Devout Muslims Throw Gasoline Bombs at Christian Shops Just Before Trial of Coptic Christian Accused of Blasphemy Against Islam

Egypt

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The Muslims who did this are supporters of the Obama-backed Muslim Brotherhood, which Obama tried to strong-arm the Egyptians into returning to power. The wholesale persecution of non-Muslims in Muslim societies on his watch, while he glad-handed the oppressors and said nothing about the persecution, will go down in history as one of the many, many blots on his feckless post-American presidency.

“Islamists Torch Christians’ Shops in South Egypt,” Associated Press, June 2, 2014:

A security official in Egypt says a mob of angry Islamists has burned shops owned by Coptic Christians near the ancient city of Luxor hours before a trial for a Coptic Christian accused of blasphemy.
The official says the attack early Monday saw Islamists throw gasoline bombs at the shops in the village of el-Mahameed near Luxor. The official says authorities are investigating the attack.
The attack came hours before the start of a trial in Luxor for Kerolos Ghattas, a young Coptic Christian charged with contempt to Islam over a series of alleged Internet postings.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population.

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Exclusive: Emails raise questions about White House knowledge of Kathleen Sebelius' fundraising

By Susan Crabtree | March 5, 2014 | 12:00 am

Topics: White House Obamacare PennAve Kathleen Sebelius HHS Enroll America

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius listens as she testifies about health care...

(Second in a series of stories on the Obama administration's outside fundraising efforts to promote Obamacare enrollment.)
Emails obtained by the Washington Examiner through a Freedom of Information Act request raise new questions about how much the White House knew about Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' fundraising for Obamacare and whether she solicited donations from entities she regulates.

