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After Paris, Obama’s Abandonment of Leadership

On Nov. 12, President Barack Obama said of ISIS: “What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them.”

On Nov. 13, ISIS-connected terrorists left 129 people dead and 352 wounded in Paris.

ISIS naturally dominated Obama’s Monday press conference at the G20 summit in Turkey. Yet although the president used the words “leader” and “leadership” fourteen times, the concept was, ironically, absent from his remarks. Speaking with as much passion as an instructional video on waste reclamation, he doubled down on his legacy of inaction, infighting, and incompetence.

The first question came from a reporter for Agence France-Presse: “The equation has clearly changed. Isn’t it time for your strategy to change?”

The president responded, “Well, keep in mind what we’ve been doing.” He then delivered a laundry list of international cooperation, targeted airstrikes, and economic pressure aimed at thwarting the Islamic State. The implication: He’s already on the right track. Nothing needs changing.

Not once did he address what was obvious to the reporter and the world: The Paris atrocity has demonstrated that his ill-defined strategy to “degrade” ISIS is a failure, one that has endangered the Western world and that clearly needs to change.

He grossly caricatured those who take issue with his strategy—or lack thereof—as “a few who have suggested that we should put large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground” and implied that his only option was the current course, “unless we’re prepared to have a permanent occupation of these countries.” This rhetoric has become a pattern: When faced with credible criticism, create false choices.

That the president is entirely unwilling to accept the need for improvement or adaptation in the light of this obvious foreign policy failure leads to uncomfortable questions about how insulated from reality the man might be.

There have been few lapses in leadership as maddening—and insulting to the American people—as Obama’s refusal to outline a clear path to victory against a force that certainly has a clear strategy against free nations: indiscriminate bloodshed.

A strategy connects ends and means—what is our goal (end), and how do we get there (means)? It is not clear what Obama’s goal is. Is it to destroy ISIS? Or just to keep their damage to a minimum so that it becomes the next president’s problem?

To be sure, Obama landed some pre-emptive strikes, but they were against Americans who happen to be Republicans:

You know, I had a lot of disagreements with George W. Bush on policy, but I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear about the fact that this is not a war on Islam. And the notion that some of those who have taken on leadership in his party would ignore all of that, that’s not who we are.

The president proves more artful at destroying straw men dressed up as GOP presidential hopefuls than he is at targeting terrorists. I suppose he is most afraid of the group that endangers him professionally.

Further, he condemned as “shameful” American governors who have demanded closer vetting of Syrian refugees or refused to accept them from Washington. In light of the fact that at least one attacker in Paris had a Syrian passport, and that high numbers of those entering Europe are neither Syrian nor refugees, the governors’ concern seems prudent rather than pernicious. Slandering them for prioritizing the safety of their own citizens is as galling as it is cowardly.

The president’s clear intention was to use the aftermath of the Paris atrocity to make excuses and launch partisan political attacks. It will be difficult to unify against ISIS behind a man who is more interested in dividing his own countrymen.

Obama’s remarks on Monday morning could have been his “Tear Down This Wall” moment, his “Never Give In.” Instead, we got “I’m Too Busy for That.”

Obama’s remarks in Turkey will be studied in history and foreign policy curricula for years to come as a prideful dereliction of leadership. (For more from the author of “After Paris, Obama’s Abandonment of Leadership” please click HERE)

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The Paris Attacks and Planned Parenthood: Flipsides of the Culture of Death

This past week we saw a hideous contrast played out in real events, one whose irony was so twisted that it really seemed like fiction. This couldn’t be “what’s happening on the news.” It had to be the crescendo of some futuristic novel by a wannabe Ayn Rand or Frank Peretti.

Even as students in America whined for “safe spaces” devoid of pointy-edged free speech, several thousand French concert-goers discovered that the music venue they had chosen was not a safe space — not safe from terrorist butchers who wanted to slaughter Westerners in a venue owned by Jews. Thanks to the influx of almost a million Muslim colonists (sorry, “refugees”), no corner of Europe will soon be safe for Europeans, Jewish or Christian — because a certain percentage of Muslims will always take their religion seriously, and read its sacred texts literally, which will turn them into terrorists. Those who insist that ISIS “betrays” or “perverts” Islam can only cling to that comforting illusion by refusing to read its texts themselves.

