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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas blamed former President Donald Trump on Sunday’s “State of the Union” on CNN for the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Anchor Dana Bash asked, “The Biden administration, though, is, as you mentioned, now allowing unaccompanied children into the U.S., different from the Trump administration. Clearly, you don’t have the infrastructure to handle this many children right now. As I mentioned, more than 600 children have been in Border Protection custody for more than ten days, far longer than is acceptable and allowed by law. That’s three days. So, did you change the policy too quickly without having the infrastructure in place to take care of these children?”
Mayorkas said, “We will not abandon our values and our principles. We will not abandon the needs of young children. That’s what this is all about. We are executing on our plan. It does take time. It is difficult. Our plan includes the deployment of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, FEMA, to assist HHS in building its capacity more rapidly to shelter the children. But it is taking time, and it is difficult because the entire system was dismantled by the prior administration. There was a system in place in the Republican and Democratic administrations that was torn down during the Trump administration. That is why the challenge is more acute than it ever has been before.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0.240898 |
Former President Donald Trump strongly criticized President Joe Biden in an interview Monday for reopening the border by rolling back tough immigration policies and creating a new migrant crisis.
“They’ll be coming up by the millions,” Trump said about the flood of migrants crossing the border into the United States. The former president discussed the border crisis with Fox News host Lisa Boothe in a podcast interview released Monday.
Trump warned Americans the crisis would get far worse during the Biden administration, even though record numbers were already crossing the border.
“It’s nothing compared to what’s going to be in a couple of months,” he said.
Trump noted Latin American countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala were “not sending up their finest” to the United States and even warned that even people from the Middle East were again crossing the border.
“As I said before, you have some very bad hombres coming up and we’re taking them into our country and it’s insane,” Trump said.
He emphasized that, once migrants were released into the country, they would disappear.
“They go into our country. We never find them again; they never come back, a very tiny percentage comes back,” he said.
The former president told Americans Biden made a big mistake by ending effective policies like “Remain in Mexico” which could have prevented the crisis on the border.
“We had it down to an absolute science; it was a beautiful thing to see,” Trump said.
He also urged Biden to finish the wall on the Southern border.
“It’s just crazy that they’re not finishing the wall.” | 0.100436 |
Most GOP senators are dodging the Democrats’ efforts to seduce them into joining very unpopular amnesty bills by citing President Joe Biden’s border meltdown, according to Politico.
“Many of us support giving a path to citizenship,” to younger illegal migrants, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), told Politico. “But now the border is such a disaster that I don’t see how you can do just a bill to deal with [that],” she said March 18.
Politico accepts the border rationale for the GOP evasiveness — and ignores the huge unpopularity of wage-cutting amnesty bills even if the border is under control. In 2014, GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) made that mistake and lost his seat in a surprise primary defeat.
The March 19 Politico report cited other GOP senators’ claim that Biden’s border problem precludes amnesty deals:
“There’s no scenario I would support even what we called the SUCCEED Act, which was a path to citizenship for the [Dreamers], without it being paired with border security,” [Sen. Thom] Tillis said, referring to the conservative alternative to the DREAM Act that he had endorsed. … “I’m in the bipartisan group, but we haven’t touched it,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “There’s a problem that needs to be fixed, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near stepping up to it right now.” … “The concern is, as soon as you bring something up to even start discussing it [an amnesty], you’re going to get a surge,” [Sen. James] Lankford said. “So if you’re not ready to really do it, you shouldn’t play with that. I don’t hear us ready to do it.”
Establishment GOP senators have an incentive to hide behind Biden’s mismanagement at the border — it allows them to dodge incompatible and competing demands by voters and business donors, either to block or approve amnesties and migration expansion bills. By talking about the border, the reporters and GOP senators can also jointly ignore the central question — whether migration and amnesty are good for working Americans’ pocketbooks.
Democrat senators need ten GOP senators to overcome the 60-vote threshold for scheduling votes in the Senate. So far, only two GOP senators have attached their names to bills that would amnesty illegal aliens and import even more workers for the jobs needed by Americans.
The zig-zag strategy is also useful because the GOP senators know that immigrant voters cost them their Senate majority in the January 2021 Senate races in Georgia. Any further amnesties will likely push the GOP — and their careers — into long-term political irrelevance and also push the smaller Red states into political oblivion.
The main GOP supporter for amnesty, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), says deals are off the table until Biden recovers control of the border. “We find ourselves in a situation where there is no way forward until you control the border,” Graham told a pro-amnesty March 17 press conference on Capitol Hill. He continued:
The Biden administration has created chaos where there was order [under former President Donald Trump]. And the only way we’ll ever be able to sit down with our Democratic colleagues is for us to regain control of the border, and I want to say without any hesitation, Biden has lost control of the U.S. Mexican border. Until he regains control by implementing policies that work, it’s going to be very hard to do the [DACA young illegal aliens] “dreamers” or anybody else. Why? Because … legalizing anybody under these circumstances will lead to even more illegal immigration.
To Democrats, he said:
So if you’re serious about solving the immigration problem, you will be serious about changing our laws on asylum, you will finish building the wall where it makes sense. You will restore the Remain in Mexico policy, you will go back into the treaties with the [Northern] Triangle countries because that will lead to the calmness at the border we need to find a solution here in Washington.
The evasive, zig-zag strategy adopted by many GOP senators shows the intense pressure they are under from voters and business donors.
The donors gain greatly each time the government OKs another huge inflow of migrants who serve as cheap workers, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters. But while business groups offer valuable donations — the populist groups can expand or shrink the politicians’ vital vote totals.
The populist groups include Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, NumbersUSA, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. They have to compete with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the tech companies advocacy groups, such as FWD.us.
A few GOP senators are standing up for amnesty talks:
Sen Rick Scott (R-FL) has drafted an amnesty for at least one million illegal aliens, which his staffers are quietly trying to sell an amnesty bill to staffers who work for other GOP senators. But his office is suggesting that Biden’s policy makes a deal less likely.
“Senator Scott does not support amnesty,” a staffer told Breitbart. “Look at what Biden’s open borders and amnesty plan is doing to our Southern border. Senator Scott has long said reforms to the immigration system become much more simple once the border is secure, and that’s his focus.”
Scott is in charge of fundraising for the Senate GOP’s 2022 campaigns, so he is under intense pressure to import for business donors a new round of cheap labor, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters.
Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) has announced he will propose an amnesty for a million illegal farmworkers and combine it with a plan to import very cheap H-23A visa workers to fill up all the jobs — and more — that will be opened up when the amnesty’s migrants move to non-agriculture jobs in towns and cities.
“House passage of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act is an important step toward bringing certainty to our country’s agriculture industry and the hard-working producers and farmworkers,” said a statement from Crapo and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). “We will work together to introduce companion legislation in the U.S. Senate that appropriately addresses the needs of both the industry and the farmworkers that uphold it.”
But that bipartisan swap — cheap workers for the industry in exchange for amnestied farmworkers for Democrats — leaves many ordinary Idahoans and their rural communities in the dust. The H-2A workers would be so cheap that they will be used for additional jobs now held by Americans, and they will also take most of their meager payroll — and their possible tax payments — back home with them every year.
Retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is also talking up hopes for a deal, Politico reported:
He opposed the sweeping bill in 2013 but wants to put something together before he leaves the chamber and is the GOP’s rare optimist when it comes to seeing the potential for a deal: “I do. But no one else does.”
Portman is one of five retiring GOP senators, along with Roy Blunt (R-MO), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Richard Burr (R-NC) and Richard Shelby (R-AL). The pro-amnesty groups will target them for votes, in part, because they do not have to fear the voters’ response.
In July 2019, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) complained about the voters’ objecting to his pro-amnesty, business-first perspective, saying, “The problem is, Republicans, fear that no matter what you do, someone is going to start screaming amnesty … And if you don’t know, in a Republican primary that [can be] devastating. I know that. I’ve been accused of that.”
On March 18, Simpson denied that his vote for the 2021 farmworker amnesty is a vote for amnesty, saying:
This bill is not about what’s happening at the southern border … this bill is not amnesty. It does not grant anybody amnesty. It allows individuals to get right with the law and to become a legal workforce in the United States. It’s about providing a stable, legal workforce for the people who put food on our tables.
For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.
The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves wealth from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from agriculture-heavy and central states to the coastal states. | 0.17486 |
ROME — Pope Francis said Monday all children enjoy the same right to life regardless of their situation, in commemoration of World Down Syndrome Day.
“Every child who a woman expects in her womb is a gift that changes a family’s history: the life of fathers and mothers, grandparents and of brothers and sisters,” the pope declared in a tweet in support of babies with Down Syndrome.
“That child needs to be welcomed, loved and nurtured. Always!” he said, adding the hashtag “#WorldDownSyndromeDay”.
The pontiff sent out a similar message on this date in 2019, urging all persons with Down syndrome “be welcomed, appreciated, and never discarded, right from their mother’s womb.”
Pope Francis has also condemned what he called the “eugenic tendency” behind eliminating unborn babies with handicaps, which reveals a “narcissistic and utilitarian vision.”
This selfish mentality leads many to consider people with disabilities as marginal, without perceiving their human and spiritual wealth, the pope said in October 2017, as he addressed participants in a conference titled “Catechesis and Persons with Disabilities: A Necessary Engagement in the Daily Pastoral Life of the Church.”
Too many people still reject this condition, Francis said, “as if it prevented them from being happy and fulfilled.”
“Proof of it is the eugenic tendency to suppress the unborn who have some form of imperfection,” he said.
Pope Francis has repeatedly spoken out against the “scourge of abortion,” comparing it to the brutal tactics of the Mafia.
Pope Francis has advanced the cause for the canonization of Jérôme Lejeune, a French pro-life scientist best known for his groundbreaking work on Down syndrome. https://t.co/tfCDGjM9aD — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 25, 2021
“I was thinking about the custom of doing away with babies before they’re born, this horrendous crime,” Francis said. “They do away with them because it’s easier like that, because it’s more comfortable. It’s a great responsibility — a very grave sin.”
“We are called to defend and safeguard human life, especially in the mother’s womb, in infancy, old age and physical or mental disability,” he said in a post on Twitter.
Studies indicate that some 67 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in the United States are aborted, while in many other countries, the percentage is higher still, and the abortion industry has fought tenaciously to allow women to selectively abort children thought to have the condition.
World Down Syndrome Day is celebrated every March 21 (3/21), an allusion to an extra (3rd) 21st chromosome possessed by people with the condition.
Follow @tdwilliamsrome | -1.815439 |
ROME — Over 200 German-speaking Catholic theologians issued a statement Sunday rejecting the Vatican’s recent declaration prohibiting the blessing of same-sex unions.
The Vatican text “is characterized by a paternalistic gesture of superiority and discriminates against homosexual people and their lifestyle,” state the 212 theologians, who hail from universities around Germany and Austria.
The theologians accuse the Vatican text of lacking “theological depth, interpretive understanding, and argumentative rigor.” By ignoring relevant “scientific findings,” they declare, “the Magisterium undermines its own authority.”
As Breitbart News reported, on March 15 the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a declaration that the Church has no power to bless homosexual unions, noting that God Himself “does not and cannot bless sin.”
Blessings require both “the right intention of those who participate” and “that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation,” stated the CDF text, issued with the express approval of Pope Francis.
“Therefore, only those realities which are in themselves ordered to serve those ends are congruent with the essence of the blessing imparted by the Church,” it noted.
“For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage,” it said, “as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex” because such unions are “not ordered to the Creator’s plan.”
There are “absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family,” it stated, citing Pope Francis.
Blessing an illicit sexual union would be “to approve and encourage a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the revealed plans of God,” it noted.
In their response to the text, the German-speaking theologians reject the underlying teaching it contains, insisting that “the lives and loves of same-sex couples before God are worth no less than the lives and loves of any other couple.”
The Catholic Church, along with many other Christian churches, has consistently taught that homosexual relations are immoral.
“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church, adding that such acts are “contrary to the natural law” and “close the sexual act to the gift of life.”
The homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered,” the Catechism continues, but those who experience same-sex attraction “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” and every “sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
Follow @tdwilliamsrome | -0.37715 |
BERLIN (AP) – German authorities are expected to extend lockdown measures again on Monday and possibly tighten some restrictions as they face a steady rise in new coronavirus infections.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s 16 state governors, who in highly decentralized Germany are responsible for imposing and lifting restrictions, are holding a videoconference nearly three weeks after they agreed a several-step plan paving the way to relax some rules.
Since then, infections have increased steadily as the more contagious variant first detected in Britain has become dominant. Most lockdown restrictions are currently set to run through March 28. The chancellery is proposing an extension to April 18th.
Politician from Merkel's Party Resigns over Profiting from Mask Contracts https://t.co/63Woc16k6d — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 7, 2021
Rather than new moves toward a more normal life, one focus now is pressing regional officials to use consistently an “emergency brake” mechanism under which relaxations granted in recent weeks — such as the partial reopening of nonessential shops — are supposed to be reimposed if new weekly infections in an area exceed 100 per 100,000 residents on three consecutive days.
“Unfortunately, we will have to make use of this emergency brake,” Merkel said Friday.
The weekly infection rate per 100,000 people stood at 107 nationwide on Monday, up from the mid-60s three weeks ago.
Merkel Party Suffers Worst Regional Defeats Since Second World War https://t.co/e0lZC0E6Ab — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 15, 2021 | 0.944323 |
The pause on construction of the border wall costs taxpayers about six million dollars per day while construction sites sit idle, Breitbart Texas learned from a senior Department of Homeland Security official. On Sunday, March 21, the 60-day pause in construction of the border wall is scheduled to end.
According to the source, the expenditures are required for materials orders placed before the pause and expenses for the cost of equipment sitting idle. When the issuance of a stop work order causes a contractor to idle equipment, they are entitled to be compensated for rental expenses or costs of ownership.
Shortly after taking office, President Biden signed an executive order temporarily halting any further progress on the border wall so individual contracts could be evaluated. With the exception of “make-safe” activities at the worksites, construction projects immediately came to a standstill, Breitbart Texas reported. The end of the 60-day pause does not, however, signal an automatic restart of construction.
Early in the pause, a spokesperson for the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) informed Breitbart Texas that contractors would be informed of a final decision sometime after the 60-day pause concludes. The time was to be used for evaluating each contract to reach a decision to terminate-for-cause or continue.
The Biden administration has not indicated which direction they will take regarding the end of the pause. Little information concerning the immigration crisis on the border has come from the leadership team within DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Senior officials within DHS reported being instructed not to speak to national media on the issues facing DHS at the border. Information from other agencies within the new administration is equally elusive. USACE did not respond to a request for information concerning the end of the pause and the border wall contracts currently being evaluated.
As the deadline looms for a decision to be reached, equipment still sits idle. In Eagle Pass, Texas, a 51.9-million-dollar fence contract hangs in the balance. The equipment gathers dust and the contractor still awaits a decision. Other problems appearing along the border may be taking precedent over the status of the border wall contracts.
In recent days, the Secretary of DHS, Alejandro Mayorkas has said “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years,”. In addition to the surge of migrants that are being apprehended along the border, a significant amount of illegal migrant traffic is also avoiding arrest. The administration was also not prepared for the onslaught of unaccompanied children crossing the border as policy changes were being made.
In addition to the daily expenses related to the pause of border wall construction, additional costs to taxpayers are likely on the horizon if the administration does decide to close out the contracts permanently.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX. | -0.115737 |
Six new alleged victims have emerged in a case involving a former employee of a Stockholm LGBT group who has been charged with sexually assaulting and raping asylum seekers.
Last week a former employee of the Stockholm branch of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Rights (RFSL) was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault and rape against four male LGBT asylum seekers, with the assaults allegedly taking place at the group’s office in Södermalm in 2019.
According to a report from Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio, another six alleged victims of the same man have come forward, and a new investigation has been launched.
The broadcaster states that all of the new accusers are over the age of 18. The assaults related to the new accusations took place either before or during the timeframe of the existing cases in 2019 and occurred at the same office in Södermalm.
Former Stockholm LGBT Group Employee Charged with Raping Male Asylum Seekers https://t.co/Albu0G9KwA — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 11, 2021
Prosecutor Reena Sarwar, however, would not confirm details of the new investigation, saying: “I cannot comment on whether or not there is anything else going on. I can neither confirm nor deny whether there are any more plaintiffs.”
Prosecutor Paulina Pilati of the City Prosecutor’s Office in Stockholm had remarked on the first set of charges last week, alleging the man preyed on vulnerable asylum seekers who came to him for advice.
“They have sought him out for help and advice in their asylum process or in their right to stay in Sweden. The key question in the court’s review is whether the men have been in a particularly vulnerable situation, which I think they have been,” Ms Pilati said.
The case is not the first time a member of an LGBT organisation in Sweden has been accused of sex crimes in recent years. In 2017, a member of the Stockholm Pride organisation, which runs the city’s pride parades, was revealed to have been convicted of raping a 13-year-old boy in 2011. | -0.959904 |
PARIS (AP) — Residents of Paris and several other regions of France spent their first weekend under a limited monthlong lockdown. While the French government insisted the rules would be less strict than in the past, the measures have been criticized as messy.
A travel authorization certificate posted online was so ridiculed by French media for its unnecessary complexity that the Interior Ministry scrapped it within hours. For now, simple proof of residence is required to stroll within a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius.
The form the French government still obliges citizens to fill out to travel greater distances – up to 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) also was not accessible online because of a technical glitch. A website Sunday simply said, “Available soon.”
Under the new restrictions, nonessential shops were closed but people are not required to spend most of the day confined at home. The government announced the measures on Thursday as the coronavirus picked up speed again in some parts of France.
The country reported 35,327 new confirmed cases on Saturday, when the number of COVID-19 patients in French intensive care units rose to 4,353, the most so far this year, the Health Ministry reported.
“When you look at the numbers, they’re unsustainable, and it is going to become ever-harder as the virus continues to circulate,” Anaelle Aeschliman, a nurse at the Ambroise Pare clinic in the western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, told The Associated Press. “I admit I was a bit disappointed that we aren’t being locked down nationwide.”
The French government has tried hard to avoid imposing a third nationwide lockdown. President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that “lockdown” was not the appropriate term to describe the new regional restrictions. | 0.303303 |
The Biden administration drew fire from the governor of Texas after opening yet another facility in the state to address the number of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border. In the latest move, the department has opened an existing oil worker man camp in Pecos, Texas.
The facility, previously known as the Pecos Lodge North, will serve as the latest site to accommodate the massively growing numbers of unaccompanied migrant children illegally crossing the border. In a statement released on Saturday, HHS relayed the following information.
It is anticipated the Target Lodge Pecos North ICF will initially accommodate approximately 500 children in hard-sided structures with the potential to expand to 2000. Additional semi-permanent (soft-sided) capacity may be added if necessary, though ORR will always prioritize placing children in hard-sided structures over semi-permanent structures. ORR is committed to holding ICFs to the same or higher standards as state-licensed facilities. The Target Lodge Pecos North ICF will be used when the site is ready to safely receive children. Using ICFs will help ensure children are moved into ORR shelters, where children receive educational, medical, mental health, and recreational services until they can be unified with families or sponsors without undue delay.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott responded quickly, saying the “Biden Administration continues to show that it is dangerously unprepared to handle the surge in illegal border crossings as they rush to open yet another facility for unaccompanied minors in Texas.”
The governor directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to ensure the facility has safe drinking water.
HHS recently opened facilities in Carrizo Springs and Midland, Texas to address the overcrowding in Border Patrol facilities designed only for the temporary detention of adult migrants. HHS is also temporarily sheltering UACs at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, Texas. The moves come as the Biden administration struggles to deal with seemingly uncontrollable levels of illegal entries at the southern border with Mexico
In a written statement released late Saturday, Governor Abbott said:
As this humanitarian crisis grows along our southern border, the Biden Administration continues to dodge questions that Texans are demanding answers for: Is the federal government tracking what countries these children are coming from and what COVID-19 variants they might have been exposed to? How long will these children be held in Texas? The Biden Administration’s refusal to secure our border, investigate the origins and potential trafficking of unaccompanied minors, and protect these vulnerable children will only worsen the situation and put innocent lives at risk. President Biden must act now to end this crisis.”
According to law enforcement sources, the latest effort by HHS to shelter more UACs may still not be enough. Sources in the Rio Grande Valley report over two thousand migrants per day were apprehended on three separate days last week. The same source, not authorized to speak on the matter, indicated 400-600 of those apprehensions per day were unaccompanied minors.
This latest announcement comes as the Biden administration received harsh criticism from Texas Governor Greg Abbott concerning the inhumane conditions at some of the other shelters recently opened in his state.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX. | 0.38952 |
The number of migrant children now held in U.S. custody surged past 15,000 on Saturday, with some 5,000 unaccompanied minors alone being held in a tent holding facility run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other stations along the U.S.-Mexico Border.
According to a CBS News report, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed HHS is housing nearly 10,500 unaccompanied minors in emergency housing facilities and shelters licensed by states.
The detention of these minors shatters the 2,600 children held at the peak of the 2019 migrant surge.
The news outlet reported unaccompanied migrant children are spending 136 hours on average in CBP custody, passing the legal time limit of 72 hours in a trend that first started last month, as Breitbart News reported.
The mainstream media is being silent as the Biden administration holds unaccompanied migrant children in Border Patrol custody longer than legally allowed, the head of the Border Patrol union stated. https://t.co/3WqfTn2Yyd — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 24, 2021
CBS further reported border officials have encountered over 500 unaccompanied minors per day over the past 21 days. The number of encounters are expected to top the 9,400 minors that entered custody in February.
Such is the pressure on CBP officials they are considering a plan to release migrants apprehended in South Texas who claim asylum without issuing a Notice to Appear (NTA). Breitbart Texas confirmed with a senior CBP official the plan is being discussed.
AP reports since Joe Biden’s inauguration, the U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials.
There were 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children encountered in February — an increase of 168 percent and 63 percent, respectively, from the month before, according to the Pew Research Center.
The president and other administration officials in recent days have stepped up efforts to urge migrants not to come while at the same time denying any crisis exists.
Nothing to see here…everyone move along…China Joe has it under control! https://t.co/9OK8HO79fM — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 4, 2021
Critics have pointed to public comments from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who earlier this month advised the administration’s message to migrants was “don’t come now” and a slip by Roberta Jacobson, the White House’s lead adviser on the border, who said in Spanish during a recent briefing the “border is not closed,” before correcting herself. | 0.876498 |
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has accused the Greek coastguard of handcuffing seven asylum seekers and throwing them into the Aegean Sea.
The minister made the accusations after the Turkish coastguard claims it rescued migrants in the Aegean who were found with their hands bound with plastic handcuffs. One migrant was found dead, while two others were found alive, and the remaining four are said to be missing, newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports.
Minister Soylu made the accusations on Twitter which included footage of the alleged rescue operation of the two migrants, writing: “Greek coast guard units battered seven migrants tonight, took their belongings, tied their hands in plastic handcuffs, and threw them to their deaths in the sea without lifejackets or boats.”
A later report from Turkish newspaper Hurriyet claimed that the bodies of at least three migrants had been found so far, citing a statement from the İzmir Governor Office.
The newspaper also claimed that a group of migrants who had crossed the land border illegally into Bulgaria had complained that Bulgarian authorities had beaten and robbed them before they were forced back to Turkey.
The Turkish interior minister’s accusation comes nearly a year after he announced that the Turkish government would allow migrants to travel to the Greek border when the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic ends.
UN Calls on EU to Stop Migrant Pushbacks at Its Borders https://t.co/9oBEcOGBHH — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 30, 2021
George Koumoutsakos, the Greek Alternate Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy, reacted to Soylu’s statement last year, saying the “statements by Soyilu respond to those who still had the slightest doubt that the events in Evros were an aggressive plan to brutally blackmail Greece and Europe with a ‘weapon’ of migrant exploitation”.
The Turkish claims also come after the European Union has accused Greece of engaging in so-called “pushbacks” against migrants in the Aegean Sea.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) called on the European Union to investigate allegations of pushbacks earlier this year after citing information provided by pro-migration non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
An EU inquiry into the role of the EU’s border agency Frontex found that the agency had not been directly involved in any of the pushback incidents reported. | -0.02273 |
Migrants who apply for asylum in the UK via legal routes and are granted refugee status will automatically be given indefinite leave to remain, effectively settled status.
Home Secretary Priti Patel will announce, according to media reports on Sunday, that asylum seekers deemed to have fled conflict or persecution who apply for refugee status via the “safe and legal resettlement route” will be given indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
Before these changes, refugees were granted five years to live in the UK before applying for ILR.
Current British government guidance on ILR states that for those with the immigration status, there is “no longer any time limit on your ability to stay in the UK” and that residents are “regarded as settled in the UK”.
Those with IRL are free to work, study, and access NHS services, with reports saying the plans are aimed at refugees having the stability to build long-term lives in the UK.
The government is also proposing making family reunification of refugees, i.e., chain migration, easier.
Asylum seekers will be asked to make refugee applications overseas first before arriving in the UK, according to The Telegraph.
Priority will be given to asylum seekers in conflict zones, rather than those “already in safe European countries”.
Boris Remarks Backing Amnesty for Illegals Branded ’Deeply Irresponsible’ https://t.co/NVqyxvIqwb — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 21, 2021
Home Secretary Patel said, according to Sky News: “Our New Plan For Immigration will make big changes, building a new system that is fair but firm. We will continue to encourage asylum via safe and legal routes whilst at the same time toughening our stance towards illegal entry and the criminals that endanger life by enabling it.
“Not all of these reforms will happen overnight, so in order to save lives we will need to stick to the course and see this New Plan For Immigration through.”
The government has not stated whether refugee status could be removed under the new rules if the situation in a home country changed. The indefinite leave to remain documents, which have not been updated since 2019, state that ILR can be “revoked” if a holder “were granted leave as a refugee and cease to be a refugee”.
The UK’s oldest conservative think tank warned that if the government plans to accept large numbers of asylum seekers, it needs to make other immigration cuts.
Bow Group chairman, Ben Harris-Quinney, told Breitbart London on Sunday: “Geniune asylum is one of the strongest reasons to accept immigrants into the UK, but if the government want to take in large numbers of refugees, they need to make massive cuts to overall immigration elsewhere.”
Delingpole: BoJo’s Britain Is a Haven for Refugees – But Increasingly Hellish for Natives https://t.co/aZo2ziZKyJ — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 19, 2021
Mr Harris-Quinney also challenged government plans for automatic indefinite leave to remain, saying that “other Western nations offer asylum until such time as the situation refugees are fleeing has resolved; there is no reason from Britain to extend asylum beyond this.”
Denmark earlier this month stripped 94 Syrian refugees of their residency status and ordered them to return after deeming the capital Damascus and other parts of the Middle Eastern country to be “safe”.
Danish Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye had said: “We have made it clear to the Syrian refugees that their residence permit is temporary. It can be withdrawn if protection is no longer needed.”
Mr Tesfaye had added: “We must give people protection for as long as it is needed. But when conditions in the home country improve, a former refugee should return home and re-establish a life there.”
The Scandinavian country is believed to be the first European nation to do so. Around 1,250 other Syrians in Denmark could have their refugee status reassessed.
The UK government, meanwhile, in October 2020, had bragged that Britain “resettles more refugees than any other country in Europe”, announcing this month it had taken in 20,000 Syrians since 2015.
More than five million migrants from the European Union have applied to live permanently in Britain under the EU settlement scheme, with applications still open until June 2021. https://t.co/rwoc5nEaIS — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 13, 2021
Mr Harris-Quinney continued to tell this publication: “Once again, we see tough talk from the government on reducing immigration, whilst they quietly change the rules to facilitate a continued increase to immigration.
