BATR

Academia has reached a new low. The fabric of scholarship has been attacked from within and defenders of Free Speech are nowhere to be found from the University hierarchy. Has anything been learned since the heady days of 1960’s campus confrontations? It seems that the only learning process that has survived is that the caliber of intellectual acumen has sunk into the thrones of totalitarian hysteria. A refresher course is needed for all those too young to recall the Origin of Free Speech Movement at Berkeley celebrated 50 years later.   Continue reading “Campus Book Burning Nazis”

Independent – by Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seven other former and current government officials are at risk of arrest if they set foot in Spain, after a Spanish judge effectively issued an arrest warrant for the group, it has been reported.

According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, Spanish national court judge Jose de la Mata ordered the police and civil guard to notify him if Mr Netanyahu and the six other individuals enter the country, as their actions could see a case against them regarding the Freedom Flotilla attack of 2010 reopened.   Continue reading “Spain ‘issues arrest warrant’ for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over 2010 Gaza flotilla attack”

Pro Liberate

The first rule of bureaucratic crisis management is: “Find someone else to blame.” This is true even in agencies as small as the Adams County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff Ryan Zollman would have an insuperable conflict of interest were he to conduct the official inquiry into the November 1st killing of Jack Yantis. He could have avoided that conflict by firing the deputies, charging them as private citizens, and then turning the evidence over to a special prosecutor.    Continue reading “Justice for Jack Yantis: Don’t Leave the Investigation to the “Professionals””

New York Times – by HAEYOUN PARK

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris, at least eight
governors have said they oppose the entry of Syrian refugees into their
states. Whether they have the authority to block them is not clear.

Some countries, like Turkey and Germany, have accepted hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. But the United States has so far admitted only a tiny fraction of the estimated four million refugees who have fled Syria.  

Where the 1,854 Syrian Refugees Admitted
to the U.S. Since 2012 Were Placed

The refugees who have arrived from Syria since 2012 have been placed in 130 towns and cities. They are among the most vulnerable people in the war: single mothers and their children; religious minorities; victims of violence or torture.

Some of them have reached large cities like Houston, but most have been sent to more affordable, medium-size cities by the nine voluntary agencies that handle refugee resettlement. Boise, Idaho, has accepted more refugees than New York and Los Angeles combined; Worcester, Mass., has taken in more than Boston.

Under pressure from Europe and other countries confronting the global migration crisis, Mr. Obama has raised the number of Syrian refugees who will be offered legal status to at least 10,000 this fiscal year.

Some cities and towns have resisted. In Duncan, S.C., residents and elected officials argue that the federal government cannot possibly screen out terrorists, and some say that more Muslim immigrants would threaten American culture.But the United States has admitted only small numbers of Syrian refugees compared with other countries.

Syrians made up about 2 percent of the 70,000 refugees admitted during the last fiscal year. The three largest refugee groups were from Myanmar, Iraq and Somalia.The United States has also admitted far larger numbers in the past. In 1979, it provided sanctuary to 111,000 Vietnamese refugees, and in 1980, it added another 207,000. Around the same time, the country took in more than 120,000 Cuban refugees during the Mariel boatlift, including around 80,000 in one month alone.

The State Department said that the United States started to admit more Syrian refugees in the last year after the United Nations began submitting more referrals from refugee camps: 500 to 1,000 a month.

Refugees trying to reach the United States must apply through the United Nations, and before being accepted, they are screened by the F.B.I. and through databases run by the Defense Department and other federal agencies.

The additional 10,000 Syrian refugees this year would come from 18,000 referrals already submitted by the United Nations. State Department officials said that more than half of them were children.

More than 150,000 Syrians already live in the United States, according to census figures, and refugees who have relatives in the country are likely to be resettled with or near them. Those who do not have family in the United States are placed where jobs are more plentiful and the cost of housing is low.

Refugees receive help finding work and housing, but they are expected to become self-sufficient within a year. The agencies in charge of resettlement take into account how earlier waves of refugees often assist new arrivals with the moving process, with food and with explanations about the United States.

“It’s like taking someone from a very small, dark room to a very, very big world,” said Hussam Al Roustom, who arrived in Jersey City in June after fleeing Syria for Jordan. “This is why I want to help others go through what I have gone through.”

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/21/us/where-syrian-refugees-are-in-the-united-states.html

Continue reading “Paris Attacks Intensify Debate Over How Many Syrian Refugees to Allow Into the U.S.”

Seattle PI

DETROIT (AP) — Governors across the U.S. have threatened to stop accepting Syrian refugees following last week’s attacks in Paris, even as experts counter they lack legal authority to block the relocations.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama, whose administration recently pledged to accept about 10,000 Syrian refugees, argued Monday that the United States needs to allow them because many are fleeing terrorism.   Continue reading “Experts say states lack legal authority to block refugees”

Reuters

More than a dozen state governors refused on Monday to accept Syrian refugees after the Paris attacks, part of a mounting Republican backlash against the Obama administration’s plan to accept thousands more immigrants from the war-torn country.

Leading Republican presidential candidates called on President Barack Obama to suspend the plan to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees in the coming year and some Republican lawmakers began moves in Congress to try to defund the policy.   Continue reading “U.S. Republicans seek to shut door on Syrian refugees after Paris”

SANA – by Mazen Eyon

Damascus, SANA – President Bashar al-Assad received on Saturday a French delegation, including a number of parliamentarians, intellectuals, and media men, headed by member of the French National Assembly Thierry Mariani.

