Dr. Patrick Slattery’s News Roundup
A service of DavidDuke.com
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jewish groups celebrate Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage nationwide
WASHINGTON (JTA) – How often do you get the opportunity to pack “109 years,” #LoveWins and the colors of the rainbow into 140 characters?
That’s how the American Jewish Committee celebrated the Supreme Court ruling Friday extending marriage rights to gays throughout the United States.
“For 109 years AJC has stood for liberty and human rights,” its tweet said. “Today is a happy day for that proud tradition #LoveWins.” It was punctuated with a heart emoticon splashed rainbow colors.
The contrast between an organization founded at the launch of the last century celebrating the rights embraced by Americans only at the launch of this one was emblematic of the glee with which much of the Jewish establishment reacted to the ruling.
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From Russia Today
Austrians launch petition to quit EU
Published time: June 27, 2015 04:17
Austrians have launched a petition to quit the EU, arguing that the nation will be better off economically if it leaves the union. To force the national parliament to consider the initiative activists need to have gathered 100,000 signatures by July 1.
The petition was started by a retired 66-year-old translator, Inge Rauscher, who has collected enough signatures to launch an official campaign. The plea seeks to request that the national parliament debate the idea of a referendum on quitting the EU. However, to get that issue even discussed, the petition must gather 100,000 signatures.
“We want to go back to a neutral and peace-loving Austria,” Rauscher said at the start of the campaign this week. Austrians have until July 1 to sign the petition which they can do in municipal or district offices.
READ MORE: Eurosceptic Italian party delivers 200,000-signature petition for exiting euro
Rauscher and her non-partisan Heimat & Umwelt committee (Homeland and Environment) argue that Austria will benefit from leaving the EU both economically and environmentally. She also criticized Austria’s forceful endorsement of EU sanctions against Russia, generally blaming Brussels for the economic downturn.
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From The Times of Israel
US official: Many concerns about Iran deal based on ‘myth’
Antony Blinken warns against keeping interim arrangement with Tehran as alternative to comprehensive agreement
June 27, 2015, 4:01 am
WASHINGTON — Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken heralded the “unprecedented inspections” currently underway in Iran under the interim nuclear agreement, and challenged opponents of a nuclear deal to come up with a better alternative to any comprehensive agreement reached by the P5+1 member states during a Friday afternoon keynote speech.
“We have negotiated, of course, an interim agreement with Iran that froze and in some places rolled back its nuclear program with unprecedented inspections, with the possibility of a comprehensive solution now before us,” Blinken told the audience at the Center for New American Security’s annual conference.
Blinken, who served as the administration’s point man for Iran talks before a number of Congressional hearings, gave a broad overview of the US’s positions and challenges worldwide, ranging from the world’s growing refugee population to the administration’s efforts to pivot foreign policy towards east Asia.
Less than a week before the deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement, Blinken also sought to calm concerns regarding key aspects of the impending deal.
Blinken reiterated administration assertions that “the deal we’re working towards will close each of Iran’s four pathways toward fissile material” – the uranium enrichment at Natanz and Fordo, the plutonium plant at Arak, and any covert path that Tehran could pursue toward acquiring fissile material.
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From The Times of Israel
Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage throughout America
Obama hails affirmation of equality; ruling means 14 states still enforcing ban on same-sex union will have to stop
June 26, 2015, 6:39 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court declared Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the United States.
Gay and lesbian couples already could marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The court’s 5-4 ruling means the remaining 14 states, in the South and Midwest, will have to stop enforcing their bans on same-sex marriage.
Gay rights supporters cheered, danced and wept outside the court when the decision was announced.
The outcome is the culmination of two decades of Supreme Court litigation over marriage, and gay rights generally.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, just as he did in the court’s previous three major gay rights cases dating back to 1996. It came on the anniversary of two of those earlier decisions.
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From The Times of Israel
Ex-Belgian lawmaker convicted for downplaying Holocaust
Judge says Laurent Louis ‘expressed little regret’ for claiming Shoah was financed by Zionists
June 25, 2015, 6:14 pm
A former lawmaker from Belgium was given a suspended six-month prison sentence for downplaying the importance of the Holocaust.
Laurent Louis, who served as lawmaker in Belgium’s federal parliament for four years until 2014, received the punishment from the 60th chamber of the Correctional Tribunal of Brussels for making statements that consciously downplayed the atrocities committed by the German occupation forces that ruled Belgium during World War II, the judge wrote in his sentence, which was handed down Tuesday, the RTBF broadcaster reported.