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White House officials have said they did not sign off on calls made by Sebelius to solicit donations from private entities for Enroll America, an outside nonprofit with close White House ties that promotes enrollment in the health law's insurance exchanges. Officials say they were only generally aware Sebelius would be seeking support from outside groups.
In late January, HHS's Freedom of Information Act office released 257 pages of emails in response to a June request from the Washington Examiner.
The documents are heavily redacted with 12 pages withheld in their entirety and another 179 pages of “responsive records” still “under review for consultation” before a decision is made on their release.
The emails show that White House Office of Public Engagement staffers participated in weekly conference calls with HHS and Enroll America. The emails also show that the agenda of these phone meetings included Sebelius' calls to outside entities, high-level operational planning and more focused outreach with private partners through senior White House aides.
In one email, dated May 6, 2013, Anton Gunn, then director of external affairs for HHS, said he believed two separate conference calls should be merged — one that involved Enroll America and HHS and another that included the White House. The email was sent to Anne Filipic, the president of Enroll America and former OPE deputy director, and other HHS and Enroll America staff.
“I believe the content of these calls has overlapped on more than one occasion, but I want to make sure HHS and Enroll America are clear that we agree that these calls should be permanently merged in to [sic] ONE call with White House staff and that call should happen Weekly? Or is it every other week?” Gunn asked.
Filipic responded that a weekly call “makes sense” and believed it should combine “WH/HHS/EA.”
Earlier in the email, Gunn said the calls between Enroll America and HHS were “high level” and “focused on operational issues like “data/Legal Issues, KGS calls, Branding, etc.,” while the calls that included Enroll America, HHS and OPE seemed to be “detailed planning calls and more focused on Outreach/Engagement/Partnerships using the WH and WH Principals.”
In other emails provided to the Examiner, “KGS calls” refers to phone calls Sebelius made to private companies and nonprofits discussing Enroll America.
A later email shows that a scheduled separate White House conference call, coordinated by then-deputy director of public engagement Stephanie Valencia, had been canceled so that only one joint phone meeting between HHS, Enroll America and the White House would occur each week.
Two White House staffers from the OPE — Valencia and Ari Matusiak, the White House director of private sector engagement — were included in one series of heavily redacted emails with the subject line “Johnson & Johnson CEO – Meeting Request” — dated April 1, 2013.
An email was sent from Filipic to Anton Gunn, who was then head of HHS' external affairs, and Mandy Cohen, a senior adviser to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, as well as Valencia and Matusiak.
Neither the White House nor HHS responded to questions about why White House staffers were included on those emails or whether Sebelius asked for financial help during the meeting with Johnson & Johnson.
In later emails, with redacted sections, Filipic writes Gunn saying she is eager to hear how the “call” with Johnson & Johnson went.
The company confirmed the meeting to the Washington Examiner and said no donation had been made. But a Johnson & Johnson spokesman did not respond to questions about whether Sebelius asked for money.
In another set of emails, Sebelius received talking points from Enroll America that were also used by Nancy-Ann DeParle, a former head of the White House Office of Health Reform during the Congressional fight to pass Obamacare, who went on to become the president's deputy chief of staff for policy.
DeParle left after Obama's re-election, and served as a guest scholar last year at Brookings and serves on various health care company boards. She spent the last year asking insurers to donate to Enroll America, according to a report from Politico.
DeParle was regularly asking insurance companies to cut checks to promote Obamacare, but it is unclear whether the talking points she shared with Sebelius included a direct request for financial donations, contrary to Sebelius’ claim that she did not specifically request money from entities HHS regulates.
Emails show Sebelius used the talking points for phone calls with Kaiser Permanente's then-President George Halvorson, as well as with Ascension Health's then-President Tony Tersigni.
Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed care organization in the country, and Ascension Health, a large Catholic nonprofit that operates a network of health facilities, are both regulated by HHS.
In one email Filipic sent to senior HHS and CMS aides, she provides a “call sheet” ahead of Sebelius’ phone call to Halvorson.
“It is worth reiterating that Nancy-Ann is scheduled to speak to George tomorrow morning,” she writes in an email dated March 21, 2013. “As you can imagine, her call sheet looks very similar!”
“I do think it's worthwhile for George to hear from a number of folks, but want to be clear about the multiple calls, so that we do not cross wires,” she continues.
Filipic then mentions that she will provide a call sheet for Sebelius' call to Tersigni the next day and says “Nancy-Ann is NOT currently schedule [sic] to call Tony.”
HHS did not respond to requests for a copy of the call sheet and the FOIA response did not include attachments to any of the emails provided.
Kaiser Permanente donated an unspecified amount to Enroll America. Halvorson also joined its board of directors, along with executives from Blue Shield of California and Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, the largest manufacturer of generic drugs in the world. It is not known whether Ascension Health, a member of the group's Advisory Council, cut a check to Enroll America.
The White House did not respond to questions about what its aides knew about the fundraising or whether any White House staffers were directly involved in soliciting for Enroll America.
HHS has repeatedly declined to answer the Examiner's questions about the emails and has said all of its fundraising activity on behalf of Enroll America is legal and proper.
HHS spokeswoman Erin Shields acknowledged in a statement that officials "worked collaboratively across the administration to get the word out about enrollment through education and outreach efforts."
Shields defended the fundraising, pointing to a provision in the Public Health Service Act, which she said allows HHS to work with public and private partners “to advance public health.”
"The Secretary is authorized to support (and encourage others to support) programs and private non-profit entities working in programs related to health information and health promotion, preventive health services, and education in the appropriate use of health care,” she continued.
Shields also cited the George W. Bush administration's "use of public-private partnerships to launch the Medicare prescription drug program and enroll children in the Children's Health Insurance Program.”
The disclosure that Sebelius sought private donations to help launch Obamacare has outraged Republicans. They charge that she is trying to circumvent Congress after lawmakers denied additional funding to promote the Affordable Care Act.
Two House committees launched investigations and Republicans asked the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, and the HHS inspector general to probe the extent to which Sebelius and her staff are coordinating with Enroll America and other organizations.
Sebelius has defended her actions as legal and proper and said officials made similar efforts under President George W. Bush to roll out Medicare Part D’s prescription drug program.
Sebelius said she only directly solicited two groups, both of which are not regulated by HHS: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and H&R Block. Sebelius said she called three groups HHS regulates — Kaiser Permanente, Johnson & Johnson and Ascension Health — but asked them only for general support and didn't specifically request money.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonprofit focused on public health, last year said it had contributed $14 million to Enroll America. While Johnson & Johnson has not donated, the foundation owns more than $1 billion worth of company stock. The Food and Drug Administration, an HHS agency, also regulates Johnson & Johnson's drugs and medical devices.
H&R Block is the largest tax preparation company in the country, and stands to reap a windfall in new business under Obamacare as consumers seek tax subsidies under the law. Last year, the New York Times reported that H&R Block pledged $500,000 to Enroll America, but a company spokesman says the firm ultimately decided against donating.
Republicans contend that Sebelius' fundraising is different than what occurred under Bush because Congress specifically defunded additional money from being spent to promote Obamacare enrollment. They point to the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits government agencies from accepting voluntary services or donations.
Watchdogs and ethics attorneys disagree over whether Sebelius' fundraising violated federal laws, but all say asking private companies to financially support Obamacare's rollout raises serious ethical questions. They also say the Public Health Service Act does not allow the White House or CMS to engage in such solicitation.
Craig Holman, an ethics expert at Public Citizen, a government watchdog organization, said he believes Sebelius' fundraising is legal, but full of “ethical landmines.”
“It has the appearance of the administration putting pressure on business that they want something from business — could be support for a change in the Obamacare law or another type of quid pro quo,” he said. “It is certainly worthy of investigating.”
Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center, said any investigation should focus on whether there was intimidation on behalf of HHS.
She said the Obama administration, ahead of the fundraising drive, should have set clear conflict-of-interest rules as they did when doling out $700 billion in taxpayer dollars from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
“I'm really puzzled why the White House hasn't set out clear rules,” she said.
“The way they've handled this – maybe because of the bad rollout – seems so ham-handed,” she continued. But she added that it is not too late for the White House to say “we’re going to set some rules.”