“The Conservatives have been in power for ten years. There is no one else to blame for the millions and millions of record-breaking numbers of people that have entered our country in that time. They make the Blair government look like amateurs on mass immigration.”
The government is also proposing other measures to combat illegal migration, including increasing the penalties for people smugglers. Failed asylum seekers and criminal migrants will be prevented from lodging endless last-minute appeals in order to prolong their stay in the UK. Judges will also be ordered to give “minimal weight” to evidence provided later in the asylum application process.
The announcement comes after reports that the Home Office was considering following Australia’s lead and processing migrants in offshore territories, with Gibraltar and the Isle of Man being considered, amongst others as well as third countries.
However, the Manx and Gibraltarian leaders said they had not been contacted by Downing Street, and such plans were ultimately unlikely.
Mr Johnson had defended the plans in a recent press conference at which he also reiterated his long-held support for amnesty for illegals who had been in the country for some time, and had otherwise not committed any crimes. | -2.479098 |
The boss of Australian airline QANTAS warned Sunday “governments are going to insist” on coronavirus vaccines for all international fliers, with the global imposition coming sooner rather than later.
Chief executive Alan Joyce told the BBC governments were talking about vaccination as “a condition of entry,” reaffirming a warning he delivered last November, as Breitbart News reported.
Even if governments weren’t immediately examining the possibility, Joyce thought carriers should enforce its own policy.
“We have a duty of care to our passengers and to our crew, to say that everybody in that aircraft needs to be safe,” Joyce said.
He believes that would justify changing the terms and conditions on which tickets are booked.
Joyce thinks passengers would be willing to accept the change. “The vast majority of our customers think this is a great idea – 90 percent of people that we’ve surveyed think it should be a requirement for people to be vaccinated to travel internationally.”
Last year joyce outlined his plans for QANTAS when he warned that global air travel will never be the same again once the coronavirus pandemic is done, as Breitbart News reported.
#BREAKING: QANTAS CEO confirms that proof that you've been vaccinated for COVID-19 will be compulsory for international air travel onboard his aircraft. #9ACA pic.twitter.com/dhk3Hsnxn9 — A Current Affair (@ACurrentAffair9) November 23, 2020
Joyce hinted then other airlines could follow QANTAS with requiring the vaccination for passengers traveling abroad.
“I’ve been talking with my colleagues at other airlines around the globe, and I think that’s going to be a common theme across the board,” he said.
Australia’s government closed its borders to almost all foreigners last February and has also periodically closed internal borders even as other countries like the U.S. allow travel but with masks and strict isolation policies.
A slight majority of U.S. air travelers say they are not comfortable flying in the era of the Chinese coronavirus. https://t.co/cJpkIRNp8N — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 10, 2020
Even with vaccines, Joyce thinks “once we open up our international borders, we’re going to have the virus circulating.”
“And that’s going to be a big change for a lot of Australia, to find that acceptable,” he said. “We need people to understand they can’t have zero risk with this virus. We manage risk in so many different other ways for other parts of life.” | -2.241845 |
ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey withdrew early Saturday from a landmark European treaty protecting women from violence that it was the first country to sign 10 years ago and which bears the name of its largest city.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s overnight decree annulling Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention is a blow to women’s rights advocates, who say the agreement is crucial to combating domestic violence. Hundreds of women gathered at demonstrations across Turkey on Saturday to protest the move.
The Council of Europe’s Secretary General, Marija Pejčinović Burić, called the decision “devastating.”
“This move is a huge setback to these efforts and all the more deplorable because it compromises the protection of women in Turkey, across Europe and beyond,” she said.
The Istanbul Convention states that men and women have equal rights and obliges state authorities to take steps to prevent gender-based violence against women, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.
Some officials from Erdogan’s Islam-oriented party had advocated for a review of the agreement, arguing it is inconsistent with Turkey’s conservative values by encouraging divorce and undermining the traditional family unit.
Critics also claim the treaty promotes homosexuality through the use of categories like gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. They see that as a threat to Turkish families. Hate speech has been on the rise in Turkey, and the country’s interior minister described LGBT people as “perverts” in a tweet. Erdogan has rejected their existence altogether.
Women’s groups and their allies who have been protesting to keep the convention intact immediately called for demonstrations across the country Saturday under the slogan “Withdraw the decision, implement the treaty.” They said their years-long struggle would not be erased in one night.
“We were struggling every day so the Istanbul Convention would be implemented and women would live. We now hear that the Istanbul Convention has been completely repealed,” Dilan Akyuz, 30, who joined other women demonstrating in Istanbul. “We are very angry today. We can no longer bear even one death of a woman. We do not have any tolerance for this.”
Rights groups say violence against and the killing of women is on the rise in Turkey, an assertion the interior minister called a “complete lie” on Saturday.
A total of 77 women have been killed since the start of the year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform. Some 409 women were killed in 2020, with dozens found dead under suspicious circumstances, according to the group.
Numerous women’s rights groups slammed the decision, saying laws protecting women are inadequately enforced. Advocacy group Women’s Coalition Turkey said the withdrawal from a human rights agreement was a first in Turkey. “It is clear that this decision will further encourage the murderers of women, harassers, rapists,” their statement said.
Turkey’s justice minister said the government was committed to combating violence against women.
“We continue to protect our people’s honor, the family and our social fabric with determination,” Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul tweeted.
Erdogan has repeatedly stressed the “holiness” of the family and called on women to have three children. His communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the government’s motto was ’Powerful Families, Powerful Society.”
Many women suffer physical or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands or partners, but up-to-date official statistics are unavailable. The Istanbul Convention requires states to collect data.
More than a thousand women and allies gathered in Istanbul, wearing masks and holding banners. There was a heavy police presence in the area, and the demonstration ended without serious skirmishes.
They shouted pro-LGBT slogans and called for Erdogan’s resignation. They cheered as a woman speaking through a megaphone said, “You cannot close up millions of women in their homes. You cannot erase them from the streets and the squares.”
“As women, we now think that the withdrawal is a direct attack on women’s rights and a direct attack on the rights of modern young women, in particular,” Ebru Batur, 21-year-old demonstrator, said. “This of course makes us feel insecure and like our rights are appropriated.”
Turkey was the first country to sign the Council of Europe’s “Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence” at a committee of ministers meeting in Istanbul in 2011. The law came into force in 2014, and Turkey’s Constitution says international agreements have the force of law.
Some lawyers claimed Saturday that the treaty is still active, arguing the president cannot withdraw from it without the approval of parliament, which unanimously ratified the Istanbul Convention in 2012.
But Erdogan gained sweeping powers with his re-election in 2018, setting in motion Turkey changing from a parliamentary system of government to an executive presidency.
The justice minister wrote on Twitter that while parliament approves treaties which the executive branch puts into effect, the executive also has the authority to withdraw from them.
Women lawmakers from Turkey’s main opposition party said they would not recognize the decree and called it another “coup” on parliament and an usurpation of the rights of 42 million women.
Germany’s Foreign Ministry joined the criticism, saying “withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention is a wrong signal for Europe, but especially for the women of Turkey.”
“Only a few weeks ago, President Erdogan introduced an action plan for human rights which also includes the fight against domestic violence and violence against women,” the German ministry said in a statement. “Quitting an important convention of the Council of Europe questions how serious Turkey is when it comes to the goals mentioned in that action plan.”
“It is clear that neither cultural, nor religious or other national traditions can serve as a disguise in order to ignore violence against women,” Germany said. | 0.058772 |
Shamima Begum, one of three British schoolgirls who ran away to Syria to marry Islamic State militants, said she joined the terror group because she did not feel loved by her mother and begged for a “second chance” and to be allowed to return to the UK.
Begum, who left the United Kingdom in 2015 aged 15 and married a Dutch jihadist, is one of several Islamic State brides from the West barred from returning home who featured in the documentary The Return: Life After ISIS, which premiered at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday night.
Describing herself as the “black sheep of the family”, she said she had a difficult relationship with her mother growing up, suggesting she joined Islamic State because she “didn’t feel loved as a child'”, according to BirminghamLive.
Ms Begum said: “I always wanted to be part of a Muslim community because when I was young, I felt like I was an outsider in my community.
“So I just wanted to be a part of something. My friends started practising [Islam], and they helped me come into the religion as well, and it just started with, like, learning my religion.
“And then it turned into wanting to come into Syria, wanting to help the Syrians.”
Shamima Bae! ‘Conservative’ Newspaper Publishes Bizarre Celebrity-Style Photo Shoot of Jihadi Bride https://t.co/YjUMnveH01 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 15, 2021
Last month, the UK’s Supreme Court denied Ms Begum’s appeal to return to the UK to challenge the removal of her British citizenship. Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid removed her citizenship in February 2019 on the grounds of national security; the government maintained that she would not be rendered stateless as she could apply for a Bangladeshi passport by heritage links through her parents.
Currently residing at a Kurdish-run Roj camp for jihadi wives and families in Syria, Begum claimed that she had defended Islamic State in her earlier interviews with the British media because she “lived in fear” of the ISIS fanatics at the camp “coming into my tent and killing me and my baby”.
Begum had three children with Muslim convert Yago Riedijk, all of whom have since died. Riedijk, 29, is still alive and believed to be in a Kurdish-run prison in Syria.
She also accused the British government of “making up” stories that she was a member of the ISIS morality police, hisba. Media reports from 2019 claimed that Begum carried a Kalashnikov rifle and “earned a reputation as a strict ‘enforcer’ of [the Islamic State’s] laws, such as dress codes for women”, and that she had “literally stitch[ed] the vests” of suicide bombers.
She had also remarked in 2019 that when she saw her first severed head, belonging to a captured opposition fighter, “it didn’t faze me at all”. She was unbothered by the brutal death, she explained, because the head had belonged to an enemy of Islam. | 0.023507 |
Police will begin recording offences believed to be motivated by misogyny as hate crimes in the wake of Sarah Everard’s apparent murder, Boris Johnson’s government has confirmed.
Speaking for the Johnson administration in the House of Lords, Home Office junior minister the Baroness Williams of Trafford said that from the autumn of 2021, “we will ask police forces to record and identify any crimes of violence against the person, including stalking and harassment and sexual offences, where the victim perceives it to have been motivated by a hostility based on their sex, which, as I have said, can then inform longer-term decisions.”
Prime Minister Johnson, who describes himself as a feminist, according to his new White House style press secretary, former Guardian and BBC journalist Allegra Stratton, told the House of Commons that “We have to address the fundamental issue of the casual everyday sexism and apathy that fails to address the concerns of women – that is the underlying issue.”
Yet another hate crime, this time misogyny. Knife crime can soar but mother-in-law jokes are out. — Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) March 17, 2021
The move was not greeted with enthusiasm by everyone, however, with former UKIP, Brexit Party, and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage observing: “Yes another hate crime, this time misogyny. Knife crime can soar but mother-in-law jokes are out.”
Indeed, the practical effect of the new laws is in some question, as existing laws against genuine harassment and even sex crimes are not enforced with any great rigour by British judges.
For example, takeaway worker Javed Miah, 23, was recently allowed to walk out of court a free man with a suspended sentence — of just six months, so he would have been out in a matter of weeks even if a term of immediate custody had been imposed — after stalking a woman through the street at night and sexually assaulting her in Oldham.
The judge may have been swayed by the defence’s bizarre suggestions that the attack was “quite opportunistic” and warning that the predator “would lose his job [if sent to prison] and he is the sole earner for his family, so this would have a significant impact.”
No Prison for Trans 'Woman' Who Attacked Underage Girls in Public Toilets https://t.co/ijHakEPan9 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 17, 2019
Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBM ontgomery | -0.597729 |
Denmark has proposed countering the formation of parallel societies by limiting the number of non-Western residents in neighbourhoods to no more than 30 per cent.
The proposal aims to have no residential area in the country have a population of more than 30 per cent non-Western migrants within the next decade, with Interior and Housing Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek stating the move is to counter ghettoisation.
“We have the next ten years to strike a balance in our integration policy and the way we live and live together,” Dybvad said and added, according to Danish broadcaster TV2: “Otherwise, I think we will end up with a two-tier society where people are withdrawing from each other.”
The government is also looking to abolish the term “ghetto” in legislation, with Minister Dybvad stating: “The ghetto designation is misleading. I do not use it myself, and I believe it obscures the important work that needs to be done in residential areas.
“All this effort is about combating parallel societies and creating a positive development in residential areas, so as to make them attractive to a wide cross-section of the population.”
Ghetto areas are defined under Danish law as areas of at least 1,000 people where the proportion of migrants and non-Western migrant backgrounds exceeds 50 per cent.
Danish Prime Minister Sets Target of Zero Asylum Seekers to Protect Social Cohesion https://t.co/5Pf8l8ZDTw — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 23, 2021
There are several other criteria for the designation, including high unemployment, low education levels among adults, low incomes, and criminal convictions for narcotics or firearms violations.
There are 15 areas currently on the government’s official list of ghettos, and all are said to have non-Western populations above 30 per cent.
Curt Liliegreen, Director of the Housing Economics Knowledge Centre, criticised the proposal saying that it was not a realistic goal. “There are simply too few public housing for families,” he said and added: “There are too few private housing rentals, and the demand is too great, so the only way to achieve the goal is to get that group out of the municipality.”
The proposal comes just months after the government of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen vowed to crack down on crimes committed by young non-Western men, after noting that 20 per cent of non-Western men born in 1997 had breached the penal code before the age of 21.
Danish PM to Crack Down on ‘Non-Western’ Young Men Harassing Native Danes https://t.co/odSLmsL3NX — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 9, 2020
“It’s nothing new, and that’s the problem: it’s been going on for too many years. Girls are called derogatory things because they are Danish. Or girls are subjected to social control because they have become too Danish. A sausage cart in Brønshøj is attacked with firecrackers because it sells pork,” she said.
Earlier this year, the Danish government leader set a target of receiving zero new asylum seekers, saying: “We must be careful that there are not too many coming to our country. Otherwise, our cohesion cannot exist. It’s already challenged.” | -0.525316 |
A new child sexual exploitation unit in Manchester, England, has been launched after years of failure on so-called “grooming” rape gangs.
The Greater Machester Police (GMP) Force Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Unit, according to an official statement released on March 18th to mark National CSE Awareness Day, will be comprised of of 54 police officers and staff with “dedicated specialist skills and resources [for] investigating large scale and complex CSE investigations.”
“It is not a gimmick. This has been in the planning since last year,” insisted Deputy Chief Constable Mabs Hussain, in comments reported by the Manchester Evening News.
“If you want to make a difference you have got to have people who are passionate and care. If it means knocking someone’s door for something they did 20 years ago we are going to do it,” Hussain promised.
“What I don’t want is a repeat of the past. I am not saying we will never make mistakes, we will because we are human. But when we make a mistake, we will apologise and do all we can to put it right.
“What I want to make sure of is that we are not intentionally because of our lack of focus making mistakes.”
The senior officer was referring to the many failures of police forces, social services, and other authorities over decades with respect to so-called “grooming gangs”, comprised predominantly of Muslims of South Asian heritage who targeted mostly non-Muslim and often white working-class victims.
Successive probes and investigations have found that police were terrified of being branded racist if they tackled the abuse, with officers saying their superiors told them to “try and get other ethnicities” and dismissing victims as making “lifestyle choices” to “prostitute” themselves, or as participants in consensual sexual relations — a legal nonsense, given minors cannot give informed consent under British law, still less consent to being pimped out to dozens of men.
Police Told Mother of Rape Gang Victim, 12, That She Was ‘Prostituting Herself’ https://t.co/y4uf6DMIe7 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 17, 2021
According to the Manchester Evening News, the number of victims discovered across 70 investigations by Greater Manchester Police now stands at some 468, 332 of whom have been identified, with the number of predators standing at an astonishing 809, 540 of whom “are known”.
The force area, in which grooming gangs once operated in “plain sight”, according to a report into the death of 15-year-old victim Victoria Agoglia, who died after being injected with heroin by a 50-year-old man while in the care of Manchester City Council, does not only cover Manchester proper, but also the infamous rape gang epicentre of Rochdale, where the new CSE unit is overseeing three units involving victims as young as nine.
Asylum Seeker Child Rape Grooming Gang Kept Secret by Scottish Police https://t.co/7RPUwf6oja — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 28, 2020
Mainstream media, despite the huge focus it is currently putting on the issue of “male violence” against women in the wake of Sarah Everard’s apparent murder in London, has published very few reports on the grooming gang developments as of the time of this article’s publication.
One of the few outlets to run the story somewhat prominently is the Metro — despite having previously published an article complaining that “bleating” about grooming gangs was “being used to shut down important discussions about islamophobia [sic]”.
Media: ‘Bleating’ About Muslim Rape Gangs Takes Focus Away from ‘Islamophobia’ https://t.co/bWYrY5rgsW — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 3, 2020
Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBM ontgomery | -1.414495 |
After setting up a fingerprint database in cooperation with North African countries, the Paris police prefecture positively identified 229 “minor” migrants, of which 216 were revealed to be adults.
The Directorate of Security of the Paris Metropolitan Area (DSPAP) implemented the system 15 months ago in cooperation with authorities in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and have requested identification for 939 migrants over that period.
Of the 229 ‘underage’ migrants positively identified, 94 per cent were actually adults. Those whose identities were confirmed were 156 Algerians, 71 Moroccans, and two Tunisians. The remaining migrants were classified as of “unknown origin”, according to a report from the newspaper Le Figaro.
Crime perpetrated by alleged unaccompanied minor migrants (MNAs) has become an increasing trend in Paris and other cities across France. According to statistics from the DSPAP, unaccompanied minors from North Africa were implicated in various crimes 7,988 times in 2020, increasing 20 per cent from 2019.
In 2019 and 2020, following the easing of lockdown restrictions, asylum seekers from three North African countries made up 75% of the minor migrants arrested in Paris. https://t.co/2ydsPJT0TQ — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 14, 2021
An estimated 1,000 minor migrants reside in Paris and accounted for 28 per cent of all the minor offenders in the city in 2020, up from 17 per cent in 2018.
The Paris prosecutor’s office notes that many also lie about their identities and how old they really are in order to be treated as juvenile offenders because it is easier for them to escape custody.
The DSPAP data comes just days after French politicians Jean-François Eliaou and Antoine Savignat presented a report that revealed up to 75 per cent of underage migrant crime in Paris involves suspects from just three north African countries.
“Mostly young men from Maghreb countries distinguish themselves from other MNAs by chaotic migration routes that are particularly traumatic, and then by a life of wandering once they arrive in France. Often the victims of trafficking networks, they are delinquents and drug addicts,” the French Directorate of Judicial Protection of Youth (DPJJ) stated.
Underage Migrants Cost France Two Billion Euros Per Year https://t.co/OWzoxMDRpk — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 8, 2019
Valérie Martineau, director of local security in the Paris metropolitan area, told Le Figaro that many of the migrants commit basic thefts, such as jewellery or mobile phones, to support their drug addictions as well as a “taste for designer clothing”.
Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian migrants were arrested 1,633 times in cases of burglary in Paris in 2020 alone, with many selling their goods just 15 minutes later on the streets of the Barbès area of northern Paris.
Minor migrants also represent nearly a third of defendants in violent robberies, and many are said to carry knives and even firearms. “When victims resist, they pull out a knife quite easily,” Ms Martineau said.
'Ultraviolent' Underage Migrants Causing Havoc in French Prisons https://t.co/R34FV9d25U — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 7, 2021 | -0.217578 |
Boris Johnson has again raised his support for amnesty for illegals in remarks branded “deeply irresponsible” by Migration Watch UK.
This week, the prime minister did not deny reports that the Home Office was considering sending asylum seekers offshore while their claims are processed in order to deter illegal migration.
However, Prime Minister Johnson added that he was behind granting amnesty to migrants who illegally entered the county some time ago and if they are, otherwise, law-abiding.
Mr Johnson said, according to The Sun: “I think when people have been here for a very long time, and haven’t fallen foul of the law, then it makes sense to try to regularise their status which actually is pretty much what really happens under the existing rules.”
Alp Mehmet, chairman of the mass migration-sceptic think tank Migration Watch UK, said of the remarks in comments seen by Breitbart London: “The Home Office itself has said that recurrent amnesties only encourage more illegal migrants to try and come.
“Wherever amnesties have been tried they have failed. Boris Johnson wanted one when Mayor of London. He was wrong then and is still wrong.
“It would send out the wrong message and, not surprisingly, the majority of the public are against.”
Flashback: ‘Amnesty Boris’ on Illegals, Open Borders to Turkey, Migration Caps https://t.co/J3fr111BRH — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 23, 2019
Boris Johnson had, on at least two occasions, called for an “earned amnesty” of some 400,000 illegals living in London during his time as mayor of the capital.
Even on the campaign trail for Vote Leave in 2016 ahead of the EU referendum, Johnson had said — in the same breath that Britons should vote to leave the bloc to “take back of control of our borders” — that “I am in favour of an amnesty for illegal immigrants who have been here more than 12 years”.
Two years later, as foreign secretary, Johnson called for a “broader” amnesty of illegals from Commonwealth countries such as Pakistan and Kenya.
Even as candidate for Conservative Party leader and prime minister in 2019, he backed amnesty for aliens who had been in the country illegally for 15 years.
Migration Watch UK added in its condemnation of the prime minister’s stance: “Granting an illegal immigration amnesty would be a grave insult to the huge number of legal migrants who play by the rules, fill in forms, pay exorbitant fees and wait patiently in line as well to tens of millions of law-abiding citizens in the UK.
“An amnesty would also be hugely divisive and very expensive. Proposing an amnesty for illegal immigration is deeply irresponsible. The Prime Minister should reconsider.”
Majority of Britons Reject Amnesty for Illegal Aliens https://t.co/AaSlYm0EZ2 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 13, 2020
Speaking to Breitbart London on Saturday, chairman of the Bow Group, the UK’s oldest conservative think tank, Ben Harris-Quinney said that in the past decade that the Conservatives have been in power, the UK has seen “record immigration” which “no one voted for” and “there is no one left to blame but them”.
“What we have seen from the Conservative Party over the past ten years are headlines that suggest tough action on immigration, but detail that suggests continued promotion of mass immigration,” Mr Harris-Quinney told this publication.
“The government has created four million new settled status citizens over the past few years, as well as allowing 700,000 people a year to migrate to Britain, to say nothing of illegal immigration. Nothing like these numbers have ever been seen in human history, it will change our country in very extreme ways, and no one voted for it.”
Reiterating criticism of the prime minister’s post-Brexit ‘Australia-style’ immigration system — which has no cap on numbers — that has already come from Brexit leader Nigel Farage and Migration Watch UK, Harris-Quinney said: “The points-based immigration system makes it easier, not harder, for immigrants to come to Britain.”
The Bow Group chairman added: “We call on the Government to stop conning the public, to use gross figures rather than net figures when counting immigration, and to cut gross figures to under 50,000 a year.” | -0.382927 |
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The interior ministers of the five Mediterranean countries on the front line of mass migration to Europe want their EU partners to share the burden more equitably.
“We can no longer be punished for our geographical position,” Malta’s Byron Camilleri said Saturday, summing up his position and that of his colleagues from Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain after they met in Athens.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas joined part of the meeting, Schinas is coordinating the commission’s work to revise the European Union’s pact on migration and asylum.
Ministers from Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain created a “MED 5” group last year in an effort to present united front and influence the new EU pact.
Their demands are threefold: better cooperation with the countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia where most Europe-bound migrants and asylum-seekers come from; greater willingness by other EU member nations to accept newly arrived migrants; and a centralized European repatriation mechanism overseen by the EU’s executive commission.
Southern European countries with extensive coastlines have borne the brunt of arriving asylum-seekers hoping to enter the EU. Most Europe-bound migrants travel by boat on dangerous maritime smuggling routes, either from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands or across the Mediterranean from north Africa.
The ministers discussed whether Turkey played an active role in pushing migrants toward Europe in contravention of a 2016 migration-control between the EU and Turkey.
Cyprus’ interior minister, Nikos Nouris, said most of the migrants arriving in his country enter from the the Turkish Cypriot-controlled northern part of the island nation. He called for Turkey to accept inspections on its southern shoreline by Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency.
At one point last year, Turkey’s president said his government would no longer discourage migrants from trying to cross the border into Greece. | 1.843367 |
Scotland Yard has described how a shooting could have nearly turned into a murder investigation after an unknown assailant discharged a firearm several times in the direction of London Metropolitan police officers.
The Met revealed on Friday that ten plainclothes officers patrolling Grahame Park Estate in Colindale, Barnet, North London approached six men at around 7 pm on Thursday after a report of a large gathering, likely in contravention of coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
The men fled, and the officers pursued on foot, with one of the suspects firing several times at the unarmed officers, in what was described as an act of “extreme violence”.
Thankfully, no officers were injured; however, the Met said in the statement that “incidents of this type can have long-term physical and psychological effects on officers”.
Police are appealing for information from the public. Scotland Yard revealed that in the past 12 months, Met Police officers had been assaulted 7,140 times — an increase of 19.1 per cent on the same period the year before.
Black Lives Matter Protests ‘Contributed’ to a 38 Per Cent Rise in Attacks on London Police https://t.co/s9ZMM6IIdn — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 20, 2020
Investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Gemma Alger said of the incident: “The message is clear that any levels of violence against our colleagues who serve the public and keep our communities safe will not be tolerated. We are committed to finding those involved and fully investigating the circumstances.
“The repercussions of this split-second action could have been grave – we could potentially have been dealing with a murder investigation. Nobody should go to work fearing that they may never return home.”
British police forces have faced an increasing threat of violence from members of the public, particularly during the past year whilst policing protests attended by far-left activists.
A report from August 2020 revealed that London police had seen a 38 per cent increase in attacks on officers between May and July, compared to the same period the year before. The Met said that policing protests, including Black Lives Matter demonstrations, “contributed” to the rise. | -0.344421 |
A 26-year-old Afghan migrant faces up to ten years in prison after being charged with child endangerment following the drowning of his six-year-old son while trying to reach Europe by boat from Turkey.
The charges are related to a shipwreck off the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean Sea on November 8th, 2020. The case could present a major challenge to migrants attempting to make the voyage to Europe to claim asylum if the Afghan is convicted, Dimitris Choulis, the lawyer for the accused, has claimed.
According to a report from the Greek newspaper Proto Thema, the prosecution of the Afghan father is the first of its kind in Europe.
Despite accusations from the Afghan’s lawyer that the prosecution is an attack on the right to asylum, Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi stressed that the case was not to be taken as a sign that the government was cracking down on migration.
Greece Appoints New Assistant Minister Who Labelled Migrants ‘Unarmed Invaders’ https://t.co/39wqT9ab1p — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 8, 2021
The accused Afghan, whose asylum application was rejected twice in Turkey, spoke to the Associated Press this week about the shipwreck, stating: “I didn’t come here for fun. I was compelled.”
“I decided to go for the future of my son, for my future, so we can go somewhere to live, and my son can study,” he added.
While the migrant faces prosecution for his son’s death, he is also preparing to sue the Greek government over the Greek response to the shipwrecked vessel, claiming that the coastguard delayed rescue operations.
The Greek coastguard said that it received the first distress calls from NGO Aegean Boat Report at 12:06 am, according to Deutsche Welle, but the NGO claims that the migrants stated they had received no help over an hour later. The coastguard said that it sent vessels to the area immediately after getting the first distress call.
“If there is the loss of human life, it must be investigated whether some people, through negligence or deliberately, acted outside the limits of the law,” Minister Mitarachi said.
Noting that the migrants’ lives are not in danger in Turkey, he added: “The people who choose to get into boats, which are unseaworthy and are driven by people who have no experience of the sea, obviously put human lives at risk.”
Since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, there have been several shipwrecks off the coast of Greece. According to the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum, between 2014 and 2020, more than 1.2 million migrants tried to cross the Aegean to get to Greece and more than 2,000 of them died in the process.