“During his trial, Mr. Louis seemed to think he was in parliament rather than in a court of law,” the judge added. “He expressed little regret toward the people he offended and offers little evidence in the way of correcting his ways.”
In 2014, Louis said in parliament that “the Holocaust was set up and financed by the pioneers of Zionism.” He also posed outside parliament while standing on an Israeli flag and holding a portrait of Bashar Assad, Syria’s president.
The Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, or LBCA, which was among the plaintiffs against Louis in his latest trial, pledged during its inaugural event to focus much of its activities on the former independent member of the lower house. He entered parliament as a representative of the small center-right People’s Party, but he was later kicked out.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
White House: Palestinian ICC bid ‘counterproductive’
(JTA) — The White House said efforts to have Israel charged with war crimes at the International Criminal Court are “counterproductive” and would be opposed by Washington.
The statement Thursday came hours after Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki handed ICC prosecutors a file detailing alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza and describing construction in the West Bank settlements and east Jerusalem, the Associated Press reported Friday.
The United States has “made clear that we oppose actions against Israel at the ICC as counterproductive,” National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey said after the Palestinians submitted their evidence in The Hague.
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From PressTV
Foreign investment in Israel down by near 50%: UNCTAD
Foreign investment in Israel has dropped by nearly 50 percent, a new UN report says, with the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza and international boycott efforts against the regime cited as key factors for the sharp decline.
According to the World Investment Report 2014 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which tracks changes in foreign direct investments worldwide, only $6.4 billion were invested in Israel last year in contrast to $11.8 billion in 2013, pointing to an almost 46-percent decline.
The report further said Israel’s foreign direct investments (FDI) also plunged from $4.67 billion in 2013 to $3.97 billion last year, a 15-percent drop.
This is while one of the authors of the UN report, Ronny Manos, attributed the sharp FDI decline to the Israeli regime’s 50-day Gaza onslaught that began in July 2014 as well as global boycott and divestment efforts against the regime for its flagrant violations of Palestinian rights in occupied territories.
“We believe that what led to the drop in investment in Israel are Operation Protective Edge [against the besieged Gaza Strip] and the boycotts Israel is facing,” said Manos.
From Russia Today
Greece to hold national referendum on debt deal – PM
Edited time: June 27, 2015 11:37
The Greek PM has announced a national referendum on July 5 on the conditions of the debt deal with international creditors. It’s up to the Greek people, Tsipras said, to make a fateful decision on the country’s sovereignty, independence and future.
“These proposals, which clearly violate the European rules and the basic rights to work, equality and dignity show that the purpose of some of the partners and institutions was not a viable agreement for all parties, but possibly the humiliation of an entire people,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address to the nation, as cited by Reuters.
The referendum will be held on July 5, a few days past the June 30 deadline, Tsipras announced.
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From The Times of Israel
IS gunmen kill more than 100 in Syria’s Kobani
Islamic State forces said to have taken civilians hostage in at least three locations
June 26, 2015, 8:31 pm
BEIRUT — Kurdish fighters in Syria besieged pockets of Islamic State extremists in the northern border town of Kobani on Friday, a day after the militants managed to push into the strategic town in a major onslaught, setting off clashes that have so far killed more than 100 civilians, activists said. Some reports put the death toll at 145.
According to Kobani-based Kurdish activist Mustafa Bali, small groups of IS militants were still in the town and have taken civilians hostage in at least three locations. A fourth location, a restaurant, was stormed by Kurdish fighters who freed the hostages there and killed several IS fighters, he added.
The attack on Kobani came after the Islamic State group suffered setbacks over the past two weeks, including the loss of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad — one of the main points for the Islamic State group to bring in foreign fighters and supplies.
Kobani on Syria’s border with Turkey had become a proud symbol of Kurdish resistance after the town and its defenders, backed by US-led coalition airstrikes, repelled an extended IS assault earlier this year.
The town was besieged by the Islamic State group for months last year and into January, but the IS forces were driven out by Kurdish militiamen six months ago.
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From The Times of Israel
Kuwait mosque bomb toll rises to 25; IS claims responsibility
Attack on Shiite site during Friday midday prayers is first terror strike in country for more than two decades
June 26, 2015, 8:23 pm
KUWAIT CITY — A suicide bomber purportedly from an Islamic State affiliate unleashed the first terrorist attack in Kuwait in more than two decades on Friday, killing at least 25 people and wounding scores more in a bombing that targeted Shiite worshippers after midday prayers.
