Saturday, October 21, 2017

This Won't Be The Last Time Something Like This Is Reported.


Transgender woman convicted of sexually assaulting 10-year-old girl in bathroom



Transgender woman convicted of sexually assaulting 10-year-old girl in bathroom
Miguel Martinez, who identifies as a woman and goes by the first name Michelle, assaulted a 10-year-old girl inside a residential bathroom. Martinez faces up to 70 years in prison. Martinez was described as a family friend of the victim. (Natrona County Sheriff's Department)



A Wyoming jury convicted Miguel Martinez, a transgender woman, Thursday of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl inside a bathroom.

What happened?

Martinez, who identifies as a woman and goes by the first name Michelle, assaulted the girl inside a residential bathroom, according to the Billings Gazette.
The girl was invited into the bathroom on March 23 by Martinez, who touched the girl’s breasts and genitalia before penetrating her, according to reports. The Gazette reported that the girl told her mother immediately after the assault, who then reported it to Casper Police Department.
Martinez was described to police as a family friend.
“It hurt inside,” the girl told an officer, according to the New York Post. She also told police that Martinez should go to jail.
The girl was taken to Wyoming Medical Center where nurses completed a sexual assault exam. The exam showed redness and abrasions on the girl’s genitalia.

What was Martinez’s response?

Martinez pleaded not guilty to both counts.
Martinez also accused the girl of “talking crap” and characterized the allegations as a “publicity stunt” before shutting down the interview with police, the Casper Star Tribune reported.

What’s the possible sentence?

Martinez, who was found guilty of first-degree and second-degree sexual abuse of a minor, faces up to 70 years in prison. He will be sentenced at a later date.

Any previous charges?

The Casper Star Tribune reported in 2014 that Martinez was accused of beating her boyfriend with a metal broomstick and was charged with aggravated assault. Martinez pleaded guilty to domestic battery, Casper Police said.

Freedom Of Speech Disappears In Germany.

  • Germany has made no secret of its desire to see its new law copied by the rest of the EU.
  • When employees of social media companies are appointed as the state's private thought police and given the power to shape the form of current political and cultural discourse by deciding who shall be allowed to speak and what to say, and who shall be shut down, free speech becomes nothing more than a fairy tale. Or is that perhaps the point?
  • Perhaps fighting "Islamophobia" is now a higher priority than fighting terrorism?
A new German law introducing state censorship on social media platforms came into effect on October 1, 2017. The new law requires social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, to censor their users on behalf of the German state. Social media companies are obliged to delete or block any online "criminal offenses" such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint -- regardless of whether or the content is accurate or not. Social media companies receive seven days for more complicated cases. If they fail to do so, the German government can fine them up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law.
This state censorship makes free speech subject to the arbitrary decisions of corporate entities that are likely to censor more than absolutely necessary, rather than risk a crushing fine. When employees of social media companies are appointed as the state's private thought police and given the power to shape the form of current political and cultural discourse by deciding who shall be allowed to speak and what to say, and who shall be shut down, free speech becomes nothing more than a fairy tale. Or is that perhaps the point?
Meanwhile, the district court in Munich recently sentenced a German journalist, Michael Stürzenberger, to six months in jail for posting on his Facebook page a historical photo of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, shaking the hand of a senior Nazi official in Berlin in 1941. The prosecution accused Stürzenberger of "inciting hatred towards Islam" and "denigrating Islam" by publishing the photograph. The court found Stürzenberger guilty of "disseminating the propaganda of anti-constitutional organizations". While the mutual admiration that once existed between al-Husseini and German Nazis is an undisputed historical fact, now evidently history is being rewritten by German courts. Stürzenberger has appealed the verdict.

A German court recently sentenced journalist Michael Stürzenberger (pictured) to six months in jail for posting on his Facebook page a historical photo of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, shaking the hand of a Nazi official in Berlin, in 1941. The prosecution accused Stürzenberger of "inciting hatred towards Islam" and "denigrating Islam" by publishing the photograph. (Image Source: PI News video screenshot)

