Vice Media fight with RCMP headed to the Supreme Court of Canada

Canada’s top court agreed on Thursday to weigh in on a case in which the ability of journalists to do their work conflicts with the ability of police and prosecutors to do theirs.

The Supreme Court of Canada decision to grant Vice Media leave to appeal follows a ruling by Ontario’s highest court that reporter Ben Makuch turn over background materials to the RCMP related to interviews he did with a suspected terrorist.

“Oh, man, very relieved,” Makuch said moments after learning of the leave decision. “This is an extremely important matter that our country’s highest court needs to hear.”

The materials at issue relate to three stories Makuch wrote in 2014 on a Calgary man, Farah Shirdon, 22, charged in absentia with various terrorism-related offences. The articles were largely based on conversations Makuch had with Shirdon, who was said to be in Iraq, via the online instant messaging app Kik Messenger.

With court permission, RCMP sought access to Makuch’s screen captures and logs of those chats. Makuch refused to hand them over.

RCMP and the Crown argued successfully at two levels of court that access to the chat logs were essential to the ongoing investigation into Shirdon, who may or may not be dead. They maintained that journalists have no special rights to withhold crucial information.

Backed by alarmed media and free-expression groups, Makuch and Vice Media argued unsuccessfully that the RCMP demand would put a damper on the willingness of sources to speak to journalists.

The conflicting views will now be tested before the Supreme Court.

Woman details terrifying encounter with legendary music producer and Occupy Wall Street champion, Russell Simmons

The article writer uses the word “encounter” — I’d change that to rape.

Brown University to allow students to ‘self-identify’ as persons of color

Brown University is implementing a change to its graduate school application that will allow applicants to “self-identify” as persons of color.

The policy comes as a result of complaints made by graduate students on the Graduate School advisory board that international and Asian American students are not treated as members of historically underrepresented groups by the university, according to The Brown Daily Herald.

Senior Fatah official: Iran the key source of Palestinian division

In an interview with the Saudi satellite station al-Arabiya, Ahmad, in rare full-throated criticism of Iran by a senior Palestinian official, pointed to the Islamic Republic as the key cause of tensions between the two main Palestinian factions.

“Iran is the number one sponsor of the division… the number one financier,” he said.

He added that “it seems one of the conditions for the return of Iranian support [to Hamas] is the continuation of the division.”

Sodastream launches sparkling wine

Israeli sparkling water manufacturer Sodastream International Ltd. (TASE: SODA; Nasdaq: SODA) has launched ‘Sparkling Gold,’ a fine alcoholic concentrate to be added to sparkling water. The new alcoholic beverage resembles the taste of a fruity Riesling wine.

Sodastream says that an independent market research test conducted in Germany in October 2017, found that 76% of those surveyed enjoyed the taste of SodaStream ‘Sparkling Gold’ as much as, or more than French champagne brands ‘Moet & Chardon’ and ‘Veuve Clicquot’.

Canada vows to assist Montreal woman who joined ISIS

Sickening

Heterodox Academy

We are a politically diverse group of social scientists, natural scientists, humanists, and other scholars who want to improve our academic disciplines and universities.
We share a concern about a growing problem: the loss or lack of “viewpoint diversity.” When nearly everyone in a field shares the same political orientation, certain ideas become orthodoxy, dissent is discouraged, and errors can go unchallenged.
To reverse this process, we have come together to advocate for a more intellectually diverse and heterodox academy.

Uzbekistan incident raises suspicions of Russian involvement in Cuba attacks

A newly revealed incident reported by a USAID officer who is based at the American embassy in Uzbekistan is raising suspicions Russia may have been involved and could have had a hand in bizarre attacks targeting U.S. diplomats in Cuba

School faces backlash after hosting Gitmo art exhibit

John Jay College of Criminal Justice is facing backlash after hosting an exhibit featuring artwork by several current and former Guantánamo Bay detainees.

The exhibit, which is titled “Ode to the Sea: Art from Guantánamo Bay,” features a total of 30 artworks and is slated to run until January 26, 2018.

“Detainees at the United States military prison camp known as Guantánamo Bay have made art from the time they arrived,” the description of the event states. “The exhibit will display some of these evocative works, made by men held without trial, some for nearly 15 years, who paint the sea again and again although they cannot reach it.”

Shortly after opening the exhibit, the New York City-based school sparked a flurry of criticism for its decision to display the art, including from some U.S. officials who reportedly called for the removal of the featured artwork.

