How Quickly Will the Boulder Attack Disappear From the News?

 Gary Fouse

 fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

 

The dust is not yet settled on yesterday's terrorist attack in Boulder, but it seems the news media and the Biden administration have settled on the narrative. For them, this is a gun control issue and a mental health issue, and that's that. There is ample information out there that indicates an Islamist motive behind the attack, but we don't hear about it from the mainstream media. Right now I would say that the go-to sources for information related to that angle are Jihad Watch and Understanding the Threat. Disturbing, Islamic-related information was discovered on the shooter's Facebook page before it was shut down. Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa's name reportedly came to the attention of the FBI in association with another person of interest who was on the FBI radar. (That was reported by the NY Times.) It is also reported that President Biden was briefed on the shooter's reported ISIS sympathies.

Does mental illness play a role in this incident? Possibly, but that excuse had been used repeatedly by media and authorities in Europe. Charles Manson had a mental issue. We could go on and on. It is true that we have a mental illness crisis in our country. As for the gun control issue, there are valid arguments as to why a guy like this-with a violent history, albeit in high school- could be able to purchase an assault weapon.

It should be reiterated that not all of the above reports may turn out to be factual. But it certainly appears that our media wants to bury any Islamic terror motivation on the part of the shooter. No decent person wants to incite retaliation against innocent Muslims, but if this was an Islamic terror attack-lone wolf or otherwise- the public needs to know the risks out there. Is it going to up to the blogosphere to uncover the truth?

Niger: 58 Dead in Apparent Jihadist Attack

 Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

Hat tip Actu Niger and Jihad Watch

On Monday, terrorists in Niger attacked villages killing 58 people. The attackers are believed to be jihadists allied with Islamic State of the Greater Sahara, who have been active in the area where the attack took place.

Niger is a former French possession and the official language is French. The below article is from the Niger news outlet, Actu Niger. The translation is by Fousesquawk.

 https://www.actuniger.com/societe/17051-insecurite-un-deuil-national-de-3-jours-apres-le-massacre-de-58-civils-vers-banibangou-officiel.html

Insecurity: Three days of national mourning after the massacre of 58 civilians in Banibangou (Official)

In s statement read on public television on Tuesday evening, the government announced that fifty-eight (58) people were killed and several others wounded in an attack Monday, March 15, that targeted villagers returning from the weekly market of Banibangou (Tillaberi Region). The armed assailants also burned two (2) vehicles, took two (2) others, and set fire to several grain sheds.

After this new tragedy, the government decreed three (3) days of national mourning beginning Wednesday, March 17 according to the statement read on public television by the ministry spokesperson. Flags will also be lowered to half-staff during this period throughout the country.

Government Statement

On Monday, March 15, 2021, in the afternoon, groups of unidentified, armed individuals attacked four (4) vehicles transporting passengers returning from the weekly market of Banibangou (Tillaberi Region) and leaving respectively to the villages of Chinagoder and Darey Dey. These individuals proceeded cowardly and cruelly to carry out targeted executions of the passengers.

At the village of Darey Dey, they killed people and burned grain sheds.

The balance sheet (toll) for these barbaric acts is as follows:

- Fifty-eight (58) people killed

- One person injured

-Several grain sheds and two (2) vehicles burned

- Two vehicles taken

Security provisions have been strengthened in the zone, and an investigation has been opened to find the perpetrators of these criminal acts and bring them before the courts.

In this painful circumstance, His Excellency, President of the Republic, Chief of Staff, Supreme Chief of the Armed Forces, and the government send their saddest condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to the injured.

A national period of mourning of three days has been decreed beginning Wednesday, March 17, 2021. The flags will be at half-staff throughout the national territory.

The government calls on the population for increased vigilance and reaffirms its determination to relentlessly continue the fight against criminality in all its forms.

May God bless Niger and its people!

Thank you.

Niamey (Capital) 16 March 2021

Minister Spokesperson of the Government Zakaria Abdouraham

Sweden: Common Sense From an ex-Muslim in the Wake of the Terror Attack in Vetlanda

 Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http;//garyfouse.blogspot.com

Hat tip Det Goda Samhället. Translation by Fousesquawk.

