The Passing of John Lewis

John Lewis


It is sad to read of the passing yesterday of John Lewis, the Democrat Congressman from Georgia.

Politically, I didn't agree with Lewis on many issues, but I always respected him for his civil rights background. Lewis was attacked at the infamous Selma, Alabama march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in 1965 when his skull was fractured. This was a man who lived through the dark days of Jim Crow in the South, fought it, and certainly paid his dues in terms of suffering discrimination and putting his life on the line to fight true injustice.

RIP, Mr Lewis.

France: Police Have a Suspect in Custody in Cathedral Fire

French police have taken a 39-year-old Rwandan  refugee into custody in connection with yesterday's fire at the Nantes cathedral. The man was reportedly employed by the diocese and had been tasked with closing the cathedral. He was reportedly angry about his expired visa.

The prosecutor states that, at this stage, there are no formal charges.

The below article by Le Figaro is translated by Fousesquawk.






https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/incendie-de-la-cathedrale-de-nantes-un-homme-aurait-ete-place-en-garde-a-vue-20200719

Fire in the cathedral of Nantes: A man taken into custody

A Rwandan national, 39, was taken into custody the day of the fire. According to the prosecutor, there is nothing at the moment to implicate him in the commission of the act.

-by Le Figaro, July 19, updated same date.

Caption below photo:

"There is no indication of a break-in," according to the prosecutor of Nantes

A 39-year-old man, originally from Rwanda, has been arrested in connection with the investigation into the arson of the cathedral of Nantes. Arrested Saturday, 18 July during the day, he was placed in custody.

The reasons for his arrest are, for the moment, not known. According to Le Figaro's information, he is a Rwandan refugee working for the diocese. He had reportedly expressed anger  about his expired visa.

According to the prosecutor, the man was placed in custody due to inconsistencies discovered in his work schedule. The suspect had been tasked with closing the cathedral the day before the fire. The investigators, therefore, wish to hear from this man, "on the conditions of the closure of the cathedral."

"At this stage, it is a question of verification, nothing permits (us) to implicate him in the commission of the fire," the prosecutor of the Republic in Nantes, Pierre Sennes, stated. "One must remain prudent as to the interpretation of this custody, it is normal procedure," the magistrate underlined.

Asked about the first elements of the investigation, the prosecutor confirmed the arrival Saturday afternoon of fire experts from the scientific and technical police laboratory.

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*Update (7-19-20): The above mentioned Rwandan man has been released today without charges.

France: Cathedral of Nantes Set Ablaze

Another fire has broken out in a French cathedral, this time Saturday morning at the historic Cathedral of St Pierre and St Paul in Nantes. While not as serious as that of Notre Dame in Paris, reports are that there is massive destruction in the interior and that the grand organ is destroyed. Investigators have found three points of origin and they definitely believe this is a case of deliberate arson.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-07-18/french-firefighters-battle-blaze-in-cathedral-in-nantes

*Update: French police has taken a 39-year-old asylum-seeker from Rwanda into custody as a suspect though it appears he has not been formally charged. The man was reportedly employed at the church and was angry about his asylum status.

https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/incendie-de-la-cathedrale-de-nantes-un-homme-aurait-ete-place-en-garde-a-vue-20200719

(Translation pending.)

Stabbing Attack in Norway

Hat tip Ullis News, Gates of Vienna, Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation. Translation by Kronans Martell.




Late Tuesday night, police were called to the scene of a stabbing in the Norwegian town of Sarpsborg, south of Oslo. One man is in custody with three women stabbed, one fatally.  The above Ullis News (Se) video is translated by Kronans Martell. A second video of the police press conference is in the process of being translated. During that press conference, police identified the suspect as a man with Norwegian citizenship but not of Norwegian background. He was acquainted with two of the victims. Further details are pending.

*Update: Here is a Norwegian news report translated by Kronans Martell.



*Update: Here is an interview with a neighbor who heard the screams. Translation by Kronans Martell.

Why Angela Davis Is Voting for Joe Biden

Hat tip Breitbart




Just what is at stake in the November election is illustrated by an interview radical leftist, communist, former Black Panther, Angela Davis has given to the Russian state controlled media, Russia Today. In this interview, she describes Joe Biden as the candidate that can be most pressured into following her agenda.


https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/16/marxist-angela-davis-joe-biden-is-candidate-who-can-be-most-effectively-pressured/

I must agree. The lady is correct. Joe Biden has been in national politics for 5 decades. His policies have been center-left.  However, the Democrat party has gone far left in the past several years and never more so than now. In addition, Biden is clearly sliding into dementia. As he does so, he is showing a definite tendency to adopt the more radical positions of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Black Lives Matter. He may not be a radical at heart, but he will be like putty in the hands of the more radical elements of his party.

