Tuesday, May 14, 2024

EU tightening migration and asylum policies

EU gives final approval to migration and asylum reform plan

5 hours ago

After years of debate, the EU is introducing new migration and asylum rules that include tougher borders and shared responsibility among the bloc's members.

Economy ministers from the European Union's 27 countries gave the final green light on Tuesday to an overhaul of the bloc's migration and asylum policies

The plan seeks tougher borders and shared responsibility for asylum seekers among the EU's members. 

The final approval comes shortly before the European Parliament election, with migration seen as a major topic. 

Which countries backed the EU migration reform?

The pact, comprised of 10 pieces of legislation, was backed by a majority of the bloc's countries despite opposition from Hungary and Poland. The new rules come into effect from 2026. 

"These new rules will make the European asylum system more effective and increase solidarity between member states," said Belgian Asylum and Migration Minister Nicole de Moor, whose country currently holds the EU presidency.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the reform still helps people fleeing persecution, while making "clear that those who do not need this protection cannot come to Germany or must leave Germany much more quickly." 

Opponents of the pact have said it aims at keeping people out and infringes on their right to claim asylum. It has also raised fears that the EU would have to make more unscrupulous deals with countries that people leave or cross to get to Europe.

Irrational compassion accepts violence

Times Square tourist mom, 36, stabbed by maniac was leading school trip to NYC: ‘Don’t feel safe there’


https://nypost.com/2024/05/13/us-news/times-square-tourist-mom-stabbed-by-maniac-was-chaperoning-school-girls/

The tourist mom stabbed in the chest by a knife-wielding maniac in Times Square in broad daylight Saturday was chaperoning a group of schoolgirls on a class trip when she was attacked — and her family has no plans to visit the city again.

“We don’t feel safe there,” the victim’s husband, John Lohr, told The Post.

His wife, 36-year-old mother of five Amber Lohr from western Pennsylvania, was guiding the students near Times Square when 61-year-old Cyril Destin allegedly lashed out in a totally unprovoked attack.

Cyril Destin, 61, stood up and randomly plunged a knife into the chest of Amber Lohr, 36, as she walked by, according to reports. Obtained by NY Post

Destin, who has 14 arrests to his name over the last 20 years, was sitting outside a deli at Eight Avenue and 43rd Street, when he suddenly leaped to his feet and plunged a knife into Amber’s chest as she, her daughter and the kids left a souvenir shop.

“A guy with a very lengthy record went out of nowhere and attacked my wife by stabbing her into the chest and within inches of her life being lost,” the husband said.

Despite being so severely wounded that blood started darkening the thick sweatshirt she was wearing, Amber kept her cool and thought first to protect her students — and her husband thinks she is a “hero” for doing so.

“My wife not only had taken the stabbing but should also be considered a hero by remaining in front of the children, coaching them to go backwards without turning around,” John said.

Only after making sure her students were safe did Amber tell anybody she’d been stabbed, and a bystander ran for help.

“Whomever she was, ‘Thank you,'” John said, adding that he wanted to also thank the “strong and fearless” girls his wife was chaperoning for keeping their composure and helping, despite being “scared out of their minds.”

Lohr was chaperoning a group of schoolgirls on an NYC class trip when she was attacked. New York Post

Before being taken to Bellevue for stab wounds, Amber was treated on the sidewalk while her attacker was arrested. Surveillance video shows he was still holding the knife when cops arrived.

“This man could have murdered my wife or even worse, one of the children she was chaperoning,” the husband said. 

“To think I could have been planning a funeral rather celebrating my wife on Mother’s Day is sickening to me.”


Destin — who lives in a shelter across the street from the site of the attack — was charged with second-degree assault, along with fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

He has a rap sheet going back two decades, which includes arrests for menacing, trespass, and theft, among other charges, according to sources.

Destin has a long history of mental illness and arrests, and is known for erratic and destructive behavior. Obtained by NY Post

He also has a history of erratic and destructive behavior, and hallucinations, sources said.

The Lohrs want Destin put away for a long time — and warned that if he isn’t, the next victim might not be as lucky as Amber.

“This man will strike again and maybe the next person may not be as fortunate,” John said.

“I will not accept anything but the max sentence for him,” he added. “This man doesn’t only need to be jailed but institutionalized permanently following his well-deserved lengthy sentencing.”

Racial privilege?


Teen accused of firing 26 shots from AR-15 at car is released on bail by ‘woke’ judge


The left wants you poor, cold and subservient

Nolte: Leftist Washington Post Demands We Take Cold Showers to Save Planet

The hypocritical lunatics at the far-left Washington Post are demanding we do something they never would — take cold showers to save Mother Earth.