Mohamed Omar is a Swedish poet and part of the staff of the conservative Swedish outlet, Det Goda Samhället. He was born in Sweden and is an apostate from Islam. He also goes by the name of Eddie. 

In this op-ed, Omar sharply criticizes Prime Minister Stefan  Löfven for his lax immigration policies and his recent statement that the terror attack in Vetlanda this week by an Afghan refugee had nothing to do with immigration. His op-ed is translated by Fousesquawk.

https://detgodasamhallet.com/2021/03/07/mohamed-omar-sjalvklart-har-terrorn-i-vetlanda-med-invandring-att-gora/#more-40848

March 7, 2021

Mohamed Omar: Of course, the terror in Vetlanda has something to do with immigration

When a fanatical Muslim screams, "Allahu Akhbar" and blows himself up in Stockholm, that has nothing to do with Islam. And when an immigrant stabs people with a knife in Vetlanda, that has nothing to do with immigration.

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has previously explained that he has the greatest respect for Islam, that he has never criticized the religion, and he will never do so.

Not because there is nothing to criticize in Islam, rather Löfven doesn't criticize Islam.

The "unaccompanied child refugee" from Afghanistan who stabbed people on the street in Vetlanda was perhaps no fanatical Muslim. Perhaps, he was not motivated by his Islamic belief.

The prime minister says that the terror in Vetlanda has nothing to do with immigration.

But the terror in Vetlanda obviously has something to do with immigration. Islamic terror has something to do with Islam, and immigrant-terror has something to do with immigration. In Sweden, one needs to point out these self-evident (facts).

For there are people with power and influence who seem to think that 1) Criticism of Islam is a bigger problem than Islamic terror, and 2) criticism of immigration is a bigger problem than immigrant terror.

For us common people, who are not schooled in the sophisticated thinking of politically-correct-isms, this is difficult to understand.

When we let in masses of criminal immigrants, criminality increases in Sweden. If we had not let (them) in, criminality would have been less.

Those who have run the immigration policy seem to think that it is more important to let in foreigners to our country than that we who live here should be safe.

For us common people, that is a strange priority.

We common people do not understand why foreigners who commit crimes are allowed to stay. The "unaccompanied child refugee" who went on attack in Vetlanda had, for example, committed crimes previously. Why was he not sent home?

Stefan Löfven, and those who think like him, think it is more worrisome that Swedes become more critical of immigration than immigrant crime.

We common people cannot understand how a critical view of immigration can be a problem, and it is also more difficult to understand that this should be a bigger problem than immigrant crime.

Criticism of immigration means that one weighs the advantages against the disadvantages. One looks at how immigration has gone so far and asks himself: Has it gone well?

That is what sensible people do. You cannot continue to do what does not go well.

"I condemn this terrible act," says Löfven about the terror in Vetlanda. Those are empty words as long as he cannot criticize his immigration policy.

It is because of Löfven's, and his like-minded (colleagues') irresponsible immigration policy that 7 people were stabbed in Vetlanda.

The Cancer at UC Irvine

 Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

This article first appeared in Times of Israel Blogs.

Recently, we reported on the latest BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) resolution that was passed by the student senate at UC Irvine, where I taught part-time 1998-2016. The resolution against Israel passed, and the university quickly issued a statement that they would not abide by it. The damage is that these resolutions, which go on all over the nation in our universities, only direct more negative attention to Jewish students and increase anti-Semitism. Jews are perceived as universally supporting the Jewish state of Israel, which in reality, is not true. Most American Jews support Israel, but some do not. Some even join forces with those who want to destroy the Jewish state. That is the true aim of BDS.

Richard Cravatts, former president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, has also taken note of the latest out of UCI and has written about it in Frontpage Magazine. I am cross-posting it below.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/malignant-tradition-uc-irvines-hate-israel-richard-l-cravatts/

Sadly, UCI has acquired a reputation as a hotbed of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic agitation, largely due to the annual anti-Israel week of events every May. Over the last two decades, I have attended many of those events in order to document them, videotape them, and directly question the speakers. I can tell you, I have seen and heard a lot of vicious people speak at these events. 

As I have always said, 99% of the students at UCI are not involved in this ugliness, but those who are have all but destroyed the reputation of what should otherwise be considered a great university. I blame the administrators at UCI (and the entire UC system) for their weakness in allowing this problem to fester and grow.