Germany has made no secret of its desire to see its new law copied by the rest of the EU, which already has a similar code of conduct for social media giants. The EU Justice Commissioner, Vera Jourova, recently said she might be willing to legislate in the future if the voluntary code of conduct does not produce the desired results. She said, however, that the voluntary code was working "relatively" well, with Facebook removing 66.5% of the material they had been notified was "hateful" between December and May this year. Twitter removed 37.4%, and YouTube took action on 66% of the notifications from users.
While purportedly concerned about online "hate speech," one EU organization, the EU Parliament, had no qualms about letting its premises be used to host a convicted Arab terrorist, Leila Khaled, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) at a conference about "The Role of Women in the Palestinian Popular Struggle" in September. (The EU, the US, Canada, and Australia, have all designated the PFLP a terrorist organization). The conference was organized by, among others, the Spanish delegation of Izquierda Unida (United Left) as part of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left bloc in the European Parliament.
In the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May also said that she will tell internet firms to tackle extremist content:
"Industry needs to go further and faster in automating the detection and removal of terrorist content online... ultimately it is not just the terrorists themselves who we need to defeat. It is the extremist ideologies that fuel them. It is the ideologies that preach hatred, sow division and undermine our common humanity. We must be far more robust in identifying these ideologies and defeating them -- across all parts of our societies."
Prime Minister May keeps insisting that "these ideologies" are spread "across all parts of our societies" when in reality, virtually all terrorism is Islamic. Meanwhile, her own Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, has refused to ban the political wing of Hezbollah. Hezbollah's hate speech, apparently, is perfectly acceptable to the British authorities. So is that of South African Muslim cleric and hate preacher Ebrahim Bham, who was once an interpreter to the Taliban's head legal advisor. He was allowed to enter the UK to speak in the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, a government building, at the "Palestine Expo" a large Jew-hate event in London in July. Bham is known for quoting Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels and saying that all Jews and Christians are "agents of Satan". Meanwhile, a scholar such as Robert Spencer is banned from entering the UK, supposedly on the grounds that what he reports -- accurately -- is "Islamophobic".
The British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) also recently stated that online "hate crimes" will be prosecuted "with the same robust and proactive approach used with offline offending". The decision to treat online offenses in the same way as offline offenses is expected to increase hate crime prosecutions, already at the highest recorded level ever. Prosecutors completed 15,442 hate crime cases in 2015-16.
Jews in Britain, who have experienced a dramatic increase in anti-Semitism over the past three years, are frequently on the receiving end of hate crimes. Nevertheless, their cases constitute less than a fraction of the statistics. In 2016/17, the CPS prosecuted 14,480 hate crimes. According to the Campaign Against Antisemitism:
"we have yet to see a single year in which more than a couple of dozen anti-Semitic hate crimes were prosecuted. So far in 2017, we are aware of... 21 prosecutions, in 2016 there were 20, and in 2015 there were just 12. So serious are the failures by the CPS to take action that we have had to privately prosecute alleged anti-Semites ourselves and challenge the CPS through judicial review, the first of which we won in March. Last year only 1.9% of hate crime against Jews was prosecuted, signaling to police forces that their effort in investigating hate crimes against Jews might be wasted, and sending the strong message to anti-Semites that they need not fear the law... Each year since 2014 has been a record-breaking year for anti-Semitic crime: between 2014 and 2016, anti-Semitic crime surged by 45%".
Almost one in three British Jews have apparently considered leaving Britain due to anti-Semitism in the past two years.
British authorities seem far more concerned with "Islamophobia" than with the increase in hate crimes against Jews. In fact, the police has teamed up with Transport for London authorities to encourage people to report hate crimes during "National Hate Crime Awareness Week", which runs from October 14-21. Transport for London and the Metropolitan Police will hold more than 200 community events to "reassure communities that London's public transport system is safe for everyone". The events are specifically targeted at Muslims; officers have visited the East London Mosque to encourage reporting hate crimes.
Last year, London mayor Sadiq Khan's Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac) announced it was spending £1,730,726 of taxpayer money policing speech online after applying for a grant from the Home Office. Meanwhile, Khan said that he does not have the funds to monitor the 200 jihadists estimated to be in London, out of the 400 jihadists who have so far returned to the capital from Syria and Iraq. (He also implicitly admitted that he does not know the whereabouts of the jihadists who have returned). When asked by the journalist Piers Morgan why the mayor could not have them monitored, Khan answered:
"Because the Met Police budget, roughly speaking, 15 percent, 20 percent is funded by me, the mayor. The rest comes from central government. If the Met Police is being shrunk and reduced, they've got to prioritize and use their resources in a sensible, savvy way."
When Morgan asked what could possibly be a bigger priority than, "people coming back from a Syrian battlefield with intent to harm British citizens", Khan did not answer. Perhaps because it is hard to admit in public that fighting "Islamophobia" is now a higher priority than fighting terrorism?
Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.
© 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Friday, October 20, 2017