HHS emails

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Obama's strange dependence on Valerie Jarrett...

(Karin McQuillan, American Thinker) -- President Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden three times before saying yes, because he got cold feet about the possible political harm to himself if the mission failed.  Instead of listening to advisors from the U.S. military, Defense, or even State, Obama was acting on the advice of White House politico and close friend Valerie Jarrett.  Valerie Jarrett? 
This account comes from Richard Miniter's upcoming book Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors who Decide for Him.  Miniter has written a half-dozen books on the war on terror.  He is relying on an unnamed source within the U.S. military Joint Special Operations Command who was directly involved in the operation and planning of the Osama bin Laden kill mission.
Is the story credible?  According to Edward Klein, a reporter once asked Obama if he ran every decision by Jarrett.  Obama answered, "Yep.  Absolutely."
Edward Klein, former foreign editor of Newsweek and editor of the New York Times Magazine for many years, describes Jarrett as "ground zero in the Obama operation, the first couple's friend and consigliere."  Klein -- who claims he used a minimum of two sources for each assertion in his book on the Obama presidency, The Amateur -- writes in detail about Jarrett opposing the raid on bin Laden.  She told Obama not to take the political risk.  Klein thought Obama ignored Jarrett's advice.  Miniter tells us he listened to her, three times telling Special Operations not to take the risk to go after bin Laden.   
We need to understand the role Valerie Jarrett plays in Obama's private and political life.
"If it wasn't for Valerie Jarrett, there'd be no Barack Obama to complain about," starts Klein's chapter on Jarrett.  He quotes Michelle Obama on Jarrett's influence over her husband: "She knows the buttons, the soft spots, the history, the context."
No one outside Michelle has the access or power over Obama's decision-making like Jarrett does.  Here's an odd little fact that gives some insight into what kind of president Obama is: Michelle, Michelle's mother, and Valerie, and only a few others in Washington, are allowed to call Barack by his first name.  After work, Jarrett joins Obama at night in the Family Quarters, where she dines often with the First Family.  She goes on vacation with them.
Jarrett's title is the weird mouthful "Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs."  She is the gatekeeper, but she is also much more than that.  She occupies Karl Rove's and Hillary's old office and has an all-access pass to meetings.  She shows up at the National Security Council, at meetings on the economy and budget.  She stays behind to advise Obama on what to think and do.  Obama uses her as his left-wing conscience.  Klein's sources describe how at each pressing issue, Obama turns to ask her, "What do you think the right thing to do is?"  As president, he likes to have her next to him "as the voice of authentic blackness in a White House that is staffed largely by whites."
A longtime friend told Klein that Jarrett is the "eyes, ears and nose" of the Obamas.  She tells them whom to trust, who is saying what, whom to see at home and abroad.  Michelle wants her there: "I told her ... it would give me a sense of comfort to know that (Barack) had somebody like her there by his side."  As Obama told the New York Times, "Valerie is one of my oldest friends. ... I trust her completely."
To understand why Obama relies so heavily on Jarrett, we must remember the president's identity crisis as a black man, which is the main subject of his memoir, Dreams from My Father.  Valerie Jarrett's adoption of the Obamas as her friends and protégés in Chicago's upper-crust black society was one of the greatest things that ever happened to Obama.  Until becoming a community organizer, Obama tells us he felt himself to be an inauthentic American black.  Nothing in his life helped him understand or fit into the American black community.
Within a few weeks of Obama's birth, conceived out of wedlock as he was, his mother moved away to a different college, leaving Obama's African birth father behind in Honolulu.  There may have been a shotgun wedding or not -- in the memoir, Obama says he is not sure.  The only time Barack set eyes on his father was a brief visit when he was ten.  Our president lived with his white mother, then with her and her Indonesian husband in Indonesia from age six to ten.  He was so unhappy that he chose to leave his mother and live with his white grandparents back in America.  Obama's Americawas the tolerant, wealthy American world of Honolulu's top prep school.
His only black experience was his grandfather's creepy old friend, Frank Marshall Davis, a card-carrying Communist and self-disclosed pederast, who was Obama's voice of authentic blackness.  One result of this lonely and unhappy childhood as a mixed-race child was Barack Obama's envy problem.  The key to understanding Jarrett's power over the president is that Obama didn't just envy people with normal parents and loving, successful fathers.  He envied American blacks, especially those who grew up in intact black families, knowing who they were, comfortable in their black skin.