This same weekend, we learn that the U.S. Supreme Court will review Texas’ laws regulating abortion clinics, laws made by citizens trying to make the womb at least a little bit safer for Texas babies.

And Al Gore is in Paris, trying to make the climate “safe” for the future by crippling the economy.

It’s all too much. Were we creative writing teachers and some student turned in such drek, we would slide it back to him covered in red ink, with the comments: “Tendentious, preachy, heavy-handed. Are you trying to write the next Atlas Shrugged?” No, irony this hamfisted could never cut it in fiction. Instead, we just have to live it.

Now the craving for “safety” is not contemptible. First of all, we want physical safety, for ourselves and our families. To attain this, it would be helpful if our communities were not honeycombed — as Europe has been through the callousness of its godless, soulless elites — with members of a religion which teaches that all non-members are rebels against God who deserve the death penalty. That’s a good first step, anyway.

More than a million Christians have been driven from their homes in Iraq and Syria, deprived of this basic safety, by Muslims who take their religion seriously. But most European nations will not grant these genuine refugees asylum in preference to waves of Muslim economic migrants, who passed through perfectly safe Muslim countries on their way to sign up for Danish or Belgian welfare benefits, and throng those countries’ radical mosques.

As National Review reports, the Obama administration is preparing to recognize the victims of ISIS’s genocide — explicitly excluding the hundreds of thousands of Christians threatened with death. While Europe’s bureaucracy processes the tens of thousands of orthodox, Quran-reading, sharia-supporting Muslims who flood across its borders, Christian victims shiver in storage containers and tents, wondering when the next ISIS advance will turn them into martyrs. And the world goes on, wringing its hands about whether European culture is sufficiently “inclusive” of the religion that set the persecution in motion.

Unborn children, in what should be the safest space on earth, are instead in the cross-hairs. A million will die this year in America, and as we have learned from the Planned Parenthood videos, they will be treated with the same contempt that ISIS shows towards its victims: cut up and thrown away, unless they are sold for profit, as ISIS sells the women it captures and enslaves.

The very leftists who want to help coddled 20-year-olds feel “safe” callously shrug off the physical safety of the world’s most vulnerable people: the preborn children of America and the Christians of the Middle East. Indeed, Progressives try to make victims out of the victors. We are supposed to feel sorry for Cecile Richards, because she had to go answer questions in front of Congress about the half-billion dollars she takes every year to wipe out American babies.

We are told we should worry not about Islamism but “Islamophobia,” a term which Andrew Cummins characterized with perfect accuracy: “A word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.” The persecuted on campus, we’re told, are not Christians and conservatives whose speech is being silenced; the victims are the mass of angry leftists, whose widdle feewings are hurt when someone dares to disagree with them.

There is a covert, deep-seated alliance between both factions of the Culture of Death — those who would deal it to the unborn, in service of pleasure and convenience, and those who dish it out in the name of a totalitarian movement disguised as a religion. Neither group sees human life as intrinsically sacred, and neither feels bound by an inbuilt structure of reason and moral law that pervade reality, top to bottom. Both, in the end, believe in using violent force in the service of blind willfulness — the willfulness of the sexually active Westerner, or the will of Allah, as interpreted by the politically weaponized Muslim. There can be no moral limits to the exercise of that will, since will alone is supreme — the Will to Power.

A Nation is a Safe Space for a People

We should demand that our public authorities provide physical safety, which is supposed to be their main job. And we should ask for more. A nation is meant to be a “safe space” where a culture based on common values agrees on the most basic premises of life and death, good and evil. We should be “safe,” most of the time, from having to fight and re-fight the most fundamental battles, so we can get on with the business of living our principles in practice. It is not normal to live in a culture and country where you must constantly respond to radical questions like these:

Why should you be free to practice your false religion?

