Category Archives: Insurgency

German migrants ‘despise’ Christians, ‘Islamise’ the country

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SIMMERING HATRED

Refugee camp translator reveals how German migrants ‘despise’ Christians and want to ‘Islamise’ the country

Sun: Eritrean woman, 39, who worked in asylum centres for five years, claims women told her they were having as many kids as possible to ‘destroy’ Germany

A TRANSLATOR at refugee camps in Germany has claimed Muslim migrants hate Christians and want to Islamise the country.

The woman, 39, from Eritrea, came to Germany as a refugee herself in 1991, before volunteering at asylum centres to “give something back”.

A translator at German asylum centres said many Muslim migrants hated Christians (Pictured: Refugee centre in Erding near Munich)

Reuters
A translator at German asylum centres said many Muslim migrants hated Christians (Pictured: Refugee centre in Erding near Munich)

But the Arabic speaker said what she discovered when working with migrants over the last five years shocked her.

During her time at a number of centres across the country, she said she discovered Muslim refugees preaching “pure hatred” of Christians.

Muslim children were told by their parents not to play with Christian kids.

And she herself was told it was a sin for her to help feed and defend Christians.

She told German Catholic website Kath.net: “They want Germany to be Islamised. They despise our country and our values.”

She claimed many of the migrants showed their “true colours” only when they were away from people of other religions.

The translator explained: “Pure hatred against non-believers is preached, and children are brought here from an early age here in Germany.

“It’s very similar in asylum housing, where Muslim boys refuse to play with Christians.

“Some women told me ‘We will multiply our numbers. We must have more children than the Christians because it’s the only way we can destroy them here’.”

She said other translators were a part of the problem, claiming they prevented Christian refugees claiming permanent asylum by failing to tell them they were entitled to have their questionnaire’s translated.

In April of 2016:

Obama PRAISES Merkel for handling of migrant crisis but Germans want her OUT

BARACK OBAMA has praised Angela Merkel for her handling of the escalating EU migrant crisis despite growing cracks in the German chancellor’s power base as her approval ratings plummet over her immigration stance.

Express: During a visit to Hannover, the US president said: “She is on the right side of history on this.

“In this globalised world, it is very difficult for us to simply build walls.”

His remarks come amid an increasingly fractious debate over radical Islamism in Germany, sparked by Mrs Merkel’s ill-fated open door asylum policy.

Shocking opinion polls delivered a crushing blow to the German Chancellor as it was revealed Mrs Merkel’s conservatives lost in two out of three state elections.

Germans appear to be punishing her accommodative refugee policy.

More than 1.1 million migrants entered Germany last year, with most coming from Middle Eastern and North African countries.

But Mrs Merkel’s grip on power is growing ever weaker, with rebellion growing across the country against her controversial immigration policies.

She has consistently berated other EU states for introducing border controls to bring the migrant flow under control, ever since she made a pledge last summer to welcome all Syrians with open arms.

However growing cracks appeared and members of her own movement begin to openly question her stance on immigration following the horrific Cologne sex acts, forcing her to back down.

Trump Plans/Prepares for a 2 Ocean War

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Maybe new keels are soon to be laid and a draft could be in the future of the military.

As for the Army, the numbers are noted below but do not include the other branches of service.

ArmyTimes: Endstrength for March was 479,172 soldiers, which is 154 fewer troopers than were on active duty when the Army halted the post-Cold War drawdown in 1999 with 479,424 soldiers, the smallest force since 1940, when the active component numbered 269,023 soldiers.

Barring unexpected delays, the Army is well-positioned to achieve, or exceed, its budgeted end-strength of 475,000 soldiers by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2016.

Without congressional or Defense Department intervention, the drawdown will continue for two more years, with end strength hitting 460,000 soldiers in 2017, and 450,000 in 2018.

The United States Navy is a powerhouse. The fleet consists of roughly 430 ships in active service or reserve. The vessels run the gamut from the massive Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, which stretches more than 1,000 feet, to the Los Angeles-class submarine that slithers 900 feet below the ocean surface. The graphic below shows all the commissioned and noncommissioned ships of every size as of April 2015. The ships are organized by size, from the humongous aircraft carriers at the top to the smaller ships at the bottom.

2015-u-s-navy-fleet

 

Donald Trump wants to increase America’s military force in the Asia-Pacific

DONALD Trump’s administration has given its strongest indication yet that the United States will increase America’s military force against China.

