Abolish ICE: Socialists Defeating US Democrats

 (Joel Pollack’s article from The BRIEBART NEWS on 26 June 2018.)

NEW YORK, NY: Progressive challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is joined by New York gubenatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon at her victory party in the Bronx after upsetting incumbent Democratic Representative Joseph Crowly on June 26, 2018 in New York City.  

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old, Bernie-Sanders-supporting political novice, has defeated incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) in the 14th congressional district in the New York primary.

With 88% of precincts reporting in the heavily-Democratic (majority Latino) district that spans Queens and the Bronx, Ocasio-Cortez a Puerto Rican had crushed Crowley, 57.6% to 42.4%, a margin of nearly 3,600 votes. CNN notes that Ocasio-Cortez is a self-described (anti-Israeli & Pro-Palestinian) “democratic socialist.”

Baltic To Adriatic: Razor-Wire Curtain To Bar Muslims

 (Baron Bodissey’s article from The GATES OF VIENNA on 26 June 2018.)

From Szczecin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, a Razor-Wire Curtain Has Descended: Immigration-related events are moving rapidly this in Europe summer. The situation is in such flux that now would be a good time to step back and try to get an overview of the process.

Three years ago the dead baby hysteria, followed by Chancellor Merkel’s invitation to the world (“Y’all come in and set a spell, bitte!”), launched the Great European Migration Crisis. Since then I’ve read hundreds of news articles and analyses about the flow of “refugees” and the reactions to their violent and fragrant arrival in Western Europe.

After digesting all that information I created the following map, which presents my subjective evaluation of the different approaches to migration by various European countries. I’ve rated the policies of 28 different countries (the EU 27 minus Croatia, plus Switzerland) on a scale from 0 to 100, from zero (red) for the open-borders attitude of the “Welcoming Culture” to 100 (blue) for the absolute refusal of mass migration by the Visegrád Four (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic).

Overbreeding Latinos Sending Their Kids Alone To US

 (Staff articles from The CNN, GUARDIAN, & BRIEBART NEWS in June 2018.)

Border-crossing Latino kids in US detention camps.

MEXICO CITY (CNN) -- Latin America struggles to cope with expanding population: At family planning clinics throughout the Mexican capital, more and more young couples come to hear how they can control their family's growth. The doctors' advice appears to be working: four out of every five couples agree to take family planning measures.

The clinics are part of the Mexican government's effort to curb the country's booming population growth. The program already has helped reduce the average family from seven children in 1965 to 2.5 children today.

But even with that progress, Mexico's population is expected to increase by nearly 50 percent by 2030. The average age of the nation will increase as well, according to projections, creating a challenge to Mexico's economic planners.

US Leaving Notorious UN Human Rights Council

 (Laura Koran’s article from The CNN on 20 June 2018.)

Washington (CNN): US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced the United States is withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council Tuesday, accusing the body of bias against US ally Israel and a failure to hold human rights abusers accountable.

The move, which the Trump administration has threatened for months, came down one day after the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights slammed the separation of children from their parents at the US-Mexico border as "unconscionable."

Speaking from the State Department, where she was joined by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Haley defended the move to withdraw from the council, saying US calls for reform were not heeded. "Human rights abusers continue to serve on, and be elected to, the council," said Haley, listing US grievances with the body. "The world's most inhumane regimes continue to escape its scrutiny, and the council continues politicizing scapegoating of countries with positive human rights records in an attempt to distract from the abusers in its ranks."

Same Face Asians: S-Korean Soccer Team’s Trick

 (Kimberly Yam’s article from The HUFFINGTON POST on 18 June 2018.)

South Korean World Cup Team Swaps Jerseys Because ‘Westerners Can’t Tell Asians Apart’: “Yes SK use that perceptual bias to their advantage.”  

The South Korean soccer team at a training session in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 13, before the FIFA World Cup (left). The team’s head coach had the players swap shirts to confuse scouting opponents.

The South Korean soccer team had some pretty hilarious tricks up its sleeve. During friendly matches before the World Cup in Russia, Shin Tae-yong, the team’s head coach, had the players swap shirts so that their opponents would be thrown off.

Mueller’s Witch Hunt On Trump-Russia Collusion

 (Staff articles from The POWERLINE & POLITICO in May 2018.)

This past February Special Counsel Robert Mueller brought the dramatic indictment against Russian actors allegedly responsible for interference in the 2016 presidential election. The Department of Justice has posted the indictment online here. The indictment charged three Russian companies and 13 Russian individuals with election related crimes. Politico covered the indictment in a good story by Michael Crowley and Louis Nelson.