Why have you not submitted to Allah?

Why do you allow all these Jews to live in your midst?

Who are you to say what I do with the human being living in my uterus?

We have fostered monsters in our midst, the heirs of Margaret Sanger, eugenicist, elitist and libertine. And now we’re admitting millions who hold to a monstrous belief, which if put into practice would make non-Muslims slaves. These groups pretend to oppose each other, but in fact they are much alike, which explains why they work hand in glove against their common enemy: The civilization that was born on Easter morning, in the light of the risen Christ.

In that civilization, we see innocent life as sacred, and will die, even kill, to protect it. We see each person, believer or unbeliever, as the numinous image of God. When we’ve failed to live up to that vision it was despite our religion, not because of it, and the resources in our own scriptures led us to stop persecuting, stop enslaving, stop colonizing. By contrast, when modern secular hedonists become more self-consistent, they find new groups to dehumanize and kill: first the pre-born, then the elderly, then the handicapped and the sick — and some are even adding newborn children to the list. When Muslims get religion, far too many turn into Islamists — and get busy advancing a program of global theocracy.

Will we Christians wake up in time? It won’t be fun or make us friends. It will demand that we do things that liberals have taught us to see as “un-Christian.” We will have to expose the ugliness of our enemies’ ideas, and their bloodthirsty implications. And yes, we will have to name some as our “enemies.” Such an ugly word. It’s the kind of blunt talk we come across in … the Gospels. We must draw red lines and fight any who’d cross them.

We must choose a presidential candidate with a statesmanlike attachment to moral principle, and shun political alliances with anyone who doesn’t respect the life of the innocent. We must punish politicians who use the life issue cynically, or cave at moments of decision — such as the choice of Supreme Court appointees. We must work at every level of church, culture and politics to make the word “abortion” again what it was in 1950: an obscenity that no one would utter in polite company. Instead, they will prefer to say “the A-word.”

We must exclude those who’d come to our country while rejecting its basic freedoms. (Don’t worry — we can exercise compassion and fill up our refugee quotas with Christians fleeing Islamists for the foreseeable future.) When in doubt, we must say “No.” As the citizens of Paris learned so painfully this week, false compassion and political correctness kill.

We must militarily cripple regimes such as ISIS, and wean ourselves from alliance with that tyranny Saudi Arabia, which uses the money we send it via our gas tanks to spread sharia everywhere. We must give up hunting the unicorn that is Islamic democracy, and work with regimes in the region that try to keep Islamists out of power.

We should take advantage of the divisions among Muslims, between Sunni and Shiite, to divide and deter the next wave of jihadists. We should support those movements in Europe that are trying to keep that continent safe, and reject that parody of Christian kindness which calls for accepting a mass influx of proto-Islamist Muslims. It is not Christian, or even rational, to endanger our children and grandchildren for the sake of a warm, fuzzy feeling — the sensation the brain experiences as it slowly freezes to death. (For more from the author of “The Paris Attacks and Planned Parenthood: Flipsides of the Culture of Death” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Intelligence Officials Are Blaming Snowden for Paris

Even as the hunt continues for suspects in the Paris terror bombings, some Western intelligence officials have already identified their culprit: Edward Snowden.

London Mayor Boris Johnson says the former National Security Agency contractor, who two years ago outed the U.S. government’s program of telephone and Internet surveillance, effectively taught terrorists “how to avoid being caught.” CIA Director John Brennan complained Monday that “a number of unauthorized disclosures” in recent years about the extent of federal snooping has made tracking terrorists “much more challenging.” Snowden also drew a borderline-profane slam on Twitter over the weekend from former George W. Bush press secretary Dana Perino.

No evidence has surfaced yet that Snowden’s revelations made a difference in this case, or that the perpetrators of Friday’s attacks used encrypted communications to conceal their activities. Many private-sector computer specialists surveyed by POLITICO were skeptical about those arguments, which if true would mesh with more than a year of warnings from intelligence officials about the growing ability of terrorists and criminals to hide their tracks online.