Valerie Jarrett reflects Obama in many ways.  Like himself, Valerie looks more white than black.  Her mother had three white grandparents, and her father was black.  Like Obama, she lived in the Muslim world for part of her childhood, when her father practiced medicine in Iran.  Like Obama, she is a committed leftist.  But there are crucial differences.  Her father was not a drunk Kenyan polygamist like Obama's, but a famous pathologist and geneticist.  Her mother was not a leftist expatriate like Obama's, but a distinguished psychologist.  Valerie married into Chicago's black elite, the top rung of African-American society.  She went to Stanford, got a law degree from Michigan, and became Mayor Richard Daley's deputy chief of staff, "the public black face" of his administration.
When Valerie Jarrett hired Michelle to work for Daley and befriended her, the Obamas gained access to the exclusive world of upper-class black Chicago politics.  Valerie knew everyone whom it was important to know in black and Jewish money circles.  She gave Barack entrée and legitimacy.  She financed and promoted his ambitions for national office.
Obama finally belonged.  Not that Jarrett's record in Chicago was anything to be proud of.  Jarrett was known for her corruption and incompetence.  Daley finally had to fire her after a scandal erupted over her role in misuse of public funds in the city's substandard public housing.  She went on to become CEO of Habitat Executive Services, pulling down $300,000 in salary and $550,000 in deferred compensation.  Again, she managed a housing complex that was seized by government inspectors for slum conditions.  The scandal didn't matter to Obama.  The sordid corruption was all part of Jarrett's Chicago success story.
Every insider in Chicago told Klein the same thing: Jarrett has no qualifications to be the principal advisor to the president of the United States.  She doesn't understand how Washington works, how relations with Congress work, how the federal process works.  She doesn't understand how the economy works, how the military works, how national security works.  But she understands how Obama works.
The president turns to Valerie Jarrett for definitive advice on all these issues.  She has given him terrible advice over and over, and still he turns to her. 
Her true job is to make Obama feel proud of himself.  When Obama looks at Jarrett, he sees himself as whole and good and real.  He is no longer the fake black, the fatherless kid flailing around in a white world, tortured by the unfairness of it all.  She fills the emptiness at the core of his identity.  She admires and adores him.  Jarrett told New Yorker editor David Remnick that the president is "just too talented to do what ordinary people do."  And the icing on the cake -- she shares his left-wing politics that project unfairness out onto white America.
Obama relies on Jarrett to create the White House bubble he likes to live in, where his narcissism is stroked and his desire to do the big, left-wing thing is encouraged.  Jarrett is the doorman.  She runs access to the president.  As Klein puts it, she guards him from meeting with "critics and complainers who might deflate his ego."  No one gets past Jarrett who has an incompatible point of view.
Jarrett pushed ObamaCare.  At the beginning of Obama's presidency, there was pressure on Obama to focus on the economic crisis.  Rahm Emanuel advised a small, bipartisan health care reform with popular items such as coverage for young adults -- to get it passed quickly and focus on the country's money problems.  Jarrett urged the president to be true to his left-wing agenda.  She was all for having Reid-Pelosi create the ObamaCare assault on the American health system and ramming it through on a one-party vote, using Chicago-style politics, while Obama crossed the country doing what he does best: make speeches.  Obama liked Jarrett's idea.  Emanuel is now out of the White House.
Jarrett pushed the Solyndra fiasco.  Jarrett promoted Solyndra because one of her richest Chicago connections, billionaire George Kaiser, a top Obama bundler, had a 35% share in Solyndra.  Kaiser visited the White House sixteen times.
Larry Summers, the director of the president's National Economic Council, warned Obama that the federal government should not get involved in venture capital of any sort.  Summers understood that crony capitalism sabotages economic growth.  Huge government funding distorts and destroys whatever market segment it touches, replacing economic decisions with political ones.
A member of Obama's finance committee warned the president that Solyndra was going bankrupt.  But it is Obama and Valerie who see eye to eye, and they saw the value to Obama of rewarding his political cronies.  It worked fine in Chicago.  Larry Summers is now out of the White House.
Jarrett pushed Obama to take on the Catholic Church over contraception, arguing that it would appeal to single women (she was right) and that religious freedom isn't important (she was wrong).  Bill Daley, who had replaced Rahm Emmanuel as chief of staff, argued against Obama pushing contraception on the Church and invited Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York to meet with a displeased Obama, who didn't appreciate hearing from the Church.  Daley is now out of the White House.
Valerie Jarrett is the most powerful woman in Washington.  She has guided the president's decisions on health care, the budget, the stimulus, the deficit, foreign affairs. 
So when Jarrett told Obama that the mission to kill bin Laden was too politically risky, and to play it safe, it is entirely plausible to believe that the president listened to her.  It is consistent with everything we know about Obama's dependence on her.  According to Miniter's source in the U.S. Military Joint Special Operations Command,  Obama listened to her for four months, dithering and deciding no the first three times the military told him that the time to get bin Laden was now.