A Pentagon spokesperson, Air Force Maj. Ben Sakrisson, told The Miami Herald earlier this month that the artwork is “property of the U.S. government” and that the Department of Defense still has questions “on where the money for the sales was going.” 

And now, the Islamic Center of Tennessee

A Tennessee imam delivered a conspiracy theory-laden sermon on Friday in which he warned that “Zionists” are planning to destroy Islam’s most revered site.

“Today, if we lose Jerusalem – know that it is not going to stop there,” Imam AhmedulHadi Sharif told worshippers on Friday at the Islamic Center of Tennessee in Antioch, TN. “The enemies of Allah will come and try to destroy the Kaaba.”

The Kaaba is a small shrine located at the Great Mosque in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The Muslim faith holds this spot to be the most sacred on earth for its adherents.

Describing “the Zionists” as “the number one terrorists in the world,” Sharif said he nonetheless made a distinction between “the ethnic Jewish” and the “Zionist oppressors.”

“The Zionists exceeded all bounds in their oppression and tyranny,” he said, before calling for the violent elimination of Israel.

 

Kuwaiti dude schools libs

Hell has frozen

Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario suggests 1/2 THE POPULATION SECRETLY IDENTIFIES AS LGBT (not to be confused with ‘LGGBDTTTIQQAAP’)

“Disguises and weapons were seized, including slingshots with metal marbles, batons and plastic bottles containing an unidentified liquid”

ter·ror·ism
noun
the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

GERMAN JUDGE COMPARES ISRAEL TO STATE SPONSORS OF TERROR IRAN, NORTH KOREA

German judge Wolfram Sauer, who ruled last week in Frankfurt that Kuwait Airways can bar an Israeli passenger from flying on the Gulf country’s airline because of his nationality, juxtaposed the Jewish state with the US classified state-sponsors of terrorism, Iran and North Korea, to justify his legal decision.

You know who’s responsible for the slaughter in Egypt

Alan Dershowitz: Ten congressional Democrats want lenient treatment for young terrorists who murder Israelis

For Shame on this group of biased anti-Israel Democrats, which includes the following members of Congress: Betty McCollum, D-Minn, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin; Earl Blumenauer of Oregon: André Carson of Indiana: John Conyers of Michigan; Danny K. Davis of Illinois; Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon;  Raul Grijalva and Luis V. Gutiérrez  of Arizona; and Chellie Pingree of Maine.

JEWISH MOTHER AND SON ASSAULTED AT FRENCH SUPERMARKET

The veiled cunts saw the Star of David

ISRAEL’S SECRET WAR AGAINST TERRORISM’S FINANCIERS

A new book explores Israel’s daring covert operations against terrorism’s enablers.

Hitler Reacts to Grad Student Thought Crimes

Majority of Parliament Hill security staff haven’t had thorough background checks

A majority of the security personnel on Parliament Hill, some of whom are armed, have not had thorough background checks and routinely have access to sensitive information despite a lack of official clearance, federal officials say.

The situation applies to two groups of non-police officers employed by the Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS): protective officers who carry guns and work mostly inside parliamentary buildings, and detection specialists who screen vehicles and visitors before they enter secure areas on the Hill.

The PPS was created in 2015 to beef up security in the Parliamentary precinct eight months after a gunman killed a soldier and stormed Centre Block. It combined the former Senate and House of Commons Protection Services and the RCMP’s Parliament Hill Security Unit with the RCMP in charge of the operation. However, government officials say most of the non-RCMP personnel in the PPS have not had screening equivalent to that of the RCMP officers.

The RCMP, with intelligence-sharing agreements around the world, regularly shares findings about potential threats throughout the PPS. For example, the RCMP can provide intelligence to non-police officers that comes from the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC), even though the recipients lack the necessary security clearance.

When PPS was created, the RCMP began to apply its own screening to all of the members of the new service. About 100 of the non-RCMP security workers received it. It includes fingerprint checks, financial inquiries, a loyalty assessment by Canada’s spy agency and, in some cases, in-person interviews. Clearances are periodically reviewed.

However, the two unions representing officers who had worked for the House of Commons and Senate objected to the change, and it was stopped before all employees had gone through the screening, PPS spokeswoman Melissa Rusk said. It was replaced by a process called a site-access check.

Pakistan releases terrorist behind Mumbai attacks that killed rabbi, wife

Pakistani authorities acting on a court order have released a US-wanted terrorist who allegedly founded a banned group linked to the 2008 Mumbai attack, which killed 168 people including a rabbi and his wife, his spokesman and officials said.