I don’t think anyone (including the Inquisitor Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against the charges. Rather, the Mueller prosecutors seem to have obtained the indictment to serve a public relations purpose, laying out the case for interference as understood by the government and lending a veneer of respectability to the Mueller Switch Project.

One of the Russian corporate defendants nevertheless hired counsel to contest the charges. In April two Washington-area attorneys — Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly of the Reed Smith firm — filed appearances in court on behalf of Concord Management and Consulting. Josh Gerstein covered that turn of events for Politico.

Migrant Crisis Bringing Down Merkel In 48 Hours

 (Staff article from The BRIEBART NEWS on 16 June 2018.)

The era of Angela Merkel may be coming to an end as longstanding disagreements on migration policies between her and her Bavarian allies threaten to come to a head and potentially unseat the German leader, who has been at the country’s helm since 2005.

The coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Chancellor Merkel and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) led by interior minister Horst Seehofer is in crisis over differences on mass migration.

The CSU under Seehofer has demanded that Germany should be able to reject migrants at the border of the country if they have no identity papers, are registered in another country, or have been refused refugee status previously, but Merkel believes turning them away udermine the EU’s open borders Schengen Area.

Trump Is Sending 25 Million Mexicans To Japan

 (Nicholas Kamn’s article from The JAPAN TODAY on 16 June 2018.)

Donald Trump threatened Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe he would ship 25 million Mexicans to his country, one of a series of bizarre missives that jarred fellow leaders at last week's acrimonious G7 meet, according to a report on Friday.

The Group of Seven summit gathering of top industrialized democracies finished in disarray after the U.S. president abruptly rejected its consensus statement and bitterly attacked Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Behind the scenes, Trump's counterparts were dismayed by verbal jabs on topics ranging from trade to terrorism and migration, The Wall Street Journal said, quoting European officials who were present.

Another NYC Cabbie Commits Suicide

 (Danielle Furfaro’s articlefrom The NEW YORK POST on 15 June 2018.)

Another cash-strapped city cabby has committed suicide, this time by hanging himself in his Brooklyn apartment, The Post has learned.

Abdul Saleh, 59, is now at least the sixth for-hire driver to kill himself since November, sources say. A roommate found him hanging by an electrical cord in his apartment in Flatlands Friday morning, said his driving partner, Qamar Chaudhary. Saleh drove a yellow cab for 30 years, Chaudhary, 36, said.

Chaudhary said that they leased a taxi and medallion together, splitting the night and day shifts, but that within the past several months, Saleh couldn’t make the weekly lease payment. Saleh — whom Chaudhary described as single but with family in his native Yemen — sometimes would be short by as little as $60, but for the last payment, he was $300 short.  Making finances even tighter, Chaudhary began driving for Uber, leaving Saleh without a partner.

Uber Blamed For Taxi Driver Suicides In NYC

(Corky Siemaszko’s article from The NBC NEWS on 07 June 2018.)

UBER noose is around cabby's neck.

In the shadow of Uber's rise, taxi driver suicides leave cabbies shaken. "What Uber and Lyft have done is come into the industry and wreck it," a Chicago taxi driver said.

Nnamdi Uwazie said he drives seven days a week, 15 hours a day, and after he pays the cab company the $475 weekly lease fee, he rarely has more than a few hundred dollars left to feed his family.

Take it from veteran Chicago cabby Nnamdi Uwazie: The shock waves from the recent suicides of five New York City taxi and livery drivers are being felt in the Windy City as well. So is the desperation that drove a struggling limo driver to kill himself with a shotgun outside City Hall in Manhattan two months ago.

"We were all talking about what happened in New York and how it could happen here because it's so hard to be a cab driver in Chicago," Uwazie told NBC News. "So many people's livelihoods are gone. It is only by the grace of God we are still here."

Turkey Unleashes Massive Rate Hike To Rescue Lira

 (Tyler Durden’s article from The ZERO HEDGE on 06 June 2018.)

Lira Soars After Turkish Central Bank Unleashes Massive, "Whatever It Takes" Rate Hike: Ahead of today's Turkish Central bank decision, analysts were adamant that if Turkey truly wants to ward off currency bears, it would have to deliver a "shock and awe" rate hike, greater than the whisper consensus call for a 100bps, especially since this is the last rate meeting before June 24 elections, at which Erdogan is expected to be granted virtually supreme powers, and has hinted his ambitions to also dominate monetary policy.