The Newsmedia Again Fails To Make The Story Stick

SHOCK POLL Almost Half Of Voters

 Think The Media Fabricates Trump

 Stories

  • 10/18/2017 
  • Source: Town Hall
  •  
  • by: Lauretta Brown
681 68 7  878
image: https://structurecms-staging-psyclone.netdna-ssl.com/client_assets/trumptrain/media/picture/59d7/91bb/6970/2d4c/40a7/0300/content_1024px-Angela_Merkel__Jared_Kushner__Donald_Trump_and_Ivanka_Trump__March_2017.jpg?1507299784
SHOCK POLL Almost Half Of Voters Think The Media Fabricates Trump Stories
While President Trump’s frequent claims of fake news are often mocked by
the media, a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll shows that almost half of
U.S. voters, 46 percent, agree that the media literally makes up news stories
 about Trump and the Trump administration.

Only 37 percent of voters think the media does not make up stories about
Trump and 17 percent were undecided on the issue.

A large majority of Republican voters, 76 percent, think the media fabricates
 stories about Trump, while only 11 percent of Republicans don’t think so.
Even 20 percent of Democrats agree that the media makes up stories about
 Trump, however, most Democrats, 65 percent, disagree.

Forty-four percent of independent voters think the media fabricates stories
about Trump, while 31 percent think they do not.

Read more at http://trumptrainnews.com/articles/shock-poll-almost-half-of-voters-think-the-media-fabricates-trump-stories#1kB4yeA6AdIVswd4.99

As Long As The Money Kept Rolling In, Dems Ignored Weinstein.


Bombshell: Longtime Clinton Friend Admits ‘Warning’ Top-Level Democrats About Weinstein


Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the creator of the iconic 90s sitcomDesigning Women and a close friend for decades of Bill and Hillary Clinton, admits that she not only knew of producer Harvey Weinstein’s predations, but that she warned “top-level” Democrats about him.

Buried deep within a Hollywood Reporter guest column, Bloodworth-Thomason drops this bombshell (with a deflecting shot at Fox News): “I confess to having had no problem warning at least three top-level Democratic operatives against allowing Harvey Weinstein to host political fundraisers. A warning that evidently (and to the glee of Fox News) fell on deaf ears.”
She also says she was a member of “a ‘Let’s Bring Harvey Weinstein Down’ lunch club” and appears to express some disbelief towards those who, “despite knowing him for decades,” now “announce they had no idea what was going on.”
To this, she writes, “OK. Whatever.”
If Bloodworth-Thomason knew about Weinstein’s alleged predations and warned top-level Democrats, how difficult is it to add two and two to come up with the Clintons and the Democrat Party knew?
Certainly, and we have no reason to doubt Bloodworth-Thomason, at least three top-level Democrats knew, and did nothing to stop Weinstein from becoming a major player and fundraiser within the Party.
Talk about a War on Women.
For the Clintons and the Democrat Party, Harvey Weinstein was a rainmaker. Over the years, he not only personally contributes somewhere around a million dollars to various Democrats, including the Clintons and President Obama, his bundling and fundraising raised, by some estimates, tens of millions of dollars.
Moreover, these high-level political connections undoubtedly helped to shield him for all of these years.
Bloodworth-Thomason is also open about why high-powered men remain protected. She admits her feminism was tested by Bill Clinton’s behavior when she was on the frontlines defending him in the 1990s:
However, I will be the first to admit that clearly delineated moral choices can still be painfully complex where friendship is involved. One of the best friends I will ever have and a man I love dearly, former President Bill Clinton, has certainly taxed my feminist conscience, but always without diminishing my affection. I even helped write his apology to the nation for his own sexual misconduct, was sitting next to him when he delivered it, and believe to this day it was based on something that was none of our business. And yes, some may call it hypocritical[.]
There is also an ominous moment in the column, an admission that “these kinds of atrocities against women routinely go unreported and unpunished in the entertainment industry.”
Maybe in her next column, Bloodworth-Thomason will feel comfortable enough to tell us who these monsters are.
She writes, “Change is coming. There is a new feeling in the air.”
But until women like Bloodworth-Thomason can work in a Hollywood that feels safe enough to point to and say the names of these monsters, nothing will change.