Hafiz Saeed, who has been designated a terrorist by the US Justice Department and has a $10 million bounty on his head, was released before dawn Friday after the court this week ended his detention in the eastern city of Lahore.

Holocaust-denying Professor Back in Classroom Thanks to Government of Alberta

Professor Anthony Hall has returned to work at the University of Lethbridge, after he was suspended for promoting antisemitism in October of 2016.

Hall’s return was facilitated by Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP Government, which passed two bills in mid-2017 that strengthened the position of Hall’s faculty association. In August, the Government even took the rare step of launching a direct legal intervention that aided Hall, and eventually prompted a labour arbitrator to order him back to work in November.

It is unclear whether the University of Lethbridge plans to appeal the arbitrator’s decision. Hall remains the subject of an Alberta human rights complaint.

“Premier Notley and her Government bear direct responsibility for placing a discredited conspiracy theorist back in a university classroom,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “We repeatedly warned the Government of the likely outcome of its actions, but they sadly chose to ignore our warnings and expose Alberta university students to antisemitism and discrimination instead.

Website of the day

Professor Watchlist

Today in fake hate crimes

A Missouri high school student, identified merely as “non-white,” has admitted to writing the “N word” and “White Lives Matter” on a school bathroom mirror.

 

Facing Title IX discrimination suit, Penn settles with student accused of rape

The University of Pennsylvania has quietly agreed to pay a student accused of rape an undisclosed amount after he sued the school claiming Penn’s investigation into the incident violated his civil rights.
Although the specific terms of the agreement are not public, court records acknowledging the deal follow a rash of lawsuits nationwide filed by men on college campuses maintaining that punishment triggered by internal investigations into sexual misconduct have been biased against them.

Oxford Sued Over Grades by Student Who Didn’t Get Into Yale

Lawyers for an Oxford graduate who is suing the university over his “disappointing” exam grades nearly two decades ago told a London court Tuesday that he missed out on going to law school in the U.S. because of his results.

Faiz Siddiqui, who received a 2:1 degree, the second-highest grade available, says in a submission to the court that he received poor teaching for one of his papers.

“While a 2:1 degree from Oxford might rightly seem like a tremendous achievement to most, it fell significantly short of Mr. Siddiqui’s expectations and was, to him, a huge disappointment,” his lawyers said in court filings.

His lower-than-expected grades — 17 years ago — exacerbated his depression and this left him “unable to achieve the professional career he had hoped for,” including missing out on the chance to study at an Ivy League university after Oxford, his papers say.

9th grade BIOLOGY assignment

Biology

Cameroon: Migrants tell of Libya’s slave market hell

Federal government not tracking interventions with returning ISIS fighters

Take a valium before reading

Girl injured in 2011 Jerusalem bombing dies of her wounds

Hodaya Asulin, who was wounded as a girl in a March 2011 bombing in Jerusalem, succumbed to her wounds Wednesday, after more than six years in a coma.

Your daily lib

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The Sultans of America and Their Harems

It’s tempting to say that we’ve woken up — that we’re unwilling to allow fame and money and power to excuse abuse, and we’re not going to go back to the old way anymore. But that would be too sanguine. So long as fame and money and power exist, there will be those who seek to exploit them and those who look the other way. False idols always have their adherents.

It’s our job to ensure that the idols remain smashed. And that means recanting our own idolatry for a cultural sultanate that deserves to be torn down.

The gaystapo at Laurier weighs in

Dear queer community: Get a handle on these mental defectives that claim to speak on your behalf.

 

Political media engulfed by sexual harassment crisis

 A wave of sexual harassment allegations is ripping through the White House press corps and broadcast networks, forcing a reckoning on sexism and power dynamics inside newsrooms at a time when the media’s credibility is already under attack.

The list of men in political media accused of sexual misconduct is long and growing by the day.

Glenn Thrush of The New York Times, Charlie Rose of CBS, author Mark Halperin, NBC’s Matthew Zimmerman, NPR’s Michael Oreskes, Vox’s Lockhart Steele, the New Republic’s Hamilton Fish and the Atlantic’s Leon Wieseltier have all been suspended or fired in the last month over varying degrees of alleged harassment or assault.

New allegations are coming out at a furious pace, in part because of the newfound willingness of news organizations to pursue and publish allegations from women who now feel emboldened to tell their stories, many of them on the record.

Media outlets are devoting tremendous resources to investigating their colleagues and competitors. Lists are circulating in journalism circles of men suspected of misconduct. The flood of allegations about top editors, reporters and executives is expected to continue.

