December 18, 2018
This is an invasion.
Then on Tuesday — the same day the Trump administration announced they will not shut down the government over border wall funding — the government announces $10.6 billion in aid to Central America and another $4.8 billion to Mexico.
DECEMBER 18, 2018
France 3, the second largest public television station in France doctored a placard held by a yellow vest protester during last weekend’s demonstrations in Paris.
The original sign said “Macron dégage,” meaning “Macron get lost,” but when it was broadcast on Saturday evening the sign had been amended to read simply “Macron”.
France 3 is owned by France Télévisions, which is in turn a state-owned company.
Jean-Baptiste Reddé, a leading light in the yellow vest movement and the man holding the sign immediately complained to the CSA, the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, an institution tasked with regulating electronic media in France.
The channel was forced into an embarrassing apology but absurdly denied the doctoring was deliberate by pleading “human error”.
The SNJ France Télévisions union responded to the controversy by denouncing the doctoring as an act of “inexcusable professional misconduct” and demanded an inquiry.
“We demand to hear her explanations and the measures she plans to take to prevent these things from happening again,” the union said in a statement. “What about the responsibility of the chief editor?”
As we reported yesterday, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe admitted that the French government made massive mistakes in responding to the demonstrations and that, “We did not listen enough to the French people.”
December 18, 2018
The Angel Families rally was in support of a border wall took place at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
The Angel Families are an organization aimed at bringing “illegal alien crimes to the forefront of politicians and American citizens by bringing victims and their families into the light with their stories and to enlighten them of the fight we have in front of us.”
The organization claimed that Democratic politicians have refused to ever meet with any of them, “because they can’t face us.”
One of the speakers at the border event was Mary Anne Mendoza, whose son Sgt Brandon Mendoza was killed by an illegal alien on the day after Mother’s Day in 2014.
“We are fighting so that no other American family has to feel the pain and the grief that we do,” Mendoza told the Epoch Times.
Another speaker at the rally was Agnes Gibboney, a legal immigrant from Brazil whose son was shot and killed in 2012 by an illegal alien gang member who had previously been deported.
“We’re calling on all Americans to support President Trump who’s fighting hard to keep his campaign promise to build the wall,” Gibboney said. “We need to build the wall so we can prevent the needless loss of life at the hands of illegal aliens.”
By DAN LYMAN DECEMBER 17, 2018
Janbaz Tarin has been sentenced to a minimum 32 years in prison after pleading guilty in the August stabbings of Raneem Oudeh, 22 and Khaola Saleem, 49.
Oudeh, whose marriage to Tarin had not been conducted in accordance with British law, reportedly dumped him after discovering he had a second wife and many children living in Pakistan, but Tarin continued to harass and threaten her.
Chilling video footage released by West Midlands Police shows Tarin stalking Oudeh and Saleem at a hookah bar on the night of August 27, before he confronts them and the encounter becomes physical.
Staff say they ejected Tarin and that he made a throat-slitting gesture at Oudeh before driving off.
Oudeh called the police, to whom Tarin was already known due to a history of physical abuse.
Later in the evening, Tarin tracked the women down at home and killed them both.
After a three-day manhunt, Tarin was eventually apprehended.
Oudeh’s aunt, Nour Norris, told the Birmingham Mail that her niece had predicted her own murder three weeks prior.
“One day in the garden Raneem said to me: ‘Aunty I feel my life is going to end with him soon’, and I said, ‘Please don’t say that,'” Norris said. “That was three weeks before she was murdered.”
Luxembourg’s artist Deborah de Rebortis (C) and a group of women dressed as “Marianne”, December 15, 2018 © AFP / Valery Hache
By Robert Bridge
Dear failing leaders of France, are basement-level ratings getting you down? Are violent riots spooking the tourists? Are running street protests at the height of the holiday season placing a drag on consumer spending? Have no fear because the BBC is here with a one-size fits all bogeyman to explain virtually everything. Please have a seat because the name alone will send shock waves of bone-chilling fear surging through your entire body.