The bombing struck the Imam Sadiq Mosque in the residential neighborhood of al-Sawabir in Kuwait’s capital, Kuwait City. It is one of the oldest Shiite mosques in Kuwait, a predominantly Sunni Arab nation where at least at third of the population is believed to be Shiite Muslims.
It was the third attack in five weeks to be claimed by a purported IS affiliate calling itself the Najd Province, a reference to the central region of Saudi Arabia where the ultraconservative Sunni ideology of Wahhabism originated.
The upstart IS branch had claimed two prior bombing attacks on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia that killed 26 people in late May. The group was unheard of until the first Saudi bombing.
From The Times of Israel
Gunman kills at least 37 in rampage at Tunisian resort
Top security official says attack perpetrated by just one person, killed in subsequent firefight; British, German, French tourists among dead
June 26, 2015, 8:11 pm
SOUSSE, Tunisia — A young man unfurled an umbrella and pulled out a Kalashnikov, opening fire on European sunbathers in an attack that killed at least 37 people at a Tunisian beach resort, according to local TV reports.
The rampage was one of three deadly attacks from Europe to the Middle East on Friday that followed a call to violence by Islamic State extremists.
The killings in the Tunisian resort of Sousse happened at about the same time as a bombing at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait and an attack on a US-owned factory in France that included a beheading. It was unclear if the violence was linked but it came days after the IS militants urged their followers “to make Ramadan a month of calamities for the nonbelievers.”
British, French, Irish, Belgian and German tourists were among the dead, according to local officials.
From The Times of Israel
French Islamist beheads his boss, tries to blow up factory
Severed head left hanging at gas firm’s entrance, along with Arabic flags; killer in custody; France raises terror alert
June 26, 2015, 7:22 pm
SAINT-QUENTIN-FALLAVIER, France — A man once flagged for ties to French Islamic radicals rammed a vehicle Friday into an American-owned gas factory in southeastern France, triggering an explosion that injured two people, officials said. The severed head of his employer was left hanging at the factory’s entrance, along with banners with Arabic inscriptions, they said.
France immediately opened a terrorism investigation.
“Islamist terrorism has again struck France,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls said.
The attack began shortly before 10 a.m. when the vehicle made it through the gate of the gas factory in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, southeast of Lyon. The vehicle then plowed into gas canisters, touching off the blast, President Francois Hollande said in Brussels, where he was attending a European Union summit.
From The Times of Israel
‘Come home!’ Israeli minister urges French Jews amid terror wave
Hours after Islamist attack near Lyon, Ze’ev Elkin warns that anti-Semitism is rising, terror is increasing; Netanyahu says ‘enlightened world’ battling ‘dark forces’
June 26, 2015, 6:38 pm
Israel’s immigration minister urged French Jews to move to Israel Friday, hours after an Islamist attack on a gas factory near Lyon where the severed head of a local businessman was pinned to the gates.
“I call on the Jews of France – come home! Anti-Semitism is rising, terror is increasing,” said Immigration and Absorption Minister Ze’ev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
“We are prepared to receive with open arms the Jews of France,” Elkin wrote in a post on Facebook.
“This is a national mission of the highest priority,” he added.
Netanyahu said the numerous terror attacks witnessed Friday in France and the Mideast demonstrated that the world was locked in a struggle against “dark forces.”
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From The Times of Israel
Islamic extremists bomb base in Somalia, many dead
Al-Qaida-linked Al-Shabab group carries out attack on remote African Union facility
June 26, 2015, 5:22 pm
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Islamic militants from the Al-Qaida-linked Al-Shabab group attacked a remote African Union base in Somalia on Friday, causing many casualties, said the AU mission and a local official.
In a tweet, the African Union mission confirmed there had been an early morning attack on their outpost in Lego, but did not provide any further details.
Mohammed Haji, an official in the Lower Shabelle region told The Associated Press by telephone that militants attacked the base entrance with a suicide car bomb before gunmen began their assault.
“They managed to infiltrate the entrance after the blast — it was a complex attack,” said. He estimated that up to 25 combatants may have been killed, but there was no way to verify his claim. Other reports spoke of at least nine dead.
Al-Shabab group, which vowed it would step up attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, claimed responsibility for the attack.
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From The Times of Israel
France, Israel to hold anti-Semitism meet in Paris
Diplomats and experts to convene to discuss methods for combating rising anti-Jewish hatred
June 25, 2015, 6:48 pm
Israel and France will hold a bilateral “experts dialogue” focused on taking greater action in the fight against resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe.
