"Disappearing" Tommy Robinson

The UK government made a big mistake arresting Tommy Robinson over the weekend, then made it far worse by immediately ordering a media blackout. Within hours of his arrest, Robinson was sentenced to thirteen months in jail. That could well be a death sentence because Muslim inmates have threatened to kill him. They beat him within an inch of his life when he was serving an earlier sentence. Other Muslims have threatened to kill his family as well.

Robinson was arrested outside a British court for reporting on the trial of Muslim men for molesting hundreds of young girls. It’s a story mainstream media refused to cover for more than a decade until two women: Professor Alexis Jay and Dame Louise Casey investigated and reported on what the Yorkshire Post described as:

“[a] sexual exploitation scandal in which an estimated 1,400 victims were abused over a 16-year period in the town — largely by men of a Pakistani-heritage background… and the blatant failures by senior figures at Rotherham Council over the town’s child abuse scandal — and alleged attempts to cover up what was happening.”

Evidently social workers, police, and the highest officials in local Rotherham government chose not only to avert their eyes, but hide it all. Media cooperated by ignoring the story. Rotherham is only one example of what is happening across the UK and much of Europe as millions of Arab and African Muslims flood into EU countries. Rapes have skyrocketed, but EU governments continue to do what Rotherham officials have done: pretend it’s not happening, and when it is reported, cover up who the rapists are.

 

How could such a thing go on in Rotherham for so long? When asked why they refused to act, officials there said that, because of who the molesters were, they were afraid of being called “racist” if they brought attention to it. But people who live in working-class neighborhoods, however, knew what was going on. They also knew government and media were denying the problem and still are. How do they feel about it? To borrow a chant from an old movie, many are shouting: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

One of them is Tommy Robinson who grew up in working-class Luton, an industrial town of 167,000 people with a large Muslim population. He’s been arrested and imprisoned numerous times for protesting radical Islam in the UK. Robinson isn’t afraid of being called “racist.” He knows the charge is ludicrous and has developed an immunity. So have other working class Europeans across the continent. Only elite, multicultural Euroweenies fear the word now. Radical Muslim sex traffickers hide behind it.

New Hampshire’s Mark Steyn, who published two books on the Islamization of Europe which were best sellers across the English-speaking world, describes the situation: 

“On Friday, Robinson was live-streaming (from his telephone) outside Leeds Crown Court where last week's Grooming Gang of the Week were on trial for ‘grooming' — the useless euphemism for industrial-scale child gang rape and sex slavery by large numbers of Muslim men with the active connivance of every organ of the state: social workers, police, politicians. Oh, and also the media.”

Steyn calls the proceedings in Leeds a “Grooming Gang of the Week” trial because there were several such sex slavery rings operating with impunity around the UK until Professor Alexis Jay and Dame Louise Casey exposed the coverup in Rotherham. Now the British government is trying to silence Robinson for covering trials using streaming video on his iPhone, but it’s already backfiring. On Tuesday, the Drudge Report published a link to a zerohedge.com story: “Britons Rage Over Robinson Arrest As Mass Protests Break Out Worldwide.”

European government and media elites are learning that they cannot brush off ordinary citizens as the equivalent of Hillary’s “Deplorables” or Obama’s “Bitter Clingers.” They’ll continue to do so at their peril because muzzling free speech, jailing dissidents for “hate speech” and “breach of the peace” aren’t working. Such practices only shine a brighter light on results of failed, multicultural, European immigration policies.

Our founding fathers understood that one of the functions of our First Amendment right to freedom of speech is that of a safety valve. As people express dissatisfaction with government, debate ensues. There’s discussion. Policy changes can be proposed. That’s how democracy is supposed to work. Closing off public anger entirely the way multicultural elites have in the UK is dangerous.

Robinson never claimed all Muslim men are rapists. Neither did Donald Trump claim that all Mexican illegals were rapists, but media continue to claim they did. Trump would not be silenced and gained the White House. Neither will Robinson, but now he’s in danger of being killed by Muslim gangs in prison. If that happens, expect hell to break loose across Europe.

