Who is that Woman Standing Next to You?

Posted on April 3, 2015April 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

How One Philadelphia Woman Tweeted Her Way to Federal Terrorism-Related Charges

April 3, 2015 In the case of one Philadelphia woman with aspirations to join the Islamic State, retweets do equal endorsements.

The Justice Department charged Keonna Thomas, 30, on Friday with “knowingly attempting to provide material support and resources, including herself as personnel, to a designated foreign terrorist organization,” the Islamic State. Starting about two years ago, Thomas—who also went by two aliases, Fatayat Al Khilafah and YoungLioness—allegedly began communicating with known jihadi fighters online and using social media to advocate on the terrorist organization’s behalf.

If convicted, Thomas faces 15 years in prison.

Thomas is the third American woman in two days to be charged with a crime related to terrorism. But whereas the two New York City women charged Thursday were operating in real life, it seems Thomas’s activity online tipped off investigators.

Much of the criminal complaint against Thomas focuses on her Twitter habits, detailing several incriminating tweets and retweets. (All claims are alleged until proven in court.) Here’s a sampling from the indictment:

• On December 17, 2013, Thomas retweeted a message by another user that read ” ‘Happiness is the day of my martyrdom’ – Sheikh Khalid al Husainan.’ ” On January 4, 2014, she tweeted, “Only thing I’m jealous of is when I see the smiles of shuhadda,” which refers to martyrs.

• On January 30, 2014, Thomas retweeted a photograph of an individual carrying an AK-47, with an accompanying message that read: “Sponsor a Mujahid,” a jihadi fighter.

• On April 4, 2014, she posted images of a gun, skull, and flames on Twitter, along with a message: “I need a permanent vacation that can only mean one thing.”

• On June 23, 2014, she tweeted: “When you’re a mujahid, your death becomes a wedding.”

• By December 2014, Thomas’s Twitter rhetoric had escalated, and she had begun to email with a known Islamic State fighter overseas. On December 2, Thomas wrote a message that read: “If we truly knew the realities … we all would be rushing to join our brothers in the front lines pray ALLAH accept us as shuhada,” or martyrs. Four days after, she reposted a photo of a young boy armed with an AK-47. The image was accompanied by a message that read: “And if I were in Shaam,” referring to Syria, “I wouldn’t be pleased till I became soldier of the Islamic State.”

• In February of this year, Thomas applied for a U.S. passport. The same month, she emailed the Islamic State fighter to say that she had deactivated her Twitter account in preparation for her travel to Syria. “[D]on’t want to draw attention of the kuffar [non-believers] and it mess my plans and they take my pass port and i get stuck here.”

In March, Thomas purchased an electronic visa to Turkey, a common transit point for people trying to reach Syria from Europe, but she never made it to either country. She had broken the most important rule of the 21st century. No, not the rule against trying to join an overseas terrorist group that has repeatedly threatened your country and its allies (although that’s really bad). Thomas broke the first tenet of the Internet: Don’t tweet something you wouldn’t want on the front page of The New York Times.

One Generation Until Muslim Population Rules

Posted on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

It is not only about the lack of birthrate versus that of Islamists, it is also about the current genocide going on killing Christians.

Study Projects Growth, Shifts in World’s Muslim, Christian Populations

Pew forecast shows number of Muslims will nearly equal that of Christians world-wide by 2050

The world’s Islamic population is growing so rapidly that by 2050, the number of Muslims will be nearly equal to the number of Christians across the planet—possibly for the first time in history.

The new forecast is part of a sweeping religious-population study released Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center that projects significant demographic shifts across the global religious landscape.

Most major religions—including Christianity—will see their numbers increase. But the exceptional growth of Islam, as well as the rise of those unaffiliated with any religion, is poised to alter historic religious balances across Europe, the U.S. and Africa over the next four decades, the study suggests.

By 2050, the study says, there will be more Muslims than Jews in the U.S.—though both groups will remain small minorities. Researchers note that their count only includes those who identify as Jewish by religion, not those who may consider themselves culturally Jewish but decline to claim it as a religion.

The U.S. will remain a majority Christian nation, though the number of people identifying themselves as Christian is expected to decline from more than three-quarters of the population to two-thirds, the study says. The number of Christians in Europe is expected to decrease by about 100 million people to 454 million.