Still, there’s no denying the political context. The criticism of Snowden comes as intelligence officials seek to reopen a debate over the balance between security and privacy — a balance that seemed, before the deaths of 129 individuals in Paris, to have been settled firmly in favor of civil liberties. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials have complained publicly that encryption tools — in iPhones, laptops and mobile software like Facebook-owned WhatsApp — allow terrorists, drug dealers and other criminals to “go dark” and avoid monitoring.

“We’ve had a public debate. That debate was defined by Edward Snowden, right, and the concern about privacy,” former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell said Sunday on “Face the Nation.” “I think we’re now going to have another debate about that. It’s going to be defined by what happened in Paris.” (Read more from “Intelligence Officials Are Blaming Snowden for Paris” HERE)

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Paris Jihad: It’s Immigration, Stupid

Republicans in Congress know what they have to do. If they fail to convene this week and immediately work towards ending the Islamic refugee program, it’s safe to say they should all resign from office.

At its core, the predominant job of the federal government is to protect the citizenry from invasion. That is the essence of the social compact and why we agreed to form a constitutional federal union in the first place. While our vast oceans have protected us from conventional invasions, the corrosive and self-immolating values of political correctness have allowed endless reams of radical Islamic immigrants to penetrate those defenses. If Congress fails to act to immediately stop Obama’s plan to bring in tens of thousands of additional Islamic refugees from Syria and Somalia, especially after everything that has occurred in Europe, it is not outlandish to ask what is the purpose of even having a federal government.

There are two important themes we’ve been highlighting here at Conservative Review—themes that were punctuated by the Paris attacks. First, the importation of Middle Eastern refugees is sheer insanity. Second, there is an existential threat from a sizable share of the existing Muslim population in western countries. It has now been confirmed that one of the attackers was a “Syrian refugee” who came to France last month via Greece, while at least one attacker was a native French national. Several other French nationals were arrested in Belgium in connection to the attack.

How many more people have to die in order for our political class to get serious about real immigration reform?

Republicans like Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are already trying to distract from the central point and are making this about foreign policy instead of immigration. But before we discuss our involvement in the Civil War in Syria, how can these open border Republicans sit idly as the first of the Islamic refugees are brought to the shores of New Orleans?

It’s time Republicans get with the program and understand: ‘It’s immigration, stupid.’

At a minimum, conservatives must encourage GOP congressional leaders to do the following six things:

Immediately pass Rep. Brian Babin’s (R-TX) bill halting the refugee program.

Defund any appropriations for resettling Syrian or Somali refugees in this country. There is an upcoming budget deadline in December and it’s time Republicans use it. It’s bad enough they funded Planned Parenthood, which is a threat to the unborn; can they at least protect the living from Jihad?

Pass legislation vesting county governments with the veto power over refugee resettlement in their jurisdictions.

End student visas from countries that represent a security risk.

Deal with the existing homeland threat by passing Ted Cruz’s Expatriate Terrorist Act, which would revoke the citizenship of those who fight for foreign terrorist organizations, such as ISIS. We must also enforce and strengthen existing law under section 237 (a)(4) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which directs the executive branch to deport non-citizens who encourage support for terrorism. Also, pass Cruz’s bill designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Make the broader immigration issue the #1 priority for the upcoming legislative agenda. GOP presidential candidates must also make this the defining issue of their campaigns.

As I noted when Paul Ryan was elected Speaker, merely abstaining from making the problem worse is not enough. The status quo means that Obama succeeds in transforming America and endangering the citizenry with a number of refugees who subscribe to Sharia’s creed of Islamic supremacism. We need House leadership to actively stop Obama’s immigration agenda.

It’s also not enough to merely suggest that we must better screen or vet these refugees for ties to ISIS. The Islamic State is not the source of the problem; it is a symptom of the broader problem of Islamic supremacism. Most of the recent homegrown terror attacks were not perpetrated by those with direct ties to ISIS or any official terror group, but by those who believe in Islamic supremacism.

