubling part of the proposed bill is not so much the 18-year terms, and again, arguments can be made either way on that. But rather, the more troubling thing is the bill is a direct retaliation and response to the Garland appointment that did not see the light of day, and how Trump was able to fill that seat. The stonewalling of Garland can be talked about for years to come, and the more progressive-leaning individuals, as they lick their wounds on that loss, had a new nightmare come to fruition, the death of RBG right before the election.
In all rights, RBG should have retired under Obama’s watch if she was particularly worried about securing her seat with a justice that would support policies similar to her own (legislating from the bench). She rolled the dice and lost. Regardless, the Senate followed the rules, as they did during the Garland appointment, it's just the rules that did not suit progressives.
The dangerous provision of HR 8424 is this:
If the Senate does not exercise its advice and consent authority with respect to a President’s nominee to the Supreme Court within 120 days after the nomination, the Senate shall be deemed to have waived its advice and consent authority with respect to such nominee, and the nominee shall be seated as a Justice of the Supreme Court.
This is clearly an agenda to move the goal post on the selection of Supreme Court Justices when there is an upcoming election. Let’s change the rules to suit our needs so this never happens again. When the shoe is on the other foot, conservatives do what they usually do, pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and carry on.
In a United States that did not have judges and justices trying to legislate from the bench, maybe this would not be a bad thing? I don’t know. But what I do know is that justices and judges are legislating from the bench all the time, not looking into the history, text, and tradition of the Constitution, rather leaning on “feelings.” We cannot continue to have a country that has the executive branch or judicial branch create laws. We must maintain a system to protect what little is left of this ideal. That means constitutionalists in the courts. Strong and originalist judges and justices, at this juncture, are the only stop-gap the US has to safeguard against executive overreach and malfeasance of the law in lower courts.
I don’t think HR 8424 will make it anywhere, as most bills don’t. However, we’d be remiss to not at least point out what is in the playbook. About those term limits that Donald Trump wants/ed in a second term?
Maybe we should be writing our legislators to impose limits on how long members of Congress can stay in office.
John Petrolino is a US Merchant Marine Officer, writer, author of Decoding Firearms: An Easy to Read Guide on General Gun Safety & Use and NRA certified pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructor living under and working to change New Jersey's draconian and unconstitutional gun laws. You can find him on the web at www.johnpetrolino.com on twitter at @johnpetrolino and on instagram @jpetrolinoiii .
DRAIN THE CHARISMATIC SWAMP
CHRIS ROSEBROUGH'S BIBLICAL EXEGESIS OF THE REASONS CHARISMANIA IS CULT-LIKE & UNBIBLICAL
Turkey Is the Center of the New Islamist International
BY Ioannis E. Kotoulas
SEE: https://www.investigativeproject.org/8623/turkey-is-the-center-of-the-new-islamist;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
The recent row with France further established Turkey's role as an ideological instigator of tension between Islamist elements and the West and its capabilities to appeal to Islamists globally. President Tayyip Recep Erdogan rallies Islamists by promoting the notion that Europe is at war with Islam and says that his government "is determined to protect the rights and security of its citizens," declaring his intent to interfere in other countries in the name of religion.
This strategy leads to an Islamist International, led by Erdogan. The Islamist International has a core of three states, Turkey, Qatar and Iran, and a nexus of diplomatic support provided by other Islamic countries, such as Pakistan and Malaysia, and terrorist groups of Hamas and Hizballah.
The Islamist International was initially formulated during the Islamic Summit held last December in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Turkey wants to supplant Saudi Arabia and create an Islamic bloc opposed to the now pro-Western nexus of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE and Jordan. The Islamist International has extended its influence inside the EU through the network of Islamic migrant communities and entities influenced by Erdogan's Turkey, such as the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe and the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations.
Turkey's bid to head the Islamist International is seen through a series of actions targeting the Islamic community. First, Turkey has proved its ideological purity by affiliating itself with the matrix of Islamist terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood. Second, Turkey demonstrated its commitment to the Islamist global cause with military support on the ground in Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan. Turkey has supported radical Islamist fighters in all these countries or facilitated their transport to the war zones. Third, Turkey initiated the symbolic cultural war of militant Islam with the West in July, when it turned the Hagia Sophia, an iconic Christian church, into a mosque. Fourth, Turkey tries to appear as the leader of the Islamic resistance against "Western imperialism" and accuses the West of no longer feeling "the need to cover up their hatred toward Islam anymore." Finally, Turkish propaganda instrumentalizes the vague notion of Islamophobia, attempting to curb legitimate concerns of European societies over the growing Islamist terrorism.
