Spire Falls At Paris' Notre Dame As Cathedral Is Engulfed In Flames

NPR

. . . "The fire broke out during Holy Week for the world's Roman Catholics. At least four masses a day take place at the cathedral. So far there have been no reports of injuries.

"According to France 24, the cathedral closed at 6:45 p.m. local time, and the fire broke five or six minutes after.

"Police in Paris asked people to avoid the area so emergency vehicles could pass. Shelters have been set up for residents who live near the cathedral.

"NPR's Eleanor Beardsley was at the scene, standing with Parisians who watched, stunned.

" 'There's kind of a silence here," Beardsley said. "People are not screaming, they're just watching it burn and people are in a state of shock. Outside in the periphery, it's pandemonium in the city. They've stopped the trains from going by here, they're stopping traffic, police everywhere. But in a tighter circle around the cathedral we're just watching it burn.' " . . .

Newsweek: Catholic churches are being desecrated across France - and officials don't know why   . . . " 'I think there is a rising hostility in France against the church and its symbols," but "it seems to be more against Christianity and the symbols of Christianity." . . .
Close to my lifetime was the burning of Jewish synagogues in Nazi-occupied lands, TD

Some around the world do not share this sense of loss: ‘ALLAH EST GRAND’: Muslims laugh as blaze destroys Notre Dame cathedral during Holy Week

Damien Rieu posted these reactions of some middle-easteners:  “Allah est grand,” Mohamed Mouara commented at the sight.

more

Below: "Here is "The forest", the exceptional frame of # NotreDameDeParis which dates in part from 1220." Damien Rieu

To walk this platform is to walk above this:

The Cathedral Notre-Dame

Standing the test of time: Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris

2016: France jails 'jihadist' woman (22) accused over foiled terror attack in Paris

Ines Madani, the jihadist who wanted to blow Notre-Dame

The Journal  "ONE OF THREE women allegedly involved in a foiled plot in 2016 to blow up a car packed with gas canisters near the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was today sentenced to eight years in prison by a French court for earlier offences.

"Ines Madani, 22, was sentenced following a three-day trial during which she was accused of encouraging would-be jihadists to go to Syria and participate in attacks against France between March 2015 and June 2016. 

"She used Telegram – an encrypted messaging app widely used by jihadists to communicate. 

"Judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez said that Madani was “recruited” by Oumar Diaw, also known as Abou Barrou, an influential jihadist of the Islamic State group. 

"She used Telegram – an encrypted messaging app widely used by jihadists to communicate. 

"Judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez said that Madani was “recruited” by Oumar Diaw, also known as Abou Barrou, an influential jihadist of the Islamic State group. 

"She used different pseudonyms on social networks, pretending for example to be Abu Souleymane, a jihadist returned from Raqa to carry out attacks in France. 

“ 'You had some autonomy in the management of your personality…. Your determination marks your dangerousness,” Prevost-Desprez said. 

"Madani’s lawyer, Laurent Pasquet-Marinacce, said her client, aged 18 at the time, was “a girl in search of recognition and love”.

“This (the sentence) is an acceptable decision,” she said.

"Madani’s trial for trying to set fire to the car filled with six gas cylinders near Notre Dame will begin on 23 September."

EXCLUSIVE: New Email Leak Reveals Clinton Campaign’s Cozy Press Relationship

Wikileaks exposes secret list of 65 mainstream media reporters who are part of the Clinton mafia   George Stephanopolous: no surprise there.

Much credit to The Gateway Pundit via MU

"Here is another, completely different list, of 25 mainstream reporters who were invited to a dinner at John Podesta’s house on April 9."

The Intercept; Glenn Greenwald  "INTERNAL STRATEGY DOCUMENTS and emails among Clinton staffers shed light on friendly and highly useful relationships between the campaign and various members of the U.S. media, as well as the campaign’s strategies for manipulating those relationships.

"The emails were provided to The Intercept by the source identifying himself as Guccifer 2.0, who was reportedly responsible for prior significant hacks, including one that targeted the Democratic National Committee and resulted in the resignations of its top four officials. On Friday, Obama administration officials claimed that Russia’s “senior-most officials” were responsible for that hack and others, although they provided no evidence for that assertion.

"As these internal documents demonstrate, a central component of the Clinton campaign strategy is ensuring that journalists they believe are favorable to Clinton are tasked to report the stories the campaign wants circulated.
. . . 
"At times, Clinton’s campaign staff not only internally drafted the stories they wanted published but even specified what should be quoted “on background” and what should be described as “on the record.”