When I first saw the headline for this anti-science piece of nonsense—“Why you should embrace using cold water, almost all the time” — I assumed the Post would stick to things like dishwashers and washing machines. No way would they demand we take cold showers, I foolishly assumed. That would be a ridiculous request, a bridge too far, a way to get laughed off the planet.

Brother, was I wrong.

But I should’ve known better. After all, one of the left’s tactics is to bludgeon us with their extremism to keep us off guard. Here is the latest example of that, and while you read this, keep in mind that we are only three years out of a pandemic that took up to a million American lives [emphasis added]:

Showering accounts for roughly 17 percent of the water Americans use in their homes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Your steamy showers also consume energy: Nearly half of a home’s hot water is used for bathing.

cold shower not only uses less energy than a hot one, but it also saves water because you don’t have run the tap while you wait for it to heat up, said Jennifer Amann, senior fellow in the buildings program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit group. You should also rethink washing your hands with hot or warm water for the same reason, she added.

The Post demanding we use cold water to rinse our dishes, only proves that no one at the Post has ever done their own dishes—which is why they love their illegal aliens so much.

The Post also demands we use cold water to do our laundry.

Trust me on this…

The liars and conspiracy theorists at the Post want you and me to live like eighth-century savages but have no intention of doing the same. While we’re guilted and then regulated into cold showers, cold dishwater, no air conditioning, and mass transit, these elite hypocrites will continue to enjoy their hot showers, their air conditioning, and their private jets.

Don’t be fooled…

Like air conditioning, hot water is one of mankind’s greatest inventions. It’s not just about the luxury of it; it’s about the vital importance of cleanliness. Hot water cleans and disinfects a helluva lot better than cold water. It also helps stop the spread of infection, germs, and viruses.

It’s the same with single-use plastic. The enviro-loons hate single-use plastic (water bottles, straws, etc.), but those things create a much healthier society.

Me? I’m reasonable on this issue, not because I’m a climate alarmist who believes the world is ending, but because I like to save money. Most of the laundry is done with cold or cool water. My water heater is set low enough so you can shower and do dishes without adding any cold water. But…

Take cold showers? You first, Washington Post.

And they will not. They will only ever ask others to do it and laugh at those gullible enough to fall for this nonsense.

John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook

Illegal immigrant crime surge

Illegal Immigration Overload: Border Town’s Criminal Prosecutions Explode by 5,000% on Biden’s Watch


Eygpt black aid to the Palestinians because they don't care

Egypt's Duplicity, the World's Silence


  • "A one-hundred-dollar bill does wonders with an Egyptian police officer at a Sinai roadblock who intercepts a truck packed with 'pipes.'" — Efraim Inbar and Mordechai Kedar, BESA Center, January 22, 2009.

  • This is just another example of how, when Palestinians become victims of oppressive measures taken against them by their Arab brothers, the world does not care a bit. About a decade ago, when Egypt demolished dozens of houses and buildings in Rafah as part of a campaign to combat terrorism, no one said a word against the Egyptians -- or even bothered to look.

  • If the Egyptians actually cared about the Palestinians, instead of blocking the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, they could easily coordinate with Israel though alternative border crossings such as the nearby Kerem Shalom terminal.

  • Evidently the Egyptians would rather see the Gazans starve; then, the international community, as usual, would hold only Israel responsible.

  • That is the real problem: Where is the demand from the international community for Egypt to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip? Where are social media posts, the US college campus protests, and the op-eds condemning Egypt for deliberately withholding aid from Gaza's Palestinians?

  • Why doesn't the Biden administration pressure Egypt, and not just Israel, to allow aid to enter Gaza for the Palestinians?

  • Egypt has, in fact, been imposing a blockade on the Gaza Strip for the past 15 years.... Where are the protestors calling to stop the billions in aid to Egypt? They do not, of course, exist. The protests were never about helping Palestinians. They were always only about attacking Jews.

  • This is the same Egypt that been displacing thousands of Palestinians from Rafah after demolishing their homes and is now blocking aid to the Palestinians, that has piously decided to join the South African case against Israel at the ICJ.

  • Now that Israel is attempting to dismantle a terrorist group whose primary objective is the elimination of Israel, the Biden administration and many in the international community suddenly claim they are "outraged."

  • If they really want to help the Palestinians, they could begin by filing cases against Egypt and the Arab states in the region that, for many decades, have turned their backs on the Palestinians and paid billions to their governments to keep on mistreating them.