In one incident in 2016, an estimated 41 people died in two shipwrecks in the Aegean on the same night, with 17 being children.
A Greek newspaper has blamed NGOs for a surge of arrivals of African migrants, mainly from Somalia, claiming that between 2,000 and 2,500 migrants are currently in Turkey being helped to enter Greece illegally. https://t.co/i7L6RRRu9Q — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 20, 2020 | 0.563002 |
Sales of previously owned homes dropped in February, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Total existing-home sales dropped 6.6 percent from January to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 6.22 million, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. This followed two months of higher sales.
Despite the February retreat, home sales were up 9.1 percent compared with a year ago.
The supply of homes on the market fell 29.5 percent year-over-year, the largest ever annual decline. At the current sales pace it would take two months to sell available inventory, a very low level of homes for sale.
Home prices continued to climb in February. The median price of homes sold rose 15.8 percent compared with a year prior, to $313,000. That is the highest price point for February on record.
Sales of homes priced above $1 million were 81 percent higher compared with a year ago. Low end homes, priced between $100,000 and $250,0000, fell 11 percent.
Existing home sales are measured at closing, so the February figures largely reflect purchases that went under contract in January or December.
Sales were down on a monthly basis in the Northeast, the South, and the Midwest. Sales were up 4.6 percent in the West. All areas are up year-0ver-year. | 0.717057 |
Sales of previously owned homes dropped in February, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Total existing-home sales dropped 6.6 percent from January to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 6.22 million, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. This followed two months of higher sales.
Despite the February retreat, home sales were up 9.1 percent compared with a year ago.
The supply of homes on the market fell 29.5 percent year-over-year, the largest ever annual decline. At the current sales pace it would take two months to sell available inventory, a very low level of homes for sale.
Home prices continued to climb in February. The median price of homes sold rose 15.8 percent compared with a year prior, to $313,000. That is the highest price point for February on record.
Sales of homes priced above $1 million were 81 percent higher compared with a year ago. Low end homes, priced between $100,000 and $250,0000, fell 11 percent.
Existing home sales are measured at closing, so the February figures largely reflect purchases that went under contract in January or December.
Sales were down on a monthly basis in the Northeast, the South, and the Midwest. Sales were up 4.6 percent in the West. All areas are up year-0ver-year. | -0.103556 |
As the hype around Non-Fungible Token (NFT) art continues to grow, many are ridiculing the craze including British actor and comedian John Cleese who is now selling his own drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT. Cleese commented on the blockchain-based NFT craze, saying “The world has gone terminally insane.”
Vanity Fair reports that the NFT crazy has only grown in recent months to the surprise of many. Now even some celebrities are joining in on the craze, some looking to profit from the trend and others simply to ridicule what they believe to be the ridiculous concept of NFTs.
One such celebrity is British actor and comedian John Cleese, famous for his work in Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda amongst many others. Vanity Fair writes:
You have never heard of the artist known as the “Unnamed Artist” before, but by the end of the week (perhaps by the end of this article), he could end up being one of the most famous artists alive today. His work may end up selling for more than a Manet, a de Kooning, or a Picasso. “I have no idea what’s going on,” the Unnamed Artist told me in a phone interview hours before his first NFT was about to go live at auction. “But in this particular realm, no one has any idea what’s going on.” If, when you see the Unnamed Artist for the first time, he looks familiar to you, and even looks a little like John Cleese, the actor from Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, and A Fish Called Wanda, then you probably have no idea what’s going on, either. That’s because, on Friday, Cleese—also known, as of Friday, as the “Unnamed Artist”—is going to be selling an illustration of the Brooklyn Bridge he did on his iPad as an NFT. The “buy it now” price for this digital work is being set at $69,346,250.50. The crazy thing is, he actually might get it. Just a couple of weeks ago, most people had never heard of an NFT, or a “non-fungible token.” A couple of months before that, even people in the tech trenches had no idea what an NFT was. NFT employs technology similar to that behind cryptocurrencies and exists only on the blockchain. The best way to understand how NFTs differ from traditional cryptocurrencies is to put your mind in the physical world for a minute. Imagine if you and I were standing across from each other and we both had 10 one-dollar bills. If I swapped one of my dollar bills for one of your dollar bills, we’d both still have $10 in our hands. Bitcoin and other crypto work in the same way. Regardless of which Bitcoin you have, you have one Bitcoin (and whatever monetary value that is worth). NFTs, on the other hand, are all different. They are more akin to standing in front of someone with a stack of trading cards, where each card is unique. So while they all sit on the blockchain, NFTs are one of a kind, verifiable assets that are easy to trade, but can’t ever be forged or copied. But what they are actually used for is a whole different quandary, and the world seems to have gone mad trying to make, buy, and sell them.
Breitbart News recently reported that a Brooklyn-based film director named Alex Ramírez-Mallis is both mocking and attempting to profit from the recent cryptocurrency craze for NFTs by selling a year’s worth of fart audio clips recorded in quarantine.
Ramírez-Mallis told the New York Post: “If people are selling digital art and GIFs, why not sell farts?” His NFT, titled “One Calendar Year of Recorded Farts,” began development in March 2020 when he and his four friends began sharing recordings of their farts to a group chat on WhatsApp.
Ramírez-Mallis discussed the concept of NFTs referencing screenshots of screenshots and the concept of colors which are currently being sold, stating: “The NFT craze is absurd — this idea of putting a value on something inherently intangible. These NFTs aren’t even farts, they’re just digital alphanumeric strings that represent ownership.”
“I’m hoping these NFT farts can at once critique [the absurdity], make people laugh and make me rich,” he said. He did note that there is a historical precedent for the concept of NFTs, stating: “In many ways, this is a bubble, but it’s also been around forever. Buying and selling art purely as a commodity to store value in has been around for centuries, and NFTs are just a digital way of representing that transactional nature of art.”
Read more about John Cleese’s foray into NFTs at Vanity Fair here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected] | -0.4869 |
As the hype around Non-Fungible Token (NFT) art continues to grow, many are ridiculing the craze including British actor and comedian John Cleese who is now selling his own drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT. Cleese commented on the blockchain-based NFT craze, saying “The world has gone terminally insane.”
Vanity Fair reports that the NFT crazy has only grown in recent months to the surprise of many. Now even some celebrities are joining in on the craze, some looking to profit from the trend and others simply to ridicule what they believe to be the ridiculous concept of NFTs.
One such celebrity is British actor and comedian John Cleese, famous for his work in Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda amongst many others. Vanity Fair writes:
You have never heard of the artist known as the “Unnamed Artist” before, but by the end of the week (perhaps by the end of this article), he could end up being one of the most famous artists alive today. His work may end up selling for more than a Manet, a de Kooning, or a Picasso. “I have no idea what’s going on,” the Unnamed Artist told me in a phone interview hours before his first NFT was about to go live at auction. “But in this particular realm, no one has any idea what’s going on.” If, when you see the Unnamed Artist for the first time, he looks familiar to you, and even looks a little like John Cleese, the actor from Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, and A Fish Called Wanda, then you probably have no idea what’s going on, either. That’s because, on Friday, Cleese—also known, as of Friday, as the “Unnamed Artist”—is going to be selling an illustration of the Brooklyn Bridge he did on his iPad as an NFT. The “buy it now” price for this digital work is being set at $69,346,250.50. The crazy thing is, he actually might get it. Just a couple of weeks ago, most people had never heard of an NFT, or a “non-fungible token.” A couple of months before that, even people in the tech trenches had no idea what an NFT was. NFT employs technology similar to that behind cryptocurrencies and exists only on the blockchain. The best way to understand how NFTs differ from traditional cryptocurrencies is to put your mind in the physical world for a minute. Imagine if you and I were standing across from each other and we both had 10 one-dollar bills. If I swapped one of my dollar bills for one of your dollar bills, we’d both still have $10 in our hands. Bitcoin and other crypto work in the same way. Regardless of which Bitcoin you have, you have one Bitcoin (and whatever monetary value that is worth). NFTs, on the other hand, are all different. They are more akin to standing in front of someone with a stack of trading cards, where each card is unique. So while they all sit on the blockchain, NFTs are one of a kind, verifiable assets that are easy to trade, but can’t ever be forged or copied. But what they are actually used for is a whole different quandary, and the world seems to have gone mad trying to make, buy, and sell them.
Breitbart News recently reported that a Brooklyn-based film director named Alex Ramírez-Mallis is both mocking and attempting to profit from the recent cryptocurrency craze for NFTs by selling a year’s worth of fart audio clips recorded in quarantine.
Ramírez-Mallis told the New York Post: “If people are selling digital art and GIFs, why not sell farts?” His NFT, titled “One Calendar Year of Recorded Farts,” began development in March 2020 when he and his four friends began sharing recordings of their farts to a group chat on WhatsApp.
Ramírez-Mallis discussed the concept of NFTs referencing screenshots of screenshots and the concept of colors which are currently being sold, stating: “The NFT craze is absurd — this idea of putting a value on something inherently intangible. These NFTs aren’t even farts, they’re just digital alphanumeric strings that represent ownership.”
“I’m hoping these NFT farts can at once critique [the absurdity], make people laugh and make me rich,” he said. He did note that there is a historical precedent for the concept of NFTs, stating: “In many ways, this is a bubble, but it’s also been around forever. Buying and selling art purely as a commodity to store value in has been around for centuries, and NFTs are just a digital way of representing that transactional nature of art.”
Read more about John Cleese’s foray into NFTs at Vanity Fair here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected] | 0.08356 |
Most GOP senators are dodging the Democrats’ efforts to seduce them into joining very unpopular amnesty bills by citing President Joe Biden’s border meltdown, according to Politico.
“Many of us support giving a path to citizenship,” to younger illegal migrants, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), told Politico. “But now the border is such a disaster that I don’t see how you can do just a bill to deal with [that],” she said March 18.
Politico accepts the border rationale for the GOP evasiveness — and ignores the huge unpopularity of wage-cutting amnesty bills even if the border is under control. In 2014, GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) made that mistake and lost his seat in a surprise primary defeat.
The March 19 Politico report cited other GOP senators’ claim that Biden’s border problem precludes amnesty deals:
“There’s no scenario I would support even what we called the SUCCEED Act, which was a path to citizenship for the [Dreamers], without it being paired with border security,” [Sen. Thom] Tillis said, referring to the conservative alternative to the DREAM Act that he had endorsed. … “I’m in the bipartisan group, but we haven’t touched it,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “There’s a problem that needs to be fixed, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near stepping up to it right now.” … “The concern is, as soon as you bring something up to even start discussing it [an amnesty], you’re going to get a surge,” [Sen. James] Lankford said. “So if you’re not ready to really do it, you shouldn’t play with that. I don’t hear us ready to do it.”
Establishment GOP senators have an incentive to hide behind Biden’s mismanagement at the border — it allows them to dodge incompatible and competing demands by voters and business donors, either to block or approve amnesties and migration expansion bills. By talking about the border, the reporters and GOP senators can also jointly ignore the central question — whether migration and amnesty are good for working Americans’ pocketbooks.
Democrat senators need ten GOP senators to overcome the 60-vote threshold for scheduling votes in the Senate. So far, only two GOP senators have attached their names to bills that would amnesty illegal aliens and import even more workers for the jobs needed by Americans.
The zig-zag strategy is also useful because the GOP senators know that immigrant voters cost them their Senate majority in the January 2021 Senate races in Georgia. Any further amnesties will likely push the GOP — and their careers — into long-term political irrelevance and also push the smaller Red states into political oblivion.
The main GOP supporter for amnesty, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), says deals are off the table until Biden recovers control of the border. “We find ourselves in a situation where there is no way forward until you control the border,” Graham told a pro-amnesty March 17 press conference on Capitol Hill. He continued:
The Biden administration has created chaos where there was order [under former President Donald Trump]. And the only way we’ll ever be able to sit down with our Democratic colleagues is for us to regain control of the border, and I want to say without any hesitation, Biden has lost control of the U.S. Mexican border. Until he regains control by implementing policies that work, it’s going to be very hard to do the [DACA young illegal aliens] “dreamers” or anybody else. Why? Because … legalizing anybody under these circumstances will lead to even more illegal immigration.
To Democrats, he said:
So if you’re serious about solving the immigration problem, you will be serious about changing our laws on asylum, you will finish building the wall where it makes sense. You will restore the Remain in Mexico policy, you will go back into the treaties with the [Northern] Triangle countries because that will lead to the calmness at the border we need to find a solution here in Washington.
The evasive, zig-zag strategy adopted by many GOP senators shows the intense pressure they are under from voters and business donors.
The donors gain greatly each time the government OKs another huge inflow of migrants who serve as cheap workers, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters. But while business groups offer valuable donations — the populist groups can expand or shrink the politicians’ vital vote totals.
The populist groups include Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, NumbersUSA, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. They have to compete with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the tech companies advocacy groups, such as FWD.us.
A few GOP senators are standing up for amnesty talks:
Sen Rick Scott (R-FL) has drafted an amnesty for at least one million illegal aliens, which his staffers are quietly trying to sell an amnesty bill to staffers who work for other GOP senators. But his office is suggesting that Biden’s policy makes a deal less likely.
“Senator Scott does not support amnesty,” a staffer told Breitbart. “Look at what Biden’s open borders and amnesty plan is doing to our Southern border. Senator Scott has long said reforms to the immigration system become much more simple once the border is secure, and that’s his focus.”
Scott is in charge of fundraising for the Senate GOP’s 2022 campaigns, so he is under intense pressure to import for business donors a new round of cheap labor, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters.
Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) has announced he will propose an amnesty for a million illegal farmworkers and combine it with a plan to import very cheap H-23A visa workers to fill up all the jobs — and more — that will be opened up when the amnesty’s migrants move to non-agriculture jobs in towns and cities.
“House passage of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act is an important step toward bringing certainty to our country’s agriculture industry and the hard-working producers and farmworkers,” said a statement from Crapo and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). “We will work together to introduce companion legislation in the U.S. Senate that appropriately addresses the needs of both the industry and the farmworkers that uphold it.”
But that bipartisan swap — cheap workers for the industry in exchange for amnestied farmworkers for Democrats — leaves many ordinary Idahoans and their rural communities in the dust. The H-2A workers would be so cheap that they will be used for additional jobs now held by Americans, and they will also take most of their meager payroll — and their possible tax payments — back home with them every year.
Retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is also talking up hopes for a deal, Politico reported:
He opposed the sweeping bill in 2013 but wants to put something together before he leaves the chamber and is the GOP’s rare optimist when it comes to seeing the potential for a deal: “I do. But no one else does.”
Portman is one of five retiring GOP senators, along with Roy Blunt (R-MO), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Richard Burr (R-NC) and Richard Shelby (R-AL). The pro-amnesty groups will target them for votes, in part, because they do not have to fear the voters’ response.
In July 2019, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) complained about the voters’ objecting to his pro-amnesty, business-first perspective, saying, “The problem is, Republicans, fear that no matter what you do, someone is going to start screaming amnesty … And if you don’t know, in a Republican primary that [can be] devastating. I know that. I’ve been accused of that.”
On March 18, Simpson denied that his vote for the 2021 farmworker amnesty is a vote for amnesty, saying:
This bill is not about what’s happening at the southern border … this bill is not amnesty. It does not grant anybody amnesty. It allows individuals to get right with the law and to become a legal workforce in the United States. It’s about providing a stable, legal workforce for the people who put food on our tables.
For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.
The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves wealth from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from agriculture-heavy and central states to the coastal states. | -0.494954 |
Multinational corporate executives, who often serve as the biggest donors for the nation’s political class, are the driving forces behind an amnesty plan passed by House Democrats and nine House Republicans.
Last week, the House passed H.R. 6, known as the “Dream and Promise Act of 2021,” to provide potentially 4.4 million illegal aliens with amnesty and put them on a track for American citizenship. All 218 House Democrats voted to support the amnesty and nine House Republicans joined them, including:
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)
Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL)
Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA)
Rep. David Valadao (R-CA)
Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL)
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
The amnesty’s biggest backers are a series of multinational corporations and their executives who often provide campaign cash to lawmakers.
In a March letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the corporations’ executives urged the Senate to pass the expansive amnesty.
“This important legislation has our strong support and we ask that you and your colleagues consider and pass it in the immediate weeks ahead,” the executives wrote.
The full letter can be read here:
Schumer McConnell Letter by John Binder
Those who signed off on the letter include tech conglomerates like Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, IBM, Uber, and PayPal. Also lobbying for the amnesty is the United States Chamber of Commerce, Visa, Marriott International, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Chobani, Starbucks, General Motors, Target, and Hilton.
A flooded U.S. labor market has been well documented for its wage-crushing side effects, so much so that economist George Borjas has called mass immigration the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class. The biggest winners are corporations and investors who can not only keep the cost of labor low, but also have a steady stream of consumers to buy their products and services.
Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.
Recent peer-reviewed research by economist Christoph Albert acknowledges that “as immigrants accept lower wages, they are preferably chosen by firms and therefore have higher job finding rates than natives, consistent with evidence found in US data.”
Albert’s research also finds immigration “raises competition” for native-born Americans in the labor market. Similarly, research from June 2020 on U.S. wages and the labor market shows that a continuous flow of mass immigration exerts “stronger labor market competition” on newly arrived immigrants than even native-born Americans, thus contributing to the wage gap.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), likewise, has repeatedly noted mass immigration cuts Americans’ wages.
In 2013, CBO analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for the American workers. A 2020 CBO analysis stated “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”
Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants receive green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals get temporary visas to fill U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here. | 0.05678 |
Jeff Bezos’ pro-migration Washington Post is warning President Joe Biden his failure to control fast-growing migration through the U.S. southern border threatens the Democrats’ political power in Washington, DC.
The warning was buried in the last paragraph of a March 19 editorial by the newspaper’s editorial board:
Mr. Biden, intentionally or not, has encouraged the flow, in the name of a more humane policy. Americans would be wise to welcome a new approach while insisting on orderly management at the border, along with focused enforcement and messaging, to prevent a surge from becoming a real crisis.
The editorial was mostly supportive of Biden, but it was headlined: “The influx of migrants isn’t a crisis. But it could become one without careful management.”
The editorial is worried that Biden’s policy is threatening Democratic power:
The main risks are political — for Democrats, forced to defend the administration’s border policies as they seek to retain control of Congress next year — and humanitarian, for unaccompanied minors who have been packed into ill-equipped border stations. Officials are deploying the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the border and opened additional facilities in Texas to handle an overflow that must not be allowed to get out of hand.
But the newspaper downplays Biden’s role in starting the migration and instead blames coyotes and cartels for supposedly fooling migrants into thinking that Biden will accept migrants’ entry into the United States.
In reality, the Biden administration demolished President Donald Trump’s multi-layer diplomatic and legal barriers to the inflow of migrants eager for jobs in the United States.
Since January, the administration has tried to keep the media focused on a small number of children amid the growing inflow of job-ready “Unaccompanied Alien Child” teenagers, the rising rush of “get-aways” adult male illegals, and the expanding flow of the illegals’ wives and children who are being allowed to enter via the nation’s expanding asylum doorway.
Administration officials are eager to portray this government-backed migration as driven by “push” factors in the migrants’ home countries, such as floods, crime, corruption. They are eager to downplay the “pull” factors in U.S. policy — such as the expanded asylum welcome — that help extract the next wave of migrants and send them on the dangerous trek to U.S. jobs, apartments, and K-12 schools.
But a March 20 news article in the Washington Post shows that poor migrants are rationally accepting Biden’s offer of easy migration into Americans’ jobs, apartments, schools, and society:
In the meantime, one clear message has resonated with migrants. The week after Rice’s border visit, [Rep. Henry] Cuellar [D-TX] visited a detention facility for migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Tex. Cuellar said he asked 16- and 17-year-olds whether they had heard Biden when he said not to come to the United States. The teenagers looked at each other and said no, he recalled. Okay, Cuellar pressed, what about the messages from friends, neighbors and family saying now is the time to come — were they hearing those? “They all raised their hands and said yes,” Cuellar recalled. “They said, ‘We see this on TV. We see images of people coming across. . . . We see people coming across, so we’re going to do the same thing.’”
“This,” the migrants told him, “is our opportunity to do this.” For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim. The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states. | 0.730245 |
For the first time in over 85 years, Monopoly’s 16 Community Chest Cards are about to get a “long overdue” refresh, Hasbro announced Thursday.
“True to its longstanding history of inviting its fans to help make changes to the game, and during a time when community means more than ever before, Monopoly is asking consumers worldwide to determine the new cards by voting at MonopolyCommunityChest.com,” the company said in a press release.
The release continued:
Covering topics like beauty contests, holiday funds, and life insurance, there is no denying the Monopoly game’s Community Chest Cards are long overdue for a refresh. And, coming out of the tumultuous year of 2020, the term “community” has taken on a whole new meaning. Hasbro is counting on their fans to help reflect what community means in their real lives, into the Monopoly game, by voting for new cards like “Shop Local,” “Rescue A Puppy,” or “Help Your Neighbors.”
Hasbro asked social media users to help make the changes by voting for their favorite cards online:
Yup, you read that right: THE MONOPOLY GAME is changing, and YOU get to be a part of it. 🙌 Help us add a little community to the Community Chest by voting for your favorite new cards now! https://t.co/CqlNVlE7C6#CommunityChest pic.twitter.com/hJ55V1w2Ai — Hasbro (@Hasbro) March 18, 2021
According to the Monopoly website where players may vote, card options include rescuing a puppy to get out of jail free or being penalized for not recycling your trash.
“The world has changed a lot since Monopoly became a household name more than 85 years ago, and clearly today community is more important than ever,” commented Eric Nyman, chief consumer officer at Hasbro.
“We felt like 2021 was the perfect time to give fans the opportunity to show the world what community means to them through voting on new Community Chest Cards. We’re really excited to see what new cards get voted in!” Nyman said.
However, some Twitter followers expressed disagreement with the decision.
“These cards don’t fit with the goal of bankrupting everyone else and they don’t carry the same recognition as some of the older cards. If someone made a joke about winning second prize in a beauty pageant I would instantly know it was about Monopoly,” one person replied.
Another called it a “terrible idea” and said Monopoly is a classic board game for a reason.
“Make a new woke version if you must but please leave the original game as it is. Hopefully you feel the pain of a massive boycott while you’re on the cancel culture bandwagon,” the user stated.
The updated game will be available this fall but it was unclear if a classic version of the game would still be sold. | -0.290833 |
A majority of Americans believe they are already paying their fair share in taxes, Rasmussen Reports found. The survey comes on the heels of the Biden administration considering a significant tax hike.
The survey, fielded among 1,000 U.S. adults from March 16-17, 2021, asked respondents, “Compared to people who make more or less than you, do you pay more than your fair share of taxes?”
Fifty-one percent said “yes,” they pay more than their fair share, followed by 27 percent who said “no,” and 22 percent who remained unsure. Those opinions vary greatly on party lines, as 59 percent of Republicans believe they pay more than fair share compared to 49 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of independents who expressed the same view.
Just over 20 percent of Republicans said they do not pay more than their fair share, compared to 33 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independents who said the same.
The survey coincides with reports of President Joe Biden considering a tax hike, which would be the “first major lift in federal taxes in almost 30 years if successful”:
Tax hikes included as part of infrastructure and job packages will likely include repealing part of former President Trump‘s 2017 tax law that benefitted corporations and wealthy individuals, the news outlet notes, citing sources close to the matter. As Breitbart News reported, Biden twice flagged his desire to raise taxes on everyone, including the middle class, during last year’s presidential debates. “That’s why I’m going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts,” Biden said during his first of two debates with President Trump. And then, to accentuate the point, he said it again, “I’m going to eliminate those tax cuts.”
Rasmussen’s survey has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent. | -1.141885 |
A recent report from CNN outlines how social media platforms are now having to work harder to keep content creators and online talent exclusive to their platforms. Platforms are throwing cash at prominent content creators, for example, one pair of influencers recently received almost $30,000 for a single Snapchat video.
In an article titled “Social Media Platforms Are Going to War For Online Talent,” CNN reports that social media websites are having to fight to attract and keep online content creators on their platforms.
CNN discussed two online creators, Katerina and Yinon Horwitz, who recently received almost $30,000 from Snapchat from just one video they posted to Snapchat’s short-form video hub, Spotlight. CNN writes:
Creators are the lifeblood of any social media platform, driving trends and engagement and building a loyal community. But increasingly, social media companies seem to be waking up to the reality Horwitz described: Creators may join a platform to build an audience, but ultimately the platform has to pay up for them to stick around. In recent months, major tech companies have stepped up to try to do just that, rolling out more and more ways for creators to make money on their platforms, both from ad revenue on their content and direct handouts. Snapchat is paying out a total of $1 million a day to those users who make the most entertaining videos for its TikTok rival Spotlight. TikTok launched a $200 million creator fund last year, which promises to reach hundreds of thousands of creators with plans for it to grow to $1 billion over the next three years. Twitter recently announced it’s exploring the possibility of users becoming paid subscribers to their favorite Twitter accounts. And on Sunday, the audio-focused app Clubhouse announced an accelerator program aimed at helping aspiring creators build and monetize an audience. These announcements reflect both the value of top content creators to the platforms and the fact that there have never been more avenues for internet personalities to make money directly.
Ben Ricciardi, founder of influencer marketing agency Times10, commented to CNN: “Social media is a war right now. Twitter is trying to figure out ways to bring back larger and larger audiences. Snap is really incentivizing creators to try to come back to the platform or spend more time on the platform.”
Read more at CNN here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected] | -1.155505 |
A Brooklyn-based film director is mocking and profiting off the recent cryptocurrency craze for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) by selling a year’s worth of fart audio clips.
The New York Post reports that a Brooklyn-based film director named Alex Ramírez-Mallis is both mocking and attempting to profit from the recent cryptocurrency craze for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by selling a year’s worth of fart audio clips recorded in quarantine.
Ramírez-Mallis told the Post: “If people are selling digital art and GIFs, why not sell farts?” His NFT, titled “One Calendar Year of Recorded Farts,” began development in March 2020 when he and his four friends began sharing recordings of their farts to a group chat on WhatsApp.
On the one-year anniversary of the US’s coronavirus quarantine this month, Ramírez-Mallis and his farting friends compiled the recordings into a 52-minute long “Master Collection” audio file. The top bid for the NFT is now $361.89
Individual fart recordings are also available for 0.05 Ethereum or around $85 each. “If the value increases, they could have an extremely valuable fart on their hands,” Ramírez-Mallis said.
Ramírez-Mallis discussed the concept of NFTs referencing screenshots of screenshots and the concept of colors which are currently being sold, stating: “The NFT craze is absurd — this idea of putting a value on something inherently intangible. These NFTs aren’t even farts, they’re just digital alphanumeric strings that represent ownership.”
“I’m hoping these NFT farts can at once critique [the absurdity], make people laugh and make me rich,” he said. He did note that there is a historical precedent for the concept of NFTs, stating: “In many ways, this is a bubble, but it’s also been around forever. Buying and selling art purely as a commodity to store value in has been around for centuries, and NFTs are just a digital way of representing that transactional nature of art.”
Read more at the New York Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected] | 0.357881 |
Representatives from leftist groups parked a mobile digital billboard outside of the Department of Interior’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Thursday to praise newly-minted Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to head the agency in charge of some 500 million acres, or about one-fifth, of the land in the United States.
The activists who sponsored the display billed themselves as “Indigenous women, environmental advocates, and citizens concerned about climate change.”
The messages displayed on the billboard reveal what direction they want Haaland to take while leading the agency.
“Secretary Haaland will be a fierce advocate for clean air and water, for our land, and for its relatives,” Nikki Pitre, executive director at the Center for Native American Youth, said.