Tension in Barcelona

Opposite our hotel

Though I wasn’t looking for it, I couldn’t avoid politics during our three days in Barcelona. My wife leaves all the trip planning to me so I booked the little Hotel Bagues based its proximity to the Gothic Quarter and the sea. We could walk to places of interest along La Rambla, a popular, tree-lined pedestrian boulevard. It’s very popular and it appeared there were tourists from just about everywhere else in the world.

There were mimes, tourist shops, and restaurants with sidewalk tables along La Rambla. Above the first floor restaurants and shops were residences with small balconies overlooking the streets and nearly half displayed political banners, flags, and posters draped over them calling for Catalan independence. Tourist literature called our section the “nerve center” of Barcelona — the city which is itself the nerve center of Catalonia.

We were sipping wine on our little balcony our first night there when we heard chanting in Spanish getting louder by the minute. Then demonstrators marched out of the street across from our balcony which connected La Rambla to the Gothic quarter. They carried Catalan flags and signs and chanted a phrase neither of us understood.

Last October, Catalonia tried to hold a referendum declaring independence but Spanish authorities violently disrupted the vote. According to CNN: “Police fired rubber bullets at protesters and voters trying to take part in the referendum, and used batons to beat them back   using rubber bullets.” Nine hundred people were injured.

Across from our balcony was another owned by a local woman with a Catalan flag and another banner I couldn’t read. Our bellman told me she is a leader in the independence movement. Last October counter demonstrators gathered on the street below and tried to get her to come out, but she wouldn’t. “They would have killed her,” said the bellman.

As if that weren’t enough, the previous August, another kind of political violence flared up when Moroccan Muslim immigrants mowed people down along La Rambla with a rented van. Sixteen people were killed and more than a hundred wounded. Our bell man told me three people died under our balcony and a dozen more lay gravely wounded. The door man pulled out his phone to show me videos too gruesome to show on television. The night before, an imam blew himself up in another area as he tried to construct explosives with gas cylinders.

Last Saturday in the Gothic Quarter very heavy drumming filled the air of a plaza where we were eating breakfast at a sidewalk cafe. Heavy base vibrated my sternum as it bounced off the stone buildings on all four sides of the plaza but I couldn’t pinpoint its source. We paid our bill and walk up the front steps of a gothic cathedral across the square where many people milled about. Looking over their heads, we could see the drummers surrounded by people holding banners and flags. When it stopped, one man with a banner told me they were rallying to keep Spain united.

Below our balcony

Saturday night six motorcycle police gathered there and two vans of heavily armed soldiers with automatic weapons positioned themselves below our balcony at dusk and hotel employees said that wasn’t unusual for a Saturday night. Going to our cruise ship Sunday, there were more soldiers with automatic weapons deployed at the waterfront. 

Naples

Two days later in Naples, Italy I saw an even heavier military presence soldiers with two very alert soldiers with automatic weapons were deployed every fifty yards along a pedestrian walkway in the center of the city. On Friday we’ll be in Nice, France where two years ago a Tunisian Muslim driving a cargo truck killed 84 people and wounded 458 others. Clearly tension is high in heavily-trafficked pedestrian zones of Mediterranean cities.

Truck Attack in Nice

A huge, 13th century castle dominates the Bay of Naples where our cruise ship tied up, built by the French when they dominated the region. It’s a reminder that political conflict is nothing new here as it’s been besieged many times. Muslim navies terrorized the entire Mediterranean for centuries. The last Muslim armies were expelled from Spain in 1492, the same year Columbus discovered America.

Castle Nuovo in Naples

Castles and other material fortifications are useless, however, against the kind of terrorism plaguing the region now. The European left encourages Muslim immigration, while the rising European right wants to cut it off, especially in eastern Europe. The right claims Muslims don’t want to assimilate, don’t want to become Spaniards, Italians, Germans, or French, and have a long-term strategy to take over Europe by demography. Demographic studies indicate that native Europeans are not producing offspring in numbers sufficient to maintain population. Meanwhile, immigrants are having large families.

Europe is changing but it’s still possible to travel peacefully, for now.

Addendum:

(ANSA) – Naples, April 26 – State and Carabinieri police arrested a Gambian national in an antiterrorism operation in Naples on Thursday, sources said.

The arrest comes after investigators found evidence the suspect was planning an attack, the sources said.