Christians will remain a large or even the largest group in countries including France, the U.K. and Australia, but they will no longer make up the majority. Many European countries will experience a rise in the number of people unaffiliated with any religion, as well as nearly a doubling of the Muslim share of Europe’s population—to 10% from 5.9%.

The study, based primarily on census and survey data, takes into account the effects of migration, conversion and the ages of religious populations, but “fertility is the single most important factor driving outcomes,” said Conrad Hackett, the study’s demographer.

Muslims have an average of 3.1 children per woman—the highest rate of all religious groups, he said. Christians are second, with 2.7 children per woman. Hindus have 2.4 children per woman, and Jews have an average of 2.3 children per woman.

The projections come as Europe struggles to assimilate its burgeoning Muslim minorities, amid tensions spurred by economic forces and the rise of the terrorist group known as Islamic State.

It also comes as Americans battle over the claims of religious believers who say their rights need protection as society becomes more accepting of gay rights, and as more people in the U.S. turn away from religion.

By 2050, Muslims will make up 30% of the global population, with 2.8 billion adherents, while Christians will comprise 31%, with 2.9 billion followers.

The only other time in history the population figures may have been as close to parity is between the years 1000 and 1600, as Islam expanded and deadly plague ravaged Christian populations in Europe, according to scholars cited in the study.

If population trends continue, Muslims could outnumber Christians by 2100, the study says.

Researchers said that although the Muslim population is expected to increase by more than 70% by 2050, Muslims will still be in the minority in Western Europe and the U.S. Although India will remain a Hindu majority nation, they said, it will also be the country with the largest number of Muslims.

By comparison, Christianity is expected to see an increase of 35% over the same period, enough to hold its current share of the global population as it grows to a projected 9.3 billion from 6.8 billion.

As Islam grows in the U.S. and Europe, Christianity is expected to become more prominent in Africa. By 2050, the Pew study projects, four out of 10 Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Such global shifts may already be visible on a smaller scale.

In the Quad Cities, a cluster of communities straddling Iowa and Illinois, the small, aging Jewish community of about 500 seems to be getting smaller as people die or leave the area, says Allan Ross, the executive director of the Jewish Federation there.

Funerals are too common, he says, and as children—including his son—grow up and move away to larger cities “they don’t come back to work in daddy’s store.”

Meanwhile, Muslim congregations recently built two mosques in the area.

What you Need to Know about BDS

Posted on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

The pro-Palestinian group has satellite factions all over Europe and the United States. Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions formally began in 2001 at the United Nations General Assembly with the Durban NGO Action Plan.

This movement is composed of a relatively small number of full-time, well-financed, anti-Israel activists, who are inspired and encouraged by senior figures in the Palestinian public, including Omar Barghouti, Mustafa Barghouti, Nabil Sha’att, and others. They organize events mostly throughout Europe and in North America, raise funds, and arrange seminars, conferences, and demonstrations in support of isolating and boycotting Israel in every way possible. They claim to enjoy the support of hundreds of Arab, Palestinian, and other non-governmental organizations signatory to their basic documentation. However, upon examination, many of these NGOs appear to be either fictional, non-existent, and even, in some cases, front-organizations for Hamas and other terror groups.
Their mode of operation includes stalking members of the general public on the streets and arranging seminars intended to “brainwash” activists with factually inaccurate, misleading, and false information and accusations regarding Israel. It also includes threats of action against companies, suppliers, stores, academic institutions, as well as performers, unless they disassociate themselves from any Israel-related connection. In many cases this constitutes blatant harassment of the general public, and arbitrary denial of basic rights to freedom of choice, freedom to use public areas in shopping malls and streets, freedom to enter stores, freedom to purchase, freedom to conduct commercial relations, and freedom to choose cultural and artistic events. The BDS campaign thereby abuses democratic rights and freedoms in the social, cultural, commercial, and educational spheres of those countries in which it is conducted.

