Day: April 8, 2021

State Dept declares April ‘Arab American Heritage Month,’ says Arab contributions to US ‘as old as America itself’

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/04/state-dept-declares-april-arab-american-heritage-month-say-arab-contributions-to-us-as-old-as-america-itself;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Obama made the same claim many times, but it’s fictional, just another example of the left’s relentless Islamopandering. Arab Americans’ contributions to the US are as old as America itself? Really? There were Arabs at Jamestown? In the Massachusetts Bay Colony? At Roanoke? Ned Price’s statement is so wildly ridiculous that it doesn’t just invite parody; it pleads for it. Remember the Arabs among the Founding Fathers, Yahya al-Adams and Iskandar Hamilton? Remember the Arabs who told James Madison about Muhammad’s Constitution of Medina so that he could lay out the foundations of a republic in the U.S. Constitution? Remember the Arabs who fought so valiantly in the Revolutionary Jihad, and the Jihad of 1812, and the Mexican Jihad, and the Civil War, aka the Jihad Between the Caliphates? Remember all the controversies about whether Muslim soldiers in the Civil War could make sex slaves out of the wives and daughters of Confederate commanders? The jihad suicide attacks that broke the Germans’ will to fight on during World War I?

Price didn’t mention the real contributions Arabs have made to our nation: you know, like rearranging the New York skyline, transforming government buildings into grim, nervous fortresses, making air travel into the exercise in annoyance and humiliation that it is today, and draining the American economy with two futile wars and hundreds of billions spent on security and counterterror initiatives.

“April is Arab American Heritage Month, the State Department declares,” by Mirna Alsharif, CNN, April 5, 2021:

(CNN)The culture of Arab Americans will be honored this month, with the designation by the State Department of April as Arab American Heritage Month, reflecting the group’s contributions to the US “are as old as America itself,” a spokesman said.

“The United States is home to more than 3.5 million Arab Americans representing a diverse array of cultures and traditions. Like their fellow citizens, Americans of Arab heritage are very much a part of the fabric of this nation,” Ned Price, a spokesman, said in a video statement on April 1.

“And Arab Americans have contributed in every field and profession, many of them, in fact, serve here at the State Department and throughout the interagency.”

Advocacy groups say this is the first time the State Department has designated a particular month for Arab American Heritage Month. States that have recognized April as Arab American History Month in 2021 and years past include Arkansas, Hawaii, Michigan, New York, North Carolina and Virginia.

Arab Americans trace their origins to 22 Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Arabs began immigrating to the US in the late 1800s fleeing war, persecution and economic hardships, according to the Migration Policy Institute. California, New York, Michigan and Illinois have the largest populations of Arab American residents in the country, based on data from the 2015-2019 ACS Ancestry survey.

While the State Department made this announcement, Arab American History Month is not officially recognized by the entire US government. A bill sponsored by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, was introduced to Congress in 2019 and is still pending.
Advocacy groups such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and the Arab American Institute (AAI) have been advocating to get April designated as a month to celebrate Arab Americans for two decades.

“This is a breath of fresh air,” said Samer Khalaf, president of the ADC, about the State Department’s move. “It will give the community a sense of pride and it’s a chance to show what the community is all about, to educate people and dispel stereotypes.”

Maya Berry, executive director of the AAI, sees the recognition as a high-level opportunity to celebrate Arab American life in a visible way.

“The formality of it coming from an agency at this level is fantastic,” she said. “This month is about sharing our story with our fellow Americans.”…

In Moving Mummies, Egypt Celebrates Its Pre-Islamic Heritage

PAGAN WORSHIP OF MUMMIFIED KINGS & QUEENS INCLUDING NECROMANCY; AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR SPECTACLE

22 BEING MOVED TO A CAIRO MUSEUM

EGYPT: The Pharaohs’ Golden Parade

BY HUGH FITZGERALD

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/04/in-moving-mummies-egypt-celebrates-its-pre-islamic-heritage;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Egypt has just turned a mummy move into a state event. Twenty-two mummies — 18 pharoahs and four queens — each in its own motorized capsule, and moving from their old museum to a new one that had just opened, were driven through the streets of Cairo, and the international media captured the event for broadcasts around the world. They were being taken to a new museum, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, where they will now be displayed. A report on the move is here: “Ancient Egyptian mummies paraded through Cairo on way to new museum,” Reuters, April 4, 2021:

A grand parade conveyed 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies in special capsules across the capital Cairo on Saturday to a new museum home where they can be displayed in greater splendor.

The convoy transported 18 kings and four queens, mostly from the New Kingdom, from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, about 5km (3 miles) to the south-east.

Authorities shut down roads along the Nile for the elaborate ceremony, designed to drum up interest in Egypt’s rich collections of antiquities when tourism has almost entirely stalled because of COVID-19 related restrictions.

The elaborate move, covered by the foreign media, was a way to promote Egypt’s pharaonic past to the world, and especially to those who might be enticed by such a spectacle to visit Egypt as tourists. Tourism has collapsed because of COVID-19, which has so greatly restricted international travel, and this has taken a terrific toll on Egypt’s economy. The mummy parade constitutes the opening salvo in a campaign to win back tourists now that the pandemic seems to be receding.

As the royal mummies arrived at the museum, which was officially inaugurated on Saturday, cannons fired a 21-gun salute. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stood by as the mummies filed past on vehicles bedecked with golden pharaonic motifs….

“We chose the Civilization Museum because we want, for the first time, to display the mummies in a civilized manner, an educated manner, and not for amusement as they were in the Egyptian Museum,” Hawass said.

Archaeologists discovered the mummies in two batches at the complex of mortuary temples of Deir Al Bahari in Luxor and at the nearby Valley of the Kings from 1871….

Who were those archeologists who unearthed the temples and the tombs? They were not Egyptians, but Europeans, English, French and German. The most famous one was Howard Carter, the Englishman who discovered and excavated the Tomb of Tutankhamen. Egyptians themselves, as Muslims, had little interest in the tombs, except insofar as they could, as grave-robbers, loot them of whatever of value they contained. For the tombs were pre-Islamic, from the Jahiliyya, or Time of Ignorance, and thus, for devout Muslims, unworthy of respect or study. For those devout Muslims, the pyramids and the pharaohs were of little intrinsic interest. But in the 20th century, impoverished Egyptians, hoping to improve their economic wellbeing, realized that the pyramids and pharaohs were what drew the free-spending foreign tourists to Egypt, and that made them worth preserving, exhibiting in museums, and advertising worldwide as tourist attractions.

“By doing it like this, with great pomp and circumstance, the mummies are getting their due,” said Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo.