“This is a proud moment for Indigenous people! Secretary Haaland is the fierce leader we need. She’ll lead us like our ancestors have — from our cultural foundations and teachings rooted in Mother Earth,” Allie Young, director of Protect the Sacred, said.
“Secretary Haaland is the perfect person to lead the interior department. She brings the Indigenous understanding that the present is where our collective past connects to our collective future,” Judith LeBlanc, director of Native Organizers Alliance, said.
“Secretary Haaland, may our ancestors guide and protect your leadership. Indigenous women will continue to fight fiercely for reflective representation so you are the first of many,” Anathea Chino, co-founder and executive director of Advance Native Political Leadership, said.
“There has always been Two Spirit Warriors and Indigenous Womxn in positions of power since before first contact. Today, we are fierce, evolved versions of our ancestors they could not kill,” Candi Brings Plenty, Oglala Lakota Sioux/Indigenous justice organizer and lobbyist with the ACLU, said.
“You are the reflection of our ancestors. Lead with compassion as so many grandmothers did before you. Honor our treaties as it is the supreme law of the land and continue to fight against injustice,” Krystal Curley, executive director of Indigenous Life Ways, said.
“Native leadership and values are crucial to protecting the planet for future generations. We are proud of and support Secretary Haaland as she continues to make history!” Crystal Echo Hawk, founder and executive director of IllumiNative, said.
The other groups involved in the billboard project include UltraViolet, ACLU South Dakota, and the Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute.
“We have many reasons to celebrate Interior Secretary Deb Haaland,” Elisa Batista, campaign director at UltraViolet, said in a press release announcing the billboard. “Besides her historic nomination, she is exactly the type of experienced public lands champion we need at the helm of Interior to implement the Biden-Harris conservation and climate plan, expand access to the outdoors, and put people before oil and gas profits.”
“For years, Secretary Deb Haaland has been at the forefront of crafting thoughtful solutions to combating the climate crisis through America’s public lands,” Batista said.
“After four years of the Trump administration looting our public lands and wreaking havoc on our climate and environment, Deb Haaland has the experience and drive needed to put us back on the right path,” Batista said.
Haaland has expressed support for President Joe Biden’s promise to ban all oil drilling leases on public land but has also signaled she will protect those same drilling leases on Indian land.
Indian tribes and western states with public land both benefit from oil and gas production because of royalties and other fees.
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter or send news tips to [email protected] | 0.002047 |
Twitter locked the account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on the same day that Democrats launched an effort to expel her from the House of Representatives, in a move the company later said was an “error.”
The Silicon Valley tech giant previously suspended the congresswoman’s account in January, after she discussed allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.
This time, Twitter says the suspension was an error.
According to a Twitter spokesperson, “our automated systems took enforcement action on the account referenced in error. This action has been reversed, and access to the account has been reinstated.”
Responding to the incident, Rep. Greene called on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to identify the employee at Twitter who made the error.
“I was just told Twitter suspended me for 12 hrs in ‘error,’ on the same day Dems introduced a resolution to expel me from Congress,” said Rep. Greene ” What a coincidence?”
“Twitter’s little error wasn’t resolved until after 12 hrs. @Jack which employee made the ‘error’? Reply to my email, Jack.”
I was just told @Twitter suspended me for 12 hrs in “error,” on the same day Dems introduced a resolution to expel me from Congress. What a coincidence? Twitter’s little error wasn’t resolved until after 12 hrs.@jack which employee made the “error?” Reply to my email, Jack — Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) March 19, 2021
The incident occurred as Democrats in Congress launched an effort to expel Rep. Greene from the House.
Democrats have repeatedly targeted Rep. Greene since she was elected in the November elections. In February, Democrats passed a resolution stripping the congresswoman of her committee assignments, a move that was also backed by 11 Republicans.
More recently, the Democrat representative of Guam in Congress, Rep. Michael F.Q. San Nicolas drew condemnation from across the political spectrum after he led members of the Guam National Guard to Rep. Greene’s office in what was widely described as a political stunt. It occurred in the same week that senior members of the military intervened in a political debate by publicly criticizing Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
I stand with Marjorie Taylor Greene! — Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) March 19, 2021
In a post on Twitter, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) expressed his support for his Republican colleague.
“I stand with Marjorie Taylor Greene!” said Rep. Gaetz.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election. | -0.496412 |
Americans are not waiting for permission to travel. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still advise against travel but data from March shows Americans are springing ahead with travel plans.
Hotel bookings rose to their highest level in over a year, data released Thursday show. Hotel Occupancy reached 52.1 percent in the second week of March, according to industry data from STR.
Year over year percentage changes are now favorable because we’ve past the anniversary of the pandemic lockdowns. Compared with 2019, occupancy is running at about 70 to 75 percent, STR said.
Air travel is up as well. Yesterday, 1.4 million people passed through TSA checkpoints, the highest level of travel in over a year. Compared with 2019, air travel is down 39.13 percent. A year ago, just 779,000 passengers boarded planes. | 1.120979 |
Republican legislators in the Florida House of Representatives have introduced legislation to protect political candidates from censorship by big tech platforms.
The bill encapsulates many of the measures called for by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in his press conference on the tech censorship issue at the start of February.
The bill includes a measure to fine social media platforms that blacklist political candidates, $100,000 a day for statewide candidates (governors, senators, and presidential candidates) and $10,000 a day for “other candidates.”
However, the bill also notes that this will only be enforced “to the extent not inconsistent with federal law and 47 U.S.C. s. 230(e)(3),” the part of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that states “no cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.”
The bill also includes extensive measures aimed at constraining tech companies’ ability to covertly prioritize content. It includes a definition of “shadow banning,” a practice long denied by the tech companies, as “action by a social media platform, through any means, whether the action is determined by a natural person or an algorithm, to limit or eliminate the exposure of a user or content or material posted by a user to other users of the social media platform. This term includes acts of shadow banning by a social media platform that are not readily apparent to a user.”
The bill would also mandate a period of 60 days for banned users of social media platforms to “access or retrieve all of the user’s information, content, material, and data.”
The bill can be read in full at the website of the Florida House of Representatives.
While the measures in the bill are extensive, it is facing criticism for not going far enough.
Laura Loomer, who was the Republican candidate for U.S. Congress in Florida’s 21st district in 2020 and is banned from most major tech platforms, said the fines of $100,000 a day for statewide candidates and $10,000 a day for non-statewide candidates would not be enough to deter billion-dollar companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
Loomer also highlighted that while the bill ostensibly penalizes tech companies for banning existing candidates, it includes no measures for re-platforming previously banned users who choose to run for office.
“President Donald Trump and I will only be able to benefit from Governor DeSantis’s proposed Big Tech legislation if it’s corrected to provide protection for people who were deplatformed prior to becoming candidates and prior to the legislation passing,” wrote Loomer in an article discussing the bill. “Donald Trump and I are both Palm Beach, FL residents and voters.”
In addition to Trump and Loomer, there are also hundreds of thousands of politically active American citizens who have also been banned from social media platforms and may wish to run for office one day.
Lack of access to social media would put them at a significant disadvantage in relation to their opponents, regardless of whether such candidates are Democrat, Republican, or third party.
The bill is still being debated in the Florida House and may be amended before passing. A companion bill in the Florida Senate will also have to be introduced before the legislation can pass.
Despite criticizing elements of the bill, Loomer has called on her supporters to call Florida representatives and ensure that a substantive bill reaches the desk of Governor DeSantis.
“If this legislation is crafted effectively… it would help put an end to Big Tech Censorship and deplatforming in Florida,” wrote Loomer.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election. | 0.102284 |
Thanks to the nationwide coronavirus closures and lockdowns in major movie markets from New York City to Los Angeles, the U.S. movie box office take crashed 80 percent last year, according to a new report by the Motion Picture Association.
The research found that the box office earnings fell to $2.2 billion in 2020, down 80 percent from 2019’s $11.4 billion.
The U.S. theatrical and mobile entertainment market earned $36.1 billion in 2019. But last year that take fell to $32.2 billion amid the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns. It is the lowest take since the $32 billion earned in 2017.
The final number, though, from the report also shows massive growth in streaming and video-on-demand services. Streaming earned $20 billion in 2019, but that take ballooned to $26.5 billion last year.
The report also found that China’s earnings surpassed that of North America for the first time ever. China’s entertainment market earned $3 billion to America’s $2.2 billion. Japan came in second with a take of $1.3 billion.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, The MPA report added:
“The past year was challenging for the global economy, and for virtually every aspect of our daily lives: the staggering loss of life, the toll on our frontline workers, the devastating and widespread loss of jobs and businesses, and the almost complete shutdown of many industries,” MPA chairman-CEO Charles Rivkin said in his letter introducing the 60 page-plus report. “Our workforce was not immune: Jobs were lost, productions were either curtailed or shut down, and movie theaters shuttered around the globe,” Rivkin continued. “But, during an otherwise punishing year for theatrical exhibition and our industry at large, home and curated entertainment boomed. The good news wasn’t just confined to homes, laptops, and other personal devices. As recent stories have shown, audiences never lost their appetite to enjoy the theatrical experience, and drive-in theaters enjoyed their highest returns in decades.”
During the pandemic in 2020, 55 percent of adults said their viewing habits on streaming increased, while 46 percent said their pay-TV use increased. The MPA report also found that users aged 18 to 39 were most likely to use mobile devices for daily viewing habits.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston. | 1.493816 |
In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook boasted about his company’s social justice initiative amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
In a recent op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook reflects on the last year and the effect of the coronavirus pandemic, which he says was a year where “critical conversations about equity and systemic injustice attained both new urgency and a well-deserved central role in our national conversation.”
Cook goes on to discuss how the virus affected the world, and how “structural discrimination” resulted in some people being affected more negatively than others. Cook writes:
In simple theory, a disease should affect all of us equally. But in plain fact, the opposite is true. We have all seen, in real time, how structural discrimination and obstacles to opportunity do their work in a crisis. In our communities, every burden—from rates of infection and care outcomes, to economic adversity, to the challenges of virtual learning when schools are closed—falls heaviest on those for whom true equity has always been farthest from reach. As someone who grew up during the civil-rights movement, it has been frustrating to see how much work is still to be done but heartening to see the degree to which people of good will have set aside comfort with the status quo to march and to demand something better.
Cook stated that Apple’s approach to times of crisis is asking “how can we help?” which has resulted in investments in social justice and racial equality initiatives. Cook states:
And it’s led us to undertake major new investments through our Racial Equity and Justice Initiative. These projects include the Propel Center in Atlanta, which we’re helping to build in partnership with the country’s historically Black colleges and universities, to support the next generation of leaders of color in fields ranging from machine learning to app development, entrepreneurship to design; and our first Apple Developer Academy in the U.S., in downtown Detroit, home to more than 50,000 Black-owned businesses and no shortage of great ideas for the app economy.
Despite Cook’s dedication to social justice and racial equality, it appears that this dedication does not extend outside of America. It was reported last year that iPhone manufacturers in China were using forced labor from Uyghur Muslims held in Chinese concentration camps. Breitbart News reported at the time:
The Tech Transparency Project (TTP) is a non-profit watchdog group that has challenged claims by Western tech companies like Apple that their supply chains are completely free of forced labor. On Tuesday, TTP showed documents to the Washington Post that demonstrated thousands of Uyghurs were sent to work for Lens Technology, one of the oldest suppliers for Apple, Inc. Apple consistently claims it has “zero tolerance for forced labor” and conducts vigorous reviews to ensure no Uyghur labor is used in its products, and repeated that denial in response to the Washington Post report, but TTP said its documents prove there are indeed thousands of Uyghurs working at Lens Technology plants. “Our research shows that Apple’s use of forced labor in its supply chain goes far beyond what the company has acknowledged,” TTP director Katie Paul told the Washington Post. “Apple claims to take extraordinary measures to monitor its supply chain for such problems, but the evidence we found was openly available on the Internet,” she added.
Read more at Breitbart News here, and read Cook’s full op-ed in the Washington Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected] | -0.255965 |
China will control Laos’s electricity grid for the next quarter-century according to a concession agreement the Laotian government signed with a majority Chinese-owned power company revealed this week.
The company, Électricité du Laos Transmission Company Ltd. (EDLT), formed on September 1 after Électricité du Laos and China Southern Power Grid Company signed a shareholding agreement giving China Southern a majority of shares in the new corporate entity. Laos said at the time that handing China a majority of shares in EDLT was necessary while Électricité du Laos grappled with immense debt.
“EDLT will invest U.S. $2 billion to build, manage and control the Lao power grid for a 25-year concession period. After 25 years, the business will be transferred to the Lao government,” an official of the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines told Radio Free Asia on March 12.
“Given the current economic downturn and the enormous debt, the Lao government does not have the ability to manage and operate a network of powerlines, so they decided to allow the Chinese, who have the finances, technological aptitude, and manpower to take over,” the official explained.
“The deal is bad. … Normally in a cooperative agreement, the foreign company transfers technology or knowledge to the host. But not the Chinese,” an energy expert at the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines told RFA on condition of anonymity.
“When they installed a powerline system in the Lao National Convention Center in Vientiane, they did not provide us with any instructions. When the electrical system breaks down … or when we want to make improvements to the building, we have to call in Chinese technicians,” he alleged.
The signing ceremony for the EDLT agreement granting China a 25-year concession to control Laos’s power grid took place in the Laotian capital of Vientiane on March 12. Sonexay Siphandone, who serves as both Laos’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning and Investment, attended the signing along with Chinese Ambassador to Laos Jiang Zaidong and other representatives from both sides.
“[A]s a fundamental and pillar industry, electricity is a key element in building the China-Laos community with a shared future, which serves as a propeller for economic and social development,” Chinese Ambassador Jiang said after attending the event.
“By setting an example of China-Laos friendly cooperation, we could pay tribute to the 2021 China-Laos Friendship Year, and make contributions to building the China-Laos community with a shared future,” he told Xinhua, China’s official state-run press agency. | 0.170834 |
U.S. President Joe Biden has appeared to side with the EU as it launches legal action against Brexit Britain, backing its imposition of internal borders between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
“President Biden has been unequivocal in his support for the Good Friday Agreement which was a historic achievement and as he said on the campaign trail last year we need to ensure that it does not become a casualty of Brexit,” said a senior White House official on behalf of the anti-Brexit Democrat politician, in comments reported by the Belfast News Letter.
“At the same time, the U.S. government has welcomed provisions in both the EU and UK trade and cooperation agreement as well as the Northern Ireland Protocol which we believe helps protect the aims of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement,” they added, more contentiously.
“Certainly as the UK and the EU are implementing Brexit-related provisions, the administration encourages both sides to continue prioritising political and economic stability in Northern Ireland in a way that benefits all communities.”
However, the issue with the protocol on Northern Ireland, or Ulster, in Boris Johnson’s Brexit deals is that the political leaders of Northern Ireland’s unionist (pro-British) majority — who opposed the deals in the first place — do not feel it benefits them.
This is due to the fact that it leaves them within the control of the EU Single Market for regulatory purposes and necessitates the imposition of some internal border controls between the Province and mainland Great Britain.
A “grace period” in which these controls would not be fully imposed had been agreed until the end of March but, despite Northern Ireland facing shortages and other difficulties amid the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, the EU has refused to extend it — prompting London to announce it will do so unilaterally, with Brussels launching legal action against Britain in response.
Brexit Wars Recommence as EU Launches Legal Action Against UK over Northern Ireland https://t.co/XvQDpquNM8 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 15, 2021
Reg Empey, a key negotiatior of the Belgast Agreement who now sits in the House of Lords as the Lord Empey, expressed disappointment with Biden’s stance on the EU protocol, and “astonishment” at the way politicians in the U.S., EU, and indeed London do not, in his estimation, seem to understand the agreement.
“What astonishes me consistently is that the UK government, the EU, and now the American administration all say they support the agreement, but they fail to consult with those of us who negotiated the agreement,” the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) chairman and former two-time Lord Mayor of Belfast told the News Letter.
“I know President Biden’s antecedents are Irish, I understand how he feels, but there has to be balance and the agreement is a balancing act,” he said.
Biden, although his surname appears to trace back to English settlers in North America, makes much of his Irish ancestry, and at times has appeared somewhat hostile to America’s mother country — declining to give a comment to Britain’s public broadcaster with the words “The BBC? I’m Irish,” shortly after his election, for example.
The First Minister of Northern Ireland’s devolved government, Arlene Foster of the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), launched an official petition to scrap the EU deal covering the Province in February, arguing that the restrictions on trade between Ulster and the British mainland which it imposes damage the economy and undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom as a unitary state at a fundamental level.
First Minister of Northern Ireland Launches Public Petition to Ditch EU Deal https://t.co/CbbsHvJUXT — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 5, 2021
Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBM ontgomery | -0.109814 |
Thirty GOP legislators voted for a Democrat farmworker amnesty that would push many Americans out of jobs, push billions of dollars of payroll from rural towns to foreign countries, and slash investment in wealth-creating farm machinery.
The total of 30 yes votes is down from 34 yes votes for a similar bill in 2019, despite much-increased pressure from wealthy business groups, farm lobbies, and ethnic activists. The lobbies favor the bill because it provides Democrats with a future ocean of amnestied voters — and it provides farm companies and their investors with an endless supply of very cheap and controllable H-2A visa workers.
The 34-to-30 decline is a testament to the counter-pressure from pro-American grassroots groups, including ALIPAC and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). But it also reflects the GOP leaders’ realization that another amnesty will likely transform the U.S. electorate and sink their political careers.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where investors, Democrats, and ethnic lobbies will spend lavishly to win votes from a few GOP senators from rural states, including Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC).
Any GOP converts to the farmworker amnesty will be combined with GOP converts from other Democrat amnesty bills — such as an amnesty for “DACA” migrants or a bill offering more H-2B visa workers for Maine hotels. The combination will perhaps give Democrats the 60 votes they need to transform American politics with imported voters and so sweep the GOP out of power for many years.
Almost 85 percent of the 211 GOP legislators voted against the amnesty.
“We are nearing the end of a pandemic that has left many Americans without work,” said Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), who was one of the 173 GOP legislators who voted no. “Congress’ priority should be finding ways to encourage American businesses to hire more American workers rather than prioritizing foreign workers. American jobs should first and foremost go to American workers,” he added.
Eight GOP legislators did not vote for or against the farm amnesty bill, which is titled H.R. 1603, the “Farm Workforce Modernization Act.”
A few senior GOP leaders who voted yes for the bill in 2019, voted no in 2021, including Reps. Tom Cole (R-OK) and Steve Stivers (D-OH). Other converts from 2019 included Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID).
Several 2019 yes votes did not vote in 2021. They included Reps. Don Young (R-AK) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).
The 30 GOP votes for the amnesty and cheap-labor bill were provided by Reps:
Mark Amodei (R-NV),
Cliff Bentz (R-OR),
James Baird (R-IN),
Michael Bost (R-IL),
Rodney Davis (R-IL),
Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL),
Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA),
Andrew Garbarino (R-NY),
Carlos Giminez (R-FL),
Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH),
Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA),
Chris Jacobs (R-NY),
David Joyce R-OH),
John Katko (R-NY)
Douglas LaMalfa (R-CA),
Dan Newhouse (R-WA),
Devin Nunes, (R-CA),
Thomas Reed (R-NY),
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA),
Michael Simpson (R-ID),
Chris Smith (R-NJ),
Lloyd Smucker (R-PA),
Elise Stefanik (R-NY),
Claudia Tenney (R-NY),
Glen Thompson (R-PA),
Fred Upton (R-MI),
Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ).
FAIR responded:
What happened today is no surprise – lawmakers have taken no initiative to address the crisis and instead are worsening it by advancing bills that incentivize migrants to come to the country illegally. The only crisis, as far as all Democrats and a handful of Republicans are concerned, is the lack of amnesty for illegal aliens already here, and these bills aim to “fix” only that problem. … Senate Republicans must hold firm and oppose both the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act if they are brought to the floor in the upper chamber. The border crisis is raging, and the American people are watching – address the crisis, do not exacerbate it. … The bill title is deceptive; the legislation does nothing to actually modernize America’s agricultural workforce. That would require automating many of these jobs using advanced technology and programs designed to give farmers access to those innovations. Further, the framework for improving legal farm labor already exists – fix problems within the current H-2A program. This, and encouraging the adoption of labor- and cost-saving automated harvesting technologies, represents true modernization. Another senseless amnesty at the worst possible time does not.
In a November 2019 hearing, Democrat leader Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) described the corporatist bargain that is intended to provide endless cheap visa workers to businesses and at least two million immigrant voters to Democrats within a decade:
This bill adds wage caps to prevent wages [for H-2A visa workers] going up by more than 3.25 percent in most of the country. Considering that the AEWR rates [Adverse Effect Wage Rate for H-2As] recently went up 23 percent in certain states, this is a big concession [to business]. Those kinds of wage increases would no longer happen under this bill. … These are significant wage reforms — a recent report by the CATO institute found that the bill, if enacted, would have saved farmers $324 million in labor expenses in 2019 alone.
FWD.us, which represents a group of pro-Democrat West Coast investors, cheered the workers-for-voters swap. | -0.651628 |
The illegal migrants brought to the United States by their illegal migrant parents “are true and legitimate heirs … of our founders,” House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said in a Thursday speech on the House floor.
Pelosi made her claims as Democrats prepared to vote through an amnesty for at least three million migrants who are now labeled under several categories. They include the many illegals who were brought to the United States as children by their parents. Democrats refer to the child-arrivals as “dreamers,” even though Americans are also dreamers.
Pelosi said:
This legislation is protecting “dreamers,” and TPS [Temporary Protected Status] and DED [Deferred Enforced Departure] recipients, honors the truth that immigrants are the constant reinvigoration of our country. When they come here with their hopes and dreams and aspirations, these parents bringing their children, their hopes and dreams and aspirations for a better future for their children, that courage, that determination, those aspirations, are American traits, and they all make America more American, with all of that. Indeed they are true and legitimate heirs, these dreamers are, of our founders. E Pluribus Unum, from many one, we talk about that all the time.
Pelosi continued to praise illegal migrants while ignoring the dreams and aspirations of Americans, as well as the needs of the 17 million unemployed Americans:
They’re our teachers, they’re our professionals. They’re our CEOs. They’re entrepreneurs, they contribute to our community in every way … Millions of Americans have come together to organize and mobilize for dreamers: Labor leaders, business community, faith organizations, national security officials, law enforcement, more and more. … The true VIPs of the moment, are the dreamers and immigrants who have spoken out with great dignity and eloquence, refusing to be forced back into the shadow.
The praise for illegals echoes the progressive view that America is not a homeland for American citizens, but is instead only an idea, or only a “Nation of Immigrants” that is open to any foreigner, regardless of what ordinary Americans prefer. The view is increasingly pushed by wealthy Americans, in part, because it boosts their stock market wealth with additional cheap workers, consumers, and renters.
Pelosi’s pitch matches the recommendations of business-funded pro-amnesty pollsters. On March 10, Breitbart News reported the pollsters’ advice to Democrats who are worried about voting for the amnesties amid public opposition:
It is better to focus on all of the aforementioned sympathetic details of those affected [by an amnesty] than to make economic arguments, including arguments about wages or demand for labor. As we have seen in the past, talking about immigrants doing jobs Americans won’t do is not a helpful frame, and other economic arguments are less effective than what is recommended above.
Pelosi continued:
Again, dreamers, TPS, DED recipients are American in every way. They have lived and worked in our country for decades, if not their entire lives, and they are integral threads in the fabric of our nation … Dreamers power our businesses, our economy, our CEOs, and taxpayers — all of them do. They advance innovation in America’s technological edge as entrepreneurs and researchers. They protect our national security and military might and service members and civilian experts.
So many of the frontline of the pandemic [are illegals] — first responders transportation sanitation, food workers, our teachers, our teachers, our teachers. There’s so much of our country.
These [illegal] immigrant communities strengthen, enrich, and ennoble our nation, and they must be allowed to stay.
Pelosi quoted the 1987 exit speech by President Ronald Reagan, who later revealed that he learned to regret his support for the 1986 amnesty:
I always love to quote President Reagan in his last speech as President of the United States. His last speech — this is his last message as President to the American people. He said, “Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation for every young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world into the next frontier. This quality is vital to the future, our future as a nation. If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.” With that, I urge a bipartisan vote and yield back the balance of my time.
For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad American opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.
The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states. | -2.179351 |
GOP legislators should back two pending amnesties for several million illegal migrants on Thursday because “the approach has deep support from business groups,” according to the Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post.
If the GOP does not back the wage-cutting amnesty for DACA migrants, and also for the American-displacing agricultural cheap labor bill, then, according to the Post, they will:
fall in line with a nativist minority, in thrall to former president Donald Trump, who reflexively oppose any steps toward inclusion for people who can be portrayed as “the other”? That’s not just a choice on a discrete piece of legislation. It’s a defining fork in the road for a party wrestling with its future.
The two bills exclude any reforms that would slow the inflow of illegals or to reduce the number of visa workers who push down Americans’ wages.
In fact, the farmworker bill would allow agriculture employers to replace many Americans with low-wage H-2A visa workers. The visa workers would also minimize payroll spending in rural towns so they can bring their wages back to their families in other countries.
Under President Donald Trump’s migration curbs, wages for blue-collar Americans jumped — and so did Trump’s support among the fast-growing Latino populations.
“Men at the middle and bottom of the wage distribution saw their wages rise in 2019: a 2.6% increase at the 50th percentile and a striking 5.7% increase at the 10th percentile, along with a 4.2% increase at the 20th percentile,” according to the 2019 yearly report, by the left-wing Economic Policy Institute.
“Families near the bottom of the income and wealth distributions generally continued to experience substantial gains in median and mean net worth between 2016 and 2019,” says a September 2020 report by the Federal Reserve banking system. The report, titled “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2016 to 2019: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances.”
In 2020, Trump exceeded “expectations by inspiring higher-than-anticipated Republican turnout,” Democrat data analyst David Shor told New York magazine in March. “He exceeded them mostly through persuasion. A lot of voters changed their minds between 2016 and 2020,” he said, adding:
I think the Trump era has been very good for the Republican Party, even if they now, momentarily, have to accept this very, very, very thin Democratic trifecta. Because if these coalition changes are durable, the GOP has very rosy long-term prospects for dominating America’s federal institutions.
Democrats “have no margin for error. If we conduct ourselves the way we did after 2008, we’re definitely going to lose,” Shor added.
“Democrats are committed to a regime of open borders where any person, from anywhere in the world, has a right to enter the United States for any reason, even if migrants are assaulted or killed on their way to the border,” GOP Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) said March 18. “Democrats feel better about themselves. They assume a superior moral position by pursuing such a policy.”
But the Post insisted the amnesties are popular, saying:
In a Quinnipiac University poll released last month, 83 percent of Americans, including nearly two-thirds of Republicans, said dreamers should be allowed to stay in the United States and ultimately qualify for citizenship. With numbers like that, bipartisan support in Congress for a Dream Act should be a slam dunk.
For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.
The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states. | -0.520092 |
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday slammed the legislative process used by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to ram through the Democrats’ legislation.
Gingrich told John Catsimatidis, host of New York WABC 770 AM radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” that members of the House are acting like “robots” in voting in-step with Pelosi. He said the “machine-like” process is “a total collapse of the legislative process.”
“I think that it really tells you how the system is evolving that they’re ramming through all of this legislation,” Gingrich said of the House. “They have a five-vote margin, and basically, they’re saying to their members, ‘You don’t have to read anything. You don’t have to know what’s in it. We don’t have to have any hearings. You can’t offer any amendments. All you need to know is show up and vote yes.’ And It is the most machine-like House I can remember going back to Joe Cannon in around 1905. And these folks don’t represent anybody except Nancy Pelosi. And so, they walk in. They’re told, ‘We’re bringing up this next bill and vote yes.’ And they go, ‘Absolutely.’ And it’s a total collapse of the legislative process.”