If the Egyptians actually cared about the Palestinians, instead of blocking the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, they could easily coordinate with Israel though alternative border crossings. Evidently the Egyptians would rather see the Gazans starve; then, the international community, as usual, would hold only Israel responsible. Pictured: Egyptian army soldiers stand guard at the Rafah crossing on Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip on October 20, 2023. (Photo by Ali Moustafa/AFP via Getty Images)

On May 12, Egypt announced that it will support South Africa's case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Israel is accused of "genocide" for defending its citizens against Hamas's murderers and rapists who invaded Israeli communities on October 7, 2023. The announcement came in response to the ongoing Israeli military operation against Hamas terrorists and bases, especially in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

If the South Africans had any decency, they would not only call out the Egyptians for being hypocrites and liars, they would also file a case with the ICJ against Egypt for its role in transforming the Gaza Strip into a weapons depot and continuing to deprive the Palestinians there of humanitarian aid.

Last week, Egypt refused to coordinate with Israel on the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip from the Rafah border crossing ostensibly due to Israel's "unacceptable escalation," reported Egypt's state-affiliated Alqahera News satellite TV. The official also said that Egypt held Israel responsible for the deterioration of the situation in the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptians are, in reality, upset because Israeli forces on May 7 seized the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

For the past 15 years, the Palestinian side of the terminal was controlled by Hamas and profitably used by both sides to smuggle weapons and terrorists.

Over the past few decades, Egypt, for considerable remuneration, has allowed the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip from its territory.

"The expectation that Egypt will put an end to the traffic in the tunnels under the Egyptian-Gaza border is not realistic – for strategic, political and domestic reasons," according to a report by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

The report, although published in 2009, remains as relevant as ever:

"At the strategic level, Egypt sees Israel as a competitor in the quest for hegemony in the Middle East, and has for years turned a blind eye to the arming of Hamas via the tunnels. Simply put, it had, and still has, an interest in bleeding Israel...

"The two-faced policy being pursued by the Mubarak administration also serves a useful purpose in domestic Egyptian politics. In contrast to Europeans and other foreigners, Egyptian citizens easily recognize and comprehend their government's double-dealing. Everybody in Cairo understands that the government is facilitating the arming of Hamas; and turning a blind eye to the tunnels weakens the argument of the Islamic opposition that the government is cooperating with the Zionists. Moreover, curbing the traffic in the tunnels would worsen the economic situation in Gaza. Pictures of suffering in Gaza or of Palestinians climbing the fences to get into Egypt only help the Islamist opposition.

"Finally, Egypt's double game is also result of a complex reality in the Sinai Peninsula. As with other Third World states, the Egyptian government is not fully in control of its territory. Thus, an international agreement on ending arms smuggling from Sinai into Gaza will face considerable problems of implementation, even if the Egyptian regime wants it to happen.

"Notably, most of the smuggling into Gaza is led by Egyptian Bedouins who live in the northern Sinai. These tribes do not speak Egyptian Arabic, they are not really an integral part of Egyptian culture and society, and they do not subscribe to Egyptian political ethos. They make a living by smuggling women and drugs to Israel, as well as arms, ammunition, and missiles to the Gaza Strip.

"Egyptian attempts to extend law and order to Bedouin areas have met armed resistance. Every time the Egyptian regime attempts to curtail the Bedouin smuggling activities, they carry out a terrorist attack on a Sinai resort, as has happened in Taba, Sharm el-Sheikh (twice), Nueiba, and Ras al-Satan. Such attacks negatively influence tourism to Egypt, an important source of income, and seem to be an effective way of "convincing" the Cairo authorities to live and let live.

"Bribery, an important element in the Egyptian ways of doing business, also facilitates the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. Low-paid Egyptian officials in Sinai can hardly resist hefty bribes. A one-hundred-dollar bill does wonders with an Egyptian police officer at a Sinai roadblock who intercepts a truck packed with 'pipes.' The likelihood that policemen at Egyptian checkpoints will stop taking bribes from trucks transferring arms to Gaza is very low – unless the Egyptian government decides to heavily punish such behavior. Only execution of smugglers could have a deterring effect, but such a determined Egyptian government behavior is also unlikely."

By turning a blind eye to its widespread smuggling industry, Egypt significantly contributed to transforming the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip into a major base for Islamist terrorism.

If the Egyptians actually cared about the Palestinians, instead of blocking the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, they could easily coordinate with Israel though alternative border crossings such as the nearby Kerem Shalom terminal.