“These are the kings of Egypt, these are the pharaohs. And so, it is a way of showing respect.”

The “mummies are getting their due,” the “kings of Egypt are being shown respect” by the government not only to swell the state coffers with tourist dollars, but to promote the narrative of an Egypt that honors and studies and is proud of its long history prior to the arrival of the Arabs bearing Islam. Among the crowds in Cairo, whether allowed to be onlookers or watching the parade of mummies on television, there were unlikely to be many members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Why should they care about those non-Muslim rulers from the Time of Ignorance? Everything, for the MB, as for most devout Muslims, begins with the appearance of Muhammad in the 7th century. That is when history starts. Egypt’s cultural memory can be seen as an endless mental tug of war between Islam, as represented by Al-Azhar University, and Egyptian nationalism, as represented by the Museum of Egyptian Civilization. The very name of the new museum conveys the message that the pharaohs and their pyramids are an integral part of “Egyptian civilization,” and not merely an episode in the pre-Islamic past to be made available to foreign tourists for the money they bring in, but otherwise to be ignored.

The El-Sisi regime in Cairo understands that promoting an interest, and national pride, in Ancient Egypt, helps to undermine the centrality of Islam in the Egyptian narrative; the history of Ancient Egypt is a weapon in the war against the Islam-besotted members of the Muslim Brotherhood. It would be fascinating to see whether, and if so how, Egyptian schoolbooks could be rewritten to give respectful attention to the pre-Islamic period of the nation’s existence.

And it would also be interesting to know if Egyptian students will be taught about Taha Hussein, Egypt’s leading intellectual and writer in the 20th century. It was in the 1920s that Hussein, a leader in the literary movement called the Egyptian Renaissance, wrote on Pre-Islamic Poetry, in which he argued that parts of the Qur’an were inauthentic. This caused a great outcry, and aroused the intense anger and hostility of the religious scholars at Al Azhar and many other traditionalists; Hussein was accused of having insulted Islam. However, the public prosecutor stated that what Taha Hussein had said was the opinion of an academic researcher and no legal action was taken against him, although he lost his post at Cairo University in 1931. His book was banned but was republished the next year with slight modifications under the title On Pre-Islamic Literature (1927).

Taha Hussein was an intellectual of the Egyptian Renaissance and a proponent of the ideology of Egyptian nationalism along with what he called Pharaonism, believing that Egyptian civilization was diametrically opposed to Arab civilization, and that Egypt would only progress by reclaiming its ancient pre-Islamic roots. He was thus more than simply a secularist; he saw Egypt as being held back as long as it remained wedded to Islam, instead of returning to its own true, non-Arab sources in the pre-Islamic period of its existence.

Pharaonism is the name Taha Hussein gave to his belief that Egypt had taken a wrong turn when the Arabs arrived, bearing Islam, and Egyptians began to think of themselves as part of the Arab people, which Taha Hussein claimed was untrue. Egyptians might speak Arabic, and many were Muslim (Hussein was careful to include the Copts as part of the “Egyptian people”) but in his view, this did not make them Arabs.

Many Egyptians in the 1920s and 1930s, following Taha Hussein, did not accept the notion that Egypt was a part of the Arab lands, nor would they acknowledge that the Egyptian people were part of the Arab nation.

As one of the most prominent Egyptian nationalists and anti-Arabists , as well as Egypt’s most notable writer of the 20th century, Taha Hussein had a great influence among Egyptian intellectuals. In 1931 he wrote:

Pharaonism is deeply rooted in the spirits of the Egyptians. It will remain so, and it must continue and become stronger. The Egyptian is Pharaonic before being Arab. Egypt must not be asked to deny its Pharaonism because that would mean: Egypt, destroy your Sphinx and your pyramids, forget who you are and follow us! Do not ask of Egypt more than it can offer. Egypt will never become part of some Arab unity, whether the capital [of this unity] were to be Cairo, Damascus, or Baghdad.

Taha Hussein thought of Egypt as belonging not to the Arab culture but to the culture of the Mediterranean, sharing it with France, Italy, and Greece. He thought Egyptians should look back to ancient Egypt for the pre-Islamic sources of their country’s culture, and to Europeans, not Arabs, to guide their future development. Egypt had been turned aside from its proper cultural path by the arrival of the Arabs and Islam; it needed now to turn to the “Mediterranean civilization,” to which it by right belonged, a civilization antithetical to that of the Muslim Arab states, for its openness to the world of the Mediterranean, its absence of supremacism, its refusal to submit blindly to the demands of authority.

The recent solemn parade of the mummies through the streets of Cairo has been described purely as a tourist advertisement. It was much more than that. It could only have been undertaken, with such pomp, by a regime hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood and their exclusively Arab and Muslim interpretation of Egyptian identity. It would never have been mounted during the brief presidency of Mohamed Morsi. It was not only a spectacular show to attract the world’s tourists, but a religious, political, and cultural statement as well. In Egypt, what the Muslims dismiss as belonging to the Time of Ignorance, the Jahiliyya, General El-Sisi, Zahi Hawass, and other secularists were determined to celebrate Ancient Egypt, and that pre-Islamic period of High Egyptian Civilization that gave rise to some of the ancient world’s most important wonders.

None of the world’s media mentioned the symbolic significance of this parade, of how the attention paid to Ancient Egypt by the Egyptians themselves is an expression of Egyptian nationalism, as distinct from an “Arab and Islamic identity” that in Egypt reached its high point during the brief reign of Mohamed Morsi. No one mentioned Taha Hussein, or Pharaonism, or how he would have teased out the greater meaning of the Moving of the Mummies for his readers. Hussein would have been pleased with the parade, a sign that Egypt had survived both the disastrous pan-Arabism of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the similar disaster of Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, and was now taking pride in the pre-Islamic past that Muslims have been taught not to revere but to despise.

It would be good if the study of Ancient Egypt were now to be given greater attention in the country’s schools. There is so much to add to the pupils’ store of knowledge, that would deepen their interest in Egypt Before Islam: the architectural achievement of the pyramids; the mysterious Sphinx that could only have been created before the arrival of Islam, for the faith prohibits statues — that prohibition explains why Ottoman Turkish troops felt justified in shooting off the Sphinx’s nose; the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, with their mummified pharaohs and their queens; the cosmogony of the ancient Egyptians; the roles of the Nile and the Mediterranean in Egyptian life; the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone by Champollion; and so much more which, if introduced into the state curriculum, will alarm the theologians at Al-Azhar, for knowledge of ancient Egypt will help to foster national pride in the pre-Islamic period that Islam dismisses.