Just Like Smoking, Gun Control Starts With "Reasonable" Accomodations

They’re going to need more prisons

Two bills introduced in the House of Representatives are going to, if passed, necessitate the building of more and bigger prisons because they will automatically make criminals out of millions of Americans.
The bills are H.R. 3999 (aka bump stock ban) and H.R. 4052 (aka large capacity magazine ban). Both are kneejerk reactions to the Las Vegas music festival shooting that is purported to have left 58 dead and more than 500 injured.
I warned you last week that more and stronger attempts to steal your guns were coming and explained “Why governments want gun control.” Of course it’s not to “keep you safe,” as politicians always claim. It is to turn you into slaves. Politicians believe that only the state has a monopoly on legitimate violence.
H.R. 3999 was introduced by Florida Republican Carlos Curbelo and he has lined up nine Republican co-sponsors and 10 Democrat co-sponsors.
“For the first time in decades, there is growing bipartisan consensus for sensible gun policy, a polarizing issue that has deeply divided Republicans and Democrats,” Curbelo said. “This common-sense legislation will ban devices that blatantly circumvent already existing law without restricting Second Amendment rights. I’m proud to join Representative Moulton to lead our colleagues in this important first step to address gun violence in our country and show that Congress is capable of working constructively in a bipartisan way to make Americans safer.”
Anytime a politician tells you that legislation is “common-sense” you need to hold onto your butt. You know that what he’s doing is knocking one more liberty brick from the foundation.
The legislation is typically vaguely worded and seeks to ban “the manufacture, possession, or transfer of any part or combination of parts that is designed and functions to increase the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle but does not convert the semiautomatic rifle into a machine gun.”
This broad language would criminalize basic parts of the trigger mechanism for every semiautomatic rifle, as the sole purpose of those parts is to “increase the rate of fire” of the rifle. And everyone with a trigger finger would likewise become criminals, as these guns will fire as fast as the finger will work and the more training one has the more rapidly he is able to shoot. And “bump fire” is an achievable technique through practice without the aid of a bump stock, and even such mundane things as rubber bands and belt loops can be employed to increase the rate of fire.
Among the devices that would be banned are those used by competitive shooters like lighter pull triggers, hammer drops and polished bolts.
After initially ceding ground on bump stocks and saying that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives should revisit the legality of them, the NRA has backtracked somewhat and opposes this bill – likely because of pressure from its members who see it as capitulation and surrender to the gun grabbers. Gun Owners of America vehemently opposed a bump stock ban by any means, rightfully seeing it as an easy win and unnecessary capitulation to the anti-gun crowd.
H.R. 4052 bans the transfer or possession of “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.” These devices are defined as “a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition.”
While it grandfathers in large capacity magazines purchased before the bill becomes law, it makes it a criminal offense to transfer that device to anyone, making it impossible for anyone to dispose of them if they wanted to.
Both bills carry penalties of 10 years in prison and fines.
There aren’t enough prisons in the world to hold the people who suddenly become criminals at the stroke of a pen.
Authoritarianism or criminal government can never feel secure from fear as long as millions of people own guns. Likewise, when the people have no arms, they have no security and no hope of security.
Disarmament first comes by words and psychological warfare. Hence the attack on guns whenever people are weakened by mass murder events.

Will France Have The Guts To Fight Radical Islam Or Will It Capitulate?

