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Swedish Tax Agency calls for action against immigrant polygamists

wedding marriage
© CC0
Hundreds of people registered or living in Sweden are involved in polygamist relations, despite the fact that polygamy is outlawed in the Nordic country. Although first reported at the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, little has been done since to address the practice described as degrading to women.

Although Sweden vocally disapproves of polygamy, there are still a total of 307 Swedish residents officially involved in polygamist marriages, a number which has been spurred by and is constantly rising due to immigration from Muslim countries, where polygamy is accepted. At present, though, it is possible to officially register a foreign polygamy provided that it is valid in the country of origin and that neither of the spouses has been affiliated with Sweden before the marriage, the Dagens Juridik legal newspaper reported.

In total, 169 people living in Sweden have 354 spouses registered in officially recognized polygamist marriages. Some of the women, though, have never been registered in Sweden or have emigrated. Additionally, there are about 500 instances of polygamy not accepted as legal by the authorities.

To address this growing discrepancy, the Swedish Tax Agency has in a statement called for sharpened legislation that would harmonize public records with the rules of the criminal and the marital codes. First and foremost, the agency has demanded that no forms polygamy should be accepted, regardless of where the marriage has been contracted.

Snowflake

Snowflakes freak out after Mike Pence refuses to stand during Winter Olympics opening ceremony

Mike Pence Winter Olympics

Vice President Mike Pence (seen far right with his wife, Karen) is being accused of hypocrisy for staying seated while the Korean unified team entered the Pyeongchang stadium Friday night for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics
Vice President Mike Pence, who criticized NFL players for kneeling in protest during the national anthem, is being accused of hypocrisy for staying seated while the Korean unified team entered the Pyeongchang stadium Friday night for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.

It was Pence who demonstrably left in the middle of a football game in Indianapolis in October over his disgust at a number of San Francisco 49ers players who knelt during the Star Spangled Banner.

Pence and his boss, President Donald Trump, have repeatedly singled out football players who have followed the example of former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and taken a knee during the national anthem.

Comment: Perhaps it's the snowflake's limited moral universe that leads them to see disrespecting one's own flag and disrespecting another country's Olympics team as essentially the same thing. Sure, they're both political statements, but one signals a lack of group loyalty while the other is aimed at a rival nation. This moral disconnect is best summed up by Jonathan Haidt when he says, "The left and right in this country ... are two separate cultures." He continues:
Six [moral] themes recur, in varying degrees, across most societies: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. [...]

He polled over 130,000 conservatives and liberals on moral issues and found that while conservatives rely on all six foundations equally in making moral judgments, liberals favor care, liberty, and fairness, and were often indifferent to concerns of sanctity, loyalty, and authority. Libertarians, relying primarily on the liberty foundation, had the smallest moral domain of all, which probably explains a great deal - certainly Ayn Rand.
Further reading: Eva Bartlett: The North Korea the Deep State doesn't want the world to see


Airplane

Over 200 body fragments found at crash site of Russia's An-148 airplane near Moscow

Moscow airplane crash site An-148
© Sputnik/ Iliya Pitalev
Russian EMERCOM personnel in the Ramensky district of the Moscow region, where an An-148 passenger plane of the Saratov Airlines performing Flight 703 from Moscow to Orsk crashed on February 11, 2018.
All 65 passengers and six crew aboard the plane that crashed on Sunday were confirmed dead. The reasons for the crash are being investigated.

The Russian Emergencies Ministry has told RIA Novosti that 209 fragments of bodies had been found at the An-148 crash site near Moscow.

Earlier in the day, Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said that the search for bodies of those killed in Russia's An-148 plane crash in Moscow region will continue for a week.

The passenger plane An-148, carrying out a domestic flight, crashed near Moscow on Sunday, killing 65 passengers and six crew members. According to the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia), the communication with the plane en route to the city of Orsk in southwestern Russia lapsed a few minutes after its take-off from Moscow's Domodedovo airport. The plane crashed about 21 miles from the airport, with debris spread over a wide area.

Comment: See:


Russian Flag

'Russians look really good': WSJ hails Russian athletes' 'most stylish' Olympic uniforms

Russian Olympic team
© Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP
Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) parade during the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games, February 9, 2018.
Even Russia's detractors will grudgingly concede that Russians are easy on the eye, but the Wall Street Journal has gone further in a story praising Team Russia's PyeongChang Olympic uniforms.

Stories favoring Russia in Western mainstream media have come to be as scarce as hen's teeth, but the Olympic spirit seems to erode political tensions. On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal published an article whose headline speaks for itself: "You Can't Call Them 'Russia,' but You Can Call Them Stylish."