The Egyptian government could do more than revise its schoolbooks to put more emphasis on the history of pre-Islamic Egypt. Having moved those mummies to the Museum of Egyptian Civilization, the government could proclaim that from now on there will be an annual celebration of a National History Month, beginning with a Day of Egyptian Civilization, in which the same mummies would again be moved in those motorized capsules, this time from the new museum to the old, and then back again. And that month would be devoted in the state schools to the study of Egypt right up to the year before the Arab conquerors came, bearing their “gift” of Islam. The ghost of Taha Hussein would be pleased.

 

CANADA: Edmonton Church Barricaded By Local Authorities FOR NOT OBSERVING COVID-19 MANDATES

Edmonton government officials have "physically closed" the GraceLife Church in Edmonton for not abiding by the local restrictions. This is draconian tyranny against the local church!

The Authorities Completely Locked down Grace Life Church - Pray for Pastor James Coates

 

 

Baltimore’s Rogue DA Mosby Faces Probes of Official Duties, Travel, Gifts

BY CULLY STIMSON

SEE: https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/04/06/baltimores-rogue-prosecutor-mosby-facing-3-probes-of-official-duties-travel-gifts;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

It’s been a lousy spring for Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore’s rogue prosecutor.

First, the IRS placed a tax lien for $45,000 on her house for three years of unpaid taxes. 

Second, Baltimore’s Office of the Inspector General conducted a wide-ranging investigation into her activist-sponsored travel, accounting irregularities, and unorthodox gift-acceptance practices, and issued a written report critical of her actions. 

When Mosby criticized the inspector general’s report, the Office of the Inspector General didn’t back down, and wrote that it “stands behind its report.”   

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Third, the U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland launched a wide-ranging investigation into Mosby’s campaign finance irregularities and related federal tax issues. 

Any one of these three actions could result in Mosby having to vacate her office, losing her law license, or, if indicted and convicted in federal court, even going to prison. 

Before any of those actions happen, however, any investigations must be thoroughly completed. 

But given the evidence already in the record about Mosby related to these three investigations, and her abysmal track record as Baltimore’s chief prosecutor, one has to wonder whether the Democratic Party in Baltimore will distance itself from Mosby, just like the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee has refused to stand behind Philadelphia’s rogue district attorney, Larry Krasner, in his reelection campaign.    

Rogue Prosecutors Are Failing

The rogue prosecutor movement, starting with Kim Foxx of Chicago back in 2016, is the brainchild of leftist financier George Soros and tech billionaires. 

Soros—with the help of his myriad political action committees, heavily funded organizations, and leftist academics—has provided the infrastructure to recruit, fund, elect, and defend rogue prosecutors. 

The mainstream media—not keen on reporting on spikes in crime in the cities of rogue district attorneys and how crime usually affects minority communities the most—are more comfortable parroting platitudinous slogans such as “mass incarceration,” “reimagining prosecution,” and “systemic racism,” which criticize the current criminal justice system.

In the process, they are ignoring the fact that rogue district attorneys are wreaking havoc in cities where they have been elected. 

Fortunately, some are starting to wake up to the reality that the policies of these rogue prosecutors are dangerous. George Gascon and Chesa Boudin, the rogue prosecutors in Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, are facing recall efforts because their pro-criminal, anti-victim policies have directly resulted in spikes in crime in their cities. 

Krasner, the Philadelphia rogue district attorney, lost the support of the city’s Democratic Party in his upcoming reelection campaign. This is only the second time in 45 years that the Democratic Party refused to endorse an incumbent for a citywide election. 

Bostonians are suffering under Rachael Rollins, the rogue district attorney who proudly refuses to prosecute 15 crimes passed by the Massachusetts Legislature, claiming that she has “data” and “science” to prove that not enforcing the law reduces crime. 

There is one recent “study” on the topic that focuses on Boston’s approach, which to our knowledge has not yet been peer-reviewed. However, similar claims of other studies in areas such as bail reform have been called into question when examined and closely scrutinized. 

The stark reality is that residents of the rogue prosecutors’ cities are starting to wake up to the reality that their “reform-minded” district attorneys are not really reforming the system for the better, but are instead coddling criminals, shunning victims, and shirking their duties to enforce the laws and seek justice in each case for which they are responsible. 

In Chicago, as we pointed out, you have a greater chance of being killed on any given weekend than you had if you were deployed as an American soldier to Iraq or Afghanistan during the height of combat action. 

Apparently, however, Chicago’s rogue prosecutor Foxx had more important things on her mind. After all, she appears to have been more concerned with giving a sweetheart deal to actor Jussie Smollett, who fabricated his own assault and filed a false police report, than she was about addressing the actual carnage on the streets of the Windy City.

It doesn’t take much to see that Gascon, Boudin, Krasner, Rollins, and all of their ilk have been disasters in the performance of their official duties, in large part because they have followed the rogue prosecutor playbook of treating defendants as victims and the police as the enemy while ignoring real victims. 

Still, Mosby remains in a league of her own because of her eyebrow-raising behavior both in her official and personal capacities. 

Mosby’s $45,000 Federal Tax Lien

A federal tax lien is nothing to laugh about.

According to the IRS, a federal tax lien is “the government’s legal claim against your property when you neglect or fail to pay a tax debt.” Nobody likes to pay taxes, but most people do so because it’s a legal obligation.

If there’s a dispute between what the government says you owe and what you think you owe, there are ways to work that out. 

The IRS sends debtors notices of their deficiency. Mosby and her husband, a member of the Baltimore City Council, most certainly have received proper notice of the money they owe the government. 

According to tax experts, if you ignore the notices from the IRS, the IRS Automated Collection System can issue liens and levy bank accounts and wages. 

Furthermore, when the IRS files a public tax lien, that alerts creditors about your tax debt, which makes it difficult to sell your property or borrow against it.

Finally, if you owe the feds more than $51,000 and the IRS has tried unsuccessfully to get you to pay, the IRS can label you a “seriously delinquent” taxpayer, and the State Department can restrict your passport by either not allowing you to travel abroad, not granting a passport, or not renewing an expiring passport until you are removed from the “seriously delinquent” list. 

As we discuss below, the tax lien could create other legal complications for Mosby, since she and her husband recently purchased two homes in Florida, and she traveled abroad extensively on privately funded junkets with fellow rogue prosecutors, as detailed by the Office of the Inspector General.

The Inspector General’s Investigation and Report

Unauthorized Travel

Under Title 5, Section 5-601 of the Maryland Public Ethics Law, certain government officials and candidates are required to file financial disclosures each year on or before April 30, covering the calendar year immediately preceding the year of filing.

This practice, common to both federal and state governments, ensures that key government officials are transparent about their financial dealings, have no actual or perceived conflicts of interest, are in compliance with applicable ethics rules, and are honest public servants. 