The cascade of claims of misconduct has opened the media to charges of hypocrisy as it covers allegations of sexual harassment and assault from Hollywood to Capitol Hill.

“The news media is supposed to be a surrogate for the public, and most Americans don’t like the thought that our surrogates are living in and endorsing workplace environments in which sexual harassment now seems to be too common,” said Jeffrey McCall, a professor of media studies at DePauw University.

“Further complicating the media’s image in all of this is the sanctimonious manner in which the media has covered sexual harassment in other corners of society,” McCall said. “It is difficult for the news media to parade around as haughty overseers of right and wrong in broader contexts of society when they clearly have in-house confusion about first principles of decency.”

These two monsters need to be fired

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The Key to Unhappiness

Germans getting exactly what they asked for

Police launched raids on addresses across Germany overnight on Tuesday, arresting six Syrian men suspected of plotting a mass casualty terror attack with “weapons or explosives” in the country.
Around 500 police officers took part in the raids on eight addresses in four states, taking six Syrian men aged between 20 and 28 years old into custody, as well as seizing mobile phones, computers, and paperwork.

According to the Frankfurt attorney general, the arrested men are supporters of Islamic State and are suspected of having planned a”serious state-damaging act of violence” with “weapons or explosives on a public target”, reports German broadsheet Die Welt.

The men are thought to have travelled to Europe under false identities, posing as refugees — but were actually terror fighters.

U.S. Officials Charge Iranian Hacker With HBO Server Attack, $6 Million Extortion Scheme

The filthy mullahs

Unhinged, Combative and Crazy Interview

Girl Scouts warn parents about forcing kids to hug relatives for the holidays

Girl Scouts of the USA issued a warning to parents this holiday season, asking them to think twice before forcing their daughters to hug relatives at gatherings.

“Think of it this way, telling your child that she owes someone a hug either just because she hasn’t seen this person in a while or because they gave her a gift can set the stage for her questioning whether she ‘owes’ another person any type of physical affection when they have bought her dinner or done something else seemingly nice for her later in life,” reads the post on the Girl Scouts’ website.

Journalist of the day

Former Clintonland insider George Stephanopoulos, who has excelled at both politics and journalism, appears to have failed both professions with a single transgression.

As my POLITICO colleague Dylan Byers reported today, ABC News’ “This Week” and “Good Morning America” host Stephanopoulos has donated a total of $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation, something he had not previously disclosed to viewers or his employers. In a statement to Byers, Stephanopoulos apologized for not disclosing the gifts. ABC News called the oversight an “honest mistake,” a sentiment Stephanopoulos amplified in an afternoon interview with Byers.

 

“We stand behind him,” the network also offered, which is corporate-speak for we will bind George in barbed wire and dump him into a surging storm sewer and drive off into the night the minute he becomes an intolerable distraction.

The donation corrodes much of the journalistic credibility Stephanopoulos has labored so carefully to build since joining ABC News as a correspondent and analyst in December 1996. 

Vicente Fox to Trudeau: Don’t be ‘Judas’ on NAFTA

A former Mexican president has a warning for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when it comes to NAFTA renegotiations: don’t betray us “like Judas.”

Vicente Fox, who was president from 2000 to 2006, made the biblical reference in an exclusive interview with CTV’s Washington correspondent Richard Madan, as trilateral talks continue in Mexico City.

“He should open his eyes because sometimes what I get from him is that he will protect Canada even by sacrificing Mexico,” Fox said of Trudeau.

“He might, like Judas, give us our strength and go with (the) United States and leave us aside,” he added. “I warn Trudeau and I warn Canada: you will not make it.”

15,000 on Canada’s deportation list, but some ‘uncooperative’ countries won’t take their citizens back

More than 15,000 foreign nationals are on Canada’s deportation list, but some can’t be removed because their home country won’t take them back.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) confirms some countries either delay or refuse to repatriate their citizens who are here illegally, but will not divulge which ones as it might “impact diplomatic negotiations.”

“If a country won’t take back their foreign nationals, CBSA does not give up; it continues to work with other government partners to put pressure on the country to accept their citizens back,” spokesman Barre Campbell told CBC News in an email.

“The CBSA also works with domestic and international partners to share best practices and develop engagement strategies to address uncooperative countries that fail to repatriate their citizens in a timely matter.”
The removal list includes rejected refugee claimants and those deemed inadmissible because of criminal background, potential threat to public health or safety, or risk to national security.