Under existing law, in order to qualify for refugee status in the United States an applicant must demonstrate a “credible fear” of persecution in their home country. Isn’t it time our politicians heed the cries of “credible fear” from Americans under threat of terrorism in our own country? (For more from the author of “Paris Jihad: It’s Immigration, Stupid” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

PARIS TERRORIST ATTACK UPDATE: One Terrorist Confirmed as a Syrian Refugee

UPDATE:

As a new day dawns, and the people of Paris begin the process of healing, here is what is known. Over 120 people are confirmed dead in multiple, almost simultaneous attacks, by Islamic terrorists. The Greek government has confirmed, according to a Greek journalist on Twitter, that at least one of the terrorists was a Syrian refugee who entered the European Union through Greece.

ORIGINAL POST:

As of 5:50 PM EST, 60 people are reported dead and more than a hundred more are being held hostage in four, possibly five, simultaneous terrorist attacks in Paris, France.

CNN reports “[i]mmediate suspicion for the events in Paris falls to so-called returnees — people who have traveled to Syria and Iraq and have returned, the officials said.”

“At least six shootings took place in Paris and three explosions took place at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis late Friday, CNN affiliate BFMTV said. Two or three gunmen entered the Bataclan concert hall while opening fire on law enforcement, BFMTV reported. A source earlier told CNN there were six to eight hostage takers, citing a person they were talking to inside the venue.”

The 6-8 gunman who are holding more than a hundred people hostage at the concert all are said to have shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire on law enforcement agents and the crowd.

French President Francois Hollande is closing the French border until the terrorists are apprehended. (For more from the author of “PARIS TERRORIST ATTACK UPDATE: One Terrorist Confirmed as a Syrian Refugee” please click HERE)

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Everyone Should Read What Pope Francis Said Following the Paris Attacks

Since news of the horror in Paris broke, Pope Francis has been vocal over his sadness and distraught.

Speaking during Sunday Mass the Pope condemned the Paris terror attacks, calling it “blasphemy” to use the name of God to justify “violence and hatred.”

He went on to express his shock at the sheer “barbarity” of the attacks, telling crowds in St Peter’s Square:

We wonder how can it come to the heart of man to conceive and carry out of such horrible events…

…the road of violence and hatred does not resolve humanity’s problems. And using the name of God to justify this road is blasphemy.

(Read more from “Everyone Should Read What Pope Francis Said Following the Paris Attacks” HERE)

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Apocalyptic Scenes as Paris Hit by Multiple Attacks

By AFP. Sirens blaring, blood on the roads, weeping relatives: nightmare scenes played out on the streets of Paris on Friday night as at least 120 people were killed in simultaneous attacks.

Pierre Montfort lives close to a Cambodian restaurant on Rue Bichat, where one of seven attacks took place in a night of bloodshed not seen in decades . . .

Another witness described the scene: “For a moment, we could only see the flames from the gun. We were scared, how did we know he wasn’t going to shoot the windows?” . . .

Further east, near the Bataclan concert hall and not far from the scene of another deadly attack in January on the offices of satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the area was on lock down.

Police say around 100 people were killed at the music venue, with reports saying armed attackers shot dead people attending a rock concert one by one before police stormed the building. (Read more from “Apocalyptic Scenes as Paris Hit by Multiple Attacks” HERE)

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Paris Attacks: Bataclan and Other Assaults Leave Many Dead

By BBC News. rance has declared a national state of emergency and tightened borders after at least 120 people were killed in a night of gun and bomb attacks in Paris.

Eighty people were reported killed after gunmen burst into the Bataclan concert hall and took hostages before security forces stormed the hall.

People were shot dead at restaurants and bars at five other sites in Paris. Eight attackers are reported killed.

These are the deadliest attacks in Europe since the 2004 Madrid bombings.