The Baltimore city state’s attorney is one of those select government officials required to file an annual financial disclosure. 

Last July 16, the Baltimore Brew, a news outlet, published a lengthy story about Mosby’s domestic and international trips, the months she was absent from the office, and her unorthodox spending and gift practices. 

As a result, Mosby requested that Baltimore’s Office of the Inspector General investigate the information she disclosed to the Maryland State Ethics Commission for years 2018-2019 in an effort to disprove allegations of questionable conduct contained in the Baltimore Brew article.

Mosby, who later retained legal counsel, provided the inspector general with access to her work calendars, personal bank and credit card statements, office credit card records, her telephone records from 2018-2019, her work emails, hotel and flight information related to her trips, and her 2019 redacted personal tax return. The inspector general requested her 2018 tax return, but Mosby did not provide it.

The inspector general found an additional sponsored trip that Mosby failed to report in 2019, to the five-star Salamander Resort and Spa in Middleburg, Virginia. The agenda for that junket included group events centered around “holistic health and wellness” and “spa and individual wellness coaching sessions.” 

The trip took place immediately after her return to the United States from her junket to the African nation of Kenya, where she also stayed in a five-star resort.

The inspector general also needed clarification from Mosby regarding a two-day trip to Minnesota, where she spoke for 15 to 20 minutes and was joined by her husband (who also spoke at the conference) and children. 

In total, Mosby took 24 trips in 2018-2019 and was physically absent from Baltimore for 85 days.

The inspector general found that the “out-of-town trips did not comply with the relevant travel policies and procedures,” that Mosby didn’t request approval for any of her 24 trips, and that at least 15 of those trips required advance approval from the Board of Estimates. The board consists of several Baltimore elected officials and is responsible for formulating and executing the fiscal policy of the city. 

During that time frame, there were 657 homicides, 685 rapes, and 52,965 property crimes in Baltimore. 

Undocumented Gifts

The inspector general also noted irregularities with respect to the 41 gifts that Mosby reported on her state financial disclosure forms during 2018-2019. 

For example, Mosby reported receiving 33 gifts from organizations and individuals in 2018, yet only reported the value ($1,111.02) of five of those gifts. The value of the remaining 28 gifts was listed as “unknown” or left blank. 

According to the Baltimore Brew article, the gifts included a Tiffany bracelet, circus tickets, skincare products, flowers, and other goodies, including $188 worth of “select CBD Drops, disposable pen, patch and capsules” by a marijuana company in Portland, Oregon. 

Mosby claimed, in emails to the inspector general, that the “majority of gifts the State’s Attorney has received and reported are donated to the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office during our Winter Solstice celebration.” 

When asked by the inspector general for documentation to substantiate the reported gifts, Mosby provided no documentation. The inspector general compared the list of items donated for the Winter Solstice auctions in 2018 and 2019, and not only was Mosby not listed as a donor, but nothing on either auction list matched any gift listed on Mosby’s 2018 or 2019 state financial disclosures. 

Based on the public record, we don’t know whether Mosby donated those items to anyone, or whether she kept them, or whether she reported them on her federal and state tax forms if she kept them. 

Family Business Disclosures

Four years after she was first sworn into office, Mosby registered three business entities with the state of Maryland: Mahogany Elite Enterprises LLC, Mahogany Elite Travel, and Mahogany Elite Consulting. 

The inspector general found that Mosby did not report her ownership of these companies on her 2019 financial disclosure form. While none of these companies produced any revenue, according to Mosby’s 2019 personal tax return, they did incur $5,000 in expenses for business travel and legal and professional services.

Those companies have no employees, contractors, or clients.

The inspector general concluded that it was “not within the purview of the OIG to make a determination” as to whether Mosby complied with Maryland’s state ethics laws and deferred the matter to Maryland’s State Ethics Commission for further review.

The Federal Investigation

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland has launched a wide-ranging investigation into Mosby’s activities and has requested campaign records dating back to 2014, as well as tax returns, loan documents, and credit card statements.

Several Baltimore pastors have also received subpoenas to determine whether Mosby’s husband, Nick, ever lied about donating to a church and falsely writing it off on his tax returns.

Mosby’s attorney, A. Scott Bolden, issued a statement assuring Baltimore residents that the couple has “done nothing illegal, inappropriate or unlawful.”

To be clear, just because the government investigates someone, doesn’t mean that a crime has been committed. After all, everyone is entitled to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Still, the optics are terrible for Mosby, and the fact that the federal prosecutor’s office has its sights trained on her is serious business, especially since her ability to cooperate with federal authorities in tackling Baltimore’s well-known crime problem is likely to be hampered by it.

Last month, The Baltimore Sun reported that Mosby bought two Florida homes for more than $1 million. Shockingly, one of the properties closed days before her campaign began setting up her legal defense fund.

According to the financial report, Mosby bought a condominium in Sarasota for $476,000 in February. The rogue prosecutor also paid $545,000 in September for a 4,000-square-foot property near Orlando’s Disney World.

How she and her husband, both government employees, were able to afford two homes in Florida, especially when the feds have a $45,000 tax lien on their primary residence, will no doubt be one of the things that the U.S. Attorney’s Office will investigate.  

Baltimore Can Do Better

Perhaps all of these investigations will result in nothing.

We are hearing that Mosby may be in the process of satisfying the federal tax lien on her house. That’s good news, but why was it there in the first place? This isn’t something that just happened.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office will, at some point, decide whether there is enough information to take legal action against Mosby, criminal or civil in nature. 

As the city’s top prosecutor, charged with enforcing the law as written, protecting the public, and lowering crime rates, Mosby has been a failure, just like all the other rogue prosecutors. 

In 2020, even though the FBI crime statistics aren’t yet available, news outlets report that there were 335 homicides in Baltimore. And even though some violent crimes in Baltimore fell compared to 2019, the 2019 numbers for violent crime resulted in Baltimore being one of the most dangerous cities in the United States.

Whether the Baltimore City Democratic Central Committee or the Democratic Party of Maryland will decide not to endorse Mosby for reelection next time, as the party has done in Philadelphia regarding Krasner, remains to be seen. But one has to think that there are dozens of highly qualified prosecutors in Baltimore who could—and would—do a much better job than Mosby.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. 

3 Ways Americans are RISING UP and FIGHTING BACK Against Woke Corporate America!!!

★★★ YOUR PATRIOT PATH TO FREEDOM! ★★★

Americans are RISING UP and FIGHTING BACK Against Woke Corporate America! In this video, we’re going to look at 3 ways more and more Americans are pushing back against the woke left, how even the truly woke left are actually rejecting the politically correct antics of corporate America, and how one trend in particular promises not only to be the wave of the future, but a future free from the woke left! You are NOT going to want to miss this!