In The Amateur, Klein reports that another worry won out.  Obama was even more scared of the political fallout if voters learned he'd passed up the chance to get bin Laden.  What decided him wasn't the national interest, but politics.  For once, the president disagreed with Valerie Jarrett. Read more at American Thinker... 

  

Pentagon Official: Why Obama Made The Taliban Trade

9:45 PM 06/02/2014

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Here is the truth: The deal to trade five senior Taliban detainees to secure the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was political. It was publicly justified with lies, it breaks decades of U.S. policy, it breaks American law, it puts Americans at risk, it undermines the government of Afghanistan, and it passes responsibility on to the next administration.
But first of all, it was political.
But no, it was not to take the spot light off of the failures at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Simply stated, it was because so long as Bergdahl remained in Taliban captivity in Pakistan, the Obama administration would never be able to close the chapter of the failed Afghanistan campaign it has owned since approving — and then under-resourcing — a surge of U.S. forces in the country. (Pentagon Official: Obama Conducting Foreign Policy Based On Polling — Not US Safety)
Bergdahl’s captivity served as a constant reminder of President Barack Obama’s strategic failures while U.S. forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan. That’s something the Democrats cannot allow going into 2014 and 2016 elections. So the president agreed to an unprecedented deal in blatant violation of U.S. law and established precedent that undermines the safety and security of the United States and her citizens, once again choosing short-term political gain over long-term security interests. (Pentagon Official: Obama’s Afghanistan Fantasy Today Is America’s Nightmare Tomorrow)
Claims of new information on Bergdahl’s deteriorating health are simply false justifications. Bergdahl’s health was in no worse shape than should be reasonably expected of someone who had been a prisoner for five years. He walked without assistance into the waiting company of U.S. special operations forces, and then climbed aboard the waiting helicopter. He was mentally sound enough to recognize what was going on around him and to communicate with American forces. And none of the medical or psychological issues that he has displayed symptoms are life threatening. So this was just another example of the administration trying to justify its actions.
Additionally, the decision breaks with a decades-old standing U.S. policy to never negotiate with terrorists. Bergdahl was being held by the Haqqani Network in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. The Obama administration designated the Haqqani Network a terrorist organization just a few years ago. By negotiating with the Haqqani Network through the government of Qatar, the administration violated the policy. (Pentagon Official: Obama’s #ForeignPolicy? #AskMichelle)
Though this is not how the Obama administration sees it.