Rudy Giuliani, the president-elect’s frontrunner for secretary of state, has revealed Mr Trump intends to prioritise building a “gigantic” military force to overthrow China’s ambitions in the Pacific.

Speaking to global business leaders in Washington yesterday, Mr Giuliani said the United States would raise its number of troops to 550,000, instead of shrinking it to 420,000.

He also said they intended to take their navy up to 350 ships, instead of going down to 247. It currently has around 280.

“At 350, China can’t match us in the Pacific. At 247 ships, we can’t fight a two-ocean war; we gave up the Pacific. If you face them with a military that is modern, gigantic, overwhelming and unbelievably good at conventional and asymmetric warfare, they may challenge it, but I doubt it.”

He said the expansion would allow the US to fight a “two-ocean war”.

This presents a more assertive foreign policy than the world ever heard from Mr Trump in the lead-up to election with regards to China.

While the South China Sea remains one of the world’s most tense geopolitical regions, the celebrity billionaire was careful to keep his remarks on it to a minimum in the lead-up to the US election.

Experts have told news.com.au Mr Trump has always been set on building the US’s military presence.

“It’s likely that America will have a lot more military muscle under his presidency,” said Macquarie University Security Studies analyst Adam Lockyer. “While we can’t get ahead of ourselves, much of that will likely go into the Asia-Pacific region, because China’s a major challenger.

“On one hand they’re paying less diplomatic and critical attention to the region, but on the other they’re building more military presence in the region.”

That said, Mr Giuliani’s remarks suggest Mr Trump’s administration will be more hawkish than expected.

It was expected that Mr Trump would retreat from the disputed region, in line with his pledge to prioritise domestic issues and retreat from foreign affairs.

“Trump has a far more isolationist outlook than Clinton or Obama, but at the same time, if he had his own way, he’d be far more focused on domestic policy and domestic security, including things like terrorism and immigration,” Dr Lockyer said.

Judging by this announcement, the Trump administration may take a more hawkish approach after all.

WILL THIS ACTUALLY HAPPEN?

The Trump administration will face significant financial hurdles if it does take on this ambitious military program.

Asia-Pacific security expert Jingdong Yuan from the Centre For International Security Studies told news.com.au said it was achievable. He said Mr Trump will be able to work with the Republican-controlled Congress to do away with the sequester process that automatically cut $500 billion in defence over a decade.

But it could be relatively difficult for the incoming government to direct too much of its financial focus to defence.

“US defence spending as a percentage of GDP and government spending is at a historical low, especially after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Dr Yuan.

“At the same time, entitlement spending, such as social security and medicare cannot be cut, and increase year by year, and federal government deficits of over $18-19 trillion make it difficult to spend more in discretionary areas such as defence.

“So Trump need to find the money to support his ambitious military programs. We will see.”

He also said that neither the United States nor China are being realistic when it comes down to it.

“Beijing and Washington will have to work on their differences while at the same time work together on things they both agree.

“This is a very complex relationship and neither America’s will to remain predominant nor China’s desire for a Sino-centric order in Asia are realistic.

“Indeed, if they both pursue these extreme goals, conflict will become more likely and it will be deeply destabilising for the region — Australia included.”

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN FOR AUSTRALIA?

Defence Industries Minister Christopher Pyne says the planned expansion would create “remarkable opportunities” for Australia’s defence industry.

In a speech to be given at a Submarine Institute of Australia conference today, Mr Pyne will announce that the US expansion could offer a historic opportunity for Australia’s defence industry.

“To give you an understanding of the scale of this increase, it ­includes 50,000 more army troops, 70 new naval warships, 100 air force planes and a dozen new marine battalions,” Mr Pyne will say. “This represents around half a trillion US dollar increase to the US defence budget over the next decade.

“This result could bring with it remarkable opportunities for the Australian defence industry and, thanks to the foresight of the Turnbull government, Australia is well positioned to grasp those opportunities.”

Yesterday, Mr Pyne told The Australian the country will take a “similar focus” to the United States in terms of its defence policy.

“At a time when the US is expanding capability, we are similarly focused. As we have demonstrated throughout the year, the government is putting defence at the very centre of our national policy agenda.”

Mr Giuliani acknowledged the Trump administration hopes to engage with China on economic issues, such as trade.