Turkey's strategic use of Europe's Muslim populations echoes the old Soviet Union Cold War strategy to use communist elements and sympathizers as strategic minorities. Turkey today interferes in Western countries using Muslim populations and Islamist-minded groups as strategic minorities. Soviet efforts ultimately failed because, despite the ideological rift, those involved belonged to the unity of Western culture and post-Christian secular world. Today, the situation is altogether different; the strategic use of Islamic communities relies on the religious divide and legacies of historical confrontation between once-Christian Europe and the Islamic world.
A spiral of Islamist terrorism and violent activism has unfolded in Europe and is connected to the increased tension between Islamists and Western states. On Monday in Vienna, an ISIS-affiliated terrorist unleashed havoc killing at least four people and injuring 23, seven of them still hospitalized in critical condition. ISIS claimed responsibility for the deadly attack. Investigators are trying to determine who provided the terrorist with help.
Again in Vienna, on Oct. 29, a violent group of 50 Turkish men staged a riot at the historic Catholic church of St. Anthony of Padua, shouting "Allahu Akbar." The assailants are radical Islamists of the Turkish migrant community.
That same day, the Turkish Ministry of Interior announced that Turkey would consider an asylum request by French Islamist Idriss Sihamedi, founder of a Muslim charity shut down in France over its ties to radical Islamism. French authorities shut down BarakaCity – ostensibly a humanitarian aid group – Oct. 28, saying it "incites hate, has relations with the radical Islamist movement and justifies terrorist acts."
Sihamedi posted his asylum request on Twitter, specifically addressing Erdogan. The Turkish Ministry of Interior quickly responded: "Hello Sihamedi. If you and your colleagues were to personally apply to our institution with your surname, first name, identity information, petition for an asylum request and your passport number, your request will be assessed."
In many Western countries, including the United States, groups of Muslims and mosques organized protests against French authorities attempt to resist the rise of parallel societies. In Pakistan, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Somalia and the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of Muslims staged anti-French protests after Friday prayers. Are these actions random outbursts of isolated radicals or part of an aggressive trend, aided by the emergence of an ideological center of action?
Erdogan Stirs the Pot
Erdogan's Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Turkish government has been on the forefront of tension with Europe and now aspires to be the standard bearer of Islamist extremism. It was Turkey's decision to create a civilizational crisis with France that increased tension between Islamists and Europe, as this spiral of Islamist terror attacks and activist protests unfold. Erdogan went so far as to claim that "Macron needs mental treatment" for a problem with Islam and called for a global boycott of French products in all Islamic-populated countries. Erdogan has warned European countries that their citizens will not be able to "walk safely in the streets." Turkey has coordinated an incitement campaign against France using pro-government media outlets, such as Daily Sabah, Anadolu Agency and TRT.
France is the main battleground in this fight due to its leading position as representative of secular values and its attempt to curb rising Islamist separatism. On Oct. 2, President Macron presented a five-point plan to address Islamist radicalization in a televised address. To Macron, Islamist separatism is a "conscious, theorized, politico-religious project that manifests itself in repeated discrepancies with the values of the Republic." Responding to the numerous Islamist attacks Macron called Islam "a religion in crisis."
Both the terrorist attacks in Europe and the global protests over the cartoons are part of a greater Islamist strategy to rekindle the confrontation against the Western world. Rather than a reaction to the republishing of the Muhammad cartoons, these attacks are part of a calculated violent reaction by Islamists against any notion of incorporating Islam into the fabric of secular Western society. The real issue is the rise of Islamic parallel societies and the end of Western freedom of speech. Islamists wish to silence Europeans addressing Islam which is perceived as an ahistorical entity outside of any rightful criticism.
Usual interpretations of Turkish foreign policy presume that, with its embrace of Islamist activism, Erdogan is focused on internal issues in a bid for popularity with an increasingly conservative electoral base. This premise is not only outdated, but dangerously naïve. Turkish embrace of political Islam is not a play at internal politics; it is an attempt at a new hegemonic form of political Islam and militant jihadism that shall subdue the West. Turkish Neo-Ottomanism focuses on revival of a "greater Turkey" that aspires to be the focus of the Islamic world.