When CNN’s Candy Crowley asked National Security Advisor Susan Rice if the U.S. had negotiated with terrorists, Rice once again proved she shouldn’t be allowed on Sunday shows when she said no, because the United States had negotiated the deal through Qatar. But a child can understand that the Qataris passing our messages to the Taliban — and vice versa — makes the Qataris no different than a telephone or email service. We were negotiating with the Haqqanis no matter how you try to spin it.
And when asked why the administration failed to notify Congress about the Guantanamo Bay prison transfer despite U.S. law requiring the administration to notify Congress 30 days in advance of any transfer of prisoners from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, she said it was because they were worried it would jeopardize the deal.

So Rice and the administration were afraid that congressmen exercising their oversight might object to the release of five battle-hardened terrorists and suspected war criminals, or that the deal could leak. So instead, the administration chose to willfully violate U.S. law by not informing Congress.

And as for fears of a leak, the administration informed members of Congress about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden before it took place — something far more sensitive in terms of intelligence resources. Rice did, however, let us know that the administration had seen fit to consult with the Department of Justice about the deal.
The five detainees released were among the most senior members of the former Taliban government to be captured by the United States. They include the former Taliban minister of the interior, Taliban deputy minister of defense, Taliban deputy minister of intelligence, a senior Taliban military commander, and the Taliban governor of Herat Province.
Several of these men are accused of committing serious war crimes, including genocide. All of these men have Afghan and American blood on their hands.
Although the five Taliban commanders had been declared high risk, some have argued that they are too old and have been in prison for too long to make a successful return to the battlefield. Many detainees released from Guantanamo Bay have done just that, though. Surprise.
As part of the deal, these five men must remain in Qatar for one year before they are permitted to return to Afghanistan. And in doing so, the administration is once again kicking the can down the road.
In one year, the U.S. will have withdrawn all combat forces from Afghanistan — according to the president’s plan. These men will now become the Afghan government’s problem, and we can add them to the growing list of issues, including Iran, North Korea and Syria that this president is passing the buck on.
Finally, the administration failed to consult the government of Afghanistan before agreeing to this deal. In doing so, the Obama administration robbed Afghan President Karzai and his successor of potentially valuable bargaining chips in a larger reconciliation effort.
This deal essentially took chess pieces off of the board for the Afghans at a time when they were needed most, and has left the Afghan government in a position where it looks weak, incompetent and untrustworthy to its ally. That is not a good signal to send to the nation or the world just before the U.S. withdraws its combat forces and begins the final transition of responsibility to the Afghanistan and they’re security forces.
But all that is secondary in the Obama White House, where optics rule.
And the show must go on.
Joseph Miller is the pen name for a senior Department of Defense official with a background is in U.S. special operations and combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has worked in strategic planning.

Terrorists and Europe's "Newspeak"
When Is Hate Crime Not Hate Crime?

by Peter Martino
June 2, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4338/brussels-terrorists-europe

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Britain strips British nationality from immigrants with dual nationality who go to Syria to fight. This act allows British authorities to ban them from re-entering the country. Why don't European countries do the same?
Yvan Mayeur, the Socialist Mayor of Brussels, said that to combat anti-Semitism and racism, his city needed more "diversity." But diversity does not mean diversity. Diversity is the new code word for more Islam.

Yesterday, French police arrested the terrorist accused of murdering three Jews in Brussels, Belgium on the eve of the European elections. The killer, 29-year old French citizen Mehdi Nemmouche, a son of Muslim immigrants, had gone to Syria in 2013, where he joined the rebels against President Bashar al-Assad and was trained as a jihadist.
On Saturday afternoon, May 24, Nemmouche walked into the Jewish Museum in Brussels, armed with a pistol and a Kalashnikov assault rifle. He killed three Jews, including two Israeli tourists, and seriously wounded another, who is still fighting for his life in hospital. Then Nemmouche calmly walked out of the museum.

An image of the terrorist, identified by French police as Mehdi Nemmouche, firing his rifle at the Brussels Jewish Museum, taken from security camera footage.