Qatar and Al Jazeera

Hat tip Investigative Project on Terrorism and The Israel Group


This report comes at no surprise, but it is well worth reporting. In essence, Al Jazeera is an arm of the Qatari government operating in the US as a news agency. That is of concern given many factors including Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, among others.It concludes that Al Jazeera should register itself under the Foreign Agent Registration Act

This report was prepared by former Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) on behalf of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington.

https://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/AK_AlJazeeraFinal_070120_v1.pdf

Some salient points from the above report:

• The ruler of Qatar, Emir Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, owns Al Jazeera.
• Qatar’s Ministry of Finance controls Al Jazeera’s budget.
• Qatari royal family members hold leadership and board positions within Al Jazeera
• Al Jazeera’s U.S. producers must send their content to “Doha” for approval.
• Qatar has acknowledged its control over Al Jazeera in binding international agreements.

"Based on the public record reviewed and assessed herein, Al Jazeera has operated in the United States for years as an agent of Qatar without registering under FARA. This report chronicles these findings and concludes that Al Jazeera must register with the DOJ and comply with FARA."

"CAIR and Al Jazeera clearly share many of the same goals, including that of whitewashing Hamas's crimes and discrediting Israel in the court of public opinion. The Ros-Lehtinen report is a valuable contribution to the ongoing unmasking of Al Jazeera and Qatar's insidious endeavors within the United States." 

"Al Jazeera was launched in 1996 at the order of Qatar’s Emir. With its headquarters in Doha, Qatar, the network now reaches approximately 310 million households in over 100 countries.  It has a team of 3,000 people around the world.  In the United States, Al Jazeera has personnel in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. In Washington, D.C., Al Jazeera has had over 100 staff credentialed for Congressional press galleries, rivaling that of most major news outlets."

"Al Jazeera English is Al Jazeera’s English-language media channel. This content is freely accessible to viewers through aljazeera.com. Streaming and on-demand video content is available in the United States on most consumer platforms, including Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, iTunes, Google Play, Netflix, Roku, and the like. AOL, Apple News, Flipboard, Google Newsstand, MSN, and Yahoo also host Al Jazeera English content. The brand extends to social media as well."  

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Here is an article by anti-terrorism expert Steve Emerson on the report.

Fousesquawk comment: I agree that Al Jazeera should register itself under the FARA. My question here is, shouldn't this also apply to Americans who work with Al Jazeera? They not only employ American "reporters"and talking heads but various commentators and writers as well for their English speaking audience. What about them?

Sweden: Another Murder

Kiruna


Even in Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden, they have to deal with murders by Afghan asylum-seekers. Translation by Fousesquawk.


https://nyheteridag.se/misstankta-for-knivmord-i-kiruna-begars-haktade/

Suspected for Stabbing death in Kiruna: Request to Remand in Custody

Kiruna- (Prosecutors have requested) that a father and his two sons  remain in custody for the stabbing murder of a 21-year-old man in Kiruna. The suspects are Afghan  citizens, and the two sons also have Swedish citizenship.


It was on Wednesday evening that a 21-year-old man was stabbed to death on a bus in Kiruna. Three persons, a father in his 40s and his two minor sons, are under arrest suspected of the murder.

Prosecutor Lindha Strömberg has requested that the men remain in custody, and proceedings  will be held Friday afternoon. According to a press release, the three suspects admit to events but deny the crime.

The prosecutor tells SVT that the suspects were acquainted with the victim.

"Yes, they know each other or are acquainted in any case. This is not an unknown random incident, it is not," says Lindha  Strömberg, who doesn't want to comment further on the motive issue.

The father and one of his sons maintain that they acted in self defense, reports Aftonbladet.

Nyheter Idag has taken part of the arrest (documents) that show that the father and his sons are Afghan citizens. According to the Swedish Tax Agency, the trio came to Sweden from Iran, like many other Afghans who have come to Sweden, in recent years. They were registered in 2015 by the Swedish Tax Agency as immigrants to Sweden. According to Samnytt, however, they have been in Sweden since 2012 and requested asylum and received permanent residency on the second attempt.

All of them are suspected on probable cause for murder and have no previous convictions in Sweden.