Yesterday, he told The Wall Street Journal the team wants to reset relations with both China and Russia.

But Mr Trump intends to label China a “currency manipulator” after taking office, which economic analysts say will likely contribute to rising tensions between the two countries.

Chinese media has taken a hostile response to Mr Trump’s more outlandish comments on the country during his campaign.

In May this year, the then-presidential candidate accused China of “raping” the United States economically, and vowed to impose a 45 per cent tariff on Chinese imports.

An article published in the country’s nationalistic newspaper The Global Times this week warned the Chinese government will be forced to “take a tit-for-tat approach” if the president-elect persisted with the trade war.

“If Trump wrecks Sino-US trade, a number of US industries will be impaired. Finally the new president will be condemned for his recklessness, ignorance and incompetence and bear all the consequences.”

This trade war may also present problems for Australia. China and the United States are our first and third largest trading partners respectively, and such an action could trigger a trade war if Beijing were to retaliate, which would directly impact these relationships.

All this said, Dr Yuan says it’s still too soon to panic over what the Trump administration may or may not do.

“The election fog is still here and we need time and information to get more realistic and accurate assessments,” he said.

“I remain cautiously optimistic.”

****

At issue with China is the waterway dispute instigated by China.

 CNN

Sanctuary City Mayors Fight Trump, Gauntlet is Cast

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Current law requires that states and localities must not “prohibit or in any way restrict” their local government officials or employees from sending to or receiving Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) information regarding citizenship or immigration status of any individual.  However, many states and localities across the country have implemented “sanctuary” policies that do exactly that.  In California, a “sanctuary” state, on July 1, 2015, Katie Steinle was shot and killed by Francisco Sanchez, an illegal immigrant with a criminal record who had been released by the San Francisco police prior to the shooting, despite Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) having issued a detainer request to hold Sanchez.

To discourage states and localities from adopting illegal “sanctuary” policies, the House passed the Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act (H.R. 3009), which would eliminate a violating state or locality’s eligibility for funding from the following three federal grant programs:

·         SCAAP program (State Criminal Alien Assistance Program): $185 million funded in FY2015

·         COPS program (Community Oriented Policing Services program): $208 million funded in FY2015

·         Byrne-JAG program (Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program): $376 million funded in FY2015

Sanctuary-City Mayors Gird for Fight as Trump Threatens Budgets

President-elect has $650 billion in federally funded leverage
  • ‘We will do everything we know how to do to resist that’

Bloomberg: Municipalities that protect undocumented immigrants from deportation stand to lose billions in federal aid if President-elect Donald Trump fulfills promises to starve them financially.

More than 200 U.S. ‘sanctuary cities’ won’t turn over people to federal officers seeking to deport them nor share information about them, saying that would rend the social fabric and impede policing. Since Trump’s election last week, mayors including San Francisco’s Ed Lee, New York’s Bill de Blasio and Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel have vowed not to back down.

“I would say to the president-elect, that the idea that you’re going to penalize Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia — these are the economic, cultural and intellectual energy of this country,” Emanuel said in a radio interview this week.

Many cities have calculated that dwindling populations and labor shortages can be ameliorated by immigrants, undocumented or not. The mayors must calculate the point at which resistance harms the communities they’re fighting to protect. The evolving confrontation exposes states’ and cities’ vulnerability to losing some of the $650 billion in federal funds they receive for everything from police to sidewalks as they confront pension obligations and shrinking budgets.

“There’s an economic benefit from being a sanctuary city, but it doesn’t appear to warrant giving up 5 to 10 percent of the city’s funding,” said Dan White, senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Congressional Republicans have been trying for years to use federal dollars as leverage.

A bill this year by Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania defines a “sanctuary jurisdiction” as any that restricts local officials from exchanging information about an individual’s immigration status or complying with Homeland Security requests. The measure would cut off funds including Economic Development Administration Grants, which totaled $238 million last year, and Community Development Block Grants, which amounted to $3 billion last year. Ten of the largest sanctuary jurisdictions were awarded a collective $700 million in block grants in 2016.

Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city after New York and Los Angeles, is particularly vulnerable. Public-employee retirement funds face a $34 billion shortfall, and Emanuel last month proposed a $9.3 billion budget for 2017 that would increase spending to hire and train more police. The spending plan anticipates $1.3 billion in federal grants this year.