Alagie Touray, 21, admitted to investigators that he had received a request to drive a car into a crowd, the sources said. The evidence against him includes a video published on Telegram in which he allegedly pledges alliance to ISIS leader Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi.

He was detained as he left a mosque in Licola, in the province of Naples. Touray landed in Messina along with over 100 other asylum-seekers in March 2017….

We were there Tuesday. Touray was arrested Thursday. The first sign one sees when arriving in Naples by sea quotes Pope Francis and pleas for no borders. Let everyone come who wants to.

Europe is committing suicide.

Is Paris Safe For Our High School Students?

Has radical Muslim terrorism made Paris too dangerous? That question was debated by the school board in Conway, New Hampshire a few weeks ago. The local Kennett High School French club went to Paris during an April terrorist attack. Two jihadis opened fire with assault rifles, killing a policeman and a tourist, and wounding another policeman.

“Kennett students were heading down the famed Champs-Elysee toward the Arc de Triomphe (pictured) when shots rang out,” reported the Conway Daily Sun. “Kennett High School senior Will Synnott planned on having an exciting April vacation during a student trip to France, but he didn't expect to be running for his life from a gun-toting terrorist.”

Mr. Synnott is a senior and, in spite of his exposure to terrorist murders, wants the student trips to continue. The Sun said he also wants “to discourage people from becoming bigoted against Muslims because of last Thursday's attack.” In that, he sounds like the European media or a European Union official. After every attack in every European country, they warn against “Islamophobia,” as if that were a bigger problem than jihadis raping and murdering Europeans nearly every day somewhere on the continent.

France has been in a national state of emergency for two-and-a-half years since January, 2015 when Muslim terrorists murdered twelve people for publishing pictures of Muhammed. Months later Muslim terrorists murdered 128 people in a series of Paris attacks with guns and bombs, and wounded many more. In Nice last summer, a Muslim terrorist drove a truck into a crowd killing eighty-six. There have been rapes, stabbings, and shootings too numerous to mention before the latest attack on the Champs-Elysee. There are “no-go zones” in Paris and across the country into which even the police don’t dare to go lest Muslim residents riot. In recent presidential debates, the liberal Macron said to the conservative Le Pen, “You are giving into their [Muslims’] trap of civil war.” As I write this on Tuesday, The UK Telegraph is reporting: “Paris' Gare du Nord train station was evacuated last night as armed police reportedly searched for three 'dangerous' terror suspects.”

Such is the new Europe under multiculturalism — the word to which liberals ascribe their notion that all cultures are equal. It became an official EU policy when that multinational body came into being. Conservative European leaders like Holland’s Geert Wilders and France’s Marine Le Pen who dare criticize passages in the Koran advocating the killing of Jews? They are prosecuted, but they continue to garner support nonetheless. In spite of European mainstream media’s constant drumbeat for multiculturalism, in spite of all the wonderful falafel restaurants that have opened across Europe, a growing percentage of ordinary Europeans are observing that millions of Muslim immigrants are not assimilating.

A critical mass of Muslim immigrants in Europe have no intention of becoming French, German, British, Dutch, or Swedish. What they want is to establish Sharia Law in their adopted countries. They want to make Europe Muslim. After centuries of trying by military invasion, they’ve changed tactics. Now they’re doing it through hijrah, or jihad by migration. In the late 20th and 21st centuries, this is coincident with a drastic decline in native European birthrates. The French, Germans, British, Swedish, Italians, Greeks, Spanish, etc. are simply not reproducing. Muslim immigrants are, however, and profusely. Demography is destiny and native Europe has essentially stopped reproducing, while Muslim immigrants multiply rapidly. Muslims are 7.5% of France’s population now. What will France and the rest of Europe be like in the next generation? The one after that?

Sexual assaults against European women skyrocket across Europe while governments forbid identification of perpetrators as Muslim immigrants. Media cooperates in the coverup. When for years young Muslims set hundreds of cars on fire in France during almost any given weekend, they’re called, simply, “youths,” not Muslims. Ordinary French are not fooled, but they fear being called racist or being prosecuted for speaking up. There’s no First Amendment in the EU Constitution. It is still in force in the USA though — except on college campuses.