In 2015-16, I was active with the Amcha Initiative and others in lobbying the UC Regents to draw up a suitable statement of principles against intolerance that specifically addressed anti-Semitism, as opposed to simply condemning all forms of hate. After all, it was anti-Semitism on campus that was the reason a revised statement of principles was under consideration. In 2016, the UC Regents finalized a statement that included such language. 

https://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2017/06/jewish-organizations-to-uci-chancellor.html

Unfortunately, it has proved to be nothing more than a scrap of paper that UCI can stick in the files of their Office of Inclusive Excellence and show the public that everything is just fine. But since that paper was finalized, UCI has continued to see anti-Zionist weeks every May (at least until the Covid crisis hit), and speakers like Hussam Ayloush (CEO of CAIR in S. California), Rabab Abdulhadi, (professor at San Francisco State University) and Zahra Billoo (CEO of CAIR in No. California) come to campus to spread their poison. Some progress.

Now we have another dangerous ingredient being added to the poisonous cocktail. Thanks to the latest academic creation-intersectionality- all ills of the world can be linked to Israel including the grievances of BLM. If George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis cops, it was partially Israel's fault because they trained that department and taught them the tactic of kneeling on a black suspect's neck-or something like that. And don't think the connection hasn't been made by those who ingest this propaganda. Last May, BLM rioters rampaged through the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, attacking synagogues and yelling curses at Jews from their car windows. It was a pogrom though nobody would admit it. One would think that after such an event, activists might realize that stoking hatred against Jews was a dangerous idea. Not the pro-Palestinian crowd, however. It's full steam ahead, and if they can convince American blacks that the Jewish state of Israel is their enemy too, so what if a few American Jews get beat up?

Shame on the pro-Palestinian movement for stirring up this kind of hate toward American Jews with their lies. And shame on our universities for allowing this treatment of its Jewish students. When I first got involved in this issue at UCI back around 2007, I learned that our university campuses were the focal point for the resurgence in anti-Semitism in the US. Rather than seeing it nipped in the bud, it has metastasized to society as a whole. The only positive aspect is that the issue of anti-Semitism can no longer be denied or swept under the rug. It is there for all to see. And UCI has played a role.

Sweden: Afghan Man Gets 10 Months and No Deportation for Sexually Abusing His Daughter

 Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

Hat tip Fria Tider. Translation by Fousesquawk. 

Mora (Dalarna), Sweden

The insanity continues in Sweden. While the government continues to ignore the carnage and the rapes going on in the country, thanks to their insane immigration policies, the courts continue to treat offenders with light prison sentences and no deportations in spite of the severity of the crimes. 

In this latest report by Fria Tider, translated by Fousesquawk, we read of a 45-year-old Afghan man convicted of sexually abusing his teenage daughter on multiple occasions, beating her, and getting a sentence of 10 months with no deportation.

https://www.friatider.se/forgrep-sig-sexuellt-pa-sin-dotter-att-kontrollera-om-hon-var-muslim

Sexually abused his daughter to "check if she was Muslim"

-Posted January 25, 2021, 15:27

Caption below photo: Mora (Dalarna) Courthouse

Domestic- An Afghan man, aged 45, in Dalarna, has been sentenced to prison but avoids deportation for having sexually abused his daughter on a number of occasions. He blamed the abuse on his daughter and said that she should pray to Allah for forgiveness, according to the judgment.

The man came to Sweden in 2015 from Afghanistan with his daughter. The abuse against his daughter was committed while the daughter, according to the Swedish population register, was about 14 or younger, until May 2020.

On a number of occasions, he lay down beside his daughter in her bed, kissed her and caressed her breast as he masturbated or pressed his sex (organ) against her and made intercourse-like movements.

The girl testified in court that the father, after the first occasion, explained to her that what happened was her fault and they should pray together for Allah's forgiveness.

When they lived with a  Swedish couple, he would lay next to her in the mornings, (scratch himself) against her and "said that he was checking if she was a Muslim", according to the judgment.

According to the daughter's passport, issued in Afghanistan, she was born in 2005. There has since emerged information, which the girl received from her mother, that she was really born in 2007, and that she is, thus, 13 years old now.