“If Chicago were to lose all of its federal funding, that’s a game-changer,” White said.

Deep-Sixing Documents

In Los Angeles, the police chief said that he would continue a policy of not aiding federal deportation efforts, according to the Los Angeles Times. In New York, de Blasio said last week that he would consider destroying a database of undocumented immigrants with city identification cards before handing such records over to the Trump administration.

“We are not going to sacrifice a half-million people who live amongst us,” de Blasio said. “We will do everything we know how to do to resist that.”

New York City will receive $7.7 billion in federal grants in fiscal 2017, just under 10 percent of the city’s $82 billion budget.

In New Haven, Connecticut, the city of 130,000 that’s home to Yale University receives about a quarter of its $523 million budget from various federal grants, said Mayor Toni Harp.

“That would be really very difficult,” Harp said. “We would be willing to take that as far as it needed to go in our judicial system.”

Trump made attacks on sanctuary cities a campaign staple, often invoking the shooting death of Kathryn Steinle by an undocumented immigrant in San Francisco. The shooter had been released from a county jail even though federal officials had asked him to be held until they could deport him.

The incoming president has said he would deport more than 11 million people, beginning with gang members, drug dealers and other criminals. He’s also said he would create a special deportation task force within Immigration and Customs and Enforcement. If that’s the case, local jurisdictions might see even more requests for cooperation.

Many cities say that immigration is a federal responsibility and they should be left out of it. Others say that they simply don’t have the time or resources to address it.

Stretched Force

In New Orleans, which doesn’t consider itself a sanctuary city but whose officers don’t ask about immigration status, the specter of losing federal funds is daunting. Some money the city receives is enough to fund nine police officers, said Zach Butterworth, executive counsel for Mayor Mitch Landrieu and director of federal relations.

”The federal government’s support for local law enforcement has really been slashed significantly already,” Butterworth said. “For them to come down here and say you also need to be doing our job on immigration is a tough sell.”

Others say that singling out undocumented immigrants impedes law enforcement because large populations will shun any interaction with the authorities.

“Essentially, for the police, you’ve got a significant number of undocumented illegals in the country and they’re afraid of the police,” said Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

Lena Graber, special projects attorney at the San Francisco-based Immigrant Legal Resource Center believes Trump will run into legal challenges if he threatens municipal funding.

“The federal government can’t force state and local law enforcement to use their resources to enforce federal regulatory programs like immigration law,” she said. “He can try to offer incentives, but the more that those incentives look like coercion, the more it won’t be legal.”

In Denver, which has a policy of refusing to hold detainees solely on a request by immigration officials, Mayor Michael Hancock said he won’t be cowed.

“This is all legal what we are doing here,” he said. “The president doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally decide how we move forward.”

In Oakland, California, Mayor Libby Schaaf says she is proud to run a sanctuary city, and is planning to recruit even more towns for the movement.

“The best defense is offense,” she said. “There is strength in numbers.”

****

Sanctuary Cities Continue to Obstruct Enforcement, Threaten Public Safety

By Jessica Vaughan
Sanctuary jurisdictions remain a significant public safety problem throughout the country. About 300 jurisdictions have been identified by ICE as having a policy that is non-cooperative and obstructs immigration enforcement (as of September 2015). The number of cities has remained relatively unchanged since our last update in January 2016, as some new sanctuary jurisdictions have been added and few jurisdictions have reversed their sanctuary policies.

Over the 19-month period from January 1, 2014, to September 30, 2015, more than 17,000 detainers were rejected by these jurisdictions. Of these, about 11,800 detainers, or 68 percent, were issued for individuals with a prior criminal history.

According to ICE statistics, since the Obama administration implemented the new Priority Enforcement Program in July 2015 restricting ICE use of detainers, the number of rejected detainers has declined. However, the number of detainers issued by ICE also has declined in 2016, so it is not clear if the new policies are a factor. It is apparent that most of the sanctuary policies remain in place, raising concerns that the Priority Enforcement Program has failed as a response to the sanctuary problem, and has simply resulted in fewer criminal aliens being deported.

The Department of Justice’s Inspector General recently found that some of the sanctuary jurisdictions appear to be violating federal law, and may face debarment from certain federal funding or other consequences.

The sanctuary jurisdictions are listed below. These cities, counties, and states have laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.