The Egyptians, however, are refusing to send aid to the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. For the past week, the Egyptians have been blocking aid to the Gaza Strip by refusing to coordinate the entry of truckloads through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings.

The Egyptians appear to be playing the "humanitarian aid card" to pressure Israel to stop the war on Hamas. They seem to believe, perhaps correctly, that by blocking the aid to the Palestinians, the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip will escalate and the world will blame Israel, not Hamas or Egypt, for the ongoing suffering of the people there. Evidently the Egyptians would rather see the Gazans starve; then, the international community, as usual, would hold only Israel responsible.

That is the real problem: Where is the demand from the international community for Egypt to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip? Where are social media posts, the US college campus protests, and the op-eds condemning Egypt for deliberately withholding aid from Gaza's Palestinians?

Why doesn't the Biden administration pressure Egypt, and not just Israel, to allow aid to enter Gaza for the Palestinians?

Instead of pressuring Israel in order to avoid targeting Hamas terrorists in Rafah, US President Joe Biden could have already been on the phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to urge him to assist his Palestinian brethren.

The Egyptians' decision to join the South African case against Israel at the ICJ, as well as their decision to block aid to the Palestinians, indicate that they seem nervous about what Israel will uncover regarding weapons smuggling along Egypt's border in the Rafah area.

The Egyptians may reasonably be worried that Israel will discover dozens of the smuggling tunnels that operated for many years under the nose of the Egyptian authorities, and were used to enlarge Hamas's military capabilities in the Gaza Strip.

Where are the self-proclaimed pro-Palestinian protesters at college campuses in the US speaking out negatively about Egypt, which has been actively blocking aid as Israel is trying to get it in?

Egypt has, in fact, been imposing a blockade on the Gaza Strip for the past 15 years. Egypt allows only Gazans who pay exorbitant bribes to enter its territory, and shuts out everyone else, including those who want to flee the Gaza Strip. Where are the social media posts saying "F*** Egypt?" Where are the protestors calling to stop the billions in aid to Egypt?

They do not, of course, exist. The protests are never about helping Palestinians. They are always only about attacking Jews.

Do the anti-Israel protesters on US campuses know that half of the city of Rafah is located inside Egypt? Do they know that the Egyptians have demolished literally thousands of houses on the Egyptian side of the border for "security reasons"?

This is the same Egypt that been displacing thousands of Palestinians from Rafah after demolishing their homes and is now blocking aid to the Palestinians, that has piously decided to join the South African case against Israel at the ICJ.

According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, on October 29, 2014, five days after an Islamist terror group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, attacked a checkpoint near Rafah, Egypt's Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb issued a decree ordering the "eviction and isolation" of a buffer zone extending between five and seven kilometers from the border with Gaza and including all of Rafah.

The HRW report noted:

"Mehleb's decree encompassed a much larger area than government officials had previously described in public statements about home demolitions, which the military had been conducting throughout 2013 and 2014. A map contained in the decree delineated a zone that extended along the entire 13-kilometer border [of Egypt] with Gaza and encompassed roughly 79 square kilometers of Egyptian territory. The [prime minister's] decree ordered that those forced to leave be provided with 'due compensation' and alternative housing [presumably provided by Egypt]."

Between 2013 and 2014, according to HRW, the Egyptian military demolished at least 540 buildings. Most were within 500 meters of the border but some lay beyond a kilometer from the border. Between October 25, 2014, and August 15, 2015, satellite imagery analysis showed that the authorities demolished at least 2,715 additional buildings.

In total, the Egyptian military destroyed at least 3,255 residential, commercial and community buildings, including schools, mosques and hospitals. All of the destroyed buildings showed clear signs of having been deliberately demolished using a combination of heavy machinery and the uncontrolled detonation of high explosives.

The HRW report revealed:

"The start of demolitions began in July 2013, but journalists only began reporting on demolitions that September, describing them as the possible beginning of a buffer zone. Egyptian officials quoted in these media reports claimed that the buffer zone would protect Egypt's national security by preventing Gaza-based armed groups from smuggling fighters and weapons into the Sinai and fueling the insurgency there..."

According to families who spoke with HRW, however, Egyptian authorities did not consult with Rafah residents before issuing the eviction decree on October 29, 2014, and did not give proper notice that residents would be forced to leave. Of 11 families interviewed, only five were warned of the impending eviction. Those families said they were warned by army patrols who told them that they had between 36 and 48 hours to leave. The authorities never handed out a written notice, they said. Six other families said that they received no notice, or heard about the eviction only from the news media or their neighbors.