During the past three years, thousands of young Islamic immigrants from France, Germany, Britain and all other European countries, as well as young Western Islamic converts, have gone to Syria, where they trained to be killing machines. Some of them have returned home, where they now constitute the biggest threat to domestic security in decades.
French authorities were able to capture Nemmouche within a week because they had his name on a list of returned Syria fighters. Having his name on a list of jihadists, however, was not able prevent him from committing murder in neighboring Belgium.
Police also apparently believe that Nemmouche filmed his terror attack with a camera which he had on him. The Kalashnikov, the pistol and the camera were found in Nemmouche's possession when he was arrested. The previous anti-Semitic murders in Europe were also committed by a terrorist with a camera. In 2012, Mohammed Merah, a French Islamist of Algerian descent, murdered a rabbi and three children outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, in southern France. Both Merah and Nemmouche were caught before they were able to upload the images of the deed. They may have wanted these films to serve as tools for jihadist propaganda, recruitment and instruction.
Nemmouche and Merah were both French citizens; France has the largest community of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe. In countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium, the authorities seem to be increasingly concerned that the returned Syria fighters pose an enormous security risk. Rob Wainright, director of the European law enforcement agency Europol, warned in his 2013 annual report that the returned Syria fighters could incite others to join the armed struggle in Syria, as well as use their training, combat experience, knowledge and contacts to conduct such activities within the EU.
Last Saturday, Europol released its EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2014 in which it repeats that "there is a growing threat from EU citizens who, having travelled to conflict zones to engage in terrorist activities, return to the European Union with a willingness to commit acts of terrorism ... This phenomenon may result in terrorist attacks with unexpected targets and timings."
The ease with which Nemmouche was able to carry out his assault has frightened many all over Europe. How is it possible that this man, who was known to be a terrorism risk, could acquire an automatic rifle and take the weapon into the Jewish Museum? Why had he not been followed? Obviously such a practice is not feasible for all criminals, but for known jihadists? Had his phone and internet chats been tapped? It would be also be helpful, albeit unfortunately, if owners of buildings seemingly at risk invested in security guards and metal detectors for their entrances.
There are also political questions. Why had Nemmouche even been allowed to return to France after his stay in Syria? Britain strips immigrants holding dual nationality, who go to Syria to fight, of their British nationality. This act allows the British authorities to ban them from re-entering the country or have them expelled after their return them when the authorities have proof that they went to Syria to fight. "Citizenship is a privilege, not a right, and the home secretary will remove British citizenship from individuals where she feels it is conductive to the public good to do so," the British authorities stated last December.
Why have the French not done the same?
The problem affects not only European countries. American and Australian Muslims are also known to have travelled to Syria to join jihadist groups fighting the Assad regime. Russia is also familiar with the problem: more than a year ago, the head of the Russian Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, warned that the return of Russian Syria fighters will pose a terrorist threat.
It remains to be seen in what way the Western authorities react to this threat. So far, the signs are not encouraging. The Belgian authorities used -- or rather abused -- the murderous attack in Brussels to indoctrinate the public with multiculturalist propaganda.
Last week, for example, Brussels school children were given special lessons to warn against anti-Semitism and racism. The way to combat this, Yvan Mayeur, the Socialist Mayor of Brussels, said, was "to give room to the many cultures and religions in Europe." He said that his city needed more "diversity." But diversity does not mean diversity any more. Diversity is now the new code word for more Islam. Other politicians advocated punishing "hate crimes" more severely. But hate crime does not mean hate crime any more. It is now the politically-correct European "newspeak" code word for criticism of Islam.
So, rather than arming itself against the Islamist threat, the West still remains blind to the threat, while terrorists such as Merah and Nemmouche carry on killing Jews -- and others.

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Twitter Faces $50 Million Lawsuit In France Over Anti-Semitic Tweet Data

The Huffington Post  |  By Sara Gates Posted: 03/22/2013 4:35 pm EDT  |  Updated: 03/17/2014 8:59 am EDT