Moments ago the CBRT did just that, when it blew the doors off Lira watchers, by hiking the 1-week Repo Rate an enormous 125bps, from 16.50% to 17.75% - greater than any analysts forecast in a Bloomberg survey - thereby sending a very strong signal to the market. According to some desks, this was a "whatever it takes"-message from the central bank which sent markets a strong signal that it means business.

And looking at the more than 2% bullish reversal in the lira, which soared from 4.58 to 4.48 in kneejerk response, the market got the message.

Federal Reserve Is A Privately-Owned Corporation?

(Staff articles from various sources from the United States media.)

The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone. Although parts of the Federal Reserve System share some characteristics with private-sector entities, the Federal Reserve was established to serve the public interest.

The Federal Reserve derives its authority from the Congress, which created the System in 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act. This central banking "system" has three important features: (1) a central governing board--the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; (2) a decentralized operating structure of 12 Federal Reserve Banks; and (3) a blend of public and private characteristics.

The Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., is an agency of the federal government. The Board -- appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate -- provides general guidance for the Federal Reserve System and oversees the 12 Reserve Banks. The Board reports to and is directly accountable to the Congress but, unlike many other public agencies, it is not funded by congressional appropriations.

Mosque Route: New Muslim Invasion Of Austria

(Borna’s article from The DEFEND EUROPA on 05 June 2018.)

Austria’s Peter Webinger Warns that Migrants are Using a New ‘Mosque Route’. He is convinced that the rising number of ‘refugees‘ is leading to a “tense situation” , which will not develop as dramatically as the one in 2015, even though there exists a similar high potential in crisis regions. The “mosque route” , indeed.

An expert in the Austrian ministry, he sees the risk of large waves of immigrants next year, if the necessary preparations aren’t made. The increase in the number of migrants in 2014 led to the results we experienced in 2015., and that could happen in 2019., the Austrian media relate the words of Webinger.

The new Balkan route, goes through Albania, Montenegro or Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Experts on the ground are calling it the “mosque route”, since mosques all along the route offer assistance to refugees in their movement.

+144% Increase in illegal migration to Greece through the Agaean since 2017. 4000 Arrivals since the middle of may 2018 (755 in the whole of the last year). +380% (1500) More arrivals in Slovenia since the middle of May compared to 2017.

EU Crisis: Italy Is Broke & Markets Have Lost Faith

  (Richard Holden’s article from The CONVERSATION on 01 June 2018.)

We are now in another full-scale European crisis.

The results of Italy’s general election on March 4 were problematic. Roughly one-fifth of Italians voted for the populist Northern League party of Matteo Salvini, and one-third backed the Five Star Movement, a eurosceptic, anti-establishment party founded by standup comedian Beppe Grillo.

Salvini has responded to the refugee crisis by saying that Italy needs “a mass cleaning – home by home, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood”. Grillo, meanwhile, has championed the idea of celebrating “V-Days” – short for the Italian vaffanculo (the various English translations all begin with an expletive and end with either “off” or “you”) – taking aim at the political elite as part of an eccentric grab bag of largely anti-capitalist policy ideals.

Trump’s Border Wall Breaks Ground In San Diego

 (Mary Kay Linge’s article from The NEW YORK POST on 02 June 2018.)

A 14-mile section of President Trump’s border wall is under construction in San Diego, at a cost of $147 million.

The money comes from the omnibus spending bill that Trump signed in March. The legislation included a $1.6 billion down payment on the “great, great” wall that – Trump promised throughout his presidential campaign – would stretch across the nation’s southern border.

The San Diego wall will reach up to 30 feet high, topped with a sheer vertical “anti-climbing plate” that offers no hand- or footholds for illicit border crossers.

The Rise Of The Tablighi Jamaat In Burma (Myanmar)

 (Myatt Kyaw Thu’s article from The FRONTIER MYANMAR on 24 May 2018.)

THE YOMA THITSAR minibus pulls into the terminal at Taungok, in southern Rakhine State. The driver has been warned several times not to enter the town, but by the time he notices the angry crowd that has gathered at the station, it’s too late. They storm onto the bus, dragging passengers off the vehicle. Ten people are killed, either stabbed or beaten to death.

Many will recognise this as one of the key events of communal violence that erupted in Rakhine State in June 2012. The killings in Taungok are often considered a retributive act; a week earlier, three Muslim men had been arrested for the alleged rape and murder of a Buddhist woman in nearby Ramree Township.

What is less known though is that those killed were reported to be Tablighis: followers of Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic movement known for its missionary work that has variously been described as “fundamentalist”, “conservative” or “revivalist”.