European Medicines Agency Official: “Clear Link” Between AstraZeneca Vaccine and Blood Clots in the Brain

The UK has paused a trial on children while the clots are investigated

BY NATIONAL FILE

SEE: https://www.infowars.com/posts/european-medicines-agency-official-clear-link-between-astrazeneca-vaccine-and-blood-clots-in-the-brain/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

An official with the European Medicines Agency said Tuesday that there is a “clear link” between the AstraZeneca vaccine and deadly blood clots in the brain.

Marco Cavaleri, the chair of the vaccine evaluation team at the EMA, told the Italian newspaper Il Messagero that in his opinion, “we can now say it is clear that there is an association (of the brain blood clots) with the vaccine.” Cavaleri added that while he was sure that there was a “clear link” with the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots, it is still not yet known what the actual cause of the deadly brain clots is.

The EMA is currently investigating 44 reports of brain clotting that have occurred in the European Economic Area of people who have received the vaccine. The British government’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency also reported a further 44 cases of blood clots, with 7 of those having died as a result of the last figures from the 24 of March. Reuters reported that a high proportion of the affected cases were of young and middle-aged women, but the EMA has not yet concluded if they are particularly at risk from the shot.

Known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), the clots are accompanied by low levels of platelets and “rare antibodies” in the blood linked to other clotting disorders. “This raises the possibility that the vaccine could be a causal factor in these rare and unusual cases of CVST, though we don’t know this yet, so more research is urgently needed,” said Professor David Werring, from the UCL Institute of Neurology last week.

The agency is expected to publish its review of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Wednesday or Thursday, with Cavaleri confirming to the newspaper that the review would note that there is a link between the blood clots and the vaccine. However, the review was “not likely to give an indication… regarding the ages of individuals to whom the AstraZeneca shot should be given.”

A number of European countries have begun placing restrictions on giving the AstraZeneca vaccines to individuals of a certain age, usually below 60, including France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The UK has also paused an ongoing trial of the AstraZeneca vaccine on children while the MHRA investigates the blood clots.

“Whilst there are no safety concerns in the pediatric clinical trial, we await additional information from the MHRA on its review of rare cases of thrombosis/thrombocytopaenia that have been reported in adults, before giving any further vaccinations in the trial,” a spokesman from the University of Oxford, who developed the vaccine in conjunction with AstraZeneca, said Tuesday.

National File reported last year that “pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and AstraZeneca – both involved in the development of coronavirus vaccines – employed a total 123” people loyal to the Chinese Communist Party.

States, Cities Declaring Freedom From COVID Rules

States, Cities Declaring Freedom From COVID Rules

BY BOB ADELMANN

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/states-cities-declaring-freedom-from-covid-rules/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Lawmakers in Texas and at least 19 other states, not to mention municipalities such as San Francisco, are throttling back on the COVID rules that have plagued the country for more than a year.

Plague is the correct term to use, too. According to the Bureau of Economic Research (BRS, just the shock of being out of work — “unemployment shock” — will lead to a three-percent increase in mortality that will ultimately cost, in its estimation, nearly 900,000 lives. That compares to the 570,000 deaths already attributed — though likely inaccurately — to the China virus. (Because of incentives to report any death as COVID-related, that 570,000 figure is likely grossly overstated.)

Keith Jackson, writing at American Thinker, suggested that BRS’ estimate is too conservative:

Scores of health issues that have been undiagnosed, untreated, and made worse by the isolation, depression, obesity, and substance abuse associated with the pandemic will pile up bodies in the next months to years. 

As an example, preventable deaths from missed breast and colorectal cancer diagnoses this past year are estimated at 10,000. Deaths of despair, suicide, and drug abuse are predicted by the mental health resource PSYCOM to be increasing by 75,000 this year. This includes a 30% increase in suicide in the military since COVID-19. 

There are cultural costs as well, some of which will negatively impact society for years to come. Tyrants and socialists were delighted at how readily the American public was willing to yield to what often passed for pseudo-science calling for masking, social distancing, and stay-at-home orders. As Jackson noted:

The most shocking result of the COVID-19 response is the ease with which United States citizens gave up their freedoms. Americans just said “sure!” when the government arbitrarily took away our ability to run our businesses, attend church and school, and move freely. 

Even when the rules and regulations were shown to be more destructive than beneficial, they acquiesced. Even when the media bias was glaringly apparent, Big Tech was found to be using the pandemic to extend their power, and science was nakedly politicized, they bent over and took it. They said “OK” when mainstream media, Big Tech, and college campuses used cancel culture to silence critics.

Once lost, liberty is nearly impossible to regain. A large part of the success of the American republican experiment was the fact that the Founders had a clean slate upon which to write. They didn’t have to overcome a society already beholden to a central government for its subsistence.

Governors in Texas, Michigan, Mississippi, and Louisiana are banking on the hope that the COVID rules didn’t fatally damage the American character. Some, even in totalitarian states such as California and Michigan, are pushing back. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer are in danger of being recalled over their heavy-handed and unconstitutional restraints upon their citizens’ freedoms using COVID as a cover.

Mike Rowe’s common-sense videos on “Safety Third” have been seen by thousands of people. In one of them, he says:

Safety is never really first. No company, no nation, and no individual exist for the primary purpose of being safe. Sensible people understand that risk is a part of life, and that no amount of compliance will ever eliminate the inherent dangers that come from being alive.

That’s not to say we should behave carelessly or live recklessly. We should always be prudent. But prudence and compliance are not the same thing, and we should look with deep suspicion upon self-proclaimed experts and professionals who tell us that safety is first, or worse, that “our safety is their responsibility.”

Those people are either selling something, or running for office.

If enough citizens agree with Rowe, then perhaps restoration of lost freedoms might be accomplished after all.

One of those who agree with Rowe is Michael Junge, owner of Lost Boys Barber Company in Branson, Missouri. Said Junge, “I think the whole thing is a joke, honestly. They [politicians and health officials advising them] originally said that this was going to go for a month, and they have pushed it out to indefinitely.… It should have been done long ago.”

Even Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves declares, “The governor’s office is getting out of the business of telling people what they can and cannot do.”

It’s long past time for citizens to echo those sentiments and join in the fight to put the COVID-inspired shutdown olive back into its constitutional bottle. 

The Most Tragic Story Never Told: The Muslim Persecution of Christians

BY RAYMOND IBRAHIM

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/most-tragic-story-never-told-muslim-persecution-raymond-ibrahim/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.  This article first appeared on Doc Emet Production.