French President Francois Hollande, visibly shaken, called Friday night’s events “a horror” and vowed to wage a “merciless” fight against terrorism. (Read more from “Paris Attacks: Bataclan and Other Assaults Leave Many Dead” HERE)

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Another Hero on Paris-Bound Train: U.S. Professor First Tackled AK47 Wielding Jihadist and Was Shot in Neck‏

mark-m_3416314bThe mystery identity of the first heroic passenger to wrestle a weapon from the high-speed train gunman can be disclosed for the first time by The Telegraph.

Mark Moogalian, a 51-year-old professor at the Sorbonne (originally from Virginia), tackled Ayoub El-Khazzani during Friday’s bloody incident aboard an Amsterdam-Paris international service. Mr Moogalian is the previously unnamed man who came to the aid of “Damien A”, 28, a French banker who confronted El-Khazzani.

The pair tackled the Kalashnikov assault rifle off El-Khazzani, who then drew a sidearm and shot Moogalian in the neck before taking back the rifle, his sister has revealed. Read here for more details.

The three Americans and one Brit who were able to tackle and tie up Ayoub El-Khazzani, the gunman, will recieve the Legion of Honour medal, France’s highest civilian honour.

El-Khazzani’s lawyer claims he was homeless and has suggested he was simply trying to commit a robbery. That version of events has been disputed by officials. (Read more from “Another Hero on Paris-Bound Train: U.S. Professor First Tackled AK47 Wielding Jihadist and Was Shot in Neck” HERE)

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3 Wounded as Heroic Off-Duty US Servicemen Subdue Gunman on Paris-Bound Train

Rifle Fast and FuriousOff-duty members of the U.S. military subdued a gunman “known to intelligence services” after he opened fire, injuring three aboard on a high-speed train en route to Paris from Amsterdam Friday.

Three U.S. servicemen were on board the train and overpowered the man when the train stopped in the northern French city of Arras, 115 miles north of Paris, French media reported. Some reports said the men were U.S. Marines but that could not be confirmed.

Passengers on the train subdued the gunman and prevented further carnage, said Christophe Piednoel, spokesman for national railway operator SNCF. The train was then diverted to Arras, where police arrested the suspect, Piednoel said on French television i-Tele.

The suspect was arrested after the train stopped in Arras, 115 miles north of Paris, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henri Brandet said on French television BFM. Passengers were evacuated and police have secured the area . . .

The victims were identified as an American, a Briton and a Frenchman. Earlier reports said two American service members were among the injured. Two of the victims were in critical condition, according to a statement from the office of President Francois Hollande. (Read more from “3 Wounded as Off-Duty US Servicemen Subdue Gunman on Paris-Bound Train” HERE)

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Paris Officials Threaten Lawsuit Against Fox News Over Muslim No-Go Zones

By T. Becket Adams. Paris officials are reportedly planning to sue Fox News for airing now-retracted reports on supposed “no-go” Muslim zones in France, the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, announced Tuesday.

“When we’re insulted, and when we’ve had an image, then I think we’ll have to sue, I think we’ll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed,” Hidalgo said in an interview with CNN.

“The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris has been prejudiced. And I think in the great discussion of truth, everyone is to play its role. And we’re going to have to be realistic and put things as they are,” she said.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour pressed Hidalgo to name one such news group that would be included in the lawsuit, prompting the Paris mayor to answer: “Fox News, that’s the name.” (Read more about the threatened lawsuit against Fox News over the alleged Muslim no-go zones HERE)

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Bobby Jindal under Fire for Highlighting Europe’s Muslim No-Go Zones

By Jordan Schachtel. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has come under fire from the left for doubling down on his assertion that France has “no-go zones” in which non-Muslims are forbidden from entering.

Jindal said at London’s Henry Jackson Society that Muslim immigrants are attempting to “colonize Western countries, because setting up your own enclave and demanding recognition of a no-go zone are exactly that.”

Some public figures argue that the “no-go zones” are areas susceptible to a sudden flare-up, depending upon the current political environment. Since 2006, Harvard Professor Daniel Pipes has kept a continually updated blog on France’s “no-go zones.” Pipes explains that while well-maintained, the areas remain “potentially dangerous” in times of heightened political turmoil. (Read more from this story HERE)

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