This new and improved beast of burden to explain every uprising, lost election, accident and wart, popularly known as ‘Russia’ – a strategy rebuked by none other than President Putin as “the new anti-Semitism” – provides craven political leaders with a ready-made alibi when the proverbial poo hits the fan. Yes! It can even rescue Emmanuel Macron, who just experienced his fifth consecutive weekend of protests in the French capital and beyond.
Here is the real beauty of this new media product, which may just outsell Chanel No.5 this holiday season. Reporting on ‘Russia’ does not require any modicum of journalistic ethics, standards or even proof to peddle it like snake oil to an unsuspecting public.
Simply uttering the name ‘Russia’ is usually all it takes for the fairytale to grow wings, spreading its whimsical lies around the world. ‘Russia’ is truly the gift that keeps on giving!
Allow me to demonstrate how easy it is to apply. Just this weekend, BBC journalist Olga Ivshina was engaged in correspondence with a stringer in France. In an effort to explain what has sparked the French protests, Ivshina gratuitously tossed out some live ‘blame Russia’ bait.
“And maybe some Russian business is making big bucks on it,” the BBC journalist solicited in an effort to conjure up fake news out of thin air. “Maybe they are eating cutlets out there en masse, for example. Or maybe the far-right are the main troublemakers?”
ALSO ON RT.COMBBC endorses reporter’s actions seeking to find Russian influence in Yellow Vest protestsWhen the question only managed to elicit an uncomfortable laugh from the stringer, the nonplussed BBC journalist exposed more trade secrets than was probably advisable. In fact, what followed seems to have been the only nugget of truth to emerge from the discussion.
Ivshina confided that she was “looking for various angles” since the broadcaster, like a modern day Dracula flick, was “out for blood.”
When RT reached out to BBC for some explanation, the British broadcaster reasoned that since the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had “spoken publicly about media reports of a possible Russian influence in the protests, it was perfectly reasonable for our correspondent to raise the subject.”
It also said the finished report did not mention a “possible connection with Russia at all.”
At this point, it is only natural to ask if such a knee-jerk anti-Russia bias in other news events – for example, the Skripal affair – demands that the BBC mindlessly toe the government line instead of, oh, I don’t know, pursuing the truth. A naïve question, of course, but please humor me.
Suffice it to recall that before any evidence was presented to the public in the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, British Prime Minister Theresa May declared it was “highly likely” that Russia was to blame.
That reckless comment was then launched around Planet Google by the Western leaders and their laptop media without further ado, not to mention a little thing called evidence. At the very least, you would expect the British people to demand much more for their tax pounds which fund the BBC.
Do you see how easy and effective this type of journalism is? The basis for the claims of ‘Russian interference’ by the French foreign minister should sound very familiar. Echoing claims of ‘Russian meddling’ in the 2016 US presidential elections through the use of social media, the minister pulled the very same rabbit out of his hat to suggest why hundreds of thousands of French citizens were suddenly out on the street, protesting against the unpopular policies of a former investment banker turned president.
As Bloomberg reported: “France opened a probe into possible Russian interference in the Yellow Vest protests, after… about 600 Twitter accounts known to promote Kremlin views began focusing on France, boosting their use of the hashtag #giletsjaunes.”
Keep in mind that the purchase of a few hundred Facebook ads is how the US Democratic Party – itself the focus of a number of potentially-criminal activities, as revealed by WikiLeaks – has attempted to explain the failure of Hillary Clinton to beat the Republican maverick Donald Trump in the race to the White House, as well as conceal its many wrongdoings.
Never mind that a Facebook executive admitted that Russia-linked posts had negligible impact on that part of the US brain that is responsible for pulling levers and making independent choices on election day.
Meanwhile, the recent and very explosive comment by Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, further confirms that the claim of Russian interference in the US political system was a well-done nothing burger.