"One January 2015 strategy document — designed to plant stories on Clinton’s decision-making process about whether to run for president — singled out reporter Maggie Haberman, then of Politico, now covering the election for the New York Times, as a “friendly journalist” who has “teed up” stories for them in the past and “never disappointed” them. Nick Merrill, the campaign press secretary, produced the memo, according to the document metadata:"  The memo:

Immigrant dispersing into the US by Trump recommendation and by Obama direction

http://www.terrellaftermath.com/

Sanctuary city mayor calls Trump's bluff: 'Oakland welcomes all, no matter where you came from'  . . . "The mayor of Oakland told President Trump that, contrary to his claims about sanctuary cities, her city would welcome any illegal immigrants without exception.
"Mr. Trump noted in a tweet that Mayor Libby Schaaf had denounced as an “abuse of power and public resources” an idea he was publicly toying with to send detained illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities.
"He accused Oakland and other cities that limit or decline cooperation with federal immigration laws of hypocrisy and NIMBY-ism, saying that “if they don’t want to serve our Nation by taking care of [detained illegal immigrants], why should other cities & towns?”
"But Ms. Schiff called his bluff and said Oakland is fine with all immigrants of whatever stripe." . . .

Genesis Of U.S. Immigration Crisis  "Well, we can for sure say that the Democrats side with the Communists, Marxists and Revolutionaries."
. . . "You see, a few years ago, I read a book titled From the Shadows, written by former CIA Director Robert Gates. . . . "A particular page stayed in my memory and I did a search in my Book Nook today to find it." . . .

Why wouldn’t Pelosi and other sanctuary city politicians want more illegal immigrants bused their way?  . . . "Later, a White House official was quoted as saying that the idea was more about shifting the burden away from border towns: “Why wouldn’t we send them to districts where Democrats say ‘we want ‘em?’” Indeed, why shouldn’t sanctuary jurisdictions and politicians like Pelosi who represent them want apprehended illegal immigrants sent their way? Look, aren’t sanctuary cities supposed to be, well, sanctuaries for illegal aliens? " . . .

Tucker Carlson: Nobody Hates Diversity More Than Rich Liberals "FNC's Tucker Carlson weighs in on President Trump's plan to send detained illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities: " . . .

Sanctuary Cities Should WELCOME ILLEGALS, Unless Liberals Are LYING

. . . "Why wouldn’t cities like San Francisco welcome as many illegal aliens as possible? After all, we’ve been told by these very people, leaders in and from these sanctuary areas, that illegals commit fewer crimes than Americans and are an unbridled boon to the economy. Opposing their relocation would not only be missing an opportunity to lower the crime rate, but to bring about economic growth unrivaled since post-World War II.
"Of course, they were lying to us. Only the most faithful, the people for whom MSNBC is too “fair,” ever really believed those lies. Everyone with more IQ points than fingers recognized these leftists were relieving themselves on the public while telling people it was raining. Now their bluff was called, and they folded like a cheap suit.
"Still, the President should follow through on this idea. Make Democrats make the case against it. Let them explain how it’s “disrespectful” somehow and to whom, as Nancy Pelosi said." . . .

Where have all the Somalis been resettled in the US? Minnesota takes the prize! Resulting in Muslim politician Ilhan Omar. "Ilhan Abdullahi Omar is a Somali-American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district since 2019. The district includes all of Minneapolis and some of its suburbs."

Muslim Somalis in Minnesota number 10,804 as of February, 2015.

2012 map of Somalis in the US:

Free Republic

Some more reading assignments in case you get bored.

'Model' Assaults #WalkAway Founder Brandon Straka at the Airport for Wearing a MAGA Hat  . . . "It's hilarious how this "model" decided to assault someone and then claim he had no right to film her because of her profession. Sorry, honey, but in the real world, when you assault someone in public, you're agreeing to be on camera (and in handcuffs). It's too bad Straka didn't call the police, because she should have been arrested." This contains another Starbucks story as well.

Progressive Democrats Are Mainstreaming the Lunatic Fringe and if that isn't enough: Roots of the Left's Acceptance of Pedophilia.

Remember Murietta? Dumping unvetted migrants into the cities of political foes was done by Obama first  . . . "And instead of talking about it, they really did try to bus the unvetted migrants into small cities such as Murietta, California; Yuma, Arizona; and a conservative area of New Mexico, bringing crime, disease, and a high need for social services, without consulting those communities.

"The residents protested, and the Obama administration declared them 'racist' in a bid to scare them into line."

Questioning Global Warming  "When pollsters realized the public and elected officials weren’t buying global warming as a concept or policy, in a brilliant political move, they came up with the phrase “climate change.' ” . . .