Few phenomena are as horrifically widespread as they are virtually unknown—at least in the West—as the Muslim persecution of Christians.

The general facts are undeniable and have been and continue to be documented in a number of reports issued by a variety of human rights organizations around the world.  According to one of the most recent compilations, Open Doors’ “World Wide List, 2021”—which was published in January 2021 and which annually ranks the top 50 nations where Christians are most persecuted for their faith—13 Christians are killed for their faith every day around the world; 12 are illegally arrested or imprisoned; 5 are abducted; and 12 churches or other Christian buildings are attacked.

About 309 million of these Christians “suffer very high or extreme levels” of persecution.  “That’s one in 8 worldwide, 1 in 6 in Africa, 2 out of 5 in Asia, and 1 in 12 in Latin America.”  More specifically and for the reporting period covered (Oct. 2019 – Sept. 2020), “4,761 Christians were killed for their faith”; an additional 4,277 Christians were unjustly arrested, detained, or imprisoned; 1,710 were abducted for faith-related reasons; and 4,488 Churches or Christian buildings were attacked.

The worst category, “extreme persecution”—the harassing, beating, imprisoning, raping, and/or slaughtering of Christians on sight—occurs in 12 of the 50 nations.  Nine of these top 12 worst persecutors are Muslim: Afghanistan (#2), Somalia (#3), Libya (#4), Pakistan (#5), Yemen (#7), Iran (#8), Nigeria (#9), Iraq (#11), and Syria (#12).  (That these nations are racially, culturally, politically, and economically very different—Arab, Asian, Iranian, sub-Saharan African, etc.—should be indicative that something else accounts for their commonality towards Christians.)

Overall, the persecution Christians experience in 39 of the 50 nations making the list is also either from “Islamic oppression” or is occurring in Muslim majority nations.  This means nearly 80 percent of the Christian persecution around the world—including those 13 Christians killed for their faith every day—is committed by Muslims.

While the above numbers are important, including in displaying the magnitude of the problem, one should not lose sight that they represent real people; what they experience, when read in detail—girls chained and gang-raped; Christians burned alive for supposedly “blaspheming” Muhammad; Muslim husbands and wives stabbing and poisoning each other whenever one apostatizes to Christ; another 30 having their heads sawn off just for the heck of it—is tragic if not bloodcurdling.

The following, for example, are among the most recent incidents to occur as of this writing (excerpted from the February, 2021 edition of the monthly “Muslim Persecution of Christians” reports):

  • Uganda:  A Muslim husband splashed acid onto his wife after suspecting she had converted. 
  • Malta:  A Muslim man stabbed a former Muslim who converted to Christianity in an attempt to kill the apostate and please Allah. 
  • Iran:  Four converts to Christianity that were arrested on the charge of “acting against national security by forming a house Church,” were sentenced to a combined total of 35 years in prison.
  • Pakistan:  Two Christian men reading the Bible in a park were arrested and are being charged with blasphemy—which carries the death penalty—after Muslims lied and told police that they were proselytizing.
  • Somaliland: On Jan. 25, a Christian couple and their newborn baby were arrested.  On the next day, police searched and seized from their home recriminating evidence of Christianity.  Promoting any religion other than Islam is banned in Somaliland.  Their fate remains unknown.
  • Algeria: A 43-year-old married Christian father of four was sentenced to five years in prison for reposting a cartoon of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam on his Facebook account—three years ago, in 2018. 
  • Kenya: Muslims torched five separate churches.  As occurred when vandals in France used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in 2019, so these Kenyan arsonists also “committed the heinous acts of scooping human feces onto the buildings,” the source added.
  • Sudan: The ninth church to be torched in Muslim-majority Sudan in two years occurred. 
  • Nigeria:  Suspected Muslim arsonists set Holy Family Catholic Church ablaze on Sunday.  
  • Algeria: Although all mosques were given permission to reopen on Feb. 15, churches were denied the same green light.  
  • Bangladesh:  Two Muslims brutally raped their neighbor, a married Christian mother, because they thought that the family consisted of “very weak Christians, [who] would not raise our voices.” 
  • Pakistan:  After a 23-year-old Christian girl applied for the position of math instructor in a school adjacent to a mosque in Islamabad, the Muslims around her began to harass and insult her—to the point of threatening her with rape and death if she did not convert to Islam.  An actual abduction attempt was also made.
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo: On Sunday, Feb. 14—St. Valentine’s Day—Islamic terrorists killed 13 civilians in the Christian majority nation and burnt down a Catholic church during a raid. 
  • Nigeria: A Muslim colonel stole weapons from an armory and then blamed the 12 soldiers on duty of the theft.  Six of those 12 soldiers—all Christians—were then executed.  And, as they do every month, Islamic terrorists of the Fulani herdsmen variety butchered dozens of Christians.
  • Indonesia:  Authorities publicly flogged two Christian men for drinking alcohol and gambling in Aceh, which enforces Islamic law, or Sharia. 
  • Sudan: On the day that the only Christian program on Sudanese television first aired, outraged Muslims urged authorities to remove it. “Christians and Jews are not only infidels, but they are cursed by Allah.”

As mentioned, this is just the latest sampling from the most recent compilation.  Every month contains similar, often significantly worse, accounts, both in quantity and quality.

Why is this happening?  And why do Muslims have the lions’ share of the “extreme persecution” 309 million Christians around the world experience?

Islamic doctrine sheds much light.  In short, shari‘a, that body of teachings that Muslims are obligated to adhere to, teaches hate for and violence against all non-Muslims.  In the words of Koran 60:4, “We [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims]. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us—till you believe in Allah alone.”  Such sentiments are to be applied to all non-Muslims—“even if they be their parents, children, siblings, or extended family” (58:22; see also 3:28, 4:89, 4:144, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23).  Based on such verses, any number of fatwas, authoritative Islamic decrees from venerable sheikhs, call on Muslims  to do things like hate their non-Muslim wives (while “physically” enjoying or benefitting from them) and to hate and be disloyal to the Western nations they reside in.

In short, and as the Islamic State once explained in an unambiguously titled article, “Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You,”  “We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers.”  (Lest it seem that ISIS is an aberration that hardly speaks for Muslims, a Pew poll found that in just 11 nations, as many as 287 million Muslims—just those who answered honestly—sympathized and/or supported ISIS.)

Despite their much-vaunted “people of the book” appellation—the significance of which apologists for Islam have strained beyond credulity—both Christians and Jews are, in the end, also classified as infidels (kuffar; singular, kafir).  Thus Koran 5:51 warns Muslims against “taking the Jews and Christians as friends and allies … whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he is surely one of them”—that is, he too becomes an infidel.