Those pesky French "youths"at it again

Unlimited immigration was the biggest reason for the Brexit vote in the UK. British citizens wanted out of the EU and that sentiment is spreading across Europe. On Sunday, French voters elected a left-center president who promises to stimulate the moribund French economy. In spite of France’s never-ending state of emergency, he defeated the conservative candidate who promised to restrict Muslim immigration. Economics has trumped demographics for now. Meanwhile, France is being transformed.

If the purpose of sending American high school students to France is to provide them a taste of French culture as the “Religion of Peace” changes it, then yes, send them. But first, teach them to duck and cover.

Cognitive Dissonance in Europe

It had to be galling. Geert Wilders, a member of Dutch Parliament, was found guilty three months ago of “inciting discrimination against Dutch Moroccans” — the very people who have been trying to kill him since at least 2003. Newsweek reported that he has to go around, “wearing a bulletproof vest and being shuttled between safe houses to avoid assassination. ‘I’m not in prison,’ he says. ‘But I’m not free, either. You don’t have to pity me, but I haven’t had personal freedom now for 10 years. I can’t set one foot out of my house or anywhere in the world without security.’” 

The Wilders trial perfectly illustrates Europe’s state of cognitive dissonance. In many European Union countries, one is charged with “hate speech” for criticizing Muslims who are terrorizing the entire continent. France’s Marine Le Pen has also been charged in France, along with Brigitte Bardot.

Bardot and Le Pen

It was interesting to watch media spin last Wednesday’s Dutch election results as Geert Wilders’ PVV Party, which they always call “far right,” gained five seats (33%), yet he was “defeated.” Prime Minister Rutte’s VVD Party lost eight seats (-20%), but he won a “great victory.” Prime Minister Rutte’s governing partner in the ruling coalition, the Labour Party, lost nineteen seats (-75%). How is this a victory? Because Wilders didn’t thump him as badly as polls suggested he might.

Wilders is tall. I'm 5'10"

I met Geert Wilders seven years ago at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC. He was surrounded by large, shaven-headed, tough-looking, unsmiling, body guards with ear pieces who were constantly looking around at the rest of us in the hotel function room. He cannot go anywhere without them and it’ll be that way for the rest of his life. Why? Because he’s “far-right”? No, it’s because he has dared to criticize Islam, comparing the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf as both advocate slaughtering Jews. For that, Muslims put a fatwa on his head. That means Muslims are obligated to kill him whenever they get the chance.

Bodyguards check me out

He’s been living like this since he came to the defense of a fellow member of Parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was a Somali immigrant. Hirsi Ali got off a plane in Holland rather than go on toward Canada where her family had arranged she be married to an aging relative. She was granted asylum and then got elected to Parliament. Hirsi Ali’s Muslim parents had forced her to undergo a genital mutilation procedure when she was a girl. 

Hirsi Ali and Wilders at The Hague

Together with filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (great-grandnephew of the famous painter) Hirsi Ali made a short film called “Submission” depicting Muslim treatment of women. For his effort, Van Gogh was shot and stabbed on the street in broad daylight by a Muslim immigrant. Pinned to his body with a knife was a note declaring that Hirsi Ali was next. In 2003, Muslims staged an hour-long grenade assault on a building in The Hague where Ali and Geert Wilders were working in an effort to kill both. In spite of all this, it’s still criminal to criticize the “Religion of Peace” in Europe.

Angela Merkel and other European leaders said the Dutch election last week was a “good day for democracy” and for Europe because Wilders wants to lead Holland out of the European Union. All across Europe, however, there’s rising opposition to the EU’s open-borders policy of accepting millions Muslim “refugees” in spite of what millions of native-born citizens want. That’s one of the factors propelling the rise other conservative leaders in France, Austria, Germany, Italy, and other EU countries.

Meanwhile, Turkey is threatening to release 15,000 more Muslim “refugees” a month to “blow the mind” of Europe. The Turkish foreign minister said, “Soon, religious wars will begin in Europe.” President Obama’s good buddy, President Erdogan of Turkey urged Muslims living in Europe to have at least five children. It’s part of the Islamic concept of hijrah, which Islam historian Robert Spencer calls “jihad by emigration.”