Canada’s no-naming approach is in stark contrast to the U.S., which publicly identifies, and in some cases, sanctions, countries that delay or refuse to repatriate their citizens.

It is one of several countries taking a harder line against resistant countries as the global migration trend continues.

Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, believes Canada should be pushing back hard against nations which aren’t “playing by the rules.” He said transparency is key to retaining integrity and public confidence in the immigration system.

“If there are specific countries that are refusing to take back their nationals when the government of Canada has determined they’re not entitled to stay in Canada, I think the public is entitled to know this and I think the government should be under some public pressure to negotiate with these countries to resolve this problem,” he said.

Filmed crossing into Israel with sick kid, mother says all Syrians want to come

In unprecedented footage, the IDF allowed an Israeli TV crew to film it opening the border gates to Syria, and allowing in a group of mothers and their children, who were then transported to an Israeli hospital for medical treatment.

The footage, broadcast on Sunday night by Hadashot News (formerly Channel 2), also included interviews with several of the Syrian mothers, who expressed profound appreciation to Israel for the medical assistance.

Israel, which also maintains a field hospital on the border and has sent humanitarian aid to Syria, has treated 3,000 Syrians since it began offering medical assistance in the course of the civil war across the border, of whom almost 1,000 were children with chronic conditions. “The rationale” behind the outreach “is clear,” the report noted: “A humanitarian imperative alongside a security need. Someone whose family or friend is given medical treatment in Israel will presumably change his attitude to the enemy.”

Extended: Excerpts from secretly recorded meeting between Wilfrid Laurier University grad student and faculty

Lindsay Shepherd, a Wilfrid Laurier University graduate student and teaching assistant, landed in hot water with the university over a video clip, featuring controversial University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson, she used in a critical thinking course. After receiving complaints, the university claimed she created a toxic environment. Shepherd had a meeting with faculty and administration, here are excerpts from the secretly recorded conversation.

Clearwater Beach man facing eviction over emotional support squirrel

Israeli Economy Flexes Its Muscle: Shekel Deemed World’s 2nd-Strongest Currency

Last week, the German financial services giant Deutsche Bank ranked the Israeli shekel as the world’s second-strongest currency, bolstering the broader outlook of the Jewish state’s economy.

We founded Qatar, we will purge it and get it back, says Sheikh

We established Qatar and must purge the country and “rescue it before it plunges into chaos and is manipulated by corrupt people,” Qatar’s Sheikh Sultan bin Suhaim has told a tribal meeting of Saudis at Jouf Bani Hajjer in the east of the country.
The country is not in the hands of its true people but “we will get it back,” he said. “We haven’t changed our position nor changed our ethics or disavowed our values, and we will never waver. We all carry the task of rescuing Qatar on our shoulders … We kept silent in the past,” Suhaim added, “not out of weakness or vulnerability, but rather out of hope that our brothers come back to their senses and abandon prejudice, but patience has limits.”

Radical UK Mosque Leader Also Represents Hamas Abroad

A trustee of a well-known British mosque with ties to extremism is also an official with Hamas’ political bureau, reports Britain’s The Times.

Mohammed Sawalha, a trustee of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London since 2010, recently represented a Hamas delegation to Moscow in September.

“[The mosque] has no relationship with Hamas,” a mosque statement said. In his role, Sawalha is legally responsible for overseeing the mosque’s management.

A recent study shows that nearly a fifth of UK jihadists attended sermons by Islamist clerics at Finsbury Park Mosque

Who Will Be the Next Head of Global Jihad?

The son of Osama, Hamza bin Laden is global jihad’s new star. Not only is he perceived as his father’s natural heir, but he is also a future key player in and potentially the next leader of jihadism.

Hamza, Osama’s favorite son, first appeared in al-Qaeda propaganda alongside his father when he was a child. He studied religion and military tactics with senior AQ figures. He was designated heir apparent at a young age.

Osama was killed on May 2, 2011 together with Hamza’s brother Khaled. Hamza was not at the compound when it was stormed by U.S. Navy Seals that day.

Since then, Hamza has been off the grid. He resurfaced in August 2015 when AQ’s current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri introduced him as Osama’s son and the torchbearer of his father’s legacy.

Hamza has since published audio (not video) statements once every few months – in May, July and August of 2016 and twice in May and in November 2017.

He supports the Islamists fighting against Assad and the Syrian regime and calls for regime change in Saudi Arabia and jihad against the West (and arguably more vociferously than other jihadist leaders).

First and foremost, he urges attacks on the United States in retaliation for his father’s murder.