Christians are further singled out by name for condemnation: Koran 5:73 declares that “Infidels are they who say God is one of three,” a reference to the Christian Trinity; Koran 5:72 says “Infidels are they who say God is the Christ, [Jesus] son of Mary”; and Koran 9:30 complains that “the Christians say the Christ is the son of God … may Allah’s curse be upon them!”

The significance of these verses can only be understood when one understands the significance of the word translated here as “infidel”—kafir.  The kafir—the nonbeliever—is the mortal enemy of Allah and his prophet; their followers—Muslims—are obligated to war on, kill, and subjugate him, whenever possible, that is.  As for what Muslims should do when attacking infidels is infeasible—for example, because the non-Muslims are currently stronger—Koran 3:28 advises: “Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels rather than believers: and whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.”  (This is one of the verses that endorses taqiyya, the notorious doctrine that promotes deceiving non-Muslims.)

The final word on both Christians and Jews was “revealed” in Koran 9:29: “Fight those among the People of the Book who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and who do not embrace the religion of truth [Islam], until they pay the jizya [monetary tribute] with willing submissiveness and feel themselves utterly subdued.”  With that, their fate was sealed; like all other infidels, Christians and Jews were also to be hated, warred on, and subjugated.

The only difference is that, whereas conquered pagans must either convert or die, Christians and Jews are permitted to keep their religions—once, that is, they embrace their inferior status, as well laid out in the “Conditions of Omar,” a historic document purportedly agreed to by the conquered Christian population of Jerusalem around 640 AD.  Muslim jurists still cite these conditions as containing the main stipulations Christians must agree to in order to exist under Islamic rule.  In it, Christians agree:

Not to build a church in our city—nor a monastery, convent, or monk’s cell in the surrounding areas—and not to repair those that fall in ruins or are in Muslim quarters…  Not to display a cross on them [churches], nor raise our voices during prayer or readings in our churches anywhere near Muslims; Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of the Muslims… Not to display any signs of polytheism, nor make our religion appealing, nor call or proselytize anyone to it… Not to possess or bear any arms whatsoever, nor gird ourselves with swords;  To honor the Muslims, show them the way, and rise up from our seats if they wish to sit down.

This pact concludes with the Christians conceding that if they break any of these stipulations, they become, once again, free game for killing or enslavement.

Rather tellingly, the majority of persecution today is connected to these conditions: churches are bombed, burned, or simply denied permits to exist or renovate; Bibles, crosses, and other symbols of “polytheism” are often confiscated, destroyed, and/or provoke violent outbursts (especially in unguarded cemeteries); Christians who openly speak of their faith are accused of proselytizing or blaspheming—both of which can lead to execution.  The stipulation for Christians to “honor the Muslims”—including by offering them their seats, a scene that predates the Rosa Parks incident by nearly 14 centuries—has led to an entrenched system of contempt for and discrimination against Christians.

Here it may be objected that, just because religious doctrine teaches something—just because some musty old books and scriptures say something—does not necessarily mean that the religious follow it.  To this, one responds by saying that Islamic history is a virtual manifestation of Islamic doctrine.

In 628, the Arabian founder of Islam, Muhammad, called on the Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius—the symbolic head of Christendom—to recant Christianity and embrace Islam.  The emperor refused, jihad was declared—Koran 9:29 was in fact “revealed” in this context—and centuries of Islamic invasions, wars, and conquests followed.  As a result, “Muslim armies conquered three-quarters [or 75 percent] of the Christian world,” to quote historian Thomas Madden.

All that remained was the “West”—so-called because it was literally the westernmost quarter of the pre-Islamic Christian world, namely Europe, that did not also fall, despite centuries of jihadi attempts.  As late as 1683—a millennium after Muhammad’s ultimatum to Heraclius—over 200,000 Muslims marched onto, besieged, and nearly conquered Vienna in the name of jihad.  Indeed, even the United States of America’s first war as a nation was against Muslims operating under jihadi logic.

In the words of eminent historian Bernard Lewis,

For almost a thousand years, from the first Moorish landing in Spain [711] to the second Turkish siege of Vienna [1683], Europe was under constant threat from Islam.  All but the easternmost provinces of the Islamic realm had been taken from Christian rulers…  North Africa, Egypt, Syria, even Persian-ruled Iraq, had been Christian countries, in which Christianity was older and more deeply rooted than in most of Europe.  Their loss was sorely felt and heightened the fear that a similar fate was in store for Europe.

As for those Christians whose lands came under Muslim control, from Morocco to Iraq, the historical records make clear that they were indeed treated as “inferiors,” dhimmis, in keeping with the Conditions of Omar.  Whether to evade the fiscal and social oppression that was their lot—or the sporadic bouts of wholesale persecution that regularly flared out—over the centuries, more and more of these Christians, who once formed the majority of the Middle East and Africa, converted to Islam.   Muslim records even make this clear; in al-Maqrizi’s (d. 1442) authoritative history of Egypt, anecdote after anecdote is recorded of Muslims burning churches, slaughtering Christians, and enslaving Coptic women and children—often with the compliance if not outright cooperation of the authorities.  The only escape then—as sometimes still today—was for Christians to convert to Islam.

After recording one particularly egregious bout of persecution in the eleventh century, when, along with countless massacres, some 30,000 churches, according to Maqrizi, were destroyed or turned into mosques—a staggering number that further indicates how Christian the pre-Islamic Middle East was—the Muslim historian makes an interesting observation: “Under these circumstances a great many Christians became Muslims.”  (One can almost hear the triumphant “Allahu Akbars.”)

That Christians still amount for very small minorities in the Middle East—as much as ten percent in Egypt—is, therefore, not a reflection of Muslim tolerance, as apologists claim, but intolerance.  While the lives of many Christians were snuffed out over centuries of violence, the spiritual and cultural identities of exponentially more were wiped out in their pressured conversions to Islam.  (Such is the sad and ironic cycle that fuels the persecution of Christians today: those Muslims who hate and attack them are themselves often distant descendants of Christians who first embraced Islam to evade their own persecution.)

Past and present, then, Muslims persecuted and persecute Christians—and for the selfsame reasons.  Amazingly, however, such a perennial phenomenon is virtually unknown in the West.  Why?  Because, and in what should by now be a familiar theme, the guardians of information have suppressed it in an effort to serve the greater narrative, in this case, that Islam is a religion of peace.