A detainer is the primary tool used by ICE to gain custody of criminal aliens for deportation. It is a notice to another law enforcement agency that ICE intends to assume custody of an alien and includes information on the alien’s previous criminal history, immigration violations, and potential threat to public safety or security.

The Center’s last map update reflected listings in an ICE report that was originally published by the Texas Tribune, with a few additions and changes resulting from the Center’s research.

States
California, Connecticut, New Mexico, Colorado

Cities and Counties

Arizona
South Tucson

California (in addition to all counties)
Alameda County
Berkley
Contra Costa County
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles
Monterey County
Napa County
Orange County (Sheriff and Probation Department)
Riverside County
Sacramento County
San Bernardino County
San Diego County
San Francisco County
San Mateo County
Santa Clara County
Santa Cruz County
Sonoma County

Colorado (in addition to all counties)
Arapahoe County
Aurora Detention Center
Boulder County
Denver
Denver County
Fort Collins
Garfield County
Glenwood Springs
Grand County
Jefferson County
Larimer County
Mesa County
Pitkin County
Pueblo County
Routt County
San Miguel County

Connecticut (in addition to state LEAs)
Bridgeport
East Haven
Fairfield County
Hamden
Hartford County
Hartford
Manchester
Meriden
New Haven
New Haven County
New London County
Stamford
Stratford
Tolland County

Florida
Broward County
Hernando County
Hillsborough County
Miami-Dade County
Palm Beach County
Pasco County
Pinellas County

Georgia
Clayton County

Illinois
Champaign County
Chicago
Cook County
Des Plaines
Hanover Park
Hoffman Estates
Northbrook
Palatine

Iowa
Allamakee County
Benton County
Cass County
Clinton County
Delaware County
Dubuque County
Franklin County
Freemont County
Greene County
Ida County
Iowa County
Jefferson County
Johnson County
Linn County
Marion County
Monona County
Montgomery County
Polk County
Pottawattamie County
Sioux County
Story County
Wapello County
Winneshiek County

Kansas
Butler County
Finney County
Harvey County
Johnson County
Sedgwick County
Shawnee County

Kentucky
Campbell County
Franklin County
[Editor’s Note: According to new information provided to the Center by elected Kenton County Jailer Terry W. Carl, Kenton County complies with all ICE detainers and requests and is fully cooperative with ICE.]
Scott County
Woodford County

Louisiana
New Orleans
[Editor’s Note: According to new information provided to the Center, Lafayette Parish now complies with all ICE detainers and requests and is fully cooperative with ICE.]
Orleans Parish

Maine
Portland

Maryland
Baltimore City
Montgomery County
Prince George’s County

Massachusetts
Amherst
Boston
Cambridge
Hampden County
Holyoke
Lawrence
Northhampton
Somerville
Springfield

Minnesota
Bloomington
Brooklyn Park
Hennepin County
Ramsey County

Nebraska
Douglas County
Hall County
Lancaster County
Sarpy County

Nevada
Clark County
Washoe County

New Jersey
Linden
Middlesex County
Newark
Ocean County
Plainfield
Union County

New Mexico (in addition to all counties)
Bernalillo County
Dona Ana County
Luna County
Otero County
Rio Arriba County
San Miguel County
Santa Fe County
Taos County

New York
Franklin County
Nassau County
New York City
Onondaga County
Rensselaer County
Saratoga County
Suffolk County
St. Lawrence County
Wayne County

North Dakota
North Dakota State Penitentiary
South West Multiple County Corrections Center

Oregon
Baker County
Clackamas County
Clatsop, Oregon
Coos County
Crook County
Curry County
Deschutes County
Douglas County
Gilliam County
Grant County
Hood River County
Jackson County
Jefferson County
Josephine County
Lincoln County
Linn County
Malheur County
Marion County
Multnomah County
Oregon State Correctional Institution
Polk County
Sherman County
Springfield Police Department
Tillamook County
Umatilla County
Union County
Wallowa County
Wasco County
Washington County
Wheeler County
Yamhill County

Pennsylvania
Abington
Chester County
Delaware County
Lehigh County
Montgomery County
Philadelphia
Philadelphia County

Rhode Island
Rhode Island Department of Corrections

Texas
Dallas County
Travis County

Virginia
Arlington
Chesterfield County

Washington
Benton County
Chelan County
Clallam County
Clark County
Cowlitz County
Fife City
Franklin County
Jefferson County
Issaquah
Kent
King County
Kitsap County
Lynnwood City
Marysville
Pierce County
Puyallup
Skagit County
Snohomish County
South Correctional Entity (SCORE) Jail, King County
Spokane County
Sunnyside
Thurston County
Walla Walla County
Washington State Corrections
Whatcom County
Yakima County

Washington, DC

Wisconsin
Milwaukee County

Extreme Caution on True Religion, Raids in Germany

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EuroNews: German police have raided 190 sites in 10 states in a massive operation against Salafist activists who have been distributing Korans along with their own propaganda.