*** It is working sadly.

Anti-Israel Groups Praise Virginia State Bar for Boycotting Israel

Anti-Israel groups are rallying around the Virginia State Bar after the legal group announced the cancellation of a planned trip to Israel. The support is coming in the form of a letter signed by 40 groups, which are part of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

“We write to commend the Virginia State Bar Association for its decision to cancel its Midyear Legal Seminar in Jerusalem. By cancelling the planned seminar, the Virginia State Bar Association has reaffirmed its commitment to the principles of equality enshrined in U.S. law,” reads the letter addressed to the president of the Virginia State Bar, Kevin E. Martingayle.

In thanking the Virginia State Bar Association, we agree with the sentiments expressed by Representative Keith Ellison in 2013 when he stated, “American citizens deserve to travel without fear of being turned away based on their race, religion, or countries they have visited.”

Israel’s routine discrimination against U.S. citizens entering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory is both well documented and ongoing. In the process of denying entry to U.S. citizens, Israel often subjects them to humiliating searches, intensive interrogations, and invasions of personal privacy, including demanding access to private email accounts.

Those affected by Israel’s policies include teachers, college students, world-renowned university professors, architects, clergy, interfaith delegations, people visiting sick relatives, married couples giving birth, humanitarian workers, human rights monitors, and descendants of signers of the U.S. constitution. In recent years, Israel’s refusal to end its discrimination against U.S. citizens prevented it from entering the Visa Waiver Program and prompted strong condemnations from lawmakers, the administration, and human rights organizations.

In March of 2014, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, “The Department of Homeland Security and State remain concerned with the unequal treatment that Palestinian Americans and other Americans of Middle Eastern origin experience at Israel’s border and checkpoints.”

In 2013, sixteen Members of Congress wrote to then-Israeli Ambassador Oren, saying, “we are concerned that Israeli border officials are disproportionally singling out, detaining, and denying entry to Arab and Muslim Americans.” In their letter, Members of Congress quoted a spokesperson for Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said, “we expect all American citizens to be accorded the rights that any other American citizen would be accorded…there are no second classes.”

As an association that prides itself on diversity and respect for equal rights, members of the Virginia State Bar Association should reasonably expect to have their civil rights upheld in the course of pursuing professional development opportunities. As you referenced in your cancellation notification, one additional issue with the planned seminar was the insufficient number of individuals who had signed-up to attend. In all likelihood, the low participation rate reflected a justifiable reluctance among practicing attorneys to subject themselves to mistreatment based on their race, religion, or political opinions. Had the gathering occurred as planned, some members of Virginia’s esteemed bar would have undoubtedly suffered discrimination and humiliation at the hands of Israeli border officials and possibly been denied entry outright.

Furthermore, given that membership in the Virginia State Bar Association is required for all practicing attorneys in the state, it is incumbent upon the association to avoid activities which may inherently discriminate against its members. Indeed, such action is required under the Virginia Human Rights Act and federal statutes governing discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, and disability.

Again, we commend the Virginia State Bar Association for its commitment to upholding the civil rights of its diverse membership. We look forward to the day when everyone living in Israel/Palestine will enjoy equal treatment under the law regardless of race or religion; and all who desire to visit may do so without fear of discrimination or humiliation.

Sincerely,

American Muslims for Palestine
Christian Peacemaker Teams – Palestine
Friends of Sabeel North America
Institute for Policy Studies – New Internationalism Project
Jewish Voice for Peace
Lutherans for Justice in the Holy Land
Methodist Federation for Social Action
National Lawyers Guild – International Committee
Palestine Solidarity Legal Support
Peace Action
United Methodist Kairos Response
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
US Palestinian Community Network

Local and Regional Organizations:
14 Friends of Palestine
Al-Nakba Awareness Project
Bay Area Women in Black
Birmingham Peace Project
Bryn Mawr Peace Coalition
Cape Codders for Peace and Justice
Carolina Peace Resource Center
Citizens for Justice in the Middle East – Kansas City
Coloradans for Justice in Palestine
Committee for Justice in Palestine at The Ohio State University
Committee for Palestinian Rights
Corvallis-Albany Friends of Middle East Peace
Friends of Palestine – Wisconsin
Hilton Head for Peace
Interfaith Council for Peace in the Middle East
Israel-Palestine Task Force, California Nevada Conference, United Methodist Church
Jewish Voice for Peace – Bay Area Chapter
Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston Chapter
Jewish Voice for Peace – DC Metro Chapter
Jewish Voice for Peace – St. Louis Chapter
Massachusetts Peace Action
MidEast: Just Peace
Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign
Peace for Palestine – West Boston
St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee
Upper New York United Methodist Task Force on Israel Palestine
Vancouver for Peace

Homeland at Risk by Putin’s Nukes?