“We undertook a very thorough investigation, and… we now know that there were two main ad accounts linked to Russia which advertised on Google for about $4,700 in advertising,” Pichai told a stone-faced US congressional probe last week.
Back to the French streets, with some unavoidable sarcasm.
Of course, the French would never think of protesting against Emmanuel Macron’s aggressive neo-liberal policies, which have subjected the French people to painful austerity measures at the same time that the French government has embraced an open door immigration policy.
The only explanation that makes any sense – at least for those whose careers depend upon it, that is – is that the Russians monkeyed with the French mentality, causing Macron’s popularity rating to plunge, while at the same time inducing the French to take to the streets en masse.
The problem with that media narrative, first tossed out by a French minister without any evidence and then regurgitated by an obedient media, is that so many people are willing to accept it at face value. Or perhaps I underestimate the intelligence of the average news consumer and such a comment actually helped spur the French protesters into action for being taken as fools. We can always dream.
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The police, who are reportedly still in the dark about whether all the incidents are connected, are warning locals that the perpetrator or perpetrators may strike again.
Three women were stabbed in one of Nuremberg’s districts with an unknown sharp object within three and a half hours. The criminal police have taken over the investigation and a special commission has been set up to investigate the matter. They are to talk to the victims and interview locals, who may have seen something.
The first incident happened around 7 pm, when a stranger stabbed a 56-year-old woman while she was out for a walk and immediately fled. The severely injured woman was rushed to a local hospital, where she underwent surgery.
Later in the evening, a 26-year-old was stabbed on her way home then an unknown offender attacked a 34-year-old lady. They received life-threatening wounds and were urgently operated on. German media reports, citing doctors, say that all three are out of danger now.
Police have launched a manhunt, deployed dogs, and a police helicopter as well as boosting their presence in the district. The investigation is currently underway; however, there are conflicting reports about possible perpetrators.
The German outlet Focus reports that it cannot be ruled out that one person is responsible for all three cases.
There are different descriptions of a suspect, who is reportedly a strong-looking person of about 25 — 30 years old. Other witnesses suggest the attacker had blond or dark blond hair, a light complexion and a three-day beard. There’s also no definite information about what kind of weapon was used.
According to Bavarian radio, there is no evidence confirming that this was a terrorist attack, like the one at the Christmas market in Strasbourg, where the assailant was shot by the police after a search operation.
You can read this story as it originally appeared at Sputnik here.
By EMMA R.
The 74-year-old Ingrid’s glasses broke in half when the criminal Afghan Walid struck her in her face. Walid then accused the elderly woman of being racist – and got off with only a few weeks’ imprisonment.
On 31 October, Ingrid went down to the laundry room in her apartment building. There she met 29-year-old Walid.
According to Ingrid, Walid was carrying a mattress when she saw him. After she asked if he had slept at his parents, he replied, “No, I’m an idiot.” She replied “Yes, you are.”
The Afghan then tore off and broke her glasses, then punched her hard in the face. Ingrid was in pain and shock afterwards. When Walid was arrested by police, he grinned when he was photographed.
During the trial, the Afghan defended himself by claiming that Ingrid had insulted him “in a racist way”. Solna District Court sentenced Walid to only four weeks in prison.
He will also pay €500 in damages to Ingrid. Walid is a citizen of Afghanistan, but the prosecutor did not call for expulsion.
He has been sentenced several times before – but each time he has avoided expulsion. He previously appears under 12 sections in the criminal registers.
In February 2012, Walid was sentenced to six years in prison for attempted murder, but was already released in December 2015.
By Neil Munro
“It’s a cruel irony that [President Donald] Trump has portrayed refugees as a threat to Americans. In fact, the reverse is true,” Rubin wrote in a column that slammed any barrier or regulatory curbs on the flow of economic migrants into the United States.
Rubin’s column was headlined “Horrifying indifference to children’s lives,” and it cited the death of seven-year Guatemalan girl, Jakelin Caal, who was brought over the New Mexico border by her father, Nery Gilberto Caal Cuz. The subheadline on the article declared: The Trump administration certainly is responsible for death of a child in its custody.”