Christopher Columbus: An Overlooked Perspective From One Italian American

Hat tip John

Amid all the noise over the removal of statues-in this case-that of Christopher Columbus, here is one perspective that has been overlooked. Columbus was actually an Italian from Genoa, not a Spaniard as some erroneously think. His actual Italian name was Cristoforo Colombo. Thus, he is a source of great pride within the Italian-American community for his 1492 venture to the Americas.

Here is the view from one unnamed Italian-American gentleman from New Jersey. Oh, for all you snowflakes out there, there is a bit of potty language, so viewer warning.



Very well stated, Sir.

Hot Dogs at High Point (University)

Hat tip The College Fix

Dr James Smoliga


It's bad enough that we have hot dog eating championships being passed off as sports (with apologies to world champ Joey Chestnut), now we have the whole thing being studied in our universities by "research professors".

Believe it or not, Dr James Smoliga of High Point University, has reached a new low point in academic research. He has determined (after years of research) that the most hot dogs a human being can wolf down in 10 minutes is 83.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/professor-releases-study-of-how-many-hot-dogs-a-human-can-possibly-eat/

“The maximal limits of human performance are a perpetually interesting, interdisciplinary topic of scientific discourse,”
-James Smoliga PhD (Professor of hot dogs)

Data were modelled using logistic regression (equation (2.1)):

ACR(y)=mn+(mx−mn)(exp[k(y−t)]1+exp[k(y−t)]).

You can't put a price tag on a college education.

Italy: Senegalese Bus Driver Sentenced

In March 2019, a Senegalese school bus driver attempted to set fire to his bus full of schoolkids outside Milan. Today, Ousseynou Sy, 47, expressing no remorse, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. The below article from Il Giornale is translated by Fousesquawk.


https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/milano/bus-dirottato-sulla-paullese-ousseynou-sy-condannato-fu-1877472.html


Bus hijacked on the Paullese (road), Ousseynou Sy sentenced: "It was terrorism"

The driver of the bus hijacked on the Paullese (road) last March has been sentenced to 24 years in jail by the court in Milan: "It was terrorism".

The hijacking of the bus

The knife, the gasoline on the upholstery, and the flames among the seats of the school bus. Then the desperate cries of the students, and, finally, the squads of Carabinieri who rushed with sirens blaring to the place of the report. It all happened in a handful of thrilling minutes that morning of 20 March 2019. It took little for Ousseynou Sy, 47, from Senegal, to follow up on his delusional madness of' "avenging the deaths at sea". That is how he took it with 51 very young students from the Vailati di Crema School, threatening to set the vehicle on fire also with two teachers and a caretaker . The foreigner, assigned to drive the vehicle on that occasion, didn't think twice: He emptied a container of gasoline along the aisle between the seats, then set the fire with a  lighter. But his evil plan soon ended in failure, sent up in smoke by the shrewdness of a courageous student who  succeeded to calling 112, assuring the salvation of his school companions. Intercepted by police, in proximity of the interchange of Peschiera Borromeo on the provincial Paullese road, the (suspect) was immediately arrested with the charge of kidnapping and attempted terrorist attack.

Condemned to 24 years for terrorism

Coming down in the early afternoon of Wednesday, 15 July 2020, is the sentence of the court of Milan, which sentenced the Senegalese driver to 24 years in jail. The judge accepted the thesis of public prosecutors Luca Poniz and Alberto Nobili, who, in previous hearings, had asked for a change in the offense charged  to the 47-year-old from "kidnapping" to "kidnapping with terrorist intent". According to the Corriere della Sera, the court recognized general mitigating factors and banned him from public offices. Provisional compensation of 25,000 Euros was recognized for each of the children, victims of the attack, (who) together with their respective parents, constituted a civil part of the trial.


Mental illness rejected

The psychiatric experts requested  by the Milan court, and  performed by forensic experts Renato Ariatti and Franco Martelli, excluded that Ousseynou Sy suffers from mental illness. In the first instance, the 47-year-old had presented himself as crazy justifying having committed his madness with inconsistent motivations. "I see many mothers here," he had stated in the course of the first hearing. "I ask you to consider the children dead in the sea. I did this gesture for them." But for the judges who passed the sentence of 24 years imprisonment, "Sy is not affected by (mental) illness."

The words of Sy in the opening of the hearing

"If I had set the fire, nobody would be in the room." Those are the words of Sy in the opening of the hearing, deciding to make a spontaneous declaration. "The boys testified saying terrible things-the 47-year-old added. "But they did it only two weeks after the events." The foreigner, for the umpteenth time, reaffirmed having been treated "with all the prejudices that there are for blacks, for the other. "If you want to condemn me, go ahead, but remember that my gesture was only in the scope of saving human lives. I could no longer bear to see the horrors every day. I ask for justice for all the families who have seen relatives die off our coasts between 2018 and 2019. Because justice is not one way."