“[T]he Democrats are expected to automatically vote yes no matter what. I mean, it’s working, but it has nothing to do with a free society or a representative government,” he continued. “It’s just pure machine politics. And that to me has been probably the biggest surprise of what’s happened so far this year.”
Gingrich later added, “[Y]ou’re getting an automatic, robotic, you know, sort of like Pelosi’s robots are walking out there, and they’re voting yes automatically. If the Republicans offer an amendment — even if it’s a smart amendment — they vote no automatically. The same thing is happening in the Senate.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1.484925 |
Ohio State forward E.J. Liddell shared offensive comments, including racial slurs and threats of violence, posted to his Instagram account after the Buckeye’s 75-72 loss to Oral Roberts on Friday in the first major upset of the NCAA Tournament. Charles Barkley responded immediately, calling the people responsible for the posts “losers” and “cowards,” and Ohio State sports officials announced they have called the police to report the “vile” and “dangerous” threats to their players.
Messages included one that read, “I hope somebody shoot you in ya face,” and that he wants to “kill” Liddell. Another said, “You are such a f—ing disgrace. Don’t ever show your face at Ohio State … I hope you die, I really do.”
Liddell posted screenshots of the messages to his Twitter page Friday. “Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human,” he said:
Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human. pic.twitter.com/djXzhSH0q8 — E.J. Liddell (@EasyE2432) March 20, 2021
Barkley said during the March Madness broadcast, “You guys give me a hard time because I refuse to do any type of social media, this is the reason why.”
“No. 1, he had a great game,” Barkley continued, “But for you to give this kid death threats and hurl racial slurs at him because you’re safe in your own home like a coward, behind a computer and nobody know who you are, you need to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror.”
“I am never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever; I don’t care how much money somebody offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this,” Barkley added:
Charles Barkley on EJ Liddell harassment from fans on Instagram “I’m never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever, I don’t care how much money some offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this” pic.twitter.com/fCpgC0O12f — gifdsports (@gifdsports) March 20, 2021
Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann defended Liddell on Saturday, posting to his Twitter account, “Recent social media comments to E.J. Liddell, while not from or representative of Ohio State fans, are vile, dangerous and reflect the worst of humanity.”
“E.J. is an outstanding young man who had a tremendous sophomore season and he was instrumental in our team’s success. We will take all the necessary actions to address this immediately,” Holtmann concluded:
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith defended Liddell on Saturday, saying, “The threatening social media attack E.J. Liddell faced after the game yesterday is appalling and will not be tolerated. … If you cross the line and threaten our players, you will be hearing from the authorities. That I promise you”:
I will support our student-athletes in and out of competition! I have nothing but love and respect for E.J. He epitomizes all that we hope for in our student-athletes. pic.twitter.com/BxejMWvo1x — Gene Smith (@OSU_AD) March 20, 2021
Ohio State associate athletic director for communications Dan Wallenberg told reporters he contacted police on Saturday morning about the threats. | -0.540045 |
Ohio State forward E.J. Liddell shared offensive comments, including racial slurs and threats of violence, posted to his Instagram account after the Buckeye’s 75-72 loss to Oral Roberts on Friday in the first major upset of the NCAA Tournament. Charles Barkley responded immediately, calling the people responsible for the posts “losers” and “cowards,” and Ohio State sports officials announced they have called the police to report the “vile” and “dangerous” threats to their players.
Messages included one that read, “I hope somebody shoot you in ya face,” and that he wants to “kill” Liddell. Another said, “You are such a f—ing disgrace. Don’t ever show your face at Ohio State … I hope you die, I really do.”
Liddell posted screenshots of the messages to his Twitter page Friday. “Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human,” he said:
Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human. pic.twitter.com/djXzhSH0q8 — E.J. Liddell (@EasyE2432) March 20, 2021
Barkley said during the March Madness broadcast, “You guys give me a hard time because I refuse to do any type of social media, this is the reason why.”
“No. 1, he had a great game,” Barkley continued, “But for you to give this kid death threats and hurl racial slurs at him because you’re safe in your own home like a coward, behind a computer and nobody know who you are, you need to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror.”
“I am never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever; I don’t care how much money somebody offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this,” Barkley added:
Charles Barkley on EJ Liddell harassment from fans on Instagram “I’m never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever, I don’t care how much money some offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this” pic.twitter.com/fCpgC0O12f — gifdsports (@gifdsports) March 20, 2021
Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann defended Liddell on Saturday, posting to his Twitter account, “Recent social media comments to E.J. Liddell, while not from or representative of Ohio State fans, are vile, dangerous and reflect the worst of humanity.”
“E.J. is an outstanding young man who had a tremendous sophomore season and he was instrumental in our team’s success. We will take all the necessary actions to address this immediately,” Holtmann concluded:
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith defended Liddell on Saturday, saying, “The threatening social media attack E.J. Liddell faced after the game yesterday is appalling and will not be tolerated. … If you cross the line and threaten our players, you will be hearing from the authorities. That I promise you”:
I will support our student-athletes in and out of competition! I have nothing but love and respect for E.J. He epitomizes all that we hope for in our student-athletes. pic.twitter.com/BxejMWvo1x — Gene Smith (@OSU_AD) March 20, 2021
Ohio State associate athletic director for communications Dan Wallenberg told reporters he contacted police on Saturday morning about the threats. | -0.584106 |
The University of Florida suspended several conservative student groups on campus, claiming that they hosted an event at which attendees did not wear masks. One chapter president, however, told Breitbart News that attendees were required — and did — wear masks at the event.
The University of Florida suspended at least three conservative student groups on campus — Turning Point USA (TPUSA), Young Americans for Freedom, and the Network for Enlightened Women — claiming that their members violated the university’s coronavirus-related rules at an event.
Dean of Students Heather White sent a letter to the school’s TPUSA club, informing the students that their club has been “immediately placed on interim suspension” after administrators were told that they were “allegedly involved in endangering the health, safety, and welfare of the University Community.”
“Event attendees were observed not complying with the Student Behavioral Expectations in Response to COVID-19 and the Campus Events and Guidelines in Response to COVID-19 policies by failing to wear appropriate face coverings and/or maintain appropriate physical distance,” read the letter, obtained by Breitbart News.
The letter added that it is also “alleged” that the TPUSA club did not properly reserve space in the outdoor field on the public university grounds ahead of the event.
Being placed on interim suspension means that the groups will lose “all privileges and access to all campus resources and services, for a period of time, including, but not limited, to the use of University space, participation in University programs, activities, events and services, and registration of gatherings and events.”
“This measure is issued to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the University community,” the letter reads.
The school’s Young Americans for Freedom and Network for Enlightened Women received similar letters.
University of Florida TPUSA chapter president, Carter Mermer told Breitbart News that event attendees were told by all club presidents that they were required to wear masks.
“Event attendees did wear masks,” said Mermer. “And as the president — and the other club presidents — we told the students that masks were required. There was food at the event. We catered barbecue, so they pulled down their masks while eating.”
Mermer also mentioned that the event was held outdoors, in a field on campus that many people use.
“People go there all the time on a whim,” said Mermer. “I see people on the field all the time not wearing masks.”
“We were in a field, there was a cookout, and we had the four biggest conservative clubs gathered,” the student added, noting that the College Republicans were also present at the event.
The College Republicans, however, did not receive a letter from the school, as the group is not currently officially recognized by the university.
BREAKING:
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
-Turning Point USA
-College Republicans
-The Network of Enlightened Women
-Young Americans for Freedom Were all just SUSPENDED at the University of Florida. Leftist at universities have always wanted to silence young conservatives. STAND STRONG! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 — Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) March 19, 2021
Mermer also brought up the other reason the university gave for suspending the club, which was not properly reserving space in the field.
“There was an issue in the proper filing of reserving the space,” said Mermer. “We didn’t properly reserve the space, and because of that, they say we violated their ‘use of space’ policy.”
“This really is an extreme move by the university for not reserving the space properly in an open, public field,” the student continued. “As far as I know, the university has not banned any other clubs for this.”
“On top of that, they said it was alleged,” Mermer added. “They used the word ‘alleged.’ They never provided any evidence.”
“I’m not saying that the University of Florida is attacking us for political reasons,” Mermer clarified. “But I am saying that they somehow managed to suspend all the major conservative clubs in one fell swoop.”
“We have hundreds of members who love coming to our events, and now a lot of events we were going to have on campus can’t happen,” the student added.
In responding to Breitbart News’ request for clarification on how the school determined that the students had been in violation of the school’s mask mandate, a university spokesperson said that “the investigation is still in process, therefore we cannot comment.”
“However, the student organizations were placed on interim suspension, which includes the loss of all privileges and access to all campus resources and services, for a period of time, including, but not limited, to the use of university space, participation in university programs, activities, events and services, and registration of gatherings and events. This measure was issued to protect the health, safety and welfare of the university community,” the spokesperson added.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram. | -1.22227 |
Judge Laurence Silberman accused the New York Times and Washington Post of being “Democratic Party broadsheets” in a dissenting opinion on Friday.
Washington, DC, federal appellate judge Laurence Silberman accused the New York Times and Washington Post, and to some extent the Wall Street Journal, of being mouthpieces for “rather shocking” bias against the Republican Party in a written opinion on Friday.
“The orientation of these three papers is followed by The Associated Press and most large papers across the country (such as the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and Boston Globe),” he said in the opinion. “Nearly all television—network and cable—is a Democratic Party trumpet. Even the government-supported National Public Radio follows along.”
Further, Judge Silberman wrote that Silicon Valley “also has an enormous influence over the distribution of news,” which “similarly filters news delivery in ways favorable to the Democratic Party.” He called Fox News, The New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page “notable exceptions to Democratic Party ideological control,” though he admitted “a number of Fox’s commentators lean as far to the right as the commentators and reporters of the mainstream outlets lean to the left.”
“It is well-accepted that viewpoint discrimination ‘raises the specter that the Government may effectively drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the marketplace,'” Silberman said. “But ideological homogeneity in the media—or in the channels of information distribution—risks repressing certain ideas from the public consciousness just as surely as if access were restricted by the government.”
“It should be borne in mind that the first step taken by any potential authoritarian or dictatorial regime is to gain control of communications, particularly the delivery of news,” Silberman added, saying “it is fair to conclude, therefore, that one-party control of the press and media is a threat to a viable democracy. It may even give rise to countervailing extremism.”
The judge said the Supreme Court should overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 case holding that when the media discusses public figures, the outlet should be liable under state defamation laws only if the plaintiffs can prove “actual malice,” which the Court defined as the speaker either knowing the statement was false or making it in “reckless disregard for the truth.”
“The First Amendment guarantees a free press to foster a vibrant trade in ideas. But a biased press can distort the marketplace,” Silberman concluded. “And when the media has proven its willingness—if not eagerness—to so distort, it is a profound mistake to stand by unjustified legal rules that serve only to enhance the press’ power.”
The case is Tah v. Global Witness Publishing, Inc., No. 19-7132 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. | -0.779699 |
Elon Musk responded to concerns that Tesla cars might be used for espionage at the China Development Forum Saturday.
The world’s wealthiest man denied his company was a conduit for international espionage during remarks made at the China Development Forum Saturday. Hours before, Chinese social media spread a screenshot of what appeared to be an order banning Tesla vehicles from a military accommodation complex. An unnamed source “familiar” with the matter said officials were “very concerned” prior to Musk’s visit.
Musk’s response was blunt, pointing out the risks. “If Tesla used cars to carry out espionage activities in China or anywhere, we will get shut down,” he said. “There’s a strong incentive for us to be confidential.”
Musk used the controversial Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok as an example. “Many people were concerned over TikTok but I think this was an unnecessary concern. We should learn lessons from this,” he said.
Musk is historically popular in China, having called it “the future,” effusing about the “smart” and “hard-working” citizens of the PRC, while complaining that Americans are “entitled” and “complacent.” In January, Musk suggested China might be “more responsible” than the U.S. in regard to the safety of their people.
“It seems ironic, but even though you have sort of a single-party system, they really actually seem to care a lot about the well-being of the people,” Musk said during the Business Insider interview. “In fact, they’re maybe even more sensitive to public opinion than what I see in the U.S.”
The multi-billionaire has good reason to make nice. As the world’s largest electric vehicle consumer base, China is an important market for electric vehicles like those produced by Tesla. According to statistics from the China Passenger Car Association, 30% of the company’s global sales come from China. The CPCA reported Tesla produced 23,600 vehicles, and delivered 18,300 to China last month. | 0.826755 |
The Young Conservatives of Texas at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, say that their anti-socialism display on campus was stolen overnight. The university claims to have no information about the memorial of 1,000 flags the students say they set up in memory of the more than 94 million victims of international socialism.
The group planted 1,000 red flags on a lawn on campus near the school’s student center to represent the more than 94 million lives lost to socialism, according to a report by Campus Reform. The display was allegedly “gone” the next morning.
“The whole entire memorial was gone, like no trace of it,” Sam Houston State student DianaLee Enriquez told Campus Reform.
The university’s Young Conservatives of Texas chapter chairman Johnny Uribe told the outlet that he initially thought “there was some kind of miscommunication between us and the school,” but that an administrator “reassured” him that the university was aware of the memorial, and did not remove it.
“I was in the office and I saw [the administrator] making calls to different departments such as the landscapers, groundskeepers, and janitorial crew, and they denied removing our memorial,” Uribe said.
The student added that the school administrator also called the campus police “to look at the cameras and investigate.”
“As part of a university internal investigation, officials checked with the Grounds Department to see if they had removed the flags, which they had not,” said the university’s public information officer Stephanie Knific.
“Additionally, staff checked dumpsters and trash receptacles to see if the flags had been discarded. None were found,” continued Knific, who added that the police said the conservative student group could file a police report if they want to pursue a criminal investigation.
On Friday, Uribe filed a police report with the University Police Department. Now there is an open and active investigation into the matter.
Uribe says that he believes the memorial was “stolen,” because a member of the school’s Young Democratic Socialists of America told him that another member of the pro-socialist club had posted a photo of the memorial in a group chat, calling it “utter bullshit.”
“As a public institution, Sam Houston State University values and protects First Amendment rights to express differing ideas, experiences and perspectives, which are essential to building and maintaining a learning environment of inquiry and pursuit of truth,” said Knific.
“SHSU encourages students to exercise their rights and help to build an environment of diverse thought, dialogue, and debate,” Knific added. “University officials work with all groups and organizations throughout the year to promote expressive activity and freedom of expression.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram. | 1.031099 |
Astroscale will launch its first magnetic space junk cleaner in a demonstration set for early Saturday morning at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
According to data the European Space Agency released in January, over 6,000 successful rocket launches have occurred since the beginning of the Space Age in 1957. As of 2021, those launches have set well over 10,000 satellites to orbit our planet. Of those, more than half continue their endless journey — but only about 3,800 are still operational. The rest, along with debris shed by each launch, make up over 9,200 tons of orbital garbage.
In the wee hours of March 20, Astroscale will launch the first major test of a satellite that could become the first in a new line of orbital janitors. A Soyuz 2 rocket will launch the 175-kilogram cleaner to snatch a defunct satellite from orbit, and pull it back through the atmosphere until it burns away. Astroscale’s craft will continue this delicate game of search and destroy until sometime in September or October 2021.
One of its first and most dramatic challenges will be the satellite’s ability to dock with a derelict device travelling as much as 17,500 miles per hour. For reference, rifle bullets top out at around 2,100 mile per hour. It will accomplish this feat by way of a special magnetic docking plate, which Astroscale hopes to standardize for easy cleanup of future launches.
But while the relatively diminutive experimental spacecraft may prove useful in preventing further pollution of the near-Earth environment, the aforementioned thousands of tons continue to be responsible for over 560 destructive collisions, and counting. Several companies and organizations around the world — including the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the European Space Agency, and Airbus — continue their search for solutions to remove those ongoing hazards. | 1.660213 |
Twitter temporarily restricted the account of Josh Mandel, the former treasurer of Ohio, state representative, and a primary candidate to succeed Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) as a U.S. Senator. Twitter said the restriction was due to a violation of its “hateful conduct” policy.
According to the Cincinnati Inquirer, Mandel was prevented from tweeting, retweeting, liking tweets, or following new accounts for a period of 12 hours over a tweet criticizing President Biden’s immigration policies.
In the tweet, Mandel asked his followers which type of illegal immigrants currently flooding across the border due to the Biden administration’s border crisis will commit more crimes, “Mexican gangbangers” or “Muslim terrorists.”
Twitter informed the Republican candidate that he had violated the platform’s hateful conduct policy, which prohibits posts that “promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”
In a statement, Mandel condemned Twitter for silencing his account.
“Conservatives everywhere should be frightened by the ongoing censorship by Twitter, Facebook, Google and the liberal media,” said the Republican primary candidate in a statement. “Big tech should never have the power to decide what speech is allowed in America and I won’t ever shy away from holding politicians accountable for their terrible policies.”
Just like President Trump, I was canceled by @twitter @jack yesterday. I wear this as a badge of honor as Big Tech thugs & elites target those who they are most afraid of. Our movement of steel-spined Constitutional Conservatives & Trump Warriors will not be silenced: pic.twitter.com/SxHlgmq2xf — Josh Mandel (@JoshMandelOhio) March 19, 2021
Following his suspension, Mandel returned to Twitter, posting a video of a journalist challenging him on his statements.
“I just say it how it is,” said Mandel in the interview.
On Twitter’s action against his account, Mandel said “I wear this as a badge of honor as Big Tech thugs & elites target those who they are most afraid of. Our movement of steel-spined Constitutional Conservatives & Trump Warriors will not be silenced.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election. | 0.525725 |
Zack Snyder’s Justice League (aka The Snyder Cut), which premiered this week on HBO Max, is literally four-hours and two minutes long — 242 minutes to be precise, which makes it 15 minutes longer than Lawrence of Arabia, 21 minutes longer than Gone with the Wind, and 122 minutes longer than 2017’s original Justice League.
In case I’m being too subtle, The Snyder Cut is really, reeeeeally long, and it’s a problem.
So why are there two Justice Leagues movies, both directed by Zack Snyder? Good question. Well, back in 2017, Snyder had shot and edited most of his version of Justice League but the studio was pretty unhappy with it. Then Snyder’s family was hit with a terrible tragedy, so he walked away and in stepped Avengers 1 & 2 director Joss Whedon, who reportedly re-shot two-thirds of the movie and released it without taking credit as director, or even as co-director.
The result was a critical flop, a commercial bomb, and fan failure. And so the call went out on the Internet for the studio to release “The Snyder Cut.” Snyder (who had saved his cut on a laptop) joined the call and Warner Bros., a studio desperate to fill its new HBO Max streaming service with sexy content, agreed. Snyder was given $70 million to finish his opus and it’s 242 minutes long.
Which is looong.
There’s no intermission.
Watch below:
It’s broken into six chapters followed by a reeeeeally long epilogue, and there’s no natural place where you can stop, go on with your day, and return to it tomorrow. This is one movie. One sit. And it’s a reeeeeally long movie.
Granted, I’m glad I saw it and was only bored in a few parts. The 30-minute epilogue, however, is pretty excruciating and promises a sequel. Nevertheless, I will never watch it again. Ever.
Did it need to be four hours long? No. Countless scenes go on too long and repeat the same information. Between that and the epilogue, this sucker could have been trimmed to 160 minutes easy.
It is, though, an entirely different movie from Whedon’s Justice League, which felt abrupt and like it just wanted to get itself over with.
The Snyder Cut wants to be seen as an epic filled with mythology, as something that slows down and revels in the character and plot details fans love so much. Each character — Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman Flash, and Cyborg — is given plenty of time (and a slo-mo music montage) to establish who they are and what they are about as Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) goes about the business of recruiting them. He knows a threat is on its way and the only way to stop it is by uniting earth’s greatest heroes.
We get tons of backstory, two extended flashbacks (one on Wonder Woman’s all-woman island where a sense of humor and cleavage have been outlawed), at least an hour of slow motion scenes, and a number of big action sequences. Some of it works. Some of it doesn’t. All of it looks fake, looks like it was created in a computer, and the overall aura of the movie is so grey and oppressive, by chapter four you want to take a Xanax.
The Snyder Cut is never much fun. It takes itself seriously, too seriously, and wants you to take it seriously. The only attempt at comic relief is Ezra Miller’s young Flash, but his nebbish, gee whiz act gets pretty old pretty quick. Other than that, there’s a sense of self-importance that’s never earned because the stakes never feel real. Not for a moment did I believe the earth or a single one of our heroes was in any sort of danger.
Of course the movie truly comes alive every time Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman appears on screen, but that might only be due to the fact I’m a red-blooded, heterosexual American male.
I will say this… The Snyder Cut is a helluva lot better than DC’s most recent entry, the dreadful Wonder Woman 1984 and even Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, which I finally saw last week and did not understand a single second of. But…
Is it better than Whedon’s original Justice League? Well, let’s just say Whedon’s version felt like no one gave a damn and Snyder’s version feels like someone gave too much of a damn. And it’s long.
Holy moly, is it long.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here. | -0.376475 |
Thursday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the House Judiciary Committee ranking member, recounted some of the aspects of a hearing and Big Tech, where he questioned how the First Amendment applied in certain circumstances.
Jordan explained much of what Democrats were doing in the beginning stages of this Congress had bypassed the committee process.
“They’ve been taking bills around the Judiciary Committee straight to the floor, almost every piece of legislation that’s passed in the last three weeks, we had jurisdiction over but the full committee is yet to have a hearing,” he said. “We’ve said why not have a hearing about this crisis on the border. Instead, they go around the committee, and they passed just 40 minutes ago, Maria, they pass a bill that gives amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants. So, amnesty while there’s this chaos on the border, that I mean, this is so out of touch with where the American people are, but this is how radical left the Democrats are.”
“And then, of course, the canceled culture issue, this idea that, you know, I always asked it this way, do you have a functioning First Amendment when only one side is allowed to talk?” Jordan continued. “Do you have free speech when only the left can define what can be said? So that’s the situation Maria in the Judiciary Committee should be focused on those two issues. Instead, they pass radical things like defund the police, federal control of elections, and now an amnesty bill without having the kind of hearings you’re supposed to have on Capitol Hill in the United States Congress.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 0.516117 |
A Canadian father has been arrested for “misgendering” his own 14-year-old child by calling her his “daughter,” and referring to her with the pronouns “she” and “her.”
Robert Hoogland — the father of a 14-year-old biological female who identifies as transgender and prefers male pronouns — was found in contempt of court and jailed on Tuesday after repeatedly calling his child his “daughter,” despite the court forbidding it, according to a report by the Post Millennial.
The Attorney General of British Columbia reportedly issued a warrant for his arrest for contempt.
Rob Hoogland was just taken to jail. His crime? Trying to protect his little girl from medical harm. I stand with Robert Hoogland. pic.twitter.com/hC5nrvnUPn — ❤️ (@christophelston) March 16, 2021
Hoogland is opposed to his teenage daughter going through transgender-related medical procedures, and has repeatedly expressed his opposition in the hopes of saving his child from irreversible damage.
The Canadian medical system, the legal system, and the child’s mother, however, have gone forward with the “social and medical transition” of Hoogland’s daughter, the report adds.
In December of last year, Hoogland was mandated by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Francesca Marzari to cooperate in the “transitioning” of his daughter’s sex, and was told not to refer to her as female again.
“This could never happen, said those who called my stance against Bill C16 alarmist,” reacted Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson. “I read the law and saw that it was, to the contrary, inevitable.”
This could never happen, said those who called my stance against Bill C16 alarmist. I read the law and saw that it was, to the contrary, inevitable https://t.co/zi8vB5x4x0 — Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) March 18, 2021
Hoogland had previously discovered that his daughter’s school had been showing her sexual and gender identity education materials known as “SOGI 123,” which the report referred to as transgender “propaganda videos.”
By the 7th grade, the school had changed his daughter’s name in the yearbook without telling her parents, and “socially transitioned” her with the input of gender ideologue psychologist Wallace Wong, who advised the pubescent child to take testosterone.
The report adds that Wong referred Hoogland’s daughter to the endocrinology unit at the local hospital, and that a “treatment” plan was put into action on her first visit.
“Here I am, sitting there as a parent, watching a perfectly healthy child be destroyed, and there’s nothing I can do but sit on the sideline — and according to Justice Boden at the time, cheer it on,” Hoogland said in an interview last year. “I can only affirm, or get thrown in jail.”
Watch Below:
Justice Boden of the British Columbia Supreme Court had reportedly declared that Hoogland and his wife had to affirm their daughter’s new gender identity. Hoogland was told that if he tried to dissuade his daughter or refer to her as a female, then he would be considered guilty of “family violence.”
After the ruling, Hoogland gave an interview to the Federalist, in which he lamented the situation, and pointed out that his daughter is biologically female.
"Justice Mazari then summarily convicted Hoogland of family violence on the basis that he had declined to use his child's preferred masculine pronouns." https://t.co/src7YolVz6 — Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) March 18, 2021
After that, Justice Marzari reportedly signed a “protection order” authorizing the police to arrest Hoogland if he were to again be caught referring to his daughter as female, or with female pronouns.
Hoogland said that the Marzari ruling even stated that he was allowed to “think thoughts” that were contrary to the Boden ruling.
“The court was gracious enough to say that they could not police my thoughts,” Hoogland said.
In January of last year, the highest court in British Columbia reportedly declared that the child should continue taking testosterone, and imposed a “conduct order” on Hoogland, mandating that he continue referring to his daughter by male pronouns.
"Hoogland gave interviews to several Canadian commentators. The broadcasts were suppressed by digital platforms, and he was threatened with contempt of court proceedings." https://t.co/0eElV7iMji — Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) March 18, 2021
“They’ve now created a delusion, and they’re forcing parents, like myself, to live in this delusion,” Hoogland said last year. “And then what happens when the bubble explodes, and the delusion ends?”
“She can never go back to being a girl,” he added. “I mean, she’ll always be a girl, but she’ll never go back to being a girl in a healthy body that she should have had — she won’t be able to have children, she won’t have a family. These kids don’t understand what this stuff means.”
An estimation of more than 80 percent of children with gender dysphoria will end up desisting from their belief that they are the opposite sex once puberty is over.
“What kid who’s 13 is thinking about a family and having children? Not many,” Hoogland continued. “What kind of father would I be if, let’s say in five, ten years, my daughter is de-transitioning, and she turns to me and says — ‘Why did none of you do anything to stop this? I was a child. None of you stuck your neck out for me back then.'”
“When my daughter asks me that question, I’ll say, ‘I did everything that I possibly could,” he added.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram. | -0.170214 |
Facebook announced this week that it is changing the way it recommends groups and will limit the reach of those that break its rules.
NBC News reports that Facebook announced on Wednesday that it will be changing the way it recommends groups and will limit those that break its rules as the platform attempts to crack down on what it considers extremism and misinformation.
Tom Alison, Facebook’s vice president of engineering, said in a blog post: “We know we have a greater responsibility when we are amplifying or recommending content. As behaviors evolve on our platform, though, we recognize we need to do more.”
Under Facebook’s new rules, the site will show rule-breaking groups lower in the recommendations bar which will make them less discoverable to other users. The more rules a group breaks, the more it will increase restrictions on the group eventually resulting in the group being removed entirely.
Facebook also plans to inform possible new members of rule-violating groups that the group has “allowed posts that violate our Community Standards,” when they attempt to join the group. For existing group members, Facebook will reduce the reach of rule-breaking groups by giving it lower priority in a user’s news feed.
Facebook will also require users in charge of rule-breaking groups to more strictly police their communities, approving all posts before publishing when members continue to violate policies. If an admin or moderator repeatedly approves content that violates Facebooks rules, the entire group could be removed.