With adequate border security and staffing, a sufficient number of immigration judges deployed to handle the caseload, reversal of the administration’s deliberately cruel policies … the current, intolerable situation should improve.
Rubin ignored the alternative policy of discouraging migration by careful enforcement of the nation’s laws against illegal migration and the employment of illegals.
Rubin also did not mention the thousands of illegal migrants who are rescued by the border patrol each year, nor the tens of thousands who are by border agents to file clearly fraudulent cases which are subsequently rejected by judges.
Also, Rubin did not mention the moral responsibility of the child’s father who brought her through the desert in an apparent effort to use the catch-and-release Flores loophole to get past border guards. The loophole was created by Judge Dolly Gee who has ordered border officials to release migrants after 20 days if they bring a child with them.
The AP reported that the father was an economic migrant:
Family members in Guatemala said Caal decided to migrate with his favorite child to earn money he could send back home. Jakelin’s mother and three siblings remained in San Antonio Secortez, a village of about 420 inhabitants.
Economic migrants are not eligible for asylum.
But Rubin posted a litany of complaints by open-borders groups, including the ACLU and America’s Voice, who argue that curbs on illegal migrant force migrants to take more dangerous routines through the scrubland into the United States. Rubin cited the ACLU’s complaints:
In 2017, migrant deaths increased even as the number of border crossings dramatically decreased. When the Trump administration pushes for the militarization of the border, including more border wall construction, they are driving people fleeing violence into the deadliest desert regions.
Rubin exemplifies the open-borders advocates who hide their views underneath a blizzard of nit-picking complaints about minor aspects of the nation’s popular border-control rules. For example, she quoted one activist’s complaints that the temporary holding centers along the border are characterized by “freezing temperatures, no beds, lights left on, no showers, not enough toilets or toilet paper, filthy conditions, horrible smell, inedible food and not enough clean water to drink, and [are] run by insulting and abusive agents.”
But Rubin declined to say if the United States has a right to protect its borders or to deport foreign migrants from the United States. She showed indifference to the huge economic and civic costs to ordinary Americans of cheap-labor migration into the nation’s blue-collar and middle-class workplaces, neighborhoods, hospitals, welfare centers, and K-12 schools.
Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told Breitbart News:
The Democrats are using this [death] cynically as a cudgel against the very idea of immigration enforcement. It is shameless. It is really shameless.
The left is objectively in favor of open borders. They deny it if you ask them straight out, but they are opposed to any meaningful measure to enforce the borders. Any time there is a tragedy like this they immediately turn it into an excuse for weakening the borders — and say at the same when you point to an illegal immigrant criminal [as a reason] for tightening the borders, they charge you with acting irresponsibly.
…
The logical conclusion of the Democrats’ outrage over this is that there should be no border enforcement because any rules about border control will also create people who evade them, and it is an evasion of the laws that is the responsible (mechanism] for this tragedy. The only logical conclusion is that we must have open borders.
For example, Democrats are now describing the detention centers used to hold migrant parents together with their children prior to their release or asylum hearings as illegitimate “internment camps.”
This “internment” claim comes after Democrats decried the governments’ release of children to government-run shelters while their parents were detained prior to court hearings.
Nationwide, the U.S. establishment’s economic policy of using legal migration to boost economic growth shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with cheap white collar and blue collar foreign labor. That flood of outside labor spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor that blue collar and white collar employees.
The cheap labor policy widens wealth gaps, reduces high tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high tech careers, and sidelines at least five million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.
Immigration also steers investment and wealth away from towns in heartland states because coastal investors can more easily hire and supervise the large immigrant populations who prefer to live in coastal cities. In turn, that investment flow drives up coastal real-estate prices, pricing poor U.S. Latinos and blacks out of prosperous cities, such as Berkeley and Oakland.
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