Although Turkey is the vanguard of the Islamist International and fomenting tension with NATO allies, it is still considered by the United States to be an integral part of the security structure of the West. The West needs to realize the fundamental importance of culture as an underlying factor in state behavior and the new world that is being shaped and inject a basis of core values in its power structures to withhold the assault on its fundamental premises.
Ioannis E. Kotoulas (Ph.D. in History, Ph.D. in Geopolitics) is Adjunct Lecturer in Geopolitics, University of Athens.
MICHIGAN & PENNSYLVANIA Flipping to Trump
★★★ A NEW CONSERVATIVE AGE IS RISING ★★★
Michigan and Pennsylvania on the VERGE of FLIPPING to TRUMP as pundits are saying ‘Things are About to EXPLODE’! In this video we’re going to look at the latest measures that state legislatures in Michigan and Pennsylvania are taking to audit the vote, how new evidence is showing that Dominion Voting Systems may have irreparably compromised the integrity of the vote, and why many believe that Michigan and Pennsylvania may indeed flip and give Trump the election; you are NOT going to want to miss this!
Former US attorney: FBI officials will likely face charges
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett and former U.S. attorney Joe DiGenova react to newly released FBI text messages on 'Hannity.'
SUPREME COURT JUSTICE Alito: ‘You Can’t Say That Marriage Is a Union Between One Man and One Woman’ in America Today
Justice Alito Discusses: Abortion, Speech, Assembly, Religion, Guns, Supreme Court
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made compelling remarks on variety of important topics, including recent threats against the Supreme Court by politicians. This video condenses the content, but the full speech can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/tYLZL4GZVbA?t=940
BY TYLER O'NEIL
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
In a Federalist Society speech on Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito raised the alarm about threats to religious freedom, free speech, and the rule of law — threats exacerbated in the “constitutional stress-test” of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. These threats are by no means limited to lockdown restrictions and COVID-19 issues, but the virus has highlighted them.
“The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” Alito said. “I am not diminishing the severity of the virus’s threat to public health, and putting aside what I will say shortly about a few Supreme Court cases, I’m not saying anything about the legality of COVID restrictions. All that I’m saying is this… we have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive, and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020.”
Alito mentioned many “live events that would otherwise be protected by the right to freedom of speech” that state and local governments have prohibited, including the fact that churches were closed on Easter Sunday by government fiat.
“The COVID crisis has served as a sort of constitutional stress-test. And in doing so it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already present before the virus struck,” the justice argued.
Alito first highlighted “the dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat rather than legislation.” He rightly traced this idea back to “the vision of early twentieth-century progressives and the New Dealers of the 1930s … that policy-making would shift from narrow-minded elected legislators to an elite group of elected experts, in a word, that policymaking would become more scientific.”
For instance, a Nevada law gives the state’s governor extraordinary powers. If the governor finds that there is “a natural, technological, or manmade emergency or disaster of major proportions, the governor can perform and exercise such functions, powers, and duties as are necessary to promote and secure the safety and protection of the civilian population.”
Yet the Supreme Court has a duty to step in “whenever fundamental rights are restricted.”
Along those lines, Alito warned that religious freedom has grown increasingly out of favor.
Barr: COVID Lockdowns Are ‘Greatest Intrusion on Civil Liberties in American History’ Besides Slavery
“It pains me to say this but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right,” he lamented. He briefly mentioned the Supreme Court case Employment Division v. Smith and Congress’s passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The House of Representatives unanimously passed the bill, while the Senate passed it, 97-3. President Bill Clinton signed it into law.
“Today, that widespread support has vanished. When states have considered or gone ahead and adopted their own versions of RFRA, they have been threatened with punishing economic boycotts,” Alito said.
He also briefly covered recent Supreme Court cases illustrating the threat to religious freedom.
Alito mentioned the Little Sisters of the Poor, “women who have dedicated their lives to caring for the elderly poor, regardless of religion.” Some of their beneficiaries have testified that the Little Sisters “will keep you alive for ten years longer.”
“Despite this inspiring work, the Little Sisters have been under unrelenting attack for the better part of a decade. Why? Because they refuse to allow their health insurance plan to provide contraceptives to their employees. For that, they were targeted by the prior administration,” the justice noted.