US Campus Anti-Semitism and Where the $$$$ Comes From

Eric Mandel has an article in the Jerusalem Post dated July 2, which describes the problem of campus anti-Semitism in the US and where much of the funding for the anti-Zionist (anti-Jew) propaganda comes from. While this doesn't cover every single aspect of the problem, it is accurate and represents an important contribution to the discussion of our campus problems, of which anti-Semitism is a major problem.

Previously, I wrote an article in New English Review that compared the current left-wing radicalization on our campuses concerning Black Lives Matter and other issues to the anti-Israel movement. It is part of what we call the red-green alliance (red for communism and green for Islam).

https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/academias-antisemitism-and-foreign-funding-in-the-corona-era-632630

As Mr Mandel points out, we may have a strategic relationship with countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but that doesn't mean we should allow them to send their oil dollars back to the US funding radical, anti-Semitic, anti-American movements on our campuses. That includes Middle East Studies departments, which are notorious in their anti-West, anti-Israeli philosophies. This is just one of the great scandals in academia today that universities accept funding from the above countries to spread their toxic poison to our children.

And as I pointed out in my referenced article on the red-green alliance on campus, the pro-Palestinian movement has forged links with the radical and anti-Semitic Black Lives Matter organization.

Also note that in Mr Mandel's article, there is no reference to white, right-wing, racist groups like the KKK or neo-Nazis. Not that these people don't exist, which is unfortunate, but they have no sway on college campuses and do not not constitute the greatest threat in terms of anti-Semitism in general-even though many on the left, including many Jewish organizations, would have us believe they do. Indeed, if we are going to talk about that aspect of anti-Semitism, then we must also talk about the anti-Semitism that is found-and currently being manifested- in parts of the black community, which is just as much a problem.

It doesn't take too much reading between the lines of Mr Mandel's article to figure out some common threads when it comes to US campus anti-Semitism; they are, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Students for Justice in Palestine, Gulf states, BDS, Muslim Brotherhood, Middle East studies departments, and on and on. To that list I would have added the various chapters of the Muslim Student Association, Muslim Student Union, General Union of Palestinian Students, etc.

But the left and Jewish groups like the Anti Defamation League, the Jewish Federation, and Hillel just cannot bring themselves to say it: The overwhelming majority of anti-Semitism on our campuses, as well as around the world, is driven by Islamic interests. It is they who are the biggest purveyors, it is they who have linked up with groups like Black Lives Matter, and it is they who have formed the green part of the red-green alliance.

Sweden: Murder-Decapitation Defendant Ruled Sane

Tishko Ahmed


We have earlier reported about the shocking case in Uddevalla, Sweden, where late last year, Tishko Ahmed, aka Tishko Ahmed Shabaz, was charged with murdering his ex-girlfriend, Wilma Andersson, whose head was discovered in Ahmed's residence. In June, Ahmed was convicted of the murder and a pre-sentencing psychiatric examination was ordered. He has now been ruled sane, and faces a sentence of life in prison. The below article from today's Aftonbladet is translated by Fousesquawk.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/2GLnyv/wilmas-mordare--inte-psykiskt-sjuk

Wilma's Murderer-Not insane
-by Malim Kardell, July 15, 2020

Wilma's ex-boyfriend, Tishko Ahmed, 23, does not suffer from any serious mental disorder. That is according to the judicial psychiatric examination made public Wednesday. Now the 23-year-old risks life imprisonment for murder.

Wilma Andersson, 17, disappeared without a trace from her home in Uddevalla November 17 of last year. Two weeks later, police reported that a body part had been found, which meant that any hope that the disappeared girl would be found alive-no longer existed.

In June this year, the Uddevalla district court found Ahmed guilty of murder and desecration of a dead body.

Now comes (in) a statement from the Judicial Medical Agency that Wilma's murderer, the 23-year-old ex-boyfriend, does not suffer from any psychiatric disorder.

According to the statement, which was made public when it was submitted to the Uddevalla district court on Wednesday, the 23-year-old did not did not commit the accused acts under the influence of a serious mental disorder. Thus, there are no medical conditions for him to  be turned over to judicial psychiatric care.

In practice, this means that he now risks being sentenced to life imprisonment, as the prosecutor, Jim Westerberg demanded during the main proceedings in Uddevalla district court in June. In connection with the court's judgment, it was reported that the man should undergo a judicial psychiatric examination.