“We don’t believe in taking an all-or-nothing approach to reduce bad behavior on our platform,” Alison said in the statement. “Instead, we believe that groups and members that break our rules should have their privileges and reach reduced, and we make these consequences more severe if their behavior continues – until we remove them completely. We also remove groups and people without these steps in between when necessary in cases of severe harm.”
Read more at Facebook here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected] | -0.129727 |
App developer Kosta Eleftheriou, who previously called attention to the problem of scam apps on Apple’s iOS app store, has filed a lawsuit against Apple in California accusing the company of exploiting its monopoly power over apps made available for iPhone users.
The iOS app developer Kosta Eleftheriou, who has previously called out Apple for its failure to properly police its app store and the prevalence of scam app across the platform, has filed a lawsuit against the hardware giant in California. Eleftheriou is accusing the company of exploiting its monopoly power over iOS apps “to make billions of dollars in profits at the expense of small application developers and consumers.”
A complaint was filed in Santa Clara County court on Wednesday by Eleftheriou’s company KPAW LLC, which he co-owns with his partner Ashley Eleftheriou. The complaint details the development and release timeline of Eleftheriou’s popular Apple Watch keyboard app FlickType.
Eleftheriou began highlighting the growing issue of scam apps available in the Apple App Store in February. Each of the scam apps Eleftheriou found appeared to use the same method including boosting their apparent legitimacy in the app store by purchasing fake reviews.
Eleftheriou is also of the developers of the Flesky keyboard app which was acquired by Pinterest, and Blind Type which was acquired by Google.
Eleftheriou alleges that after he reported that his FlickType app had been targeted by a scam clone, Apple failed to fix the issue while the scam app took away potential sales and negatively affected his App Store ranking.
The App Store has a big problem👇 You: an honest developer, working hard to improve your IAP conversions.
Your competitor: a $2M/year scam running rampant. 1/ — Kosta Eleftheriou (@keleftheriou) January 31, 2021
Breitbart News spoke to Eleftheriou directly who said in a statement:
Apple has been abusing their position to the detriment of consumers and developers for years. They like to portray the App Store as “a place you can trust” and their practices as fair, but in reality they bully developers and fail to police their store, making it impossible for developers to compete fairly.
In his complaint, Eleftheriou claims that the company is “flexing its monopoly muscle against potential competition” by removing his FlickType keyboard app from the iOS app store after he reported issues relating to scam apps on the app store.
The complaint states:
Apple entices software application developers like Plaintiff to develop innovative applications with the promise of a fair and secure App Store in which to sell them. In truth, Apple systematically flexes its monopoly muscle against potential competition through the App Store and profits from rampant fraudulent practices. If Apple cannot buy a desired application from a developer on the cheap, Apple attempts to crush that developer through exploitive fees and selective application of opaque and unreasonable constraints against the developer. At the same time, Apple permits other developers that Apple does not view as real competition, including scam competitors, to peddle similar, inferior products because Apple profits from their sales. Scammers oftentimes use screenshots and videos taken from legitimate developer’s applications and manipulate their ratings. Apple does little to police these practices because it profits from them. Apple then lies to its regulators by asserting that it must maintain its monopoly power over the sale of Apple-related applications to protect consumers, when, in fact, Apple lets them get ripped off and exploits the developers trying to deliver innovation to consumers.
The complaint goes on to add: “Despite possessing massive resources and technological savvy, Apple intentionally fails to police these fraudsters, costing honest developers millions, and perhaps billions, while Apple continues to amass huge profits for itself.”
It continues: “Apple holds both its device users and developers hostage. Yet each time it faces antitrust claims, Apple justifies its monopoly by claiming it is necessary to protect its users and developers from unscrupulous conduct and ensure a fair competitive marketplace for the benefit of both. In truth, Apple turns a blind eye to rampant fraud and exploitation to make an easy profit.”
Read the full complaint below:
Kpaw, LLC v. Apple, Inc by Lucas Nolan
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected] | -0.23849 |
Famed drag queen maven RuPaul is set to debut a new video game based on the long-running VH1 TV series RuPaul’s Drag Race. The game, to be released by game company World of Wonder, will allow players to design their drag persona, compete in drag queen challenges, and sashay down the catwalk on i0S and Android devices.
'RuPaul's #DragRace' and its iconic queens will star in a new video game! https://t.co/V5ejA5HXGA — Entertainment Weekly (@EW) March 18, 2021
“The team at World of Wonder is always looking for new ways to bring the Drag Race experience even closer to the fans, and what better way than through a mobile game?” said Drag Race co-creators Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, according to Entertainment Weekly. “We are thrilled to partner with East Side Games on this charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent-filled mobile game experience!”
The company also announced that the game would be made in several versions, including a Canadian version, one for the UK, another for Australia, and one in Spanish.
No date has been announced for the release of the game.
RuPaul’s Drag Race debuted in 2009 on the Logo cable network before migrating to VH1 in 2017. The series has won nine Emmy Awards, three Reality Television Awards, and three NewNowNext Awards.
The show has not been without controversy among its own constituencies. For instance, the show was knocked for not including transgender contestants in its early seasons. RuPaul was subsequently chided for starting each race, saying, “Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win,” because it wasn’t inclusive enough. The host now says, “Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win,” as a response to critics.
The series also dipped into politics by inviting New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to serve as a guest judge last year. RuPaul also raised funds for abortion mill operator Planned Parenthood.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston. | -0.009132 |
According to a recent report, Google’s plan to block the web activity trackers called “cookies” has become a major source of concern for DOJ investigators who have been asking ad industry executives whether the move will impact smaller Google rivals.
Reuters reports that Google’s plan to block the web tracking tool called “cookies” has become a major source of concern for DOJ investigators who have been speaking with advertising industry executives, asking whether the move by the search giant will have a negative impact on its smaller rivals.
A year ago, Google announced that it would ban some cookies in its Chrome browser claiming the move would improve user privacy. Over the last two months, Google has released more details leading many online ad rivals to complain about losing the data-gathering tool.
Justice Department investigators have reportedly been looking into how Chrome policies affect the ad and news industries, according to four sources. Investigators have reportedly begun asking whether Google is using the Chrome browser to reduce competition by preventing rival ad firms from tracking users via cookies while leaving loopholes for Google to gather data with cookies, analytics, and other tools.
Executives from more than a dozen companies across a number of sectors have reportedly spoken with DOJ investigators, according to sources. The U.S. government has been investigating Google’s search and advertising business since mid-2019 and last October it sued Google for allegedly using anticompetitive tactics to maintain the dominance of the Google Search engine
Google defended its ad business, stating that it was helping companies grow and protecting users’ privacy from exploitative practices, stating: “The enormous competition in ad tools has made online ads more affordable, reduced fees, and expanded options for publishers and advertisers.”
Read more at Reuters here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected] | -1.330812 |
Students at the University of Florida would support a boycott of restaurant Panda Express due to the “cultural appropriation” of its “Americanized” Chinese food, and panda logo. The students were interviewed outside of a Panda Express by a Campus Reform reporter, with some students adding that they had eaten at the establishment the same day.
Campus Reform reporter Ophelie Jacobson conducted a social experiment at the University of Florida, where she asked students if they would sign a petition boycotting Panda Express due to its “cultural appropriation.”
“Because it’s not really representative of their actual culture,” Jacobson explained, playing up the SJW position. “The food is very Americanized, and just the way they present it, even the logo — the panda, it’s kind of cultural appropriation.”
“And so, in an effort to protect our Asianx community members here at the university, we’re asking if students would be willing to sign this pledge, maybe even try to remove it from campus,” Jacobson added.
All but one student asked signed the petition to boycott or ban Panda Express.
Two of the students who signed admitted to having just eaten from Panda Express earlier that day, while a third student who signed had actually just ordered from the restaurant in question, and set her food aside in order to provide her signature.
“Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I feel bad – I just got Panda Express. If I would have known I wouldn’t have purchased from them,” one student said0 after being asked to sign the petition to ban or boycott Panda Express for cultural appropriation.
“We had Panda Express for lunch,” laughed another student who was with a friend, before signing the petition.
“Boy, do I feel like a dog for signing it after I had Panda Express for lunch,” the other student added.
“I’ve never eaten at Panda Express, but the — I mean, it seems legit. The panda thing really sparked it,” said a fourth student who signed the petition.
The student also shared with Jacobson why they ultimately decided to sign the petition.
“Like, I feel like it’s a moral thing to do,” said one student.
“When you’re a white person, your culture is not usually appropriated. Usually you are the appropriator. So it’s just kind of, like, recognizing when you’re in the wrong, and then correcting it,” added a second student.
“I think equal representation for anyone is extremely important, you know, no matter who you are, where you live, you know, ‘America, land of the free,’ but I think there’s a big disconnect in what that actually means,” added one of the students who admitted to eating at Panda Express.
In response to whether she will continue to buy food from Panda Express, the student said, “No, I feel so horrible now.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram. | -2.216344 |
A Tesla car left on autopilot struck a state trooper’s patrol car early in Lansing, Michigan, Wednesday morning.
At 1:12 AM in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Michigan State Police were investigating a deer-related crash on I-96 in Eaton County when a Tesla allegedly piloted itself directly into the left rear side of a squad car. Fortunately, neither the officer on the scene, nor the 22-year-old driver were reported injured.
The Michigan State Police First District tweeted a brief report, along with photos of the crash:
No injuries to troopers or anyone involved. Driver of the Tesla, a 22 year old man from Lansing was issued citations for failure to move over and DWLS. pic.twitter.com/zTSJOhuJMP — MSP First District (@MSPFirstDist) March 17, 2021
The unnamed driver was issued citations for failure to move over, as well as driving with a suspended license. But they are far from the first person to be involved in an autopilot-related accident. Elon “Technoking” Musk’s cars have been allegedly responsible for numerous crashes, many of which cited the autopilot as a major contributing factor.
In February 2019, an analysis by Safety Research & Strategies Inc. reported — contrary to statements made by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — Tesla’s vaunted self-driving feature was responsible for a sharp 60% rise in airbag deployments. Even so, Musk continues to rake in money, recently becoming the richest man in the world. | -0.240652 |
The auction for global telecommunications companies to bid on building Brazil’s 5G Internet will allow Huawei, a Chinese company with close ties to the communist regime, to bid despite global national security concerns, the New York Times noted Monday. Allowing Huawei to participate may come as a snub to President Joe Biden after anti-Bolsonaro remarks during the 2020 election cycle.
Speaking to the nation’s Communications Minister Fábio Faria, the newspaper confirmed the minister traveled to Beijing in February and met with Huawei executives. In the process of discussing issues related to Huawei’s business, Faria confirmed to the Times he had asked the Chinese company for help procuring Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines which Huawei does not produce. Faria insisted “no quid pro quo” occurred, though the newspaper described the timeframe in which both events happened as “striking.”
Faria told Brazilian media outlets last week, given national security concerns, Huawei did not meet the National Telecommunications Agency’s (Anatel) prerequisites for building the federal government a secure, private 5G network. The New York Times did not clarify if Huawei being allowed to participate in the auction meant Brasilia was overlooking this shortcoming or simply that Huawei was highly unlikely to win the bidding as it is coming into the contest with a clear disadvantage compared to companies not tied to the Chinese Communist Party.
Conservative President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration came to power in part on campaign promises to curb national security risks to the country stemming from the Chinese Communist Party. Prior to Bolsonaro, subsequent socialist administrations had deeply-entrenched Chinese interests in the Brazilian economy and China remains Brazil’s largest trading partner.
As president, however, Bolsonaro has embraced Chinese business profits, traveling to Beijing in 2019 and signing eight bilateral agreements with the Communist Party – while at the same time employing fiery anti-communist rhetoric towards China-allied regimes in Latin America. Bolsonaro recently claimed he would personally block the importing of Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines claiming Brazilians did not deserve to be “guinea pigs,” but ultimately relented and thanked the Communist Party for shipments of its questionably-effective vaccine candidates.
Brazil has one of the largest rates of Chinese coronavirus infections in the world, documenting over 11 million cases as of Tuesday since the pandemic began. Brazil is second only to America in the number of documented coronavirus cases, not taking into consideration extensive evidence rogue regimes such as China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela have significantly undercounted coronavirus cases and deaths.
The New York Times, citing a Brazilian political expert, noted another potential reason the Bolsonaro administration may have opened bidding to Huawei: President Joe Biden’s bizarre attacks against the country while he was a presidential candidate, particularly a threat to destroy the Brazilian economy issued during a debate against his predecessor Donald Trump.
“The election of President Biden, who has harshly criticized Brazil’s environmental record, made the Brazilian government unenthusiastic about being in lock step with Washington,” the New York Times reported citing political risk consultant Thiago de Aragão.
De Aragão appeared to be referencing Biden’s comments during a debate with Trump in September in which he threatened the unilateral destruction of Brazil’s economy in response to a question on climate change policy. The debate featured no foreign policy questions and the moderator had not mentioned Brazil.
“Brazil, the rainforests of Brazil are being torn down, are being ripped down. More carbon is absorbed in that rainforest than every bit of carbon that’s emitted in the United States,” Biden asserted abruptly. “Instead of doing something about that, I would be gathering up and making sure we had the countries of the world coming up with $20 billion, and say, ‘Here’s $20 billion. Stop, stop tearing down the forest. And if you don’t, then you’re going to have significant economic consequences.'”
Biden appeared to be referencing a global left-wing campaign blaming Bolsonaro for allegedly out-of-control fires in the Amazon Rainforest propelled in part by a false post from French President Emmanuel Macron on Twitter using a photo from at least 2003. Bolsonaro has been president of Brazil since 2018.
Bolsonaro replied to Biden in a letter referring to him as a “coward” and saying his threats were “unnecessary” and “difficult to understand.” Bolsonaro subsequently threatened to declare war on the United States, asserting that, in light of Biden’s comments, “diplomacy alone is not enough.”
Upon his inauguration, Bolsonaro congratulated Biden and urged him to negotiate a free trade agreement with Brazil.
Brazil is planning to build one of the world’s largest 5G networks, making its bidding process among the most lucrative. Anatel, the telecommunications agency, announced the official rules for bidding in February. The auction is scheduled to begin in July and the winner will have to guarantee a functional 5G system in Brazil’s largest cities by July 31, 2022. The winner must guarantee they can also build 4G networks in every Brazilian municipality with over 600 people, 48,000 kilometers (about 30,000 miles) of high-speed internet wiring, and a private 5G communications network for federal government use only. The latter is the prerequisite Faria recently insisted Huawei could not meet, though none of the rules for bidding explicitly exclude Huawei – the overture the New York Times linked to the vaccine deals.
“Today, Huawei is not apt to participate in [the building of] the government’s private network,” Faria said on March 9, leaving the door open for Huawei to modify itself by the time bidding starts. “There are already several countries making private networks and Huawei has not entered any nation until now.” | -0.233075 |
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele declared Monday that soaring migration levels at the southern border are bad for the U.S. and even worse for Latin America because it extracts the people vital to building the solid financial conditions that would keep them in their home country.
In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired Tuesday night, Bukele attributed the surge at the U.S.-Mexico border to three reasons: a lack of economic opportunities, the absence of security in Latin America, as well as incentives provided in the United States.
The Salvadoran president took responsibility for his country’s contribution to two of the main drivers of the emigration of his compatriots to the U.S. — a lack of economic opportunities and security.
President Bukele told Fox News:
If you don’t provide for your people — economic opportunities — if your economy is doing bad, if your security is doing bad, people are going leave, and you’re going to go and try to find a rich country, right? They’re not going to leave for Guatemala. They want to go to the United States. So, that makes this country dependent on immigration because you become a net exporter of people. You’re not exporting products or services; you’re exporting people.” So, that makes [Latin America’s] economy dependent on that because those people send money back to their home countries, which is not a good economic formula. That makes the economies dependent on that. … It’s bad for the United States because immigration will go up, and it’s bad for our country because [of] people leaving the country … so it’s bad for both of us.
“For a country, it’s not profitable to get the people out. First, it’s immoral. I mean, you need to provide for your people,” the Salvadoran president added.
He noted that U.S. promises of benefits for migrants are incentivizing the exodus of people from El Salvador and other Latin American countries.
President Bukele suggested that current U.S. border policies and enforcement of immigration laws, or the lack thereof, are contributing to the ongoing crisis at America’s southern international boundary.
Seemingly referring to some of the promises made by the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress, Carlson asked, “So, but if the richest country in the world says if you cross over the border, we will give you free health care, free education, all these benefits, I mean that’s a draw, isn’t it?”
“Of course, it’s an incentive,” Bukele replied, adding that migrants are willing to risk the dangerous journey north and arrive at a country where they do not speak the primary language over the prospect that “they will receive a lot of things.”
“It’s an incentive game here. And if, for example, if here in El Salvador we have better jobs and better security, it’s less, it’s less of an incentive,” he added.
Bukele stressed that U.S. incentives for immigrants are gutting El Salvador of people who could contribute to the economy in their home without leaving.
“The best thing for both of us is to keep our people here and to provide for our people right here in our country, and that’s what people here want,” he said. | -0.611911 |
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele declared Monday that soaring migration levels at the southern border are bad for the U.S. and even worse for Latin America because it extracts the people vital to building the solid financial conditions that would keep them in their home country.
In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired Tuesday night, Bukele attributed the surge at the U.S.-Mexico border to three reasons: a lack of economic opportunities, the absence of security in Latin America, as well as incentives provided in the United States.
The Salvadoran president took responsibility for his country’s contribution to two of the main drivers of the emigration of his compatriots to the U.S. — a lack of economic opportunities and security.
President Bukele told Fox News:
If you don’t provide for your people — economic opportunities — if your economy is doing bad, if your security is doing bad, people are going leave, and you’re going to go and try to find a rich country, right? They’re not going to leave for Guatemala. They want to go to the United States. So, that makes this country dependent on immigration because you become a net exporter of people. You’re not exporting products or services; you’re exporting people.” So, that makes [Latin America’s] economy dependent on that because those people send money back to their home countries, which is not a good economic formula. That makes the economies dependent on that. … It’s bad for the United States because immigration will go up, and it’s bad for our country because [of] people leaving the country … so it’s bad for both of us.
“For a country, it’s not profitable to get the people out. First, it’s immoral. I mean, you need to provide for your people,” the Salvadoran president added.
He noted that U.S. promises of benefits for migrants are incentivizing the exodus of people from El Salvador and other Latin American countries.
President Bukele suggested that current U.S. border policies and enforcement of immigration laws, or the lack thereof, are contributing to the ongoing crisis at America’s southern international boundary.
Seemingly referring to some of the promises made by the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress, Carlson asked, “So, but if the richest country in the world says if you cross over the border, we will give you free health care, free education, all these benefits, I mean that’s a draw, isn’t it?”
“Of course, it’s an incentive,” Bukele replied, adding that migrants are willing to risk the dangerous journey north and arrive at a country where they do not speak the primary language over the prospect that “they will receive a lot of things.”
“It’s an incentive game here. And if, for example, if here in El Salvador we have better jobs and better security, it’s less, it’s less of an incentive,” he added.
Bukele stressed that U.S. incentives for immigrants are gutting El Salvador of people who could contribute to the economy in their home without leaving.
“The best thing for both of us is to keep our people here and to provide for our people right here in our country, and that’s what people here want,” he said. | -0.926748 |
ROME — Pope Francis called for peace in Paraguay on Wednesday as protests over surging coronavirus cases and political corruption have met with violence.
Following his weekly General Audience, the pope said he has been “concerned about the news from Paraguay,” with demonstrators demanding the impeachment of President Mario Abdo Benítez over his perceived mishandling of the health crisis.
“Through the intercession of Our Lady of Miracles of Caacupé, I ask the Lord Jesus, Prince of Peace, that a path of sincere dialogue may be found to find adequate solutions to the present difficulties, and thus build together the longed-for peace,” the pontiff told viewers following his streamed address from the library of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.
“Let us remember that violence is always self-destructive,” Francis declared. “Nothing is gained through it, but much is lost, sometimes everything.”
Political corruption and unrest are a way of life in Paraguay, with the ruling Colorado party in power almost exclusively over the last 70 years, which included a military coup in 1989 and a failed coup attempt in 1996.
A recent surge in coronavirus cases in the land-locked country combined with a glacially slow vaccine rollout has sparked anti-Abdo protests that have at times turned violent. For their part, police have responded with water cannons and rubber bullets.
Pope Francis traveled to Paraguay in July 2015 and during his visit he acknowledged Paraguay’s troubled and often violent history.
“From the first days of the country’s independence to recent times, Paraguay has known the terrible sufferings brought on by war, fratricidal conflict, lack of freedom and contempt for human rights,” the pope said at the time. “How much suffering and death!”
Francis commended the Paraguayan people for their “admirable spirit of perseverance in surmounting adversities and in working to build a prosperous and peaceful nation” while urging citizens to learn from their past so as not to repeat its errors.
“A people which forgets its own past, its history and its roots, has no future, it is a dull people,” he said. “Memory, if it is firmly based on justice and rejects hatred and all desire for revenge, makes the past a source of inspiration for the building of a future of serene coexistence.”
“It also makes us realize the tragedy and pointlessness of war,” he said. “Let there be an end to wars between brothers!”
“Let us always build peace!” he urged. “A peace which grows stronger day by day, a peace which makes itself felt in everyday life, a peace to which each person contributes by seeking to avoid signs of arrogance, hurtful words, contemptuousness, and instead by working to foster understanding, dialogue and cooperation.”
Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 0.067108 |
Bolivian police arrested former President Jeanine Áñez this weekend – and ordered her to serve four months in prison on Sunday – following accusations by the ruling socialist government of unspecified charges of “terrorism” following the resignation of socialist President Evo Morales.
Morales voluntarily left the presidency in November 2019 after nearly 14 years in power. He ran in the country’s October presidential elections despite being constitutionally term-limited after winning a lawsuit in which he claimed term limits violated his human rights. Morales “won” the election after several technical irregularities resulted in a dramatic shift of votes away from centrist candidate Carlos Mesa and for Morales.
The Organization of American States (OAS) published a preliminary study finding significant evidence of fraud in that presidential election, prompting Morales to resign.
Morales and most senior members of his government – members of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party – fled the country following his resignation. Using the Bolivian constitution’s designated line of succession, authorities determined the Áñez, a conservative senator, was the highest-ranked person left in the country to become interim president.
As president, Áñez’s mandate was to organize free and fair elections as soon as possible. Áñez organized successful elections for October 2020 in which she did not participate. MAS candidate Luis Arce won the election, paving the way for Morales to return from self-imposed exile in Argentina. Arce’s administration dropped charges of terrorism, crimes against humanity, and pedophilia imposed on Morales during Áñez’s administration stemming from Morales’ threats to organize violent attacks on her administration and the discovery of a birth certificate of a child born to Morales and a minor.
Añez is facing charges of terrorism, sedition, and conspiracy, the court processing her case revealed this weekend, in response to her accepting the title of interim president following Morales’s voluntary departure. The judge presiding over the case ruled Áñez is enough of a flight risk to merit four months of pre-trial imprisonment. The charges appear to be a downgrade from initial threats of charges of “genocide” against her by socialist leaders.
Bolivia’s Minister of Justice and Transparency Iván Lima announced the state is seeking to imprison Áñez for 30 years if found guilty.
“What we are seeking is not four months of detention, what we are seeking is a 30-year sentence, because there have been bloody massacres, mothers who have been left without children,” Lima asserted.
Violent incidents did occur in the aftermath of Morales’ resignation, organized and prompted by MAS forces. Socialist groups flooded cities chanting calls for civil war and attacking local facilities. Bolivian authorities obtained audio police claimed to be of Morales himself orchestrating violence from abroad by asking supporters to blockade roads and not “let food into the cities” to starve urban populations into demanding his return to power. Morales also publicly called for the creation of “people’s armed militias” to attack the Áñez government.
Pro-MAS prosecutors are accusing Áñez of being the face of a “coup” with military and police support to depose Morales, citing comments by Williams Kalimán, the head of the Bolivian Armed Forces, suggesting Morales resign given the evidence that he tampered with the results of the presidential election. As Áñez also supported Morales’ resignation, the prosecutors are accusing her of participating in the alleged “coup.”
Local media reported that prosecutors are calling Luis Fernando Camacho – a conservative presidential candidate who ran in the 2020 election – of being the “mastermind” of Áñez’s ascent to the presidency. Prosecutors reportedly do not have evidence of any collusion between Camacho and the MAS leaders who fled the country and left Áñez at the front of the line of succession.
In letters posted to her Twitter account, Áñez is calling for the international community to intervene, specifically requesting the OAS and the European Union send observers to Bolivia to monitor her trial. Áñez referred to her trial as “aberrant political persecution” and urged independent observers to “evaluate in an objective and impartial manner the illegal apprehension that we have been victims of.”
Jeanine Añez pide a la @OEA_oficial y a la @UEenBolivia que envíen observadores, frente al plan del gobierno del MAS para instalar una dictadura en Bolivia. pic.twitter.com/EWwO1qkXwM — Jeanine Añez Chavez (@JeanineAnez) March 13, 2021
In a personal message posted to her account, Áñez urged Bolivians to “have faith and hope” in the coming months.
“As we have denounced, MAS decides and the judicial system obeys: they are sending me to four months in detention to wait on a trial for a ‘coup’ that never happened,” Áñez wrote. “From here I call on Bolivia to have faith and hope. One day, between us all, we will lift up a better Bolivia.”
Como hemos denunciado, el MAS decide y el sistema judicial obedece: me envían 4 meses detenida para esperar el juicio por un "golpe" que nunca ocurrió. Desde aquí llamo a Bolivia a tener fe y esperanza. Un día, entre todos, levantaremos una Bolivia mejor. — Jeanine Añez Chavez (@JeanineAnez) March 15, 2021
Alaín de Canedo, Áñez’s attorney, further commented to the press that prosecutors’ focus on statements from military leaders omits the pronounced presence of several major institutions in the transition process after Morales’ voluntary resignation, including the Catholic Church and the United Nations. These entities participated in the transition in peacekeeper capacities, as well as the OAS, and as of now have not made any prominent appearances in the prosecution’s case.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter. | -0.978838 |
Washington really is the last nakedly racist place in America. And the very face of this city’s institutional racism is President Biden himself.
Welcome to the White Privilege Presidency.
Mr. Biden is living proof that no matter how dumb you are or how wrong you have always been or how many things you have screwed up, if you are just White enough and willing to wait around long enough accomplishing nothing, the kingship will eventually be yours.
This is a guy who had been rejected by voters — often in his own party — in his endless quest for the presidency many times during his five decades running his mouth in Washington. It was only when a gifted political outsider needed an old White guy for a running mate that Mr. Biden’s ticket to the White House finally got punched.
Literally, Mr. Biden’s only contribution was to be White. And old. And a barnacled deadweight from Washington.
This is why it is so astonishing — though not entirely surprising — to watch Mr. Biden so monumentally screw up everything he touches now that he is supposedly in charge. Nowhere is his reckless incompetence more obvious than on the border with Mexico.
Whatever you might think of former President Trump, he earned credit for finally bringing sanity to the border. Mr. Biden is hellbent to undo all of it — entirely out of political spite.
Or, perhaps, something even worse: Fanatical partisan ideology. In other words, he wants to actually destroy America in order to keep power.
Mr. Trump was “America First.” Mr. Biden is “Mexico First.” Or “Central America First.” Anything, really, except “America First.”
His administration has spent weeks dictating all sorts of words other than “crisis” that can be used to describe the border — even as record numbers of new migrants swarm the border. It is kind of like how Democrats wanted to spend all their time arguing about what to call the China Virus instead of actually doing something to stop it.
The latest wacko diplo-speak word peddled by the administration is “irregular.”
As in: “Do not come in an irregular fashion,” admonished Roberta Jacobson, Mr. Biden’s point person on the border. During an extraordinary press conference this week, Mrs. Jacobson showed a fierce determination to prove she can be every bit as stupid as Mr. Biden has been for the past 45 years.