President al-Assad affirmed that the terrorist attacks which targeted Paris couldn’t be separated from those that took place in Beirut, and what has been happening in Syria since 5 years and in other regions, adding “terrorism is one field in the world and terrorist organizations don’t recognize borders.”   Continue reading “President Al-Assad To French Delegation: Terrorist Attacks On Paris Can’t Be Separated From Those Of Beirut And Events In Syria”

Global Research – by Larry Chin

It goes without saying that the atrocities of Paris on November 13, 2015 were unspeakable and sickening. But what is not being said in the wake of the incident—what has been ignored by the mass media—is predictably telling and ominous.

Just it was in the wake of 9/11, the people of the world are being provoked, agitated and mobilized; the fear, horror, rage and shock channeled and shaped into wave of collective vengeance and hatred. Hatred towards what and whom?   Continue reading “Steering The Masses Towards Total War”

Anti-War – by Jason Ditz

Intelligence in the lead-up to Friday evening’s terrorist attacks in Paris was not nearly so scarce as had initially been indicated, and several nations, including Iraq and Israel, appear to have been passing France intelligence on the matter in the days leading up to the attack.

According to the Times of Israel, French Jewish security officials were informed of an “impending large terrorist attack” in France on Friday morning, There was considerable speculation in the lead-up that France’s Jewish community would be among the targets.   Continue reading “French Jews Warned Friday Morning of ‘Impending Large Terrorist Attack’”

Reuters

French President Francois Hollande called on the United States and Russia to join forces to destroy Islamic State in the wake of Friday’s attacks across Paris, and announced a wave of measures to combat terror in France.

In a somber speech to both houses of parliament after the coordinated suicide bombings and shootings that killed 129, Hollande said he would increase funds for national security, strengthen anti-terror laws and boost border controls.   Continue reading “Vowing to destroy terrorism, France seeks global coalition against Islamic State”

Reuters

Islamic State warned in a new video on Monday that countries taking part in air strikes against Syria would suffer the same fate as France, and threatened to attack in Washington.

The video, which appeared on a site used by Islamic State to post its messages, begins with news footage of the aftermath of Friday’s Paris shootings in which at least 129 people were killed.   Continue reading “Islamic State threatens attack on Washington, other countries”

Silver Doctors

I have received a report from European security that there was a massive cyber attack on French systems 48 hours prior to and during the Paris attacks.  Amongst other things, the attack took down the French mobile data network and blinded police surveillance. The attack was not a straightforward DDOS attack but a sophisticated attack that targeted a weakness in infrastructure hardware.
Such an attack is beyond the capability of most organizations and requires capability that is unlikely to be in ISIL’s arsenal.  An attack on this scale is difficult to pull off without authorities getting wind of it.   Continue reading “State Involvement? Massive Cyber Attack Left French Security Blind During Paris Attacks – Paul Craig Roberts”

Green Med Info – by Sayer Ji

What if millions of medical diagnoses, procedures, and treatments were based on, at best, questionable scientific evidence, but still performed daily, the world over, in the name of saving patients lives or reducing their suffering? A new JAMA review indicates this may be exactly what is happening. 

A concerning new review published in the Journal of the American Medical Association online ahead of print on the topic of overuse of medical care, i.e., health care for which “risk of harm exceeds its potential for benefit,” finds that many commonly employed medical procedures, to which millions are subjected to each year, are based on questionable if not also, in some cases, non-existent evidence.    Continue reading “Astounding Number of Medical Procedures Have No Benefit, Even Harm – JAMA Study”

Salon – by Joe Conason, October 12, 2007

While the Bush White House promotes the possibility of armed conflict with Iran, a tantalizing passage in Wesley Clark’s new memoir suggests that another war is part of a long-planned Department of Defense strategy that anticipated “regime change” by force in no fewer than seven Mideast states. Critics of the war have often voiced suspicions of such imperial schemes, but this is the first time that a high-ranking former military officer has claimed to know that such plans existed.

The existence of that classified memo would certainly cast more dubious light not only on the original decision to invade Iraq because of Saddam Hussein‘s weapons and ambitions but on the current efforts to justify and even instigate military action against Iran.   Continue reading “Flashback: “Seven countries in five years””

Gun Watch – by Dean Weingarten

Gun sales are at record levels.  In the last six months, gun sales, as reflected by the National Instant Check system, have hit record highs for each of the six months.  It is almost certain that 2015 will be the highest year on record for private gun sales in the United States.  But when national polls ask how many households own guns, the numbers appear to be the same or dropping.  How do we reconcile this seeming contradiction?  The answer is likely in a Zogby Analytic question asked in February of 2015.  From prnewswire.com:   Continue reading “Why Record Guns Sales are Not Showing in National Gun Ownership Polls”

The Hill

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Monday called for the U.S. to restore the National Security Agency’s (NSA) collection of information on Americans’ phone calls in the wake of last week’s deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.

“I think we need to restore the metadata program, which was part of the Patriot Act,” the former Florida governor said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”   Continue reading “Jeb Bush calls for restoration of NSA surveillance program”