Legislative and social media experts will join diplomats from both states in Paris on Sunday, to discuss effective methods and tools for combating the recent wave of hatred, following up on the 5th Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, which was held in May in Jerusalem.
The meeting comes amid a rise in incidents of anti-Semitism across Europe, including a deadly attack the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris in January.
The gathering, planned to be the first in a series of binational summits, is supported by the Israeli and French foreign Ministries.
“Anti-Semitism, unfortunately on the rise, is an international problem and a threat to democracy and the shared values of the civilized world,” Gideon Bachar, the director of the Department for Combating Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Remembrance in the Foreign Ministry, said in a statement.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Are the terror attacks connected? Is there a Jewish connection?
Are the three terrorist attacks today, in France, Tunisia and Kuwait, connected?
No one knows for sure, but there appears to be an emerging assumption that it’s likely.
The State Department in its condemnation included all three, adding in an attack on Burundian peacekeepers in Somalia, and cast them all as part of a “shared threat of terrorism and violent extremism.”
“We will continue to work with all of our allies and partners to address the shared threat of terrorism and violent extremism and to degrade and destroy the ability of these terrorist groups to carry out their callous attacks on innocent people,” its statement said.
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From Ynet News
EU Parliament hosts seminar on Holocaust survivors’ welfare
Daylong event hosted by Dutch politician Bastiaan Belder focuses on the experiences and current affairs of European Shoah survivors and the restitution of stolen property. A daylong seminar entitled “Living with Dignity” was held on Tuesday at the European Parliament in Brussels, focusing on the experiences and current affairs of European Holocaust survivors and the restitution of stolen property.
The event was hosted by Dutch European Parliament Member Bastiaan Belder of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR). MEP Belder is the vice chair of the delegation for relations with Israel at the European Parliament and an avid fighter against anti-Semitism in Europe.
Guest speakers and participants included Tibor Schlosser, the Israeli special envoy for Holocaust issues, Avi Weber of the Israeli Ministry for Senior Citizens, Halyna Senyk, executive director of the European Shoa Legacy Institute, the chief rabbi of the Netherlands and others.
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From The Times of Israel
Strauss-Kahn’s tweet bewilders readers
‘Hello Twitter! Jack is Back,’ writes disgraced French-Jewish politician recently acquitted of charges of soliciting prostitutes
June 26, 2015, 3:22 am
If you were a disgraced politician accused of pimping and rape in a trial that revealed your fondness for anal sex and orgies with young women, what would be your first message to the world after your acquittal?
For Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former finance minister of France and ex-managing director of the International Monetary Fund, the answer turns out to be: “Hello Twitter! Jack is Back.”
Strauss-Kahn, whom a French court acquitted on June 12 of allegations that he knowingly hired the services of hookers, left that enigmatic message on his Twitter account, @dstrausskahn, on June 21, when he joined the social network. He has not tweeted since, though he has amassed 44,000 followers in the space of three days.
The cryptic message “lit a fire under the imaginations” of many, according to an article in Le Point, a French weekly. The article sought to connect the tweet to the trial, which many found interesting not because of what Strauss-Kahn, or “DSK” as he is known in France, said he didn’t do, but because of what he said he did do – namely having rough anal sex with women half his age.
From The Times of Israel
Google is listening to you, Israeli tech-blogger reveals
Internet giant takes heat, backs down, after secretly installing software capable of picking up conversations
June 25, 2015, 6:55 am
Google secretly installed software capable of picking up conversations held in front of a computer, a Melbourne-based Israeli tech blogger revealed this week. Faced with an outcry over the practice, the internet giant promised on Wednesday that it would remove the offending component.
Installed in Chromium, the open-source basis for the Google Chrome browser (used by close to 35% of people), the software was meant to support “OK, Google,” a “hotword detection” feature which prompts a response when you talk to it. But, in effect, Google’s code has actually downloaded “audio listeners onto every computer that runs Chrome, and transmits audio data back to Google,” according to a privacy website run by Swedish IT entrepreneur and founder of the Swedish Pirate party Rick Falkvinge.
A Google spokesman initially told the Guardian: “We’re sure you’ll be relieved to learn we’re not listening to your conversations – nor do we want to. We’re simply giving Chrome users the ability to search hands free at their computers by saying “OK Google” while on the Google homepage – and only if they choose to opt in to the feature.”
On Wednesday, however, Google announced it was removing the hotwording component entirely from Chromium, acknowledging: “It is not open source, it does not belong in the open source browser.”
Blogger Ofer Zelig offered a hair-raising account of what the listening component looks like from a user’s perspective.
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