"I'm here to tell you: The Russians look good. Really good," author Jason Gay reported from the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics, in which Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR, Team Russia in all but name) appeared wearing neutral colors. At the ceremony, the Russians - "technically not Russians" - may have been "the most stylish athletes in PyeongChang."

The team's outfits, consisting of plain grey jackets and jeans with white scarves and beanies, were "unpretentious, easygoing, not trying too hard." The author also referred to the Russian team's uniform as "sensible... wearable" and "admirably Spartan."

Comment: Either it was a slow news day, or maybe, just maybe, the Wall Street Journal are feeling a little guilt at the completely unfair treatment of the Russian athletes. In the current climate, this is likely the only praise of Russia acceptable for a mainstream newspaper in the US - their athletes' outfits. See also:


Stop

French 'The Voice' singer quits show after tweets about Israel spark backlash

Mennel Ibtissem
© The Voice / YouTube
A French singer has quit the TV reality show 'The Voice' after her tweets about terrorism and Israel sparked a backlash.

Mennel Ibtissem was a popular contestant on the show. However, she came under pressure to leave the competition after tweets were uncovered in which she appeared to question the official narrative of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and the 2016 Bastille Day attack in Nice.

"Here we go, it's become a routine, an attack a week, and, as usual, the 'terrorist' takes his ID with him," Ibtissem wrote after the Nice truck attack, Nice-Matin reported. "It's true that when you're plotting something nasty you never forget to take your papers with you."

Star of David

NYT op-ed laments lack of refuge for Africans in Israel, completely forgets Palestinians

rabbi israel
In her New York Times oped "How Did Israel Become A Place of No Refuge?" Susan Silverman asks a rhetorical question. But it has a ready answer, one she steadfastly ignores in her piece though it's staring her in the face.

Silverman, a rabbi and co-founder of Miklat Israel, or Sanctuary Israel, is rightly outraged over the recent decision of Israel's government to deport thousands of African asylum seekers from Israel, which will clearly be a death sentence for many of them. She quotes a refugee from Eritrea who is confident that "The people of Anne Frank will protect me." Here is a long quote from the piece that explains the puzzlement expressed by the title:

Attention

Controversy: 'It's too late for Germany' says German feminist SJW, admits she got it wrong on immigration

Rebecca Sommer
In 2012 Rebecca Sommer founded the refugee aid association Arbeitsgruppe Flucht + Menschen-Rechte (AG F+M) [Working Group Asylum + Human Rights]. At the end of 2015, this artist, photographer and journalist and documentary maker applauded Angela Merkel's decision to open German's borders to the "refugees" who had been blocked in Hungary, despite the vacuum effect this would create. "At that time I wanted to help everyone and truly believed that all these people were fleeing hell and were in a state of complete distress," the German activist explained in an article published by the conservative Polish weekly Do Rzeczy on 15 January, discussing how she woke up to reality.

In 2015, her NGO had almost 300 volunteers who were giving German courses to the new arrivals.

"I thought their medieval view was going to change with time...but after having seen these situations occur repeatedly and observing what was happening around me, as a volunteer, I have had to recognise that the Muslim refugees have grown up with values that are totally different, they have undergone brainwashing from childhood on and are indoctrinated by Islam and absolutely do not intend to adopt our values. Worse, they regard we infidels with disdain and arrogance."

Comment: The follow-up piece:
Questions for Rebecca Sommer
February 7, 2018

My post about SJW Rebecca Sommer's recanting of her support for immigration became massively popular. Many other sites picked it up.

In a comment to the article and in a post on another WordPress blog, someone claiming to be Rebecca Sommer insists that this is "fake news", without specifying what she means by that. I suspect she is facing some blowback in Germany because news of her interview spread much further than she thought it would, being translated into multiple languages. Now she may be seeking to make some Talmudic distinction about whether she is "planning to move to Poland". As the original article made clear, she was quoted as saying she was thinking about emigrating for her retirement, not currently. Obviously she doesn't look close to retirement age.

(UPDATE: looking at the text again, it says "she is planning to emigrate for her retirement" without specifying Poland. I assumed from the context that she meant emigrate to Poland but perhaps she meant somewhere else. The context was her talking to a Polish magazine, speaking of people she personally knew who were thinking of moving to Poland, and praising Poland as a potential island of stability in Europe. That makes the assumption reasonable I would say but perhaps she was thinking of somewhere else. Still, her retirement destination is surely a triviality compared to all the other things she said.)