The organising group, the TWR True Religion has been banned.

It is thought to have several hundred members, and is believed to have recruited some 140 young people to fight in Syria.

Its leader, the Palestinian-born Ibrahim Abou-Nagie who lived in Germany for 30 years, is now believed to be based in Malaysia and setting up a new group there. Germany tried to prosecute him in 2012, but failed.

The raids were on mosques, offices and private homes, and was the biggest operation of its type since the 2001 shutdown of the Kalifatstaat extremist group.

“With today’s ban we are giving a clear signal. There is no place in our society for radical extremists who are willing to use violence. Here, we are drawing a clear line to also be able to protect the peaceful Islam in Germany,” said Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere.

Germany has banned five other organisations accused of having Islamic extremist-jihadi aspirations since 2012, but De Maiziere stressed the ban was on the group and its propaganda, not the distribution of the Koran in general or translations of it.

**** 

NYT:

Thomas de Maizière, the German interior minister, said the government had banned the True Religion organization, which is also known as Read (as in the instruction to read the Quran), because it acted as a “collecting pool” for would-be Islamist fighters.

Starting on Tuesday morning, officers raided 190 premises in more than half of Germany’s 16 states. Materials were secured, but there were no detentions, Mr. de Maizière said.

“The organization brings Islamic jihadists together under the pretext of the harmless distribution of the Quran,” Mr. de Maizière told reporters in Berlin, stressing that the authorities were acting against the group because of its work to foster violence, not because of its faith. “A systematic curtailment of our rule of law has nothing to do with the alleged freedom of religion,” he said.

The move comes after months of surveillance of the organization, whose bushy-bearded members have become a common sight in pedestrian shopping areas in major German cities. Mr. de Maizière said that 140 of the group’s supporters are known to have traveled to Syria or Iraq to fight on behalf of the Islamic State.

The move comes a week after the authorities arrested five men who were accused of aiding the Islamic State in Germany by recruiting members and providing financial and logistical help.

The True Religion is the sixth Islamist organization to be banned in Germany since 2012, under an effort to ensure domestic security and to prevent radicalized young people from leaving the country to fight for extremists abroad.

Germany has been gripped by a wave of small-scale terrorist attacks this year, including three that were claimed by the Islamic State: the knifing of a policeman in February, an ax attack by a young refugee, and a suicide bombing, both in July. (The only deaths in those assaults were those of the attackers.)

Most of the nearly one million migrants and refugees who arrived in Germany last year were Muslims. Security officials have been concerned that those who become frustrated or disillusioned at the difficulty of starting a new life in Europe could provide fertile ground for radical Islamists seeking to recruit members.

The campaign to hand out the Qurans to passers-by was the idea of Ibrahim Abou-Nagie, a Palestinian who preaches a conservative brand of Islam known as Salafism. German security officials said he was not in Germany at the time of the raids. Mr. de Maizière declined to comment on Mr. Abou-Nagie’s possible whereabouts.

Mr. Abou-Nagie, who has lived in Germany for more than 30 years, has been on the radar of German security officials since 2005, when he set up a website that officials say spreads extremist propaganda. An attempt to prosecute Mr. Abou-Nagie in 2012 on charges of incitement of religious hatred failed.

Even as they are carrying out a sweeping effort to prevent radical Muslims from committing terrorist acts, the German authorities are also working to stop violence by far-right extremists. There was a 42 percent increase in the number of violent acts committed by the far right in 2015, according to the country’s domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

“The aim of the organization was to carry out explosive attacks on shelters for asylum seekers, as well as homes, offices and automobiles of political dissidents,” the prosecutors said in a statement. “Through these actions, the suspects wanted to create an atmosphere of fear and repression.”