  • "They are those who believe that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and love and do not want to hear about an Islam of war, intolerance and hatred". — Michel Onfray, Le Figaro.
  • Le Figaro just devoted an entire issue to Muslim women in France who are trying to fight radical Islam. They are journalists, activists and writers who want equality between men and women, freedom of expression and sexual freedom. These Muslims clearly care more about the French Enlightenment than many non-Muslims who advocate appeasing Islamists.
  • In short, France needs to start fostering its side of this cultural war. Even if it is too late to recover all of the lost ground, if France does not start immediately but just limits itself to "manage" this "state of emergency", the lights turned off will not be only those of the Eiffel Tower, as happens after every terror attack, but also the lights of one of the greatest civilizations that history ever gave us.
A few days ago Abdelkader Merah, the brother of the Islamic terrorist who gunned down four Jews in Toulouse in 2012, went on trial, charged with complicity in terrorism. "Beginning in 2012, we entered an age of terrorism, where before we believed ourselves protected; it was a turning point in French history", said Mathieu Guidere, a professor of Islamic studies in Paris.
Since then, France has faced severe challenges by Islamic fundamentalists in Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron is now trying to manage a terrible situation: some 350 Islamic terrorists currently sit in prisons; 5,800 are under police surveillance; an additional 17,000 have been classified as a "potential threat", while since 2015, more than 240 lives have been lost to jihadi terrorists.
It seems that France has decided to accept what it might see as unavoidable: the Islamic takeover of parts of the country. This view is reflected in the very idea of a "state of emergency". France's lower house of parliament just passed a new anti-terrorism law, taking measures which have been in place for two years under a previous "state of emergency" and enshrining them into law.
After the murderous January of 2015 attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Macron's predecessor, President François Hollande, officially declared that "France is at war". Until now, however, the war has been fought only on one side, by the Islamic fundamentalists.
Although some scholars, such as Gilles Kepel, estimate that a "civil war" could break out in the future, there is a more realistic scenario: a country split along demographic and religious lines -- the secular French republic vs. the Islamic enclaves, the "French 100 Molenbeeks", from the name of Brussels' jihadist nest.
France used to be regarded as a jewel of civilization. One of France's great intellectuals, Alain Finkielkraut, recently said: "France has become for me a physical country, since its disappearance has entered into the order of the possibilities". Finkielkraut, a member of French civilization's holiest shrine, the Académie Française, was not thinking about the physical disappearance of French bakeries, boutiques or boulevards; he seemed rather to mean the disappearance of France as the capital of Western culture.
Under the assault of radical Islam, French civilization is eroding from within. And there are now large parts of French culture which are openly adding water to the mill of Islam. These have been just called by Le Figaro, "agents of influence of Islam". Intellectuals, journalists, politicians, those who consider the Muslims "the new oppressed".
The French essayist Michel Onfray recently called them "the new collaborators", like the French who stood with the Nazis:
"They are those who believe that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and love and do not want to hear about an Islam of war, intolerance and hatred... The collaborator wants to see only the first [type of] Islam by believing that the second has nothing to do with Islam. These collaborators are the Islamo-leftists".
And they are winning the cultural war.
How can France prevent an Islamic takeover of parts of the country with fatal metastases for the entire European continent? "In order to disarm terrorists, we must disarm consciences", Damien Le Guay just wrote in a new book, entitled La guerre civile qui vient est déjà là ("The Coming Civil War Is Here Already").
France needs to stop talking with "non-violent Islamists", such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and instead to speak with the true liberal reformers, the internal dissidents of Islam. The daily newspaper Le Figaro recently devoted an entire issue to Muslim women in France who are trying to fight radical Islam. They are journalists, activists and writers who want equality between men and women, freedom of expression and sexual freedom. These Muslims clearly care more about the French Enlightenment than many non-Muslims who advocate appeasing Islamists.
France also needs to close its borders to mass immigration and select new arrivals on the basis of their willingness to retain the present culture of France, and to abandon multiculturalism in favor of respect for a plurality of faiths in the public space. That means rethinking the phony French secularism, which is aggressive against Catholicism but weak and passive with Islam.
France needs to close the Salafist mosques and ban the preaching of radical imams who incite Muslim communities against the "infidels" and urge Muslims to separate from the rest of the population.
France needs to prevent the arrival of propaganda from the dictatorial regimes of the Middle East: their mosques, satellite channels, pamphlets, libraries and books.
France needs ban polygamy; Islamic law, sharia; female genital mutilation (FGM); Islamic supremacism and forced marriages.
France needs to tighten its alliance with Israel, the one outpost of Western culture in a region that has rejected it. Israel is the West's only true ally in an area that is collapsing under the weight of radical Islam.
France needs to protect and renovate its Christian treasures. A few weeks ago, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris promoted a fundraising project to save the building from decaying. The French authorities need to play their part and not forsake France's Christian heritage. France needs to send Islamists the message that France is a secular country, but not a de-Christianized one.
France needs to protect its Jewish community, which in ten years has lost 40,000 people who fled the country as a result of anti-Semitism met with indifference.
France needs to strengthen Western culture at schools, museums, universities and publishing houses: Enlightenment, as the foundation of freedom of conscience, expression and religion, separation of religion and state; and the Judeo-Christian tradition as the root of all the great achievements of European culture.
France needs to demand reciprocity. The right to build a mosque in France should be linked to the right of Christians in the Middle East to practice their faith: a mosque for a church. France has the political and diplomatic connections in North Africa and Middle East to impose this reciprocity. What is lacking is any political will.
In short, France needs to start fostering its side of this cultural war. Even if it is too late to recover all of the lost ground, if France does not start immediately but just limits itself to "manage" this "state of emergency", the lights turned off will not be only those of the Eiffel Tower, as happens after every terror attack, but also the lights of one of the greatest civilizations that history ever gave us.

(Image source: Falcon® Photography/Wikimedia Commons)

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
© 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.