Parroting Mr. Biden’s campaign promise to “build back better,” Mrs. Jacobson openly admitted that “build back better” does not actually refer to “building back” America.
“President Biden has made clear from Day One that he wants to change our immigration system,” she explained. “Doing so means truly building back better because we can’t just undo four years of the previous administration’s actions overnight.”
By “actions,” Mrs. Jacobson means Mr. Trump’s success at curbing illegal immigration by effectively enforcing U.S. laws and partnering with Mexico and other governments to help end the humanitarian crisis at the border.
Included in Mr. Biden’s “build back better” program, she said, is spending $4 billion of U.S. tax money to “address the root causes of migration, including corruption, violence and economic devastation exacerbated by climate change.”
Oh, I see.
So “build back better” is not about making your life better or spending money in your neighborhood or allowing you to keep more of your money. It’s about giving massive amounts of money to violent, corrupt, and economically devastated countries in Central America.
No longer is America that shining city on a hill for people who want to obey laws and enjoy “Equal Justice Under Law.”
In addition to being the world’s police department, we are also now the world’s welfare office and housing department. Lucky law-abiding American taxpayers (also known as “suckers”).
Speaking of taxpayers, Mrs. Jacobson spent a great deal of time talking about the importance of involving various “business” interests in decisions about illegal immigration into our country.
“I don’t want to leave out the business community as a participant,” she said. Of course, this is the same “business community” desperate for cheap labor — legal or illegal. Whatever.
No concern, however, for the innocent taxpayer — except when the bill comes for the $4 billion to be spent of corrupt, violent, economically devastated countries.
Mrs. Jacobson literally never uttered the word “citizen,” except of course to express the urgent need to grant “citizenship” to the millions of illegals pouring across our border.
Her contempt for Americans was surpassed only by her arrogance.
In an effort to flaunt her prowess as an anti-American internationalist, Mrs. Jacobson repeatedly broke into fevered Spanish, like a woman speaking in tongues at a religious revival.
There was only one problem. Even her Spanish is a lie, too.
Trying to warn migrants against illegally crossing our border, she instead advised them that — indeed — our borders are open. (Apparently, she learned to speak Spanish from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.)
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was later asked about Mrs. Jacobson’s poor Spanish and whether her inability to speak Spanish correctly might contribute to the “non-crisis” on the border.
“We certainly hope not,” Ms. Psaki said, among mostly friends desperate to prop up the Biden administration. “We have the power of the media here to make sure you’re communicating effectively with the messages.”
Oh my. Finally, somebody in the Biden administration tells the truth.
• Charles Hurt is opinion editor. He may be reached at [email protected]. | -0.464738 |
The Islamic dictatorship of Iran celebrated the arrival Thursday of 100,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine candidates made in Cuba, which claims to have four such products in development.
Iran and Cuba are close diplomatic partners and both claim to be developing vaccines against the Chinese coronavirus. Cuba has registered four experimental coronavirus vaccine products with the World Health Organization (W.H.O.)’s tracking database of products. The most advanced of the four, “Soberana 02,” reportedly began Phase III clinical trials this month.
Tehran has divulged little about its alleged coronavirus vaccine candidate, other than the fact Cuba will host human trials. The Iranian regime has also made several other dubious scientific claims, like alleging the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, was working on its own vaccine product and had developed a “magnetic” device that detects coronavirus in patients.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency did not specify which of Cuba’s vaccine candidates had arrived in the country this week.
“The aircraft carrying the first shipment, including 100,000 doses of the vaccine, landed at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport this afternoon,” Tasnim reported. “Earlier, Iran had taken delivery of four consignments of the Russian-made Sputnik-V and one shipment of the Chinese-made Sinopharm COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] vaccines.”
The outlet did not provide any information on when those vaccine doses would be available to Iranian patients or if doctors would administer them to the general public or select groups. It did note the Cuban products would join increasingly large numbers of doses of “Sputnik V,” the vaccine candidate developed in Russia, after Tehran and Moscow agreed on a deal allowing domestic production of the vaccine in Iran.
No country’s health authority, including Cuba’s, has approved any vaccine candidate created by the nation’s Communist Party. Cuba appeared to begin shopping its four vaccine candidates — Soberanas 01 and 02, Abdala, and Mambisa — this month to neighboring developing countries that may not have the resources to purchase doses of widely-approved vaccines, such as those manufactured by American firms Pfizer and Moderna. Cuban diplomats reportedly opened a discussion on selling coronavirus vaccine candidates with counterparts in Suriname at the beginning of the month.
The vaccine that the Cuban government is developing with the aid of Iran appears to be “Soberana 02.” According to a report published in January by Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, the two countries signed a “historic” agreement that month that would allow clinical trials of that vaccine candidate in Iran. In addition to claiming that the deal would accelerate the development of anti-coronavirus technology, Granma asserted that their cooperation would make a statement against “the cruelest and most inhuman sanctions of the government of the United States” against both rogue regimes.
That month, Granma also claimed Cuba would host Phase II clinical trials of a separate vaccine candidate developed by both Iran and Cuba jointly. The vaccine candidate is allegedly the product of the Pasteur Institute of Iran; Granma did not identify it by any particular name.
“The second phase of the human trial is being conducted under the supervision of the Pasteur Institute of Iran in Cuba. Provided that the second phase is successful, the third phase will be implemented in Iran,” Kianoush Jahanpour, a spokesman for Iran’s Food and Drug Administration (IFDA) announced in January.
“Soberana 02” formally began Phase III clinical trials in Cuba in early March.
Cuba and Iran have both received scrutiny for their lackluster responses to the pandemic spreading within their borders. Iran has documented 1.7 million coronavirus cases since the pandemic began and 61,069 deaths. The Castro regime has documented 59,919 cases of coronavirus and only 365 deaths, a significantly lower number than many of its neighbors, raising concerns regarding the honesty of the Cuban government in tracking cases.
The Castro regime has a long history of falsifying medical statistics, most prominently documenting infant deaths as “abortions” to boast an extremely low infant mortality rate. Cuban slave doctors who have defected from international missions have repeatedly testified to being forced to fabricate data on treating patients, in some cases destroying medicine to later claim to have prescribed it to patients who did not exist, to make the missions appear more efficient.
Last month, defecting Cuban slave doctors testified to falsifying medical data about coronavirus patients specifically, writing that they had treated patients who did not exist, in many cases making up false names to fill up government notebooks.
Criticisms of Iran’s coronavirus response focus largely on the regime’s lack of action in preventing mass gatherings at the height of the pandemic — and, in some cases, organizing “super spreader” events for the regime’s political benefit. Iran held a sham parliamentary election in February 2020, exposing those who voted to crowds at polling stations when evidence of viral spread already existed. Iran attempted to shut down some Islamic shrines in March 2020 but met with fierce opposition by hardline Muslims, who stormed and physically reopened some of the sites in mob attacks.
In July, Health Minister Saeed Namaki complained that Iran’s coronavirus response was “embarrassing” and that his ministry had not addressed the economic damage of lockdowns appropriately, making it impossible for the Health Ministry to advise social distancing measures without also jeopardizing the public’s livelihood” and triggering an “insurrection.”
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter. | 0.00132 |
Mexico’s Congress voted in favor of legalizing marijuana–a move some politicians claim will help curb the raging cartel violence.
This week, Mexico’s congressmen held a series of heated debates about legalizing marijuana for medical, recreational, and industrial use. The bill decriminalizes possession of up to 28 grams and sets up regulations for production and distribution.
The proposed law passed largely along party lines with 316-129 and 23 abstentions. The opposition consisted of the National Action Party (PAN) and Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI). Supporting the bill were largely from the ruling party, MORENA.
The bill was previously approved by Mexico’s Senate, bringing legalization one step closer to fruition. After some revisions between the versions passed by the different chambers, the bill would become a law once it is published in the Official Federation Ledger.
Legalization has been one of the main issues pushed by Mexico’s Morena Party with controversial Senator Jesusa Rodriguez being one of the most outspoken supporters. Rodriguez made headlines in the past for comparing marijuana to a clitoris and for bringing a plant into the senate chambers.
Soy una planta compuesta de CBD y THC, y tengo más propiedades que Duarte y sus familiares. Escúchala completa: https://t.co/w0A6TJJdT1#MarihuanaLegal @Mx_Diputados. pic.twitter.com/nKDpcS3CXx — Jesusa Rodríguez (@jesusardgz) December 7, 2020
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected]. | 0.604569 |
A justice on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), the nation’s top court, overturned the multiple convictions on charges of corruption against former socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday.
Multiple courts have found Lula guilty of receiving a bribe while president in the form of a million-dollar luxury beachfront property and renovations to it since 2017; while the courts repeatedly modified each other’s sentences, the shortest sentence he received was for eight years in prison. The convictions triggered Brazil’s “Clean Slate” law, which bans politicians from running for public office with a conviction on charges of corruption on their record.
As of Monday, the “Clean Slate” law no longer applies, allowing Lula to potentially run for president against incumbent conservative President Jair Bolsonaro in 2022.
The STF’s exoneration of Lula follows the court taking on an increasingly prominent role in arresting conservative and right-leaning critics of the Brazilian left. In May 2020, the STF ordered raids against the homes of 29 YouTube celebrities, comedians, and journalists who had spoken favorably of Bolsonaro in public on alleged charges of “fake news.” Last month, the STF ordered the arrest of a Congressman, Daniel Silveira, over the publication of a YouTube video in which he criticized the STF.
Under Lula, the country experienced one of the most expansive corruption scandals on record, now known by the nickname of the investigation into it, “Operation Car Wash.” Dozens of politicians of multiple parties, not just Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT), have been arrested on charges of accepting kickbacks from private contractors, most notoriously the Brazilian firm Odebrecht, in exchange for lucrative government infrastructure contracts.
STF Justice Edson Fachin — appointed to the court by Lula’s successor and protege, the impeached former president Dilma Rousseff — ruled Monday that the court that initially found Lula guilty did not have the authority to try the case. Fachin did not comment on the evidence that had resulted in a guilty verdict but rather remanded the case to what he considered the appropriate court in the capital, Brasilia. The Brasilia court may find Lula guilty again, resulting in another ban on running for office.
“Operation Car Wash” began as a much smaller investigation in Curitiba, a southern city and regional capital of Paraná state. Investigators, with the support of local judge Sergio Moro, began finding mounting evidence that the apparently local money laundering cases they were probing were tied to a much large conspiracy ensnaring much of the Brazilian Congress and, ultimately, Lula.
The investigation resulted in at least 160 arrests — many of them of prominently lawmakers and other political figures — and police recovered as much as $1 billion as of 2019. Moro became a national hero and was promoted to Minister of Justice under Bolsonaro. He ultimately resigned claiming Bolsonaro did not sufficiently empower him to fight corruption. Bolsonaro denied the allegations.
The Brazilian left has expressed concern with the fact that Fachin’s ruling did not address the investigation Moro led at all, nor did it weigh in on Lula’s innocence. Instead, it simply asserted that Moro did not have jurisdiction to rule on the case because his court was located in Curitiba. Lula’s attorneys had requested the court overrule his conviction on the grounds that Moro was allegedly compromised in his judgment by political opposition to Lula, a claim Moro has denied.
As Lula now has no convictions to his name, the socialist former leader has catapulted to the top of the list of contenders against Bolsonaro in 2022. Prior to his convictions before the 2018 election, some polls found that Lula had more support as a candidate than Bolsonaro. The polling offered conflicting conclusions, however. One poll published in February 2018 by the firm Datafolha, following Lula’s conviction, found that between 34 and 37 percent of respondents would vote for Lula, far more than the 16-18 percent supporting Bolsonaro. Over half of Brazilians said, however, that they wanted the government to Lula from running for president and 53 percent said they wanted to see him in prison.
Lula expressed his intent to run for president again years before the 2018 election, comparing himself to Jesus Christ. He attempted to run against Bolsonaro from prison in 2018, campaigning on the unpopular claim that “Operation Car Wash” was a far-right conspiracy. He refused to give up his nomination as the PT candidate — despite being legally barred from the ballot — until the month before the election, dooming the replacement candidate Fernando Haddad.
Lula is currently 75 years old, raising questions regarding his ability to engage in a rigorous presidential campaign next year. Despite this, O Globo cited a poll on Tuesday show that half of Brazilians would still vote for Lula. Almost the same number, 44 percent, said they would absolutely not vote for him for any reason, making him an extremely polarizing figure. The poll, by the first Ipec, found Bolsonaro fairing poorly against Lula, but significantly better against other potential rivals like Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria.
Bolsonaro reacted to the news on Monday by highlighting the STF’s left-wing bias.
“Anything decision from the 11 justices, you can guess what they think or what they write on paper. Justice Fachin has strong ties to the PT, this decision doesn’t surprise us in that sense,” the president said. Bolsonaro then described Lula’s first tenure, noting the collapse of the economy and widespread government corruption, as “catastrophic.”
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter. | 0.866745 |
Eyewitnesses say the Cuban Communist Party is forcing suspected coronavirus patients into unsanitary, poorly stocked, and densely populated “camps” and making them take an unproven antiviral treatment, a report revealed this weekend.
The Global Liberty Alliance (GLA), a human rights advocacy group that focuses on legal aid to dissidents, verified ongoing reports of Cuban citizens ending up in “isolation centers” if suspected of carrying Chinese coronavirus. The camp whose existence and dire medical status the organization confirmed is located in central Santa Clara.
“A government ‘survey taker’ (encuestadora), allegedly connected to the Ministry of Public Health, knocks on citizens’ doors daily, asking how many people live in each home and whether they are experiencing respiratory or fever-like symptoms,” the GLA confirmed. “Suspected COVID [Chinese coronavirus]-positive cases are being transported to an ‘isolation center,’ which is a minimally converted school. They are isolated for 5 days, given the PCR COVID-19 test, and if tested positive, are sent to the Military Hospital. If they test negative, they must remain 5 more days before being PCR tested again.”
The report corroborated prior revelations from Cuban independent media that the “isolation centers” were poorly run camps where potential coronavirus patients were kept close enough together that the virus may have been spreading within the facility. Authorities also provided nearly inedible food to those forced to stay there, many reports emphasized. Cubanet, a dissident online outlet, published photographs of one of the “meals” at a camp in Havana that appeared to feature two boiled eggs, a piece of boiled unidentified root vegetable, and rice.
ὄ Un ejemplo de la comida que dan el centro de aislamiento de la UCI (Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas), en La Habana. pic.twitter.com/U82P3ERxC5 — Cubanet 🇺 (@CubanetNoticias) March 5, 2021
Among the most alarming revelations in the GLA report is the fact that the Cuban government is using unproven interferon treatments on people who test positive for coronavirus and are thus moved from the converted school facility to the military hospital camp.
“In some cases, a COVID-negative person can accompany patients in the hospital. The COVID-negative companions are given drops of Nasalferon … twice daily to prevent contagion, while the COVID-positive patients are given interferon shots,” the GLA report detailed.
The confirmation echoes reports in Cuban state media boasting that nasal interferon treatments (nasalferon) would be available for at-home use to individuals who test positive for Chinese coronavirus but do not require hospitalization.
Interferons are antivirals that can generate extreme side effects in individuals. Some preliminary studies have shown that one interferon, Interferon-beta, may have some positive effects in fighting infections of Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a disease caused by a different coronavirus. No studies suggest a similar possibility of positive effects against the Chinese coronavirus. Cuba has spent the past year promoting the use of a different interferon, Interferon-alpha 2b, against Chinese coronavirus, despite the lack of scientific evidence for the treatment.
“When the Government of Cuba assures that the Interferon developed in Cuba cures the coronavirus, it is committing a serious crime against world public health, since this drug not only lacks any scientific proof, but also where it has been tested has already given null results of encouragement,” a group of doctors denounced in April 2020 in response to the campaign, in a statement via the human rights organization Cuban Prisoners Defenders.
The interferon treatment could “kill, rather than cure patients,” the doctors warned.
Cuba has received minimal international support from the scientific community in its pursuit of interferon treatment. Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela initially promoted in early 2020, but even this reliable ally has pivoted to domestically produced false cures, such as the administration of toxic ozone gas to coronavirus patients.
At least one nation – South Africa – has bought into the interferon theory. South African officials recently revealed that the nation’s military bought doses of Interferon-alpha-2b from Havana in the last year. It remains unclear how the military managed to purchase the unproven treatment, where the 260 million rand ($16.8 million) came from to buy the antivirals, or who would have access to them. The South African Defense Force set up an ad-hoc task team this week to investigate the purchase.
The GLA report on Cuba’s coronavirus camps also raised concerns about the competence of Cuba’s medical staffers.
“According to reports, however, the medical professionals are not documenting people’s health conditions and status accurately,” the report noted. “They have tried to give interferon to COVID-negative companions instead of the COVID patient, and have tried to give excessive doses of Interferon to patients, allegedly due to poor documentation.”
Staffers also reportedly do nothing to maintain a sanitary environment in the camps, meaning patients are forced to do their own cleaning.
“The cleanliness in the center is ‘awful,’ with patients having to clean most spaces themselves, which further contributes to contamination,” the report detailed. “The only space cleaned by staff is the common walkway between beds; everything else is left dirty. No bleach is available unless patients befriend cleaning staff.” | 0.766573 |
A poll released Thursday by the Venezuelan firm Meganálisis found the vast majority of people living under the repressive socialist regime there do not believe any meaningful difference exists between the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and formally incorporated opposition parties.
Venezuela’s opposition is currently led by the nation’s legal president, Juan Guaidó, a former member of the nation’s Popular Will Party. Popular Will is a full member of the Socialist International; Guaidó’s signature policy proposal, the Country Plan (Plan País), proposes mass nationalization of the few industries still private under dictator Nicolás Maduro and heavy government subsidizing of social welfare programs.
While Guaidó is legally the president of the country, he has failed to exercise any power within its borders. Maduro, who has not legally been head of state since January 2019, retains the loyalty of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, which he has used to remain in the presidential palace, Miraflores. He recently took over the National Assembly, the federal legislature and last democratically elected institution in the country, in an election largely boycotted by opposition parties.
The rejection of opposition leaders by the Venezuelan people generally echoes results in past Meganálisis polls that found overwhelming numbers of Venezuelans believed Guaidó to be incompetent and unsuccessful in combatting Maduro. Most expressed displeasure at the government of the United States continuing to support Guaidó.
President Donald Trump recognized Guaidó as the legal president of Venezuela and invited him as a guest to his final State of the Union address in 2020. President Joe Biden has vowed that Trump’s Venezuela policy, despite being apparently unpopular in Venezuela, will be one of the few policies he does not expect to change in any significant way from the Trump era. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Guaidó via phone this week, offering “unwavering support.”
The Meganálisis survey published this week, taken starting on February 26, asked Venezuelans, “Judging from their behavior in front of citizens, do you believe that the opposition political parties and the PSUV are very different or the same?”
An overwhelming 71.4 percent of citizens answered “the same,” while nearly one-fifth said they were “different.” About nine percent said they did not know.
Past polling about Guaidó, specifically, has shown immense disillusion and lack of trust in him from the Venezuelan public. In May, Meganálisis asked Venezuelans if they believed Guaidó was “capable of governing Venezuela.” Nearly 90 percent said “no.” Another 86 percent said that he had led the opposition “very poorly” and the same amount said they believed Guaidó had administered resources offered by President Trump poorly.
By August, 82.4 percent of respondents said they believed Guaidó had “deceived” Trump.
“Based on our history of opinion studies … we can say today that Juan Guaidó’s image is superlatively worn, reaching such low levels that without a doubt we could qualify it as irreparable in the short- or medium-term,” Rubén Chirino Leañez, vice president and CEO, told Breitbart News in September, “and this is an overwheming reality that the United States government should address as soon as possible to reconstruct its policy towards Venezuela and generate successes truly recognized as such by the majority of Venezuelans in the country.”
At press time, the Biden administration has not broken in any way with Trump’s Venezuela policy, save for easing some sanctions against Maduro, and has not publicly addressed Guaidó’s credibility issues.
Elsewhere in the February survey, asked about their specific ideologies, 58.1 percent of Venezuelans said they preferred “capitalism” to be the model governing Venezuela, a drop from a peak of 72.3 percent supporting capitalism when Meganálisis asked this question in September. “Socialism” came second to capitalism at 11.9 percent, but was not an option in the September poll, which may have skewed support for capitalism, as well. This week’s poll found only 9.6 percent of respondents supported a “social democrat” model, a form of light socialism prominently represented by Guaidó.
Venezuelans rejected socialism more aggressively when asked exclusively about it. In response to the question, “Do you think that socialism produces misery, ignorance, and backwardness in countries?” 77.4 percent of people said “yes.”
February’s Meganálisis poll also asked Venezuelans about their perception of American attitudes towards their country, finding that most believe American political leaders are uninterested in their current crisis. The survey asked, “How much do you believe that the new U.S. President Joe Biden cares about the problems and crisis lived in Venezuela?” Of total respondents, 74.1 percent answered, “not at all.”
Few appeared more confident that Trump was interested in helping them. Asked to choose who has “shown more interest in Venezuela” between Trump and Biden, 56.8 percent said “neither.” Almost 20 percent of respondents chose Trump, while only 2.2 percent said Biden.
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Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro revealed via Twitter on Wednesday that he had concluded an “excellent videoconference” that day with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, who previously accused him of “grave human rights abuses.”
Maduro’s regime enjoys a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council and Maduro himself addressed the Council last month, using the opportunity largely to promote dubious coronavirus “cures” and complain about sanctions against his regime imposed by the United States. The U.N. Council and independent investigators working for the global institution — and Bachelet’s office itself — has for years affirmed that an extensive body of credible evidence exists that Maduro ordered the Venezuelan military to engage in gross human rights violations for years, particularly the use of rape, torture, and extrajudicial killing to silence anti-socialist dissidents.
“Essential institutions and the rule of law in Venezuela have been eroded,” Bachelet, formerly the socialist president of Chile, wrote in a 2019 report following a working visit to Venezuela. “Many could constitute extrajudicial killings, and should be fully investigated with accountability of perpetrators, and guarantees of non-recurrence.”
Despite personally testifying to Maduro’s role in human rights atrocities in the country, photos published by Maduro showing Bachelet on his computer appear to indicate that she engaged the dictator in a friendly chat on Wednesday. Bachelet appears to smile warmly at Maduro and the other senior regime officials on the call.
“I had an excellent videoconference with the High Commissioner of the U.N. for [human rights], [Michelle Bachelet],” Maduro wrote. “We discussed the negative effects of sanctions against Venezuela, we also expanded upon material elements of our policy regarding the Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] pandemic.”
Sostuve una excelente videoconferencia con la Alta Comisionada de la ONU para los DDHH, @mbachelet. Conversamos sobre los efectos negativos de las sanciones contra Venezuela, también ampliamos elementos en materia de nuestra política de atención a la Pandemia del Covid-19. pic.twitter.com/3EiegswS2E — Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) March 3, 2021
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry issued an expanded statement noting that Maduro was accompanied in his discussion by the regime’s top diplomat, Jorge Arreaza, and providing some more detail on the conversation. The two sides reportedly discussed “advances obtained through cooperation and the work in strengthening mechanisms for the protection of human rights in the country.” Like Maduro’s short statement, the Ministry emphasized that the main point of discussion for the regime was the fight against sanctions placed on it “unilaterally,” meaning by the United States, and claims that the sanctions themselves are a human rights violation.
Most American sanctions on the Maduro regime relate to its extensive record of violating the human rights of Venezuelan citizens. The sanctions target the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) as well as personal assets belonging to Maduro and some of his top officials. Maduro has not been legally president of Venezuela since January 2019, when his last legal term expired, so American authorities have also prohibited his regime from accessing government funds, giving that option to the legitimate president of the country, Juan Guaidó. Despite his status as the constitutional president of Venezuela, Guaidó has failed to exercise his powers in any meaningful way as Maduro retains control of the nation’s military.
The U.N. recognizes Maduro, not Guaidó, as the head of state of Venezuela.
Multiple U.N. reports have found Maduro guilty of extreme human rights abuses. A special mission to the country published a report in September accusing Maduro of “the systematic use of torture” against political dissidents.
“The Mission found reasonable grounds to believe that Venezuelan authorities and security forces have since 2014 planned and executed serious human rights violations, some of which — including arbitrary killings and the systematic use of torture — amount to crimes against humanity,” chief investigator Marta Valinas said at the time. “Far from being isolated acts, these crimes were coordinated and committed pursuant to State policies, with the knowledge or direct support of commanding officers and senior government officials.”
Prior to the 2020 report, Bachelet herself visited Venezuela on a mission to assess the human rights situation there, finding evidence of “grave human rights violations” committed on Maduro’s orders.
“During my visit to Venezuela, I was able to hear first-hand the accounts of victims of State violence and their demands for justice,” Bachelet said in a statement. “I have faithfully conveyed their voices, and those of civil society, as well as the human rights violations documented in this report, to the relevant authorities.”
Among the human rights violations Maduro has ordered his officers to commit are extensive executions of children, the systematic rape of political dissidents, attacks on churches, and rampant use of torture in political prisons.
These violations did not stop the U.N. Human Rights Council from welcoming Maduro alongside other grave human rights violators like China, Cuba, and Pakistan, as a member government. Maduro told the Human Rights Council last month that he would no longer accept any more investigations into his nation’s dire human rights situation.
“I reiterate that the Venezuelan state will decidedly work with the actors of this Human Rights Council, just as I ratify that we will not accept the intervention of any inquisitor mechanism against our nation, Venezuela, that seeks to use the just cause of human rights as a political tool for a government, or a regime, change in our country,” Maduro said.
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People in Buenos Aires and other cities in Argentina banged pots and pans on Monday night to stage a noisy protest after a nationally televised speech by President Alberto Fernández, recently linked to a vaccine scandal in which some Argentine government ministers received priority access to coronavirus vaccines before the general public.
Argentina’s Secretariat of Media and Public Communication, Hernán Lombardi, called for Argentinians to stage a “cacerolazo” – a form of protest in Argentina in which people bang pots and pans to call attention to a cause – on March 1 if Fernández failed to address the vaccine scandal during his speech in a manner deemed acceptable by his critics.
Residents of Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities heeded the call on Monday, stepping outside of their homes and onto their balconies with pots in hand to protest the government’s preferential treatment of its ministers and allies.
Se desarrolla un #cacerolazo en Buenos Aires- #Argentina, luego de que el pdte #socialista Alberto Fernández diera un discurso sobre su gestión en el Congreso Nacional. El cacerolazo también es un rechazo a las #VacunasVIP.#DanielRios pic.twitter.com/46UgYCy6Pq — Daniel Rios (@Daniel_RiosVE) March 2, 2021
This form of protest, known as a cacerolazo, is common throughout Latin America as a peaceful and socially distant way to express displeasure with the government.
Argentina’s government on February 22 released a list of 70 people who received a coronavirus vaccine before the official launch of Argentina’s national campaign. The list included members of Argentina’s current presidential administration, such as Economic Minister Martín Guzmán, as well as former Argentine President Eduardo Duhalde, his wife, and their children. Many of those on the list are young and do not suffer from health conditions that would make their vaccination a priority under the legal vaccine distribution system.
Argentina’s former health minister, Ginés González García, resigned from his post on February 19 after news of the scandal first broke. President Fernández requested García’s resignation after an Argentine journalist said he had received a coronavirus vaccination early after personally asking the then-health minister for VIP access.
The cacerolazo protest on March 1 was the second major demonstration by Argentines denouncing the vaccine scandal. A number of protesters gathered outside the Argentine federal government’s headquarters in Buenos Aires on February 28 to stage a macabre anti-government demonstration.