If you ask ordinary Dutch, French, German, and British people, they’d say the religious wars are already underway and have been for years. Every day there’s a stabbing, a rape, a bomb, a truck attack, or some other Muslim terrorist incident somewhere in Europe, yet Merkel alone let over a million Muslims into Germany just last year. She’s up for re-election in September.

The left in Europe has for decades been pushing for ever more centralized government through the EU and the UN — and for open borders. To pave the way, they’ve attempted to indoctrinate the populace with the multicultural myth that all cultures are equal. Dutch, French, British, German, or any other European culture is no better than Muslim culture. All should be able to live together in harmony. Ordinary Europeans, however, aren’t buying it.

Oh Little Town of Bethlehem

Pope Francis prays at Bethlehem wall. Message?

“Too much history, not enough geography.” That was how a veteran of the 1948 Israeli War for Independence described Israel. His name was Dan and he came to our house for dinner about ten years ago in the company of some old friends from San Francisco. My wife and I later toured Israel in May, 2007 and I can attest to Dan’s summation. It doesn't take long to drive the length and breadth of that tiny nation. There’s a definite lack of geography and every bit of it is contested almost constantly. In Jerusalem, it’s not unusual to see Jewish civilians walking around with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders while pushing a baby carriage. They’re in a constant state of war. Israel is located at what has been a crossroads between empires for millennia — throughout recorded history, actually.

Last month, Italian journalist Giulio Meotti wrote a short piece objecting to how the Vatican advertises tours of “Palestine,” or “The Holy Land,” but not tours of “Israel.” It seems the Vatican has as much trouble saying “Israel” as soon-to-be-former President Obama has saying, “Radical Muslim Terrorism.” Israel is a constant victim of radical Muslim terrorism — hence the profusion of AR-15s I saw there — and I’m thinking my church and my president are both refusing to recognize what is quite obvious to anyone visiting Israel.

“Catholic pilgrims spend virtually all their time visiting holy sites in Palestinian-run territory,” wrote Meotti, “staying in Palestinian Arab hotels and listening to Palestinian Arab tour guides. As a result, these pilgrims return filled with hatred towards Israel.”

Bus advertisement in Rome

That reads true because it’s exactly what our tour was like. We had a Palestinian guide and bus driver who were Christians from Bethlehem. In spite of the harassment Palestinian Christians were receiving from Palestinian Muslims, however, our guides were loyal to the Muslim view of things in that troubled land. For example, three times our bus passed the Battle of Hattin site in northern Israel at which Saladin defeated a Crusader army in 1187. Each time, our guide proudly described how Saladin outsmarted the Christians and slaughtered them. I was dismayed, but none of the other Mainers on our tour were disturbed by it.

Notre Dame Guest House in Jerusalem

Our first hotel was the Vatican-owned Notre Dame Guest House just outside the New Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem. Outside it, I could see bullet holes from battles during 1967’s Six-day  War during which Israel took control over Jerusalem for the first time since the Revolt of the Maccabees in 164 BC. The entire hotel staff was Palestinian and I was awakened by a Muslim call to prayer broadcast from a minaret just inside the Old City wall.

Inside the Church of The Nativity in Bethlehem

From there, we traveled to nearby Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity — the oldest church in Christendom. Five years before, it had been seized by Muslim terrorists who held hostages for 39 days, until an agreement allowed them to leave for Gaza. While we were there, Hamas terrorists in Gaza were fighting other terrorists from the Palestinian Authority — Yasser Arafat’s organization. Bethlehem was peaceful when Jesus Christ was born there during the Roman occupation, but it was relatively brief respite.

Your's Truly outside Seven Arches Hotel

At the end of our tour we stayed at the Seven Arches Hotel in East Jerusalem overlooking the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock, but were instructed not to venture outside the hotel because it wasn't safe for Americans. This was the neighborhood where they danced in the streets following the September 11th attack.