Posted on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line

A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California’s coast.

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the “West” which was “moving to the borders or Russia”.

He has a conspiracy theory that NATO – a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members – was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America’s vulnerabilities to ensure a “complete destruction of the enemy”.

Conspiracy theory: The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov.

“Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States – a country just disappears,” he said.

“Another vulnerable area of the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault – 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates … a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States.”

He said the Russian geography on the other hand would protect it from a tsunami or a volcano attack. Few people live on the coast in Russia and Siberia which rests on basalt would withstand similar attacks.

Russian target number 2: The San Andreas fault line, here pictured on the Carrizo Plain in California.

Mr Sivkov, who spoke at the 2013 Moscow Economic Forum, said by 2020 to 2025 Russia would have amassed “asymmetric weapons” in its arsenal for the attack.

“The situation for us today is comparably worse than half a century ago,” he said.

“The weakened economic potential in Russia, the loss of the ‘spiritual core of what was the communist idea’, and the lack of large-scale community allies in Europe such as the Warsaw Pact, Russia simply cannot compete against the NATO and its allies.”

In December last year, the vocal military strategist told Russian newspaper, Pravda.ru that there is a “developing standoff between Russia and the West” and the US’s ultimate goal was to “destroy Russia”.

Mr Sivkov accused American politicians of committing several crimes including causing the deaths of 1,200,000 people in Iraq. He believed the only way for the “American elite” to be held accountable was for its military forces to be destroyed.

“American politicians have committed a variety of crimes. Will anyone be held accountable for those crimes? What about the international law, the UN and other organisations? Are they doing anything?” he asked.

Mr Sivkov told Pravda that the idea of the US preparing for a serious war against Russia using cruise missiles was plausible given that it had already launched a thousand missiles in Yugoslavia and Iraq.

*** Putin has issued nuclear weapons threats in several regions.

Russia Threatens Danish Warships With Nuclear Weapons

Danish warships could become targets for Russian nuclear missiles if Denmark joins NATO’s missile defence system, Russia has warned, in comments that have sparked outrage in Copenhagen.

Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, made the comments in an opinion piece published by the Danish national newspaper Jyllands-Posten, on Saturday.

“I don’t think the Danes fully understand the consequences of what will happen if Denmark joins the American-controlled missile defence. If it happens, Danish warships will become targets for Russian atomic missiles,” Vanin wrote.

*** There is more:

Putin threatens nuclear war: Russian leader will take any necessary step to drive Nato out of Baltics and defend Crimea

Vladimir Putin is planning to exploit the threat of nuclear war to force Nato out of countries bordering Russia, it has been claimed.

A secret meeting between intelligence figures in Moscow and Washington reportedly revealed Putin will consider any attempt to return the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine as declaration of war and will take any necessary step – including using nuclear weapons – to retain control of the region.

Notes from the meeting are also said to have revealed that Putin is planning imminent ‘destabilising actions’ in pro-Western Baltic states in a direct challenge to Nato’s promise to defend the countries from Soviet-style Russian expansionism.

These disturbances are thought to likely involve cyber attacks or ramping up local ethnic tensions in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania intended to unsettle the region.

Government Website Stops you From Knowing

Posted on April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 by Denise Simon

The government spends your money, without your knowledge or approval on things you don’t know about or approve of. There was a website that by law you could use to search for spending by keyword or even by zipcode. Not so much as more, due to redesign likely with malice. Perhaps we need to determine what the administration’s definition of ‘transparency’ is this week. Exactly why does the Pentagon need Viagra for anyway?

Obama Admin’s New Spending Website Rolls Back Transparency

Data previously available at click of a button now a needle in a haystack

A redesign of a transparency website that provides information on federal spending by the Obama administration now makes it much more difficult to see how taxpayer dollars are spent.