The Obama administration threatened the Little Sisters with hefty fines “if they did not knuckle under and violate a tenet of their faith.” While the group of nuns won a Supreme Court case last spring, the case went back to the Court of Appeals. President Donald Trump created a religious freedom exemption in the contraception mandate, but Joe Biden has pledged to drop that exemption.
In another case, the State of Washington required pharmacies to carry all contraceptives, including the morning-after pill. The Christian pharmacy Ralph’s refused to carry that abortifacient pill, but it gladly referred women to nearby pharmacies that did carry it. The state decided that this work-around was not enough.
Alito also mentioned Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop who notoriously refused to bake a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding. He cited a member of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission who said that freedom of religion had been used “to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust, we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination.”
“For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It’s often just an excuse for bigotry, and it cannot be tolerated,” Alito warned.
He mentioned that not a single employee of the Little Sisters has asked for contraception, no woman lacks contraception because of Ralph’s, and no same-sex couple has failed to get a cake because of Jack Phillips.
“A great many Americans disagree, sometimes quite strongly, with the religious beliefs of the Little Sisters, the owners of Ralph’s, and Jack Phillips. They have a perfect right to do so. That is not the question. The question we face is whether our society will be inclusive enough to tolerate people with unpopular religious beliefs,” the justice noted.
Alito cited Harvard Law professor Mark Tushnet, who notoriously wrote, “The culture wars are over. They lost, we won.” Terrifyingly, the professor compared social conservatives to the defeated Axis powers in World War II.
“My own judgment is that taking a hard line (‘You lost, live with it’) is better than trying to accommodate the losers, who – remember – defended, and are defending, positions that liberals regard as having no normative pull at all,” he argued. “Trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown. (And taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945.)”
This hostility to traditional religion has bled into COVID-19 restrictions.
Alito referenced a Supreme Court decision on Nevada’s restrictions upholding the state’s double standard on casinos and houses of worship. The governor opened casinos — some of which are truly humongous — at 50 percent capacity while restricting religious services to 50 people or fewer. “If you want to worship and you’re the 51st person in line, sorry, you are out of luck. The size of the building doesn’t matter, nor does it matter if you wear a mask or stay 6 feet apart.”
“The state’s message is this: forget about worship and head for the slot machines or maybe a Cirque du Soleil show,” Alito said.
“Take a quick look at the Constitution. You will see the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment which protects religious liberty. You will not find a craps clause, or a blackjack clause, or a slot machine clause,” the justice quipped. “Nevada was unable to provide any plausible justification for treating casinos more favorably than houses of worship, but the Court nevertheless deferred to the governor’s judgment, which just so happened to favor the state’s biggest industry and the many voters it employs.”
Biden Staffer: Traditional Religious Beliefs Should Be ‘Taboo’ and ‘Disqualifiers’ for Public Office
The justice contrasted this “blatant discrimination” against religious freedom with a Maryland district judge’s decision to strike down an FDA rule providing that women who want medication abortions must go to a clinic in person to access them. The judge struck down this rule in the name of protecting women from COVID-19, even though Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.) had allowed people to go to gyms, casinos, and hair and nail salons in a limited reopening at the time.
Alito also warned that “support for freedom of speech is also in danger and COVID rules have restricted speech in unprecedented ways.”
While coronavirus lockdowns have shut down attendance at speeches, conferences, lectures, rallies, and more, “even before the pandemic, there was growing hostility to the expression of unfavorable views.”
Alito quipped that there are “seventy times seven” things that Americans cannot say if they are students or professors at a college or university, or employees speaking for a corporation.
“You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now, it’s considered bigotry,” he warned.
“That this would happen after our decision in Obergefell [the 2015 case striking down state laws on marriage] should not have come as a surprise. Yes, the opinion of the Court included words meant to calm the fears of those who cling to traditional views on marriage. But I could see, and so did the other justices in dissent, where the decision would lead,” Alito warned.
He quoted his own dissent in the case, “I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes. But if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and being treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.”
“That is just what is coming to pass,” the justice lamented. Indeed, in one recent case, the Kroger Company fired two women in Little Rock, Ark., who refused to wear a rainbow-colored heart emblem on an apron because they did not want to endorse LGBT activism.
Religious freedom and free speech are indeed under assault in America today, and even if the coronavirus pandemic fades away tomorrow, these threats to fundamental rights will persist.
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Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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