"We understand why you hate Israel. Paranoid hatred of the Jews is embedded in your religious texts. Moreover, since you believe that any land ever occupied by Muslims becomes Muslim land in perpetuity—and since the very idea of the Jews being your equals in ruling their own land is anathema to you—your culture of honor and shame means that you cannot accept a Jewish state in a region you claim as your own."
Writer and commentator Melanie Philips has published an open letter to the Muslim world about Israel. The message is clear: Israel is running circles around the Palestinians and the rest of the Muslim world that wants to destroy the Jewish state. I am therefore happy to post this.
The below report is from the Spanish newspaper, El Pais and describes how thousands of Moroccans are obtaining false visas through Spanish consulates in the North African country. One they are into Spain, via the Schengen Agreement, they are free to travel within the EU unimpeded. Translation by Fousesquawk.
The lack of means and controls foments a black market of documents in consulates at a price of up to 8,000 Euros
Ciudadanos marroquíes hacen cola para poder acceder a la ciudad de Melilla.ANTONIO RUIZ
Photo: Moroccan citizens form a line to gain entry to the city of Melilla.
Rabat (2016 and 2018), Tetuan (2003), Tangiers (1996 and 2010) and Casablance (2007) have been in the news due to the appearance and detention of schemes of buying illegal visas in Spanish consulates. Ever since this bureaucratic step was imposed in 1992 in order to cross the Straight, the cases and irregularities have gone up periodically and with procedures almost identical. A band of local counterfeiters, more or less similar, infiltrate themselves at the entrances of Spanish consulates (that laboriously issue with long lines some 150,000 visas a year) using the services of one or various "local or Spanish functionaries" and facilitate (the Moroccans) to be able to overcome the bureaucratic barriers for a price that ranges in these years from 5,200 to more than 8,000 Euros. Last week, were produced the last two detentions in Rabat. After the last operation, reported in these same offices in 2014, the Foreign Ministry sent in an inspection in 2017 which resulted in proceedings (against two officials though in the preliminary stage). The volume of the falsifications and the business is incalculable.
The case of the mafias and the purchases of illegal visas in the Spanish consulates in Morocco is the most worrisome and important for its quantity and for the proximity of the country to Spain and its entry into Europe. But it is not unique. Last March, Bolivian police dismantled a similar band that operated within the consulate of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia with similar methods. The alarm signs detected were different and the result of the operations and the internal investigations practically the same.: Silence, forget, look the other way, and go back to the beginning.
One of the interventions carried out in a Spanish consulate in Morocco happened after the falsification of visa of a young man admitted in a Belgian hospital. In Rabat, the grand scheme began to fall apart in 2014 thanks to an anonymous report from a local journalist from Nador (Morocco) , with whom embassy personnel spoke that provided a lot of data and led to the discovery of 18 false documents. That report with the internal report was sent to the central hqs of the Ministry in Madrid which ordered a general inspection in 2017.
In the Office of Diplomatic Information (OID) this inspection is related with the two detentions on the part of the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) of Morocco last week revealed by the local daily, Assabah. The newspaper reported a band made up of 13 members and 4 local functionaries infiltrated in the services of information and investigations. One of them with double nationality. The Ministry has opened another internal investigation although it affirms that Morocco has not communicated the reason for the detentions. The last one, that of 2017, concluded with the dismissal of two employees who then filed a lawsuit in Madrid with the Social Court that has just been dismissed. One of them, the ex-head of services, Rosario Castillo Garcia, warned that, during her time at the Tangiers consulate had issued 25 false visas in a review of those issued in two weeks. Then, when discovered in Rabat, asked for a transfer to Madrid and early retirement.
Consulate in Rabat
The consulate in Rabat issues some 35,000 Schengen visas a year and another 9,500 of nationals for family reunification. In the department of visas, there are four chiefs and between 8-10 local employees. They are saturated and more so in the summer period when the schemes intensify to 40% of the papers presented. All of those documents are impossible to verify. The falsifications, besides, are good, very professional. When they arrive for the signature of the chancellor or consul, they barely have time to put their signature on them. Some heads or employees spend (It is common to transfer within the same country) decades in this consulate or others in Morocco and know all the nooks and crannies. The consul and the chancellor change destiny. In Madrid, in the ministry, they allude to the flood of work as justification. They receive 1,000 complaints a year from their 90 consulates (from the two million transactions carried out) and in its annual plan, six inspections are obligated a year.
There is a sad new twist to the migrant crisis in Italy. In the northern city of Padua (Padova), young migrant men, mostly Senegalese, are swapping sex services for food. The "Johns" are actually middle-aged women and older men. Translation by Fousesquawk.