One resident said that he tried to discuss with a group of neighbors how to organize a group action against the evictions, but another person with connections to the authorities warned him that if they did, they could face arrest and be accused of being terrorists and would lose their chance to receive compensation. Two residents said that they had heard of other residents being arrested on accusations of terrorism.

Um Mohamed, who lived with her three children in a three-story building that belonged to her husband's family, said that she was sitting at a relative's home almost 250 meters from the border on the afternoon of October 27, 2014, when an officer accompanied by 10 soldiers knocked on the door of a neighbor's house.

Um Mohamed said the officer told the elderly woman who answered the door that they would blow up her house the following day. When the old woman responded that her family had been living there for their entire lives, the officer responded: "That's it, there's no time to talk. Move your things from this moment."

Um Mohamed said they told the officer that there was no mobile phone coverage, which the authorities regularly disable as part of their counterinsurgency efforts, and they did not know how they would be able to tell their male relatives to come move their belongings. "Not a problem, we'll blow it up with whatever's inside, you don't have to take a thing," he said.

The elderly woman said a prayer and responded: "You're kicking us out of our homeland."

"Go look for another homeland. I don't want to hear another word. I'll be here tomorrow to blow up the house," the officer said. A few days later, the Egyptian authorities cut the electricity and water supply and the telephone line to the house, Um Mohamed said, and shops in the area closed. Five days later, the army came to say they would demolish her home. Two days later, they did.

This is just another example of how, when Palestinians become victims of oppressive measures taken against them by their Arab brothers, the world does not care a bit. About a decade ago, when Egypt demolished dozens of houses and buildings in Rafah as part of a campaign to combat terrorism, no one said a word against the Egyptians -- or even bothered to look.

Now that Israel is attempting to dismantle a terrorist group whose primary objective is the elimination of Israel, the Biden administration and many in the international community suddenly claim they are "outraged."

If they really want to help the Palestinians, they could begin by filing cases against Egypt and the Arab states in the region that, for many decades, have turned their backs on the Palestinians and paid billions to their governments to keep on mistreating them.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.


Monday, May 13, 2024

UN begins to question Hamas statistics

UN slashes estimate of women and children killed in Gaza by 50 PERCENT

Biden regIme tries to save Hamas

BOMBSHELL: Biden Administration Has Been Hiding Intel on Location of Hamas Leaders in Betrayal of Israel


In spite of video evidence Democrats will lie to you.

Jen Psaki Claims Biden Never Looked At Watch, Suggests Gold Star Parents Lied

Tyler Durden's Photo
BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, MAY 13, 2024 - 08:00 AM

You know it's bad when Axios is calling out Jen Psaki for lying about President Biden checking his watch during a ceremony for soldiers killed during the botched 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.

In her new book, "Say More," the former White House press secretary claims that Biden looked at his watch only after the ceremony had ended, contradicting fact-checks (even Snopes) and on-the-record statements from Gold Star families who were there.



Psaki says Biden critics were engaged in "misinformation" and used the image to make "him appear insensitive, concerned only about how much time had passed."

The Associated Press photographer on the tarmac snapped two photos of Biden looking at his watch twice and 10 minutes apart, as fact-checkers at USA Today and Snopes noted soon afterward. -Axios

Psaki also 'mistakenly cited' a passage from the Washington Post to reinforce her lie - when what she quoted was actually from USA Today's fact check article, not the post. The fact check noted that Biden looked at his watch at the end of the ceremony, but also concluded that "photos and video show [Biden] also checked his watch during the ceremony."

More via Axios:

Many family members of the 13 soldiers killed during the explosion at the Abbey Gate base in Kabul have consistently said in interviews and appearances before Congress that Biden checked his watch as the caskets went by.

  • Mark Schmitz, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, told Congress in August of 2023 that "while I stood there on the tarmac watching you check your watch over and over again, all I wanted to do was shout out, 'It's two f***ing thirty, asshole.' "
  • The day after the ceremony on Aug. 29, 2021, Shana Chappell, the mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, wrote on Facebook: "I watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!! What the f*** was so important that you had to keep looking at your watch????"

Psaki Responds

While initially declining to comment, Psaki told Axios that the "detail in a few lines of the book about the exact number of times he looked at his watch will be removed in future reprints and the ebook," adding "The story on Afghanistan is really about the importance of delivering feedback even when it is difficult told through my own experience of telling President Biden that his own story of loss was not well received by the families who were grieving their sons and daughters."