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The Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) may have won its court case involving anti-Semitic tweets in January, but the controversy did not end there.
As France 24 reports, Twitter allegedly did not follow through on court requirements, so the student union -- in conjunction with another French Jewish group -- decided to take the matter a step further. They sued Twitter for $50 million for failing to release data on the authors of the anti-Semitic tweets within a 15-day period, as is required by the French court.
"Twitter plays the card of indifference by not respecting the January 24th decision," UEJF President Jonathan Hayoun told the Agence France-Presse.
The suit, which was filed Thursday by UEJF and the "J'Accuse" association, demands that Twitter pay 38 million euros (about $50 million) to the Memorial de la Shoah, a museum that commemorates the history of French Jews during World War II.
“We are upping the stakes because Twitter has not been listening to the fact that they have to abide by French law,” French lawyer Stéphane Lilti, who represents the groups, told France 24, adding that the monetary demand "is designed to make them wake up to the fact that protecting the authors of racist tweets is not acceptable in France.”
Responding to the allegations that Twitter did not acknowledge the data request in the allotted time, spokesman Jim Prosser told The Huffington Post in a statement:

We've been in continual discussions with UEJF. As this new filing shows, they are sadly more interested in grandstanding than taking the proper international legal path for this data. We filed our appeal yesterday, and would have filed it sooner if not for UEJF's intentional delay in processing the court's decision.

In October, widespread anti-Semitic tweets were popularized by the French hashtag #UnBonJuif, which translates to "#AGoodJew." Users tweeted statements using the hashtag that were seen as offensive and derogatory to Jewish people.

Though Twitter partially acquiesced to UEJF's request to remove some of the most offensive tweets last year by blocking a majority of them from view, the social media company refused to ban the hashtag altogether -- something that is against company policy. That's when UEJF launched its campaign to get data on the identities of the offending tweeters.
As France 24 notes, the case is expected to go to court in September.

Twitter hit with $124 million lawsuit over private stock sale

By Nate Raymond and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:15pm EDT

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A person holds a magnifying glass over a computer screen displaying Twitter logos, in this picture illustration taken in Skopje September 10, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Ognen Teofilovski

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(Reuters) - Twitter Inc was sued for $124 million on Wednesday by two companies claiming the social media darling fraudulently had them organize a private sale of its shares to stoke investor interest for an initial public offering then canceled it.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Precedo Capital Group Inc and Continental Advisors SA accused Twitter of using the aborted sale as a way to give the money-losing company a $10 billion market valuation and higher IPO price.
"Twitter never intended to complete the offering on behalf of Twitter stockholders, in the private market, thereby causing substantial damages to the plaintiffs in the loss of commissions, fees and expenses, as well as through their business reputation," the lawsuit said.
The financial firms seek $24.2 million of compensatory damages, $100 million of punitive damages and other remedies.
Jim Prosser, a spokesman for Twitter, in a statement said the company had never had a relationship with Precedo or Continental Advisors.
"Their claim is completely without merit," he added.
The lawsuit comes as anticipation builds for Twitter's IPO, widely considered the most highly awaited since Facebook Inc went public in May 2012.
Last week, the San Francisco-based company said it would offer its shares at between $17 and $20 each, valuing the company at up to about $11 billion. No date has been set yet but market watchers believe the IPO could happen as early as next week.
Twitter was holding its first large investor lunch in New York on Wednesday. Institutional investors who met with Twitter this week say they are optimistic about its upcoming IPO and see it as a more conservative offering than Facebook's splashy IPO.
Like many Silicon Valley start-up companies, Twitter has paid employees and contractors using private stock.
According to the lawsuit, it was worried about repeating some problems afflicting Facebook's $16 billion offering.
In particular, the lawsuit said Twitter sought to avoid the potential for excess supply of company shares by controlling the buyers and sellers of those shares in the private market.
Precedo, an Arizona-based broker dealer, and Continental, a Luxembourg financial adviser, said they were contacted by GSV Asset Management, an approved buyer of Twitter stock, about marketing a fund that could only purchase Twitter shares.
GSV allegedly had negotiated an agreement with Twitter in which it would arrange the sale of up to $278 million of shares owned by employees and others, in blocks of $50 million.
Precedo and Continental said they lined up commitments for the first $50 million block and set up road shows in the United States, Europe and Asia where GSV managing partner Matthew Hanson disclosed material non-public information about Twitter.
But they said Twitter eventually blocked the sale after learning that Precedo and Continental had attracted investors willing to pay $19 a share, considerably above the $17 or less offered in other private market transactions.
The firms now say Twitter "never intended" to allow the private stock sales to go forward.
"Twitter's intention was to induce Precedo Capital and Continental Advisors to create an artificial private market wherein Twitter could maintain that a private market existed at or about $19 per share for the Twitter stock," they said.
The case is Precedo Capital Group Inc. v. Twitter Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-07678.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Cyn