Celebrating in East Jerusalem 9/11/01

I was surprised to learn that populations of both Bethlehem and Nazareth are majority Arab Muslim. When I asked why the Palestinian Christian populations of Nazareth and Bethlehem were leaving after 2000 years, both the bus driver and the guide said it was because they were looking for better jobs in America. I knew different, but neither would acknowledge that much of the migration is because of severe Muslim harassment. I saw posters of Yasser Arafat on buildings and each time we passed through an Israeli checkpoint going into and out of the West Bank they complained bitterly. Neither, however, would answer my questions about the war then raging between Hamas and the Palestinian authority even though we had to cancel our trip to Hebron’s tomb of Abraham because of it.

Yasser Arafat poster in Bethlehem

Finally, they said we would go to a dinner in Bethlehem at which the police chief and other municipal officials would be present and I could get answers to my questions. The restaurant was right beside the tall, Israeli-built, black wall. As we got in, however, the music was so loud conversation was impossible. Instead, we had to watch a solo dance performance by a Palestinian  using his Yasser Arafat keffiyah as a prop. I could go on, but yeah, Meotti got it about right.

President of the World

We Catholics are not supposed to say “Hallelujah!” during Lent, but having just heard some wonderful news I’ll instead exclaim — Hurray for President Obama! According to the web site Real Science, Atlantic seaboard ocean levels have not only stopped rising, they’ve actually fallen! You dear readers out there who pay attention to world events know that this means President Obama has not only fulfilled one of his biggest campaign promises, he has exceeded it! Real Science proclaims that: “Sea level has been falling on the Atlantic seaboard for the past six years.” That’s why he’s dancing the Tango in Argentina. It’s his quiet way of celebrating. I only hope Michelle understands.

We all remember when he was campaigning back in 2008 and he said: “Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow! This was the moment when our planet began to heal!” But does he toot his own horn now that it’s happening? No way. He started that speech saying: “I face this challenge with profound humility…” See what I mean? Then-Senator Obama was proud of his humility, and he still is as president. You won’t hear him bragging about what a wonderful man he is the way Donald Trump does. Uh-uh. I haven’t heard him say anything about the rise of the ocean not only slowing down — but actually receding! That’s just not who he is. He would never do that, but we know he could if he wanted to. I can’t wait to bounce my grandchildren on my knee and tell them that I was alive at the moment he was elected in November, 2008.

Remember when Muslims killed 129 people in Paris a few months ago? People were saying we need to do something about Radical Muslim terrorism, but not President Obama. No-no. He knew the real problem was climate change and he wasn’t going to let a little thing like the murder of 130 people get in the way of his Climate Change Summit meeting that was scheduled there two weeks after. He does his best not to let Americans be distracted too, but many of them are anyway. Back when he was holding that summit meeting, a poll came out saying that 97% of Americans didn’t even care about climate change, but that didn’t deter Obama. He went ahead because he knows what’s best for us even when we don’t. He’s wicked smart that way and we’re just not. Remember, he went to Harvard. The only reason he won’t release his grades from there is because he’s humble. I’m sure he got straight A’s but he just doesn’t want to brag about it. Conservative right-wingers who claim he only got in there through Affirmative Action because his father was black are just jealous.

He always knew climate change was the biggest problem facing not only Americans, but the whole world. That’s why he doesn’t worry about the $20 trillion debt we’ll have when he leaves office, or about the rise of ISIS in the Middle East or in Europe or in America. He knows ISIS was caused by climate change and has nothing to do with Islam. Right wing whackos claim he doesn’t have the courage to deal with ISIS and suggest that maybe Bruce Jenner would donate his testicles to him. But does President Obama let that bother him? Uh-uh.

Even though one quarter of the entire population of Mexico has moved to the United States, Donald Trump is still promising to build a wall to prevent the rest of them from coming in. President Obama saw all that coming though and subtly urged more to come north all during his presidency. He told the Border Patrol and ICE not to stop them and he’s not sending any back either. By the time Trump is inaugurated, there won’t be any need for a wall because there will be as many Mexicans on this side of the border as there are on the other side and we won’t have any use for a border at all.

With that and all the refugees coming in from the Middle East, we’ll be a truly multicultural country. The only thing left is the dissolution of all national boundaries so a one-world government can rule us all. Obama is still a young man and he’s already angling to become head of the United Nations. I hope he makes it before Lent next year so I can throw the window open and holler Hallelujah! at the top of my lungs.