Here is a translation of her blog post titled "Right-wing hate sites are spreading fake news about Rebecca Sommer".
Sputnick, diversitymachtfrei, opposition24.com are spreading FAKE NEWS about Rebecca Sommer. Ms. Sommer is living and working in Germany, Berlin, is managing our volunteer AG F+M [asylum aid organisation], and is also not planning to move to Poland. Ms. Sommer has engaged a lawyer and will hold these sites accountable.
First of all, dear, this isn't a hate site; it's a love site; full of love for the European people, their culture and the great civilisation they built. Second, the entirety of the article on this site was a translation from an article on a French site delitdimages.org, which, in turn, was just a copy of an article from reinformation.tv. These French articles were either based on or translated from interviews you supposedly gave to organisations in Poland. Part of the interview you gave can be seen here on the site of the Polish magazine Do Rzeczy (link). It corresponds perfectly to what I wrote. There were no additions and no original editorial content of any kind, other than the title. If there are any inaccuracies, therefore, they can only be in the French or Polish originals.

What, specifically, are you claiming is "fake news"?

The article on the French site said you were planning to move to Poland for your retirement. Did you, in fact, say that to the Polish magazine? Has the Polish magazine misrepresented your words? Has this site or the French site mistranslated them?

Are there any other quotes specifically attributed to you whose accuracy you dispute?

Have you have, in fact, thought about moving to Poland to escape the consequences of diversity in Germany?

Do you believe that "it is too late for Germany"?

Do you earn a living from your refugee work or is it purely unremunerated voluntary work?

Are you concerned that what you allegedly said to the Polish magazine, or subsequent reports of it, could have an impact on your livelihood?

If you believe that the mass influx of "refugees" is harming and even destroying your own country, how can you morally justify continuing to facilitate it through your own work?

Did you assume that things you said in an interview to a Polish organisation would not spread outside of Poland?

Since there have been many reports of female aid workers having sex with "refugees", can you confirm whether you have ever personally had sexual relations with an "asylum seeker" or "refugee"?

UPDATE: She has done another interview (link) with Sputnik, in German this time, in which she says substantially the same things as before, although pointing out, as if it was tremendously important, that she doesn't plan to emigrate to Poland. No need to thank me for giving you massive global publicity, Rebecca.



Handcuffs

Weinstein ordered staff to keep 'condoms & erectile pills' always handy - NY AG Lawsuit

Uma Thurman,Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman
© Luke MacGregor / Reuters
Uma Thurman (L), Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman arrive at the British Academy of Film and Arts (BAFTA) London, February 16, 2014.
A new lawsuit against the Weinstein Co. and its founders, filed by the New York Attorney General's Office, has exposed fresh details of the "vicious and exploitative mistreatment" of company employees by the disgraced movie mogul.

A lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General's office against Harvey Weinstein, his brother, and the Weinstein Company alleges "egregious violations" of civil rights and business laws. Neither of the respondents have spoken out about the suit.

Announced on Sunday by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the lawsuit includes a number of sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein, including claims he threatened to harm employees and also exposed himself to female staff.

Weinstein, who has strenuously denied engaging in non consensual activity, is also alleged to have used the resources of the successful film studio to build a network of employees that could "facilitate his sexual encounters with women."

Comment: See also:


Cell Phone

NSA used Twitter to tweet secret messages meant for Russian seller

NSA headquarters
© AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File
In this June 6, 2013 file photo, the National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Md.
Nearly a dozen tweets sent by the U.S. National Security Agency's public Twitter account, @NSAGov, contained secret messages meant for a Russian attempting to sell stolen cyberweapons, according to new reports.

The U.S. intelligence community has spent months secretly attempting to retrieve its leaked hacking tools, and the NSA has repeatedly used its Twitter account to cryptically communicate with a Russian man who said he wanted to sell them, The Intercept and The New York Times separately reported Friday.

The encoded messages appeared in nearly a dozen seemingly mundane tweets sent by the NSA throughout 2017 and secretly meant for the Russian seller, The Intercept first reported.

"Samuel Morse patented the telegraph 177 years ago. Did you know you can still send telegrams? Faster than post & pay only if it's delivered," reads one of the tweets cited by The Intercept sent June 20.

Comment: See also: China Daily: NSA should 'shoulder some blame' for WannaCry ransomware attack


People

Iran marks anniversary of Islamic Revolution after deadly anti-government protests

Iranians take part in a rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution
© Atta Kenare / AFP
Iranians take part in a rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, on February 11, 2018 in the capital Tehran
Iran is celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution on Sunday, just weeks after deadly anti-government protests rocked the country. The leadership called for national unity in the face of foreign threats.

The public uprising which ousted US-backed dictator Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took place on Bahman 22 of the Persian calendar, which can fall on February 10 or 11 of the Gregorian calendar. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in rallies celebrating the 39th anniversary of the event.

Addressing the crowds in Tehran's Azadi Square, President Hassan Rouhani called for national unity and resolution of differences between Iranians.

Comment: See also: Thousand of Iranians rally in Tehran denouncing Trump and America on anniversary of Islamic Revolution