The media are especially adept at getting around the Muslim persecution of Christians.  First, only the most sensational attacks are ever reported; for example, the bombings of churches that leave dozens of Christians dead (as have occurred repeatedly in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, and many other Muslim nations).  Even then, the reporting is minimal.  U.S. media coverage for a gorilla that was shot and killed after a toddler fell into its zoo enclosure was six times greater than that for 21 Christians whose heads were carved off for refusing to recant their faith.

Moreover, by reporting only on sensationalist terrorist attacks—carried out by outlawed organizations which the media’s talking heads can easily present as “not representing Islam” but rather “hijacking” it—and because these high casualty attacks occur only every few months or so, as opposed to every day, concluding that Christians experience systemic and systematic persecution under Islam becomes impossible.

In reality, of course, the spectacular terrorist attacks that receive some coverage are just the tip of the iceberg for Christians.  Indeed, in an effort to help remedy the media’s failures, nearly a decade ago, in July 2011, I decided to begin compiling monthly reports titled “Muslim Persecution of Christians” (published by the Gatestone Institute).  I was initially concerned as to the feasibility of this project: what sort of “report” could be compiled if, say, only one or two—or even no instances—of persecution occurred on any given month?  Sadly, this has never been the case.  Each monthly report—there are as of this writing 115—contains a dozen or so atrocities.

The overwhelming majority of these stories do not appear on any big media but rather smaller, human rights websites.  Apparently, they are unworthy of coverage.  On the other hand, one suspects that if the roles were switched in any one of these accounts—if it was Christians who were banning or attacking mosques; attacking or imprisoning Muslims who blaspheme or Christians who apostatize to Islam; abducting, raping, and forcibly converting Muslims girls; and enforcing myriad forms of open discrimination against Muslims—these stories would be reported and highlighted by all the major networks.

Which leads to the media’s second strategy: relativizing, neutralizing—always trying to present what happens to Christians as generic “crimes” that have nothing to do with their—or their persecutors’—religious identity.  I have read more than one report of a terrorist attack that kills dozens of “people” only to find at the very end of the report that those slain were—and targeted for being—Christians.

Similarly, unprovoked Muslim attacks on Christians are portrayed as “sectarian strife,” a phrase suggestive of two equally matched adversaries. This hardly describes reality: Christian minorities being persecuted in Muslim-majority nations. The New York Times’ headline for an Islamic terror attack on an Egyptian church that left 21 worshippers dead was “Clashes Grow as Egyptians Remain Angry after an Attack”—as if frustrated and harried Christians lashing out against their persecutors was the big news, not the unwarranted butchery they just experienced.

But of course, blurring the line between victim and oppressor is a regular tactic of the mainstream media. In two brief sentences, a BBC report stated the bare-bone facts of a church attack that left three Christians, including a toddler, dead in Nigeria.  Then it jumped to the apparently really important news: that “the bombing sparked a riot by Christian youths, with reports that at least two Muslims were killed in the violence. The two men were dragged off their bikes after being stopped at a roadblock set up by the rioters, police said. A row of Muslim-owned shops was also burned.... ” The report goes on and on, with a special section about “very angry” Christians, until one all but confuses victims with persecutors, forgetting what Christians are “very angry” about in the first place: unprovoked and nonstop terror attacks.  In what human rights groups are referring to as a “genocide,” Muslims have slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians in Nigeria—as opposed to reprisal killings of two Muslims—and bombed or burned thousands of churches. Yet, the casual reader of the mainstream media will walk away with some notion of tribal/sectarian conflict.

A final and rather deplorable media strategy is to actively issue false news in an effort to suppress the specter of Muslim violence against Christians.  In the days before the aforementioned 21 Egyptian Christians were videotaped being decapitated in Libya, the BBC falsely reported that the majority of those now slaughtered Copts were “released.”

Why is the media so set against objectively reporting on Christian persecution under Islam? Because, of all forms of Islamic violence, the abuse of Christian minorities where Muslims are in power has the capacity to completely undermine the Leftist narrative—and thereby undermine a cornerstone of their doctrine of moral relativism.  Muslim violence against the West or Israel poses no challenge to that narrative: in both cases, Muslims are presented as underdogs; they may be screaming and rioting, firing rockets, and destroying property—all while calling for the death and destruction of the “infidel” West or Israel to cries of “Allahu Akbar!” Still, this bloodlust can be rationalized as a natural byproduct of the frustration Muslims feel as an oppressed minority, retaliating against their “colonial” oppressors.

But if Muslims get a free pass when their violence is directed against those stronger than them, how does one reason away their violence when it is directed against those weaker than them, those who have no political influence whatsoever—in this case, the millions of Christian minorities suffering under Islam? The rationalizations used to minimize Muslim violence against the West and Israel simply cannot work here, for now Muslims are the majority—and they are the ones violent and oppressive to their minorities, in ways that make Western and Israeli treatment of Muslims seem enviable.

In short, Christian persecution is perhaps the most obvious example of a phenomenon the mainstream media wants to ignore out of existence—Islamic supremacism. Vastly outnumbered and politically marginalized Christians in the Islamic world simply wish to worship in peace, and yet they still are hounded and attacked; their churches are burned and destroyed; their children are kidnapped, raped, and enslaved. These Christians are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens in race, ethnicity, national identity, culture, and language; there is no political or property dispute. The only problem is that they are Christian—they are infidels—and so they must be despised and subjugated.

If the mainstream media were to report honestly on the persecution of Christians under Islam, the obvious implications that Islam is dangerously hostile to all non-Muslims would be inescapable. Hence, journalists develop an instinct—or make a deliberate choice—to ignore or sidestep these uncomfortable facts.

Perhaps worst of all, this lack of accurate reporting is occurring at a critical time.  As seen, according to the latest statistics, “more than 340 million” Christians “experience high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith.”  This represents a 31 % increase from 2020, when only “260 million Christians experience[ed] high levels of persecution.” That represented a 6% increase from 2019, when the number was only 245 million Christians.  And that represented a 14% increase from 2018, when 215 million was the number.

In other words, between just 2018 and 2021, the persecution of Christians has shot up by nearly 60% around the world and, based on current trends, will likely continue to grow and metastasize into other regions.  Indeed, whereas Muslim nations have the lions’ share, hostility for Christians is rapidly spreading into non-Muslim nations as well.  India has, in recent years, become a chief persecutor of Christians.  Even in neighboring Mexico—once thought a bastion of conservative Catholicism—the persecution of Christians is “very high,” even if for different reasons than in China, India, or the Muslim world.

And yet, most Americans, including most self-professed Christians, are either totally unaware of this phenomenon or have no idea of its extent or significance.  If the current trajectory does not change, they will likely remain in the dark until the persecution starts to hit much closer to home—by which time accurate reporting will no longer be needed; the persecution will be self-evident.