The abuse was discovered in the spring of 2020 when the Afghan beat his daughter in front of their neighbors after she had lost a cell phone. The girl told the Swedish couple what she had been exposed to.

The father, who has several other children in Afghanistan, denied the crime and claimed that he "had only shown (his) love for his daughter when he lay next to her in bed. He also claimed that he "had problems with his penis" with an itchy rash and that it was "hard to control the itching."

The court of Mora has now sentenced the man to 10 months in prison for four counts of sexual abuse against a child and one count of  (physical) abuse. He is allowed to stay in Sweden though since the prosecutor had not urged that he be deported.

The Academic Lynching of Law Professor John Eastman

 Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

On Wednesday, prior to President Trump's speech to protesters in Washington, Rudy Giuliani spoke to the crowd. He then introduced Professor John Eastman a conservative Constitutional law professor at Chapman University in Orange, California. Eastman described how voting machines were allegedly rigged using algorithms to help Joe Biden get the needed number of votes to defeat President Trump. It should be noted that while both speakers passionately stated their belief that the election was stolen, neither encouraged violence, and neither made any mention of the marching to the Capitol. Yet, in addition to President Trump, both men are being accused of engaging in incitement. In addition, efforts are ongoing by some at Chapman University to have Eastman fired. A similar move is underway at Colorado University at Boulder, where Eastman is a visiting professor. The presidents of both universities have severely criticized Eastman's remarks but are refusing to fire him citing First Amendment protections.

The words of both Giuliani and Eastman can be seen here (hat tip Ugetube.com).

Last month, Eastman first came under fire for joining Trump's legal team in a court filing. He was accused of improperly using his work contact information at Chapman in the filing (hat tip Legal Insurrection). 

Now, in the wake of Wednesday's events, Chapman president Daniele Struppa is facing demands to fire Eastman. In two statements to the campus community, Struppa has condemned Eastman but refuses to fire him.

"This week, John Eastman, a member of the Chapman faculty, played a role in the tragic events in Washington, D.C., that jeopardized our democracy."

That is an inaccurate and very unfair characterization. Eastman had nothing whatsoever to do with the events that took place at a separate location, in this case, the Capitol. As previously stated, he neither encouraged violence nor a march to the Capitol, let alone the storming of the Capitol. He expressed his belief that the election was stolen and outlined his reasons. 

Here is Struppa's follow-up statement to the campus.

In addition, Phil DiStefano, President of the University of Colorado, Boulder, strongly condemned Eastman's speech even while conceding his first amendment rights and refusing to fire him.

While the presidents of Chapman and Colorado University are correct in defending Eastman's First Amendment rights and refusing to bend to the demands to fire him, their characterizations of Eastman's words and actions are unfair. As to the December issue when Eastman joined the Trump legal team, our recent history is rife with incidents when university professors have appeared on Capitol Hill to testify, and their university affiliations were prominently noted. Did we not know that Anita Hill was a professor at the University of Oklahoma when she leveled charges against Clarence Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings? Even Joe Biden should remember that. He presided over the hearings. What about when the Brett Kavanaugh hearings were taken over by the accusations of Christine Blasey Ford? And who was Christine Blasey Ford? A professor at Palo Alto University. That was hardly kept from the public as she testified. And how about that Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, who came to Washington to testify at Trump's impeachment hearings that the President had, indeed, committed impeachable offenses (in her opinion). We all knew she was a Stanford law professor. It was right there on the TV screen. How many times has that prominent Harvard Law Professor, Lawrence Tribe, weighed in on controversial issues, often on Capitol Hill, with his Harvard affiliation prominently displayed? Perhaps we should leave Hill and Ford off the list because, after all, they were the alleged victims, but don't tell me that university professors who enter the political arena are supposed to hide their credentials and pose as shoe salesmen. If it's OK for Pamela Karlan, it's OK for John Eastman.

To sum up, what we have here is an attack on Eastman for taking the side of President Trump in the election controversy. In academia, that is considered an unpardonable sin. To link him to the violence at the Capitol is wrong. That, however, will not stop the campus Jacobins from continuing their attacks. It is a sad commentary on the state of our universities today.

The Cornell Campaign Against Professor William Jacobson

 Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

This article first appeared in New English Review.