Others from the group are already facing charges, including attempted murder, carrying out an explosion and vandalism, over a series of attacks that began in late July 2015 and continued through November of that year. Those assaults involved lobbing explosives at the offices of the Left Party and at a refugee shelter in Freital.

 

Soros 3 Day Secret Huddle in DC Underway

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Full the 3 day agenda is packed full of communists, Marxists and progressives and is found here.

Soros bands with donors to resist Trump, ‘take back power’

Major liberal funders huddle behind closed doors with Pelosi, Warren, Ellison, and union bosses to lick wounds, retrench.

Politico: George Soros and other rich liberals who spent tens of millions of dollars trying to elect Hillary Clinton are gathering in Washington for a three-day, closed door meeting to retool the big-money left to fight back against Donald Trump.

The conference, which kicked off Sunday night at Washington’s pricey Mandarin Oriental hotel, is sponsored by the influential Democracy Alliance donor club, and will include appearances by leaders of most leading unions and liberal groups, as well as darlings of the left such as House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairman Keith Ellison, according to an agenda and other documents obtained by POLITICO.

The meeting is the first major gathering of the institutional left since Trump’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton in last week’s presidential election, and, if the agenda is any indication, liberals plan full-on trench warfare against Trump from Day One. Some sessions deal with gearing up for 2017 and 2018 elections, while others focus on thwarting President-elect Trump’s 100-day plan, which the agenda calls “a terrifying assault on President Obama’s achievements — and our progressive vision for an equitable and just nation.”

Yet the meeting also comes as many liberals are reassessing their approach to politics — and the role of the Democracy Alliance, or DA, as the club is known in Democratic finance circles. The DA, its donors and beneficiary groups over the last decade have had a major hand in shaping the institutions of the left, including by orienting some of its key organizations around Clinton, and by basing their strategy around the idea that minorities and women constituted a so-called “rising American electorate” that could tip elections to Democrats.

That didn’t happen in the presidential election, where Trump won largely on the strength of his support from working-class whites. Additionally, exit polls suggested that issues like fighting climate change and the role of money in politics — which the DA’s beneficiary groups have used to try to turn out voters — didn’t resonate as much with the voters who carried Trump to victory.

“The DA itself should be called into question,” said one Democratic strategist who has been active in the group and is attending the meeting. “You can make a very good case it’s nothing more than a social club for a handful wealthy white donors and labor union officials to drink wine and read memos, as the Democratic Party burns down around them.”

Another liberal operative who has been active in the DA since its founding rejected the notion that the group — or the left, more generally — needed to completely retool its approach to politics.

“We should not learn the wrong lesson from this election,” said the operative, pointing out that Clinton is on track to win the popular vote and that Trump got fewer votes than the last GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney. “We need our people to vote in greater numbers. For that to happen, we need candidates who inspire them to go to the polls on Election Day.”

But Gara LaMarche, the president of the DA, on Sunday evening told donors gathered at the Mandarin for a welcome dinner that some reassessment was in order. According to prepared remarks he provided to POLITICO, he said, “You don’t lose an election you were supposed to win, with so much at stake, without making some big mistakes, in assumptions, strategy and tactics.”

LaMarche added that the reassessment “must take place without recrimination and finger-pointing, whatever frustration and anger some of us feel about our own allies in these efforts,” and he said “It is a process we should not rush, even as we gear up to resist the Trump administration.”

LaMarche emailed the donors last week that the meeting would begin the process of assessing “what steps we will take together to resist the assaults that are coming and take back power, beginning in the states in 2017 and 2018.”

In addition to sessions focusing on protecting Obamacare and other pillars of Obama’s legacy against dismantling by President-elect Trump, the agenda includes panels on rethinking polling and the left’s approach to winning the working-class vote, as well as sessions stressing the importance of channeling cash to state legislative policy battles and races, where Republicans won big victories last week.

Democrats need to invest more in training officials and developing policies in the states, argued Rep. Ellison (D-Minn.) on a Friday afternoon donor conference call, according to someone on the call. The call was organized by a DA-endorsed group called the State Innovation Exchange (or SiX), which Ellison urged the donors to support.

Ellison, who is scheduled to speak on a Monday afternoon panel at the DA meeting on the challenge Democrats face in winning working-class votes, has been a leading liberal voice for a form of economic populism that Trump at times channeled more than Clinton.