Padova (Padua) red light zone. Migrants sell themselves for food
In Padua, a type of red light zone has been created in which women and old people go in search of young migrants
Women in search of men in Padova, the zone between Piazza De Gasperi and the area of the train station has been transformed into a red light zone where women and old people seek out young men of color.
The payment may not be in money, rather in food.
The testimony (of witnesses)
The search starts as soon as the sun goes down. The targeted prey are young (male) immigrants, mostly Senegalese. who are in search of a meal and who barter it with sex. "The Senegalese young men position themselves between Via Cairoli and Corso del Popolo. Lured to them are women of middle age," explains a businessman who has a business near there on the pages of Il Gazettino.
Another witness explains that "It is true. They are approached by women and at times they are paid in food." A circle that has transformed the migrants into boy toys. The phenomenon has been present in the zone since January. "It has been a couple of months that I see the movement. I have often noted women approaching the African young men, but sometimes also by men. It goes on at all hours of the day."
This is a disgrace. Whatever one thinks of the fact that so migrants are pouring into Italy, they should not have to live in this manner. Just another shameful aspect of a shameful situation that Europe's leaders have dumped on their people.
From time to time, this blog has picked up on a piece of news about a character in the Miami area named Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout based on his anti-semitic rants while promoting pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Well, he's back. Joe Kaufman in Frontpage Magazine has the latest. Believe it or not, Zakkout is now a "Crime Stopper" in Dade County.
The furor over Professor of English Randa Jarrar continues at Fresno State after she insulted Barbara Bush after the former first lady passed away. Jarrar compounds the problem with her arrogant rants while her supporters talk as if she was Ralph Waldo Emerson-high praise for a woman who can't put a sentence together with saying "like" and the F bomb three or four times.
One writer to the Fresno Bee claimed that Jarrar "makes us think". If this is what makes you think, not even Dr Frankenstein can bring you back to life. The only thing that she makes me think is that she looks like an unmade king size bed with tattoos, something that used to be found only in circus side shows, not universities. But my how times have changed.
"She makes me think."
Jarrar has overnight become a poster child for everything that is gone wrong in our universities. That's no small accomplishment given the competition she is up against from Harvard to Berkeley.
Caren Z. Turner,a commissioner of the NY-NJ Port Authority-now EX commissioner of the NY-NJ Port Authority-is captured on a police dash cam verbally abusing two police officers after they impounded a car being driven without registration, in which her daughter was a passenger.
Turner is also a former financial advisor to Hillary Clinton, from whom she probably learned her arrogance.
A man as yet unidentified drove a rented Ryder van into pedestrians on a busy Toronto street today. As of this writing, 9 are dead and 16 injured, some critically. The driver is in custody, but police have not released his name.
News coverage indicates this is probably a case of lone wolf, ISIS-inspired terrorism. Indeed, reporters on Fox and CNN are stating that it "has all the earmarks" of terrorism. It is also reported that NYPD has gone on high alert. These are clues that it was likely a case of Islamic terrorism.
Recently, two towns in Germany have been hit with similar vehicle attacks, but it seems that Islamic extremism was not involved, just a couple of crazy German guys. Germany does not release full names until people are convicted.
So that's all we know at this point.
Update: The death toll has risen to 10, and the suspect is identified as Alek Minassian.
“They were never going to let me be president.” (Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd.) That's what Hillary Clinton reportedly said when someone gave her the news on election night. Presumably that was before she reportedly started screaming and throwing things around the room before dispatching John Podesta to the NY ballroom where her supporters were waiting for her to give her victory speech with orders to tell them to go home.
Hillary Clinton is a woman with never-ending delusions of grandeur. Just because President Trump has such big negative poll numbers, she thinks she has license to go around telling audiences that she is the one who should be president. She can't face her own negatives and the fact that Trump-with all his faults- is the guy who beat her. Even if someday Trump is impeached and removed from office, that will be no vindication for the woman who rigged the Democratic primary and survived an FBI investigation only because that too was rigged. Hillary Clinton is, indeed, the master of the rig.
And hopefully, Mrs Clinton can explain to us what the "right-wing ecosystem" is other than one of her many phantasies.
Born 1945 in Los Angeles. Worked from 1998-2016 as adjunct teacher at University of California at Irvine Ext. teaching English as a second language.
Served three years in US Army Military Police at Erlangen, Germany 1966-68.
1970-1973- Criminal Investigator with US Customs
1973-1995 Criminal investigator with Drug Enforcement Administration. Stationed in Los Angeles, Bangkok, Milan, Italy, Pittsburgh and Office of Training, FBI Academy, Quantico, Va. until retirement.
Author of Erlangen-An American's History of a German Town-University Press of America 2005,
The Story of Papiamentu- A Study in Slavery and Language, University Press of America, 2002, and
The Languages of the Former Soviet Republics-Their History and Development, University Press of America, 2000.