Cornell University Law School Professor William Jacobson, who runs a conservative blog called Legal Insurrection, has been going through Hell the past year or so due to his conservative views and recent criticism of Black Lives Matter. Students, faculty and administration have been loudly protesting Jacobson's views and trying to end his academic career at Cornell. He has recently been interviewed regarding his experiences. I have previously written in Jacobson's defense as well as that of other professors in other universities who are having similar difficulties for exercising their free speech rights.

This has caused me to reflect on my own experiences while teaching English as a second language (ESL) part-time at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) Extension from 1998-2016 while running my own conservative blog, Fousesquawk.

I should begin by emphasizing that it was my practice never to opine about political or other controversial issues in the classroom. I considered that it was my job to teach students to improve their English skills, not what to think about the world. However, beginning around 2006-2007, I did become active on other parts of the campus when I became aware of anti-Semitic and/or anti-American events taking place on campus. I am speaking primarily of the annual week of bashing Israel that comes every May to UCI courtesy of the Muslim Student Union and Students for Justice in Palestine. It was around that time that I started my blog in order to publicize these issues on campus. Thus, I began attending these events, listening, videotaping (over the objections of the speakers and those hosting the event-it was my legal right to do so), never disrupting, but asking pointed questions during the q and a.

It became my position-and still is- that the University of California system, as well as universities across the nation, are tolerating (anti-Semitic) intolerance in the very name of tolerance. They are simply afraid to confront the main purveyors of anti-Semitism on campus (pro-Palestinian forces) because they are predominantly Muslim. I thus became an open critic of the UCI administration as well as the chancellors of other campuses and the various presidents of the UC system.

Interestingly, and quite in contrast to the experiences of Professor Jacobson and many others, I never suffered any blowback from the University itself nor the UCI Extension, for whom I worked. In contrast to most humanities departments, the teacher corps in ESL was largely made up of people with foreign living experience, people who were bi-lingual, and often married to foreign spouses-as well as having a variety of political views. The common practice in our office was not to discuss politics (I did violate that occasionally), but the point is that my co-workers and supervisors knew my views, but we all got along very well. The University administration knew very well who I was because I wrote them several letters when I thought they were allowing anti-Semitism to rear its ugly head on campus. Yet, they never tried to silence me or threaten my job. Keep in mind that as a part-timer, I worked on a  quarterly contract. I had no tenure, no employment rights. They didn't need to fire me. All they had to do was not give me a class to teach the next quarter, and I would have been gone. Of course, being a  retired government employee with a pension and health benefits, it would not have caused me any great stress.

The point I am making here is that the University of California and UC Irvine respected my right of free speech. When I needed to communicate with university administrators, I did so in a professional and polite manner. There was no personal acrimony. I did have a couple of unpleasant exchanges with two UCI professors, with whom I was on opposite sides of the fence, as well as professors from other campuses and speakers who came to speak at UCI. But that's what you sign up for when you choose to become an activist and speak out at so many of these ugly events that take place on campuses.

In the end, my age and declining energy told me it was time to pack it in with my teaching career. I also wanted to leave on my own terms and not as a result of some unfortunate occurrence on campus related to my activism. In the end, I chose to stop teaching, but I remained on great terms with those with whom and for whom I worked in the UCI Extension. UCI is in many respects, a great university, but it has similar problems as other great universities. At the risk of digressing, one of the saving graces of UCI is that it has a relatively small Humanities department. It's law school, on the other hand, is little more than a training ground for liberal activists.

It is unfortunate that other teachers like Professor Jacobson have not been as lucky as I was. It is a disgrace that his own colleagues have turned against him simply because they don't share his views. This is not what a university is supposed to be. Cornell is a prestigious university, part of the Ivy League. Yet, that school suffers from several problems, not just the Jacobson issue. Anti-Semitism is one of those issues at Cornell. When you look at other Ivy League institutions like Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, etc., you see the same problems.

It is a great experience working on a university campus, but there are many problems in the academic culture. It is a culture dominated by extreme leftist thinkers, people who all too often, do not respect the free speech rights of others. It is a culture that needs to change, but it is going to take a long time to change the culture that has been building up since the 1960s when I was in college. It will take a long time to change the leftist domination in academia, but at least universities could follow the example of UC Irvine and not try to hound teachers who don't follow the herd.