Usaspending.gov, a website mandated by law to provide detailed information on every federal contract over $3,000, received a makeover on Tuesday. Users can no longer search federal spending by keywords, sort contracts by date, or easily find detailed information on awards, which are delivered in bulk.

Information, such as how much the Pentagon spends on Viagra, used to be available at the click of a button. Locating those same contracts on the new website is virtually impossible, akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

In its previous form, the website provided easy access to how taxpayer dollars are spent, as it happens. A user now must have the federal grant identification number to see details of a contract.

In another aspect of the overhaul, the online address of each of the website’s individual pages now begins with the word “transparency.”

The new version of Usaspending.gov provides a “spending map” to search by zip code, and “agency profiles,” which only provide totals of funding, sub-awards, and transactions. The results list the highest dollar amounts by company, but provide no links to specific contracts.

The list of agencies does not include smaller government bodies such as the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), but does include the “Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.” Results for the profile of “Other Small Agencies” returns zero grants or contracts, with the reply “no data found.”

The public can search by recipient, though those results are also limited. A user must click on every contract to find a short description of what the spending involves.

The new website also does not allow users to search multiple years simultaneously.

“If you select more than one Fiscal Year, you will only be able to select one Spending Type,” the website says. “You can only select a maximum of three Fiscal Years at a time.”

A user can download federal spending data by agency. However, those results—in either Extensible Markup Language (XML) or spreadsheet form—return vast amounts of convoluted data.

Those files are also separated by prime awards, sub-awards, contracts, grants, loans, and “other financial assistance” categories, making it necessary for users to download multiple large files when searching for all agency spending that used to be available at the click of a button.

An advanced search allows a user to see all of an agency’s spending, separated by contract type, though the results are only available alphabetically. A user cannot sort the data by date, making it impossible to see agency spending day to day. One can download the results to sort by date in a spreadsheet, but they include no description of what the contracts are for.

Downloading data on spending by the State Department nearly crashed this reporter’s computer.

Search results are also not indexed on Google, making the website’s search engine the only avenue for citizens and reporters to find information within the site. Microsoft Sharepoint operates the new website’s search, and the results are limited.

For example, a search of “contracts” returned zero results.

The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 required the creation of a website that provided “full disclosure to the public of all entities or organizations receiving federal funds beginning in Fiscal Year (FY) 2007.” The website became Usaspending.gov.

“The purpose of the act is to provide the public with information about how their tax dollars are spent in greater detail in order to build public trust in government and credibility in the professionals who use these dollars,” according to an explanation of the website from the Department of Education.

The website is also designed to “encourage openness and communication about effectiveness,” to “make more data and information available to the public,” and to “increase the transparency of the grant application and award process.”

The Bush administration law mandated a “single searchable website, accessible by the public for free.”

The website must also include the following information on each award of federal spending: “The name of the entity receiving the award; the amount of the award; information on the award including transaction type, funding agency, etc.; the location of the entity receiving the award; and a unique identifier of the entity receiving the award.”

The redesign of the website makes this information much more difficult to locate.

Users reacted negatively to the website’s change on Twitter.

“Wow, the USAspending.gov redesign is not good,” wrote one user. “Basic search is broken, advanced search forces you to use multiple variables…”

“Feds really screwed up USASpending.gov with redesign,” said another. “Less functionality, more constraints, less data (FY2008 now earliest).”

Another user noted that there is now less access to information.

“[In case you missed it] ICYMI USAspending.gov has been redesigned to show far less detailed procurement data,” they said. “‘Improvements’ brought to [you] by the FedGov.”

The website was not perfect prior to its reboot. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Usaspending.gov was missing billions of dollars in federal awards, and the vast majority of federal contracts included errors.

The federal government had purchased the website back from the contractor running Usaspending.gov, Global Computer Enterprises, Inc. last October. GCE, which had operated the website since 2003, declared bankruptcy last year.

The website was previously overseen by the Office of Management and Budget, before the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service took it over in January.

The bureau was tasked with “making improvements to the site’s usability, presentation, and search functionalities” for its re-launch, which went live on Tuesday.

Requests for comment from the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s office of public affairs were not returned.

“This is the most transparent administration in history,” President Barack Obama declared in February 2013, arguing that information on laws and regulations were “put online for everyone to see.”