Mich. Farmer Fights Back Against East Lansing for Violating His Religious Freedom
"A Michigan farmer is challenging city officials after he was banned from a farmer's market following a Facebook post in which he affirmed the Catholic Church's teachings on marriage."

This tiny election proves Trump’s coalition is alive and well  "Less than a month ago, conservative Judge Brian Hagedorn was a dead man walking.
"As he raced against liberal Judge Lisa Neubauer for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the local press portrayed him as an anti-gay extremist and bigot. They called out the Christian school he founded for its code of conduct stipulating “no sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman.”
"Never mind that this code of conduct is common practice at private religious schools across the country." . . .

As the Democratic Party shifts further left, they need to face a question: What do you do when you have all the money in the world, the media and culture on your side and you still struggle to win over voters?

Mask off for the left after disgusting string of tweets mocking Rep. Dan Crenshaw's war injuries. Updated

Update: Liz Cheney: Ocasio-Cortez ‘Ought to Go Thank’ Crenshaw for Defending Her Freedom . . . " 'Remember, it was the worst attack on U.S. soil in our history," Cheney added. "It was at the hands of radical Islamic terrorists and anybody who holds the views that Representative Omar has expressed on this issue and on anti-Semitism has no place on the House Foreign Affairs Committee." . . .

Monica Showalter  "For the far left, nothing is sacred when it comes to sticking up for anti-Semitic, 9/11 trivializing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn).

"Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a decorated former Navy SEAL who suffered major injuries in the war on terror as a result of 9/11, had this to say about Omar's latest statement trivializing 9/11:
Full NBC interview:

Rep. Dan Crenshaw

✔@RepDanCrenshaw

This week was a new low in partisanship & dishonesty.
I watched in disbelief as some covered for Omar by coming after me with lies & absurd claims that I don’t support 9/11 victims.
What a disgusting, dishonest tactic.
Why turn this into a political football?
Full NBC int: . . .

. . . "After that, the left spewed a string of ad hominem attack that can only be characterized as vile. "According to the Washington Examiner:

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who was wounded in Afghanistan, was derided the left and accused of "playing the wounded victim" after he called for “deference” in discussions of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Crenshaw, 35, who wears an eye patch after losing his right eye in Afghanistan, has received two Bronze Stars, including one with valor, the Purple Heart, and the Navy Commendation Medal with Valor.

He criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar this week for appearing to downplay the Sept. 11 attacks in a recent speech.

"It gets worse. They called him some of the sickest epithets ever seen against a wounded war vet: ‘Captain shithead,' 'Nazi,' 'eyeless f--k,' according to the Examiner's headline." . . 

Yes, Representative Ilhan Omar Somebody DID Do Something! An Open Letter.

"It never had to come to this, and except for your choices it never would have."

 Townhall  "Rep. Ilhan Omar, Please stop with the dramatic theatrics. Please also tell your attack hounds Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Rashida Tlaib to stop lying.

"Americans publicly disputing your actions and words does not on its face demonstrate a public safety threat towards you. If there is evidence of a specific, valid, and violent threat against you please report such to the appropriate authorities."

"Someone in the President’s camp deciding to side-by-side your unfortunate expression with vivid proof of what took place on the worst day in American history is not a threat to you in anyway—except perhaps—and quite appropriately—in your race for re-election.

"If you prefer not to be included in such controversy—stop wading into it. No one forced you to take an honorarium from CAIR. Your characterization was callous. Your facts were grossly inaccurate. And your attempt to deflect criticism on to the words of President Bush standing atop the rubble of the towers or the tweeted video of President Trump, when understood in context, reveal to us a continuing picture of who you are in your most core anti-Semitic & anti-American self.
. . . 
"And lest anyone is confused, it will not be based on your religion, the opposition committed to your removal will be based squarely on your incapacity to speak truth, act in the good of the American people, and your inability to restrain your decidedly racist and anti-Semitic worldview." . . .

Former Hillary Press Secretary Tied to Effort to Get Kavanaugh Fired From George Mason University

Stalking a good man and his family, the left shows the face of pure evil in my opinion. TD

Legal Insurrection

. . . "Lukas Mikelionis of FOX News has more on this:

Ex-Clinton official leads ‘dark money’ effort to boot Kavanaugh from teaching gig

A top aide to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign — now leading a liberal “dark money” group — is backing a student effort at George Mason University to get Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh fired from teaching a summer course over misconduct allegations.

A student group calling itself “Mason For Survivors” began circulating a petition last month, so far attracting nearly 5,000 signatures, urging to “terminate AND void ALL contracts and affiliation with Brett Kavanaugh at George Mason University” on the grounds that the justice was accused of misconduct.