“On the railings in front of the Casa Rosada, the seat of the government and the president’s office, protesters hung mock black body bags with the names of pro-government leaders vaccinated,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“They started by vaccinating friends of the government. It is not appropriate. They are stealing someone else’s life,” a protester named Irene Marcet told AFP.
President Fernández condemned the body bag demonstration in a Twitter statement.
“The way to demonstrate in a democracy cannot be to display mortuary bags with names of political leaders in front of the Casa Rosada,” he wrote.
“This regrettable action only shows how many opponents see the Republic. Let us not be silent before such an act of barbarism,” the president added. | -1.918831 |
The Communist Party of Cuba is shopping around its four Chinese coronavirus vaccine candidates to impoverished neighbors, potentially selling its most developed one, “Soberana 02,” to Suriname, Diario de Cuba reported on Tuesday.
Cuba boasts one of the world’s worst healthcare systems but invests heavily in foreign propaganda boasting of its allegedly superior medical schools and research institutions. It is the only Latin American country formally working on a vaccine against Chinese coronavirus. Soberana (“sovereign”) 02 entered late-stage clinical trials this week.
Prior to its promotion of the vaccine candidates, the Cuban government attempted to attract the world’s attention claiming that interferons, a form of antiviral, could be used to fight coronavirus infections. Cuba remains the only nation to promote the use of interferons in this manner; doctors abroad condemned Havana for promoting a dangerous and possibly lethal unproven treatment.
“When the Government of Cuba assures that the Interferon developed in Cuba cures the coronavirus, it is committing a serious crime against world public health, since this drug not only lacks any scientific proof, but also where it has been tested has already given null results of encouragement,” a group of doctors wrote in an article shared with the NGO Cuban Prisoners Defenders.
Diario de Cuba cited the Castro regime’s ambassador to Paramaribo, Suriname, as the source for the promise on behalf of the regime to grant Suriname access to its vaccine candidates. The ambassador, Igor Azcuy, met with the head of the nation’s parliament, Gregory Rusland, this week. According to a readout of that meeting published by Cuba’s Ministry of External Relations (Minrex), the two discussed “the situation of Cuba before the pandemic and the manufacture on the island of four vaccine projects.”
The statement did not elaborate further on what, exactly, the two discussed regarding the vaccines, and continued noting that the two also discussed Cuba’s hostile relationship with the United States and its “eventual improvement … under the new government of the U.S.”
President Joe Biden served as vice president during the tenure of President Barack Obama, who granted the Castro regime unprecedented concessions, like the legalization of tourist cruises to the island, that generated millions in revenue for the regime. President Donald Trump largely revoked those concessions, leaving the Communist Party with minimal resources to repress its people.
Diario de Cuba reported discussions with Suriname may result in the country receiving doses of one of the four vaccine candidates by the second half of 2021, citing Prensa Latina, a Cuban regime outlet. The newspaper also noted Cuban officials have hinted to Cuba’s desire to sell its vaccine candidates to “friendly countries,” claiming it will be able to manufacture enough doses for the entire island without having to worry about selling abroad.
Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, announced Phase III clinical trials for Soberana 02 to begin this week. Another vaccine candidate, “Abdala,” has reportedly already begun “industrial-scale production,” despite not finishing clinical trials. Cuban doctors will inject 44,000 people with Soberana 02 as part of its Phase III, and over 300,000 doses of the vaccine are ready.
Cuba’s candidate will compete with an array of international contenders, the most successful of which so far appears to be the coronavirus vaccine developed by the American company Pfizer, which boasts 95-percent effectiveness. The Communist Party of China has approved two vaccines, by firms Sinovac and Sinopharm, respectively, that are significantly less effective. China is planning to import at least 100 million doses of the Pfizer product through its European partner, BioNTech.
Cuban officials have claimed that, unlike most currently available vaccines, the Cuban products show significant success rates against new variants of the original Chinese coronavirus found in South Africa and Brazil.
“Cuba will be one of the first nations to immunize its entire population,” Eduardo Martinez, president of the government-run BioCubaFarma, said in early February.
Cuban officials have not revealed any specific plans for distributing its own vaccine candidates – or any other vaccines – to its people. Cuba has a poor record with routine vaccinations, as its healthcare system has been on the brink of collapse for decades. In a notable recent incident, Cuban doctors killed a one-year-old, Paloma Dominguez Caballero, with a routine Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine. After demanding an explanation for her death for weeks, Dominguez’s parents were forced to flee the country due to government intimidation. They never received an explanation for their daughter’s death, though some suggested either the vaccine dose was faulty or it was poorly refrigerated.
Cuban officials have hinted, without a plan for vaccinating citizens, wealthy tourists may be eligible to receive approved coronavirus vaccine candidates.
Cuba documented more Chinese coronavirus cases in February than any other month prior, according to Granma. Doctors confirmed 22,998 cases of infection that month, compared to 15,536 in January. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Communist Party initially attempted to profit by advertising itself as open to tourism, prompting nationwide protests. Havana reversed course after documenting its first cases, all Italian tourists, in March 2020.
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The socialist government of Argentina imposed a one-time wealth tax on its citizens this week, allegedly to offset the country’s crippling debt, which has worsened during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
Argentine citizens with assets of more than 200 million pesos ($2.3 million) must pay about three percent in taxes on assets declared within Argentina and over five percent on assets held abroad. The one-time special levy will apply to around 12,000 people in the South American country. Argentine senators passed the so-called “millionaires’ tax” by 42 votes to 26 in December.
Argentina, which has long struggled with immense debt, found its economy in dire straits last year due, in part, to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The country’s gross domestic product plummeted 11.8 percent in 2020, while Argentina’s poverty rate jumped from “35.4 percent in the first half of 2019 to 40.9 percent during the same period in 2020,” according to a recent report by the Washington Post.
The Argentine federal government responded to the spike in poverty levels by increasing expenditures on social programs and cash handouts to the poor during the pandemic. Argentina’s socialist President Alberto Fernández proposed the wealth tax bill last year as a means for the government to offset this increased spending. The levy’s supporters say it could generate up to $3.5 billion from the estimated 12,000 people in Argentina it would apply to.
“We’re talking about 0.02 percent of the population,” Carlos Heller, a member of the Chamber of Deputies from Buenos Aires who co-sponsored the wealth tax bill, told the Washington Post last week. “It’s a small contribution we’re asking from the richest Argentines.”
Opponents of the wealth tax have criticized it as “confiscatory.” The Argentine Rural Society has warned that the tax, which the government advertised as a “one-time special levy,” could become permanent in the future.
Argentina’s revenue service (AFIP) announced on February 26 that it plans to criminally prosecute a select number of the 12,000 people affected by the wealth tax for alleged tax evasion. The AFIP warned that it will “initiate criminal complaints” against an estimated 2,500 of the wealth tax’s payers for “aggravated [tax] evasion” and will file the cases on March 30.
Wealth taxes often have negative side effects that undermine their stated intent, such as driving holders of wealth out of a nation. A long-standing wealth tax in France forced an estimated 42,000 of the nation’s richest citizens to flee the country between 2000 and 2012. French President Emmanuel Macron repealed the wealth tax in 2018 after it was blamed for not only the wealth exodus, but also an increase in alleged incidents of tax evasion.
The wealth exodus caused by France’s “solidarity” tax cost the French government “twice as much revenue as the total ultimately yielded by the tax,” according to an analysis of the measure by French economist Eric Pichet. | -0.598477 |
The number of inmates killed in prison riots in Ecuador this week rose to 79 Wednesday, government officials confirmed.
Ecuador’s national prison agency (SNAI) reported 37 inmates were killed in two prison riots in the city of Guayaquil, 34 were killed in a prison riot in Cuenca, and 8 were killed in a prison riot in Latacunga. All four prison riots were connected to an intra-prison power struggle between rival gangs, according to Ecuadorian government officials.
Ecuador’s federal government deployed hundreds of police officers and military personnel to four prisons on February 23 after riots sparked within the facilities’ maximum security wings on the night of February 22. The maximum-security wings of Ecuadorian prisons primarily house inmates linked to serious crimes such as killings, drug trafficking, and extortion.
“Thanks to the actions carried out between this institution and the National Police, the situation … is under control,” SNAI said in a statement on February 24.
Inmates in two prisons in Guayaquil threatened to continue rioting Wednesday, forcing authorities to deploy about 400 police and army personnel to the facilities to reinforce security.
The Ecuadorian newspaper El Comercio reported:
Elite units of the National Police and … Special Forces Brigade erected a fence around the entire perimeter of the Cotopaxi Rehabilitation Center [in Latacunga]. The objective was to prevent a possible escape of the inmates this Thursday, February 25, 2021, after the new violent incidents inside the jail.
“What happened yesterday was no coincidence. It was organized from outside the prison, orchestrated by those who are in dispute over leadership and drug trafficking across our national territory,” Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno said Wednesday.
Moreno also pointed to overpopulation within Ecuador’s prison system and insufficient personnel and resources as factors that enabled Tuesday’s deadly riots, which took place across four facilities that account for 70 percent of Ecuador’s prison population.
President Moreno declared a state of emergency in Ecuador’s prison system in 2019 after at least 24 people were killed during a wave of violent incidents at detention facilities that year. At least 103 inmates were killed in prison violence in 2020, according to the office of Ecuador’s human rights ombudsman.
The Ecuadorian federal government commuted the sentences of prison inmates convicted of minor offenses last year to reduce overcrowding in the country’s prison system during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. The action brought prison overcrowding down from 42 percent to 30 percent. Despite the efforts to reduce its inmate population, Ecuador’s prison system still houses about 38,000 people, over 10,000 more than it was designed to hold. | 0.55436 |
United Nations agencies have begun efforts to return asylum seekers currently residing in Mexico under the Trump Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) back to U.S. soil. An estimated 25,000 asylum seekers are eligible for transfer under President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the MPP. The UN received 12,000 applications over a three-day period beginning February 19.
According a United Nations press release, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), are conducting in-person registration and are performing COVID-19 tests.
Other platforms to assist the asylum seekers in their return to the United States will include email, in-person, social media, and telephone hotlines.
Many of the asylum seekers in the MPP program moved away from the immediate border area to other parts of Mexico. Others simply returned to their home country. The IOM will coordinate and provide transportation for those asylum seekers to the United States border as well.
At the border, UN agencies reported an in-person effort to register approximately 750 in Matamoros at a makeshift camp. The population of the informal camp across the border from Brownsville, Texas, once offered refuge to thousands.
Law enforcement sources confirmed that Border Patrol personnel are being re-directed from patrol routes to process the re-entry of former MPP seekers. The program has yet to meet the original goal of 300 asylum applicant returns per day, according to sources.
The effort to accommodate the asylum seekers threatens to further stretch community resources along the border.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas Sector. | -2.125145 |
Miami’s Cuban-American community held a commemoration event Wednesday to honor the lives of Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, four Americans killed by the Communist Party of Cuba while flying over international waters in 1996.
The four men were members of a group known as Brothers to the Rescue that organized humanitarian missions over the Caribbean, seeking to find wayward Cuban refugees adrift at sea attempting to reach Florida. The Cuban military shot their planes down without any provocation and has never justified the murders, killing all four. Only one person — Gerardo Hernandez, a spy convicted of sharing pivotal information with the Castro regime that allowed it to target the victims — ever went to prison for the crime. President Barack Obama freed Hernandez and returned him to Cuba in exchange for hostage Alan Gross; prior to his release, the Obama administration arranged to ship Hernandez’s sperm to Cuba to allow him to become a father.
The 25th anniversary of the killings following repeated calls from Cuban-American leaders for the administration of President Joe Biden to continue the pressure on the Castro regime currently in place as a result of policies taken on by his predecessor Donald Trump. Trump’s administration restored Cuba to the State Department list of State Sponsors of Terrorism — in part in recognition of acts like the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes — and cut critical revenue to the regime from the easing of travel restrictions and remittance limits set under Obama. Biden has yet to take any significant steps to alter the current U.S. policy towards Cuba.
The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, a coalition of exile community groups, in tandem with local officials, organized a memorial Wednesday for the four men and urged the current administration to seek justice for their families.
Acto de recordacion y reclamo de justicia en el 25to aniversario del asesinato de los cuatro Hermanos al Rescate en… Posted by Jose Sanchez-Gronlier on Wednesday, February 24, 2021
“We cannot forget the tragedy of the murder of these young men that happened in international waters, without provocation, on a humanitarian mission,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said at the event, addressing those assembled in Spanish. “The Castro regime was obviously trying to stop the world from understanding that communism was pushing people to the sea, to risk their lives.”
Suarez said his government, alongside exile community leaders, are “asking the federal government to analyze its politics towards Cuba, to understand the repercussions of their actions. We’re not turning back. We have to keep the pressure on the Castro regime which has its people enslaved.”
Organizers also read a letter at the event signed by multiple Cuban-American members of Congress — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), and Carlos Giménez (R-FL) — decrying the killing of the four Americans as “a cowardly and barbaric act of terrorism.”
“The Castro regime should face consequences for its criminal acts. Especially the murderer Raúl Castro, who ordered this atrocity, as well as the three individuals already identified in a U.S. federal court: Gen. Rubén Martínez Puente and combat pilots Alberto Pérez-Pérez and Francisco Pérez-Perez,” the lawmakers asserted.
Raúl Castro remains the dictator and most powerful person in Cuba, as head of the Cuban Communist Party and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. A third title, “president,” exists constitutionally, but Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is subordinate to Castro.
In honor of the anniversary, the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance also published advertisements in Washington, DC, publications featuring letter from the coalition to the Biden administration urging Biden not to return to Obama-era policies, which did not give Cuban-Americans and victims of communism in the United States a say.
“On February 24, 1996, Castro MIG fighters ambushed and slaughtered three American citizens and one U.S. permanent resident in international air space. The four young men were volunteer pilots and spotters trying to save the lives of desperate refugees at sea who were trying to escape from communism in Cuba,” the letter read. “To this date, Raúl Castro and the other perpetrators in this brutal act remain unpunished.”
“The above-mentioned massacre of February 24, 1996, is only one of the many terrorist acts committed by the totalitarian regime in Cuba. The regime has institutionalized terror in both its domestic and international practices,” it continued. “Internationally, the regime continues a close alliance with states and non-states actors that sponsor terrorism, such as Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, Iran as well as FARC, ELN, Hezbollah and Mexican cartels.”
Biden was vice president when the Obama administration freed Hernandez, the communist spy — one of the more harrowing incidents in eight years of policies that undermined the cause of freedom on the island. The Castro regime regularly parades Hernandez as a hero and has elevated him to a senior position in the Communist Party.
“The only person that we had responsible for what happened, to be let go, it’s a slap in the face to my dad,” Marelene Alejandre Triana, daughter of Brothers to the Rescue pilot Armando Alejandre, said in 2014, when Obama freed Hernandez.
Many of the Cuban-American leaders convening to honor the victims of the Brothers to the Rescue massacre Wednesday urged Biden in a press conference in January to increase sanctions on key players in the Castro regime in response to escalating violence against peaceful protesters. The organizers especially urged sanctions on Cuban Culture Minister Alpidio Alonso, caught on camera that week personally beating a journalist in broad daylight. Biden has yet to publicly respond to the appeal.
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A senior member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), handed a seat in Colombia’s Congress as part of a peace deal, threatened to kill President Iván Duque in a video surfacing Monday.
“Jesús Santrich,” whose real name is Seuxis Pausias Hernández, abandoned his congressional seat in 2019 and took up arms against the government of Colombia alongside several other senior FARC officials who would have otherwise benefited from the peace deal. FARC, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization heavily involved in narcotics trafficking, is believed to be responsible for over a quarter of a million known deaths in over half a century of failed attempts to overthrow the Colombian government.
Santrich’s whereabouts remain unknown, though Colombian intelligence officials believe him to be hiding in Venezuela, a longtime FARC ally. The video in which he threatens Duque, a conservative who ran against the peace deal legacy of predecessor Juan Manuel Santos, was published on Monday by Colombian news outlet NTN24.
“Memento mori,” Santrich said in the video, a Latin phrase meaning “remember that you will die.” “Every fat pig gets his December.”
In Hispanic culture, a full roast pig is a traditional Christmas Eve dinner.
#PRIMICIA @LaNocheNTN24 #ReapareceSantrich desde Venezuela para amenazar al presidente de Colombia Iván Duque. Según fuentes de inteligencia, las imágenes fueron grabadas el 13 de febrero de este año en territorio venezolano 👇🏼 Todos los detalles en minutos a las 6 pm por @NTN24 pic.twitter.com/HPWXCOXLB0 — La Noche NTN24 (@LaNocheNTN24) February 22, 2021
Santrich urges communists and other leftist supporters “keep struggling for true peace with social justice” and, elsewhere in the video, complains that Twitter had censored the terrorist group’s Twitter account, blaming the “censorship” on Duque personally.
NTN24 dated the video to have been filmed nine days before it was published, or on February 13.
Duque responded to the video by vowing to continue to fight Marxist terrorism.
“I am not afraid of threats from delinquents,” Duque said in a statement. “We will keep fighting them ceaselessly in defense of the Colombian people.”
Santrich was one of the top leaders tasked with negotiating a peace deal with the Santos government, which came to fruition in 2016. The deal, initially signed in Cuba, was constitutionally required to be passed via popular referendum. The Colombian people voted against it, rejecting the reintroduction of the FARC into society with minimal penal consequences for members. In response, Santos implemented the deal through Congress despite the unconstitutional nature of the move. The deal won Santos the Nobel Peace Prize.
The peace agreement, brokered with the help of the communist government of Cuba, granted senior members of the terrorist organization uncontested seats in both chambers of the Colombian Congress. It also created a legal process that invited FARC terrorists to surrender their weapons and be reintegrated into civilian society; the FARC has kidnapped thousands of children in its over 50 years of existence and forced them to become soldiers. Those children, if guilty only of a poorly defined category of “political” crime, could potentially achieve reintegration into society without having to go to prison.
The peace deal did not require the FARC to specify its finances or prove that it had abandoned drug trafficking. Cocaine growing and trafficking was for decades one of the FARC’s major sources of revenue; the terrorists forced farmers in remote areas to work for them or face death. Among the FARC’s other crimes include child abduction, use of child soldiers, sexual crimes against children, forced abortions on children FARC terrorists had raped, the use of land mines, kidnappings for ransom, and other acts of violence. Under its leader, “Timochenko,” the FARC rebranded in 2017 as a political party and ran candidates nationwide, most of whom lost. Senior FARC leaders like Santrich received congressional seats without having to campaign for them.
Shortly before taking his seat in Congress, Santrich was arrested at the behest of the United States on charges of smuggling ten tons of cocaine into the United States in 2017, the year after the peace deal went into effect. Due to his status as a lawmaker-to-be, Colombia’s Supreme Court ruled that he enjoyed special immunity from prosecution and freed him in May 2019, without ruling on the legitimacy of the charges. Santrich was sworn into the Colombian Congress in June 2019.
Este es el momento en el que Jesús Santrich tomó posesión de su curul en la Cámara de Representantes, este martes. Más detalles acá ► https://t.co/l0Ml9uNQ9v pic.twitter.com/KSqtEaJd7O — EL TIEMPO (@ELTIEMPO) June 11, 2019
A month later, Santrich disappeared, along with Márquez, and Interpol issued an alert for his arrest. The Supreme Court, which had ruled itself the only court with jurisdiction to imprison Santrich, issued an arrest warrant. In September, Santrich appeared alongside Márquez in a video announcing that the FARC had returned to terrorism. While Santrich and Márquez are senior leaders of the group and narco-terrorism is the group’s core activity, mainstream publications refer to them as FARC “dissidents.”
In the video, the group reads a statement demanding Duque’s immediate resignation and accused him of violating the provisions of the Santos peace deal.
“Duque must leave the presidency of the republic early because he is an illegitimate president because the highest office in the nation was too large for him,” the statement read in part. “He wants to generalize chaos by destroying the balance of powers by incurring public contempt and questioning decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice, because it wants to wipe out the social mobilizations that are shaking the country today, and because Colombia does not want the dictatorship.”
Duque had won a presidential election decisively against socialist candidate Gustavo Petro shortly before the statement was broadcast.
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The regime of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro staged a mega-concert in Caracas this weekend to call for the release of Alex Saab, a Colombian national arrested in Cape Verde last summer for alleged money laundering connected to his business dealings with the Venezuelan government.
The concert calling for Saab’s release was held in the Venezuelan national capital on February 20 in Diego Ibarra square. Video footage of the event shows hundreds of people squeezed into an open-air space in front of a stage where musical artists performed songs. Photos of the concert show nearly all attendees wearing T-shirts printed with Saab’s face on them and bearing the hashtag “#FreeAlexSaab.”
“It should be noted that, at the end of the concert, citizens lined up around the square to collect a bag of food,” the Colombian news site NTN24 reported on February 21. Most of the people roped into attending the concert gathered shoulder-to-shoulder both inside Diego Ibarra square and in food lines afterward “without complying with the basic biosecurity measures to avoid coronavirus infections,” NTN24 further noted.
The event’s failure to observe coronavirus prevention measures contradicts the public statements of Maduro’s regime, which last month urged Venezuelans to adhere to “seven days of radical quarantine” from January 4-10 as part of a “necessary” effort to curb the spread of the Chinese coronavirus in the country. The “7 +7” plan includes a week-long quarantine requiring Venezuelans to live in self-imposed lockdown for seven days, followed by seven days of relaxed restrictions allowing people to resume normal activities with some limitations. Observers have criticized the jarring scheme, as it forces Venezuelans in and out of strict quarantine life; the Venezuelan government has yet to provide any proof of the “7+7” plan’s efficacy in reducing coronavirus transmission.
Maduro’s regime has officially reported 136,545 cases and 1,320 deaths from the Chinese coronavirus so far, although the Venezuelan government has been accused of lying about the nation’s true coronavirus caseload throughout the pandemic.
An alleged financier to the Maduro regime, Alex Saab, was arrested on the West African island of Cape Verde on June 12, 2020, while making a fuel stop on a private plane following a request by the U.S. government via Interpol. A U.S. federal court later indicted Saab in Florida on federal money-laundering charges. The U.S. government accuses Saab of “bribing Venezuelan government officials and funneling more than $350 million to overseas accounts. In 2019 Saab was sanctioned by the U.S. for corruptly helping Maduro’s regime and others make hundreds of millions of dollars from a food-distribution network intended to serve the hungry, charges his lawyers deny,” Bloomberg recalled last month.
Graffiti of Saab’s face and messages demanding his freedom were mysteriously spraypainted on several buildings along Caracas’s main avenues earlier this month ahead of a key hearing on Saab’s alleged role in bribing Venezuelan government officials on February 5 in Cape Verde.
“The people are with Alex Saab” and “Freedom for Venezuela’s diplomat, fighter and compatriot,” read some of the graffitied statements.
Saab has been detained in Cape Verde since last summer pending an extradition request from the U.S. A lawyer for Saab argued his client holds “diplomatic immunity” while appealing the U.S.’s extradition request during the February 5 hearing in the West African country.
The Maduro regime “admitted Saab was a ‘Venezuelan agent’ and said the U.S. was trying to interfere with the nation’s business after his arrest” in June 2020, according to Bloomberg. “Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza warned him of his duty to maintain confidentiality of his dealings on behalf of the country if he were to be extradited to the U.S. in a letter filed in court.”
Amid a dire shortage of foreign exchange in Venezuela in 2018, Saab collaborated with members of Maduro’s regime to sell Venezuelan gold to Turkey, the U.S. government has alleged.
Maduro’s regime seemingly convinced hundreds of Venezuelans to squeeze into the February 20 concert calling for Saab’s release in Caracas. | 0.262147 |
CARACAS, Venezuela – Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro has spent months promoting Carvativir, his “miraculous” droplets that, according to him, neutralize the Chinese Coronavirus in its entirety.
Maduro’s is a bogus claim seemingly exempt from any repercussions on behalf of Twitter, a radical contrast from the treatment received by conservative figures in the past over their endorsement of proven treatments.
The socialist regime of Venezuela is quite adept at creating media narratives within these borders — an easily achievable feat for them due to the fact that they control most of the nation’s media and have forced what few remaining private outlets exist into self-censorship for the sake of preservation. When it comes to spreading their “truth,” the Socialist Party of Venezuela has latched itself onto every social media, and the narrative crafted for their miracle droplets is no exception.
Maduro has claimed to be a victim of Big Tech censorship that seeks to “prevent” the spread of news of his miraculous cure on Facebook, YouTube, and even the Chinese-owned Tik Tok. He has directly accused Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg of “abuse” against him. Despite this seeming consensus among media companies, Twitter remains an outlier.
None of the tweets that Maduro has made regarding his miraculous droplets have been removed by Twitter, now has any warning or disclaimer tag been imposed upon them. The behavior extends to tweets made by the Socialist Party of Venezuela at the time of the publication of this article.
El Carvativir, las gotitas milagrosas de José Gregorio Hernández, neutralizan los síntomas del Coronavirus. ¡De Venezuela para el mundo! A partir de esta semana comienza la producción masiva, para que todo el Sistema Público Nacional de Salud cuente con este poderoso antiviral. pic.twitter.com/lNcl3BxIJF — Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) January 25, 2021
“Ten drops under the tongue every four hours and the miracle is done,” Maduro said in one of his accustomed lengthy televised broadcasts. That is, according to him, how his miracle cure should be administered to patients.
The Venezuelan people know little about the droplets themselves but despite the socialist regime’s attempts to build a worldwide narrative that portrays Carvativir as an innovative and new discovery, the Venezuelan Academy of Medicine has noted that the droplet’s active ingredient is Isotimol, an oil that is naturally found on thyme and oregano. No other country in the world is using a similar product to fight coronavirus on any large scale, nor has any drug regulation body, including the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), expressed support for the product despite Maduro’s mass media campaign.
Maduro has branded them the “droplets of Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez,” using the name of a Venezuelan physician raised to the title of Venerable by the Vatican in 1985 and who is slated for beatification in the near future. Hernandez died in 1919 and has no personal relationship to any existing treatment for any coronavirus, but using his name is an example of how the Socialist Party of Venezuela latches itself onto the nation’s Catholic faith to further its agenda whenever it suits it.
Venezuelan doctors have expressed their concern over the lack of scientific evidence that backs Maduro’s allegations. In a radio interview, Dr. Enrique Montbrum, a specialist in Health Contingency at the Vargas Hospital in Caracas, stated that the droplets themselves aren’t new, as Japan and Russia have used a similar extract to treat cases of influenza.
“All these drugs have to go through the rigor of what is called the scientific method. This drug is a long way from being widely recommended because it does not have that rigor,” said the doctor.
The Venezuelan investigative journalism website armando.info published a report revealing that the individuals behind the droplets appear to have a long criminal past. Venezuelans can’t legally read the report to judge its merits themselves because the aforementioned news website has been blocked by the Maduro regime and cannot be freely accessed within Venezuela without the aid of censorship-bypassing tools.
Even if the droplets worked, like almost all other medical supplies in the world, Venezuelans cannot buy them in any pharmacy or store, not even in the Iranian-ran mobile pharmacies that have begun to do business in the country. Beyond Maduro’s vague announcement of its production and mass distribution, there is no known timetable for when the droplets will reach the patients’ hands. The droplets have the “endorsement” of Socialist Party strongman and suspected drug lord Diosdado Cabello, who claims to have used the droplets to be cured of coronavirus. There is no evidence a single other person has received any doses of the product.
Maduro has deflected all criticism of his miracle drops by branding all skepticism of it as being part of a “campaign of hatred, revenge and lies.”
These droplets are the latest in a series of wild and unproven treatments against Coronavirus that include “rectal ozone therapy” (ozone is a toxic gas that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns could kill a person before killing an existing coronavirus infection).
While not taking action against what by all appearances seems to be a medical scam, Twitter has censored videos from Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, regