Category Archives: terrorism

I Was a Muslim in the Trump White House—and I Lasted Eight Days – The Atlantic

The evening before I left, bidding farewell to some of my colleagues, many of whom have also since left, I notified Trump’s senior NSC communications adviser, Michael Anton, of my departure, since we shared an office. His initial surprise, asking whether I was leaving government entirely, was followed by silence––almost in caution, not asking why. I told him anyway.I told him I had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim. I told him that the administration was attacking the basic tenets of democracy. I told him that I hoped that they and those in Congress were prepared to take responsibility for all the consequences that would attend their decisions.He looked at me and said nothing.It was only later that I learned he authored an essay under a pseudonym, extolling the virtues of authoritarianism and attacking diversity as a “weakness,” and Islam as “incompatible with the modern West.”My whole life and everything I have learned proves that facile statement wrong.My parents immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh in 1978 and strove to create opportunities for their children born in the states. My mother worked as a cashier, later starting her own daycare business. My father spent late nights working at Bank of America, and was eventually promoted to assistant vice president at one of its headquarters. Living the American dream, we’d have family barbecues, trips to Disney World, impromptu soccer or football games, and community service projects. My father began pursuing his Ph.D., but in 1995 he was killed in a car accident.I was 12 when I started wearing a hijab. It was encouraged in my family, but it was always my choice. It was a matter of faith, identity, and resilience for me. After 9/11, everything would change. On top of my shock, horror, and heartbreak, I had to deal with the fear some kids suddenly felt towards me. I was glared at, cursed at, and spat at in public and in school. People called me a “terrorist” and told me, “go back to your country.”My father taught me a Bengali proverb inspired by Islamic scripture: “When a man kicks you down, get back up, extend your hand, and call him brother.” Peace, patience, persistence, respect, forgiveness, and dignity. These were the values I’ve carried through my life and my career.I never intended to work in government. I was among those who assumed the government was inherently corrupt and ineffective. Working in the Obama White House proved me wrong. You can’t know or understand what you haven’t been a part of.Still, inspired by President Obama, I joined the White House in 2011, after graduating from the George Washington University. I had interned there during my junior year, reading letters and taking calls from constituents at the Office of Presidential Correspondence. It felt surreal––here I was, a 22-year-old American Muslim woman from Maryland who had been mocked and called names for covering my hair, working for the president of the United States.

Source: I Was a Muslim in the Trump White House—and I Lasted Eight Days – The Atlantic

American anti-Semitism rises, and the Israeli Right remains silent | +972 Magazine

If you have ever wondered just how much the occupation and the settlements have corrupted Israeli society and have held the Right and the political leadership hostage, look no further than the shameful silence of just about every Israeli official vis-a-vis American anti-Semitism. Notice that the absolute majority of figures condemning them come from the Left. This is because the Israeli Right has become a single-issue movement: it is willing to sell out the State of Israel for the entire Land of Israel, not to mention worldwide Jewry in exchange for a vague, unreliable statement by an unstable American president.

Source: American anti-Semitism rises, and the Israeli Right remains silent | +972 Magazine

Off-Duty LAPD Officer Discharges Weapon During Dispute with 13-year-old

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocA8j_qE_xI

 

Protests erupted Wednesday night in Anaheim, resulting in 24 arrests, after two videos emerged showing an off-duty Los Angeles police officer pulling his gun and firing during an altercation in a residential Anaheim neighborhood on Tuesday, February 21, with a 13-year-old Latino boy after the boy and his friends walked across the officer’s front lawn.

Source: Inoreader – Of-Duty LAPD Officer Discharges Weapon During Dispute with 13-year-old

Lizard conspiracist David Icke not wanted in Berlin | Germany | DW.COM | 23.02.2017

Icke, a well-known soccer goalkeeper and sports broadcaster in the UK in the 1980s before he announced that he was the “son of the Godhead” on a TV chat show in 1991, now regularly holds live speaking events that run for several hours promoting a theory that the world is run by a reptilian elite known as the “Brotherhood.”Slipping into the physical world from another dimension, Icke says the Brotherhood has genetically manipulated humanity and sought to divide people along racial and gender lines as a means to subjugate them.He has identified dozens of leaders as shape-shifting lizards, including ancient Egyptian pharaohs, the majority of US presidents, and the British Royal Family, and argues that the Brotherhood runs the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the Bilderberg Group, as well as several other international organizations, and encourages genocide, war, and the mass slaughter of animals. He also says the reptilians use human anxiety as a source of energy.Lizards and dog-whistlesMany critics have noted that Icke uses anti-Semitic arguments and imagery. Like many racist conspiracy theorists, he identifies investor George Soros as an enemy of humanity, and has endorsed “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a long-since-debunked Russian anti-Semitic book published in 1903 that purports to detail a global Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. The book influenced Adolf Hitler and was used by the Nazis to agitate against Jewish people in the 1930s – though Icke himself denies being anti-Semitic and says the book is not evidence of a Jewish conspiracy, but a reptilian one.

Source: Lizard conspiracist David Icke not wanted in Berlin | Germany | DW.COM | 23.02.2017

‘Demonic activity was palpable’ at Trump’s rally, pastor says – The Washington Post

I heard two ladies off to my left chanting, not yelling or screaming but chanting, “T-R … U-M-P; that’s how you spell — bigotry!” They repeated the rhyme over and over. Two ladies in front of them began seething and screaming in their face while shaking their Trump signs at them. Another couple standing behind them started screaming at them as well. One of the chanting ladies had her eight-year-old daughter on her back; the other had a severely disabled child in a wheelchair in front of her. As they continued chanting, the people around them became violently enraged. One angry man grabbed the lady’s arm — that’s when I went into action. I barged through the crowd and yelled at them to back off. My heart wasn’t racing; I just instinctively became a protector. I didn’t actually want a Trump sign, but one of the volunteers had shoved it into my hands as I walked through the door earlier; “Make America Great Again!” That sign probably saved someone from getting hurt. I held the sign close to my chest as I positioned myself between the chanting protesters and the angry mob. My 11-year-old daughter was clinging to my arm, sobbing in fear. The two angry, screaming ladies looked at me, both of them raised their middle finger at me in my face and repeatedly yelled, “F*#% YOU!” Repeatedly. I calmly responded, “No thank you, I’m happily married.” Their faces and their voices were filled with demonic anger. I have been in places and experiences before where demonic activity was palpable. The power of the Holy Spirit of God was protecting me in those moments and was once again protecting me and my daughter in this moment. I raised my voice and calmly said, “These ladies have the right to do what they are doing and they are harming no one; this is America and they a right to express themselves in this way. They are harming no one.” A couple of other people around me stepped in and supported me in protecting them as a barrier, as well. My daughter was shaking in fear as she clung to me. The one man behind the protesters shoved himself forward, grabbed the lady by the arm and screamed with multiple expletives, “I’m going to take you out! This is my president and nobody has the right to disrespect him and nobody has the right to keep me from hearing him!”“I’m trying to separate how I actually feel about this man and his campaignisms,” Tooley wrote. “I know why people voted for him; I know why people voted against his opponent. But, at the end of the day, what I felt from his leadership in this experience was actually horrifying. There was palpable fear in the room. There was thick anger and vengeance. He was counting on it. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that it would not have taken very much for him to have called this group of people into some kind of riotous reaction.”

Source: ‘Demonic activity was palpable’ at Trump’s rally, pastor says – The Washington Post

Donald Trump’s antisemitism comments: too little, too limp, too late | Lucia Graves | Opinion | The Guardian

His maddening insistence on Tuesday that really, he denounces antisemitism “whenever I get a chance,” simply isn’t reflected in his actual record.Remember when, during an appearance with the Israeli prime minister last week, Trump was asked if his rhetoric contributed to a rise in antisemitism? He responded, inexplicably, with a self-congratulatory riff on his Electoral College victory. A day later, when a Jewish reporter asked about that very issue, he sniffed that he was: “very insulting.” He then told that reporter to “sit down.” He did – but the rest of us shouldn’t.

Source: Donald Trump’s antisemitism comments: too little, too limp, too late | Lucia Graves | Opinion | The Guardian

Alternative facts: Trump’s mad cows | In English | EL PAÍS

America’s political world has been russified. Half of the population now feels it is irrelevant whether the statements coming out of the executive are a lie or not. They have abandoned reason to embrace faith, and like cattle on their way to the slaughterhouse, they are happy to let themselves be fooled by the president and his buddies. Masha Gessen, a journalist who was born in Russia, wrote in The New York Review of Books: “Lying is the message. It’s not just that both Putin and Trump lie, it is that they lie in the same way and for the same purpose: blatantly, to assert power over truth itself.”Combat lineWhat to do? Unlike Russia, the US fortunately does have institutional antibodies, among which are Congress, judges and the press, which is already smelling a new Watergate. France and Germany have similar defense mechanisms, and they have taken pre-electoral care to set up systems to neutralize Russia’s already visible misinformation cyber campaign.But Trump has already won in the US; half the country has been infected by the virus of “alternative facts,” to use the curiously candid definition provided by the counselor and ex-campaign manager for Trump, Kellyanne Conway. The time has come to fight, to prevent the disease that has already corroded so many brains from migrating to the marrow of the political system.America’s so-called traditional press is on the front line of the battle. That is why, in one of his infamous tweets, the nation’s commander, troller-in-chief and serial liar identified The New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and others as “the enemies of the American people.” The battle is on. What’s at stake is the democracy of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, both of whom were real presidents. Donald Trump is not. He’s not even a rabbit. He’s a mad cow.

Source: Alternative facts: Trump’s mad cows | In English | EL PAÍS

Inoreader – Docs Remove Women’s Uteruses for Profit, Authorities Refuse to Help. Would it be Different if Men’s Genitalia Had Been Removed?

Vasan says that the matter had first come to light back in 2015 during KJC’s ‘Health as Human Rights’ workshop in Gulbarga. One of the activists found that women in the villages were talking of a big “bimaari” (illness) in the villages, where their doctors told them they were at the risk of cancer when they went to them with any gynecological problems. “You have had children,” they were told, “so why do you need this organ?”

Source: Inoreader – Docs Remove Women’s Uteruses for Profit, Authorities Refuse to Help. Would it be Different if Men’s Genitalia Had Been Removed?

How I dealt with masked men with guns pounding on my door | +972 Magazine – Deja vu of you know who…

Late one night last month I was shaken from my bed by Israeli riot police pounding on the door to our house. At first, I thought the noise was from people in the building fighting over a parking spot again. But when I heard shouting in Hebrew and the neighbor screaming, and when I felt my room shaking from the blows to the door, I realized it was serious — another terrible incursion by black-clad, masked invaders.I leapt out of bed in a panic, opened the door and was faced with around 20 masked riot police, armed with assault rifles and terrifying expressions. I was scared to death. One of them asked me, in Arabic: “What’s your name?” Using my most Ashkenazi accent, I responded: “My name is Sulimmm… Suliman. Who are you looking for, sir?”He fixed his eyes on me intimidatingly, and asked whether I know someone by the name of Mohammed (the officer mentioned a family name as well, although I’ve forgotten it). I answered cautiously, “Sir, I’m new to the area, I don’t know anyone in the neighborhood or even in the building, and I don’t speak to anyone.” I tried talking without an Arabic accent and emphasized certain consonants, so that he would know I speak Hebrew well.Unfortunately, my answers didn’t convince anyone. The masked cop invited himself into my apartment, pushed me against the wall and glanced toward my room. Two more officers accompanied him and asked me for my ID, as if it weren’t enough that I have to identify myself to them every day at the checkpoint.I showed them my identity card and prayed to God that they’d leave. One of them scrutinized me to make sure that I was indeed the person on the identity card, then gave it back to me. I have no idea how he came to the conclusion that it was me, given that it was the middle of the night, I’d just been asleep, and looked somewhat like The Joker from “The Dark Knight.”Eventually they left and continued on their way to intimidate the neighbors. I’ve actually gotten used to these monthly invasions, but this time it was different. It was so serious that I was afraid I’d lose control and react to the humiliation, which in turn brought the terrifying thought that protesting even a little would lead them to put a bullet in my head and tell the world that I had tried to snatch one of their weapons. Who knows? Anything is possible in this country.

Source: How I dealt with masked men with guns pounding on my door | +972 Magazine