But the campaign is being given a partisan boost thanks to Brian Fallon, former press secretary for Clinton’s 2016 campaign, who’s now in charge of Demand Justice, a liberal advocacy group that doesn’t disclose its funding.

Fallon and his group are paying for Facebook ads that target anyone linked with George Mason University, urging them to sign the petition, in addition to signing a separate petition that calls upon the Democrats in Congress to investigate Kavanaugh, the HuffPost reported.

Stalking Brett Kavanaugh (2018)

Saturday Night Live starts taking on leftists - and gets funny again

Monica Showalter  "Is Saturday Night Live changing its ways? Is it feeling a shift in the political winds?

"Seems that yet another side effect of President Trump's exoneration in the Mueller report (besides the rising stock market) is that Saturday Night Live is no longer doing boring skits about him. They've dropped that old dead cat, and moved on to the rich, rich, material in the assorted leftist bigs and pillars of the establishment who've found themselves heading for jail. Those leftists may be down and out, and therefore easy targets, but they also threw in a striking political jab at MSNBC." . . .
Language advisory in the clip:

. . . It works. And the more they do this, the higher their ratings will go. It's amazing to see economics infiltrate the minds of New York lefty comic writers and actors, some of the country's most influential arteestes - and it could be a bellwether.  . . .

Terrifying video on antisemitic conference at the University of North Carolina

So much for Obama saying over and over, "That's not who we are".

One of my favorite scenes from "Saving Private Ryan" Taunting antisemites:

Thomas Lifson  "Ami Horowitz, the investigatory filmmaker who often exposes campus madness, has produced a video that ought to terrify anyone familiar with the history of Weimar Germany.  Then, as now, universities were among the leaders in whipping up Jew-hatred and actually persecuting Jews.  One of the neglected aspects of the origins of the Holocaust is that the purge of Jews from Germany's famous universities opened up new career possibilities for those faculty and students who remained once their institutions were 
Judenrein.

"We are not (yet) at the point of expelling Jews from faculties and student bodies, but we are at the point of violent attacks on Jews being justified by faculty members at prestigious universities, as a jaw-dropping interview in Horowitz's latest video (embedded below) shows.  We are also at the point where multiple academic departments at such a university — a publicly owned and funded institution of (purported) higher learning — are comfortable sponsoring an academic conference with open Jew-hatred, and government funds (nearly a quarter million dollars!) are allocated to sponsor it."

"Horowitz was denied access to film the conference but snuck in sound equipment and somehow managed to get a clip of the crowd cheering when the speaker onstage complimented them: "You look beautifully antisemitic," to the accompaniment of loud music and strobe lights." . . .

Which 2020 Democrat Is the Most Conservative?

PJ Media  "Candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination are even more liberal than you might think. On Thursday, the American Conservative Union (ACU), the group behind the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), released its ratingsfrom the 2017-2018 Congress. Eleven of the Democrats running for president in 2020 appeared in the report, and here is how they scored, from most liberal to most conservative.
"PJ Media has included one Democrat who is considering a presidential run. Seven of the twelve ranked more liberal than an outright socialist."

Most liberal: Eric Swalwell:
"According to the ACU, the most liberal 2020 Democrat is Eric Swalwell. In 2017, he voted conservative 4 percent of the time, and he did so in 2018 as well. But his lifetime rating is 3.98 percent, the worst among presidential candidates.
And he is from California, elected by Californians in the Bay Area city of  Alameda.
Oh, and the Obama-esque Bobby O'Rourke: he "has a creepy cult-like following, and he seems totally obsessed with himself, but he is one of the most conservative Democrats running in 2020. That said, he still has less than a 10 percent lifetime conservative voting record. According to the ACU, he voted 4 percent conservative in 2017 and 8 percent in 2018, earning a lifetime rating of 8.08 percent."

Most, um...conservative: Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio)

"Tim Ryan, the only 2020 Democrat to score more than a 10 percent lifetime rating with the ACU, is running a Midwest-focused campaign aimed at the "forgotten men and women" Donald Trump courted in 2016. That said, Ryan is far from moderate, and he ranks among the least memorable of the 2020 field."

Where they all "stood" on the "Green New Deal": "Every Democrat senator running for president — Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — voted "present," refusing to take a stance on the legislation most of them have endorsed in public.

"Many of these candidates announced their support for a Green New Deal even while choosing to vote "present" on the bill sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)".

Oh, by the way, Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’ Would Cost 8,000 Times as Much as Trump's Border Wall Request