As liberals look to rebuild the post-Clinton Democratic Party on a more aggressively liberal bearing, Ellison has emerged as a top candidate to take over the Democratic National Committee, and he figures to be in high demand at the DA meeting. An Ellison spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday evening. Nor did a Trump spokesman.

Raj Goyle, a New York Democratic activist who previously served in the Kansas state legislature and now sits on SiX’s board, argued that many liberal activists and donors are “disconnected from working class voters’ concerns” because they’re cluster in coastal cities. “And that hurt us this election,” said Goyle, who is involved in the DA, and said its donors would do well to steer more cash to groups on the ground in landlocked states. “Progressive donors and organizations need to immediately correct the lack of investment in state and local strategies.”

The Democracy Alliance was launched after the 2004 election by Soros, the late insurance mogul Peter Lewis, and a handful of fellow Democratic mega-donors who had combined to spend tens of millions trying to boost then-Sen. John Kerry’s ultimately unsuccessful challenge to then-President George W. Bush.

The donors’ goal was to seed a set of advocacy groups and think tanks outside the Democratic Party that could push the party and its politicians to the left while also defending them against attack from the right.

The group requires its members — a group that now numbers more than 100 and includes finance titans like Soros, Tom Steyer and Donald Sussman, as well as major labor unions and liberal foundations — to contribute a total of at least $200,000 a year to recommended groups. Members also pay annual dues of $30,000 to fund the DA staff and its meetings, which include catered meals and entertainment (on Sunday, interested donors were treated to a VIP tour of the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture).

Since its inception in 2005, the DA has steered upward of $500 million to a range of groups, including pillars of the political left such as the watchdog group Media Matters, the policy advocacy outfit Center for American Progress and the data firm Catalist — all of which are run by Clinton allies who are expected to send representatives to the DA meeting.

The degree to which those groups will be able to adapt to the post-Clinton Democratic Party is not entirely clear, though some of the key DA donors have given generously to them for years.

That includes Soros, who, after stepping back a bit from campaign-related giving in recent years, had committed or donated $25 million to boosting Clinton and other Democratic candidates and causes in 2016. During the presidential primaries, Soros had argued that Trump and his GOP rival Ted Cruz were “doing the work of ISIS.”

A Soros spokesman declined to comment for this story.

But, given that the billionaire financier only periodically attends DA meetings and is seldom a part of the formal proceedings, his scheduled Tuesday morning appearance as a speaker suggests that he’s committed to investing in opposing President Trump.

The agenda item for a Tuesday morning “conversation with George Soros” invokes Soros’ personal experience living through the Holocaust and Soviet Communism in the context of preparing for a Trump presidency. The agenda notes that the billionaire currency trader, who grew up in Hungary, “has lived through Nazism and Communism, and has devoted his foundations to protecting the kinds of open societies around the world that are now threatened in the United States itself.”

LaMarche, who for years worked for Soros’s Open Society foundations, told POLITICO that the references to Nazism and Communism are “part of his standard bio.”

LaMarche, who is set to moderate the discussion with Soros, said the donor “does not plan to compare whatever we face under Trump to Nazism, I can tell you that.” LaMarche he also said, “I don’t think there is anyone who has looked at Trump, including many respected conservatives, who doesn’t think the experience of authoritarian states would not be important to learn from here. And to the extent that Soros and his foundations have experience with xenophobia in Europe, Brexit, etc., we want to learn from that as well.”

The Soros conversation was added to the agenda after Election Day. It was just one of many changes made on the fly to adjust for last week’s jarring result and the stark new reality facing liberals, who went from discussing ways to push an incoming President Clinton leftward, to instead discussing how to play defense.

A pre-election working draft of the DA’s agenda, obtained by POLITICO, featured a session on Clinton’s first 100 days and another on “moving a progressive national policy agenda in 2017.” Those sessions were rebranded so that the first instead will examine “what happened” on the “cataclysm of Election Day,” while the second will focus on “combating the massive threats from Trump and Congress in 2017.”

A session that before the election had been titled “Can Our Elections Be Hacked,” after the election was renamed “Was the 2016 Election Hacked” — a theory that has percolated without evidence on the left to explain the surprising result.

In his post-election emails to donors and operatives, LaMarche acknowledged the group had to “scrap many of the original plans for the conference,” explaining “while we made no explicit assumptions about the outcome, the conference we planned, and the agenda you have seen, made more sense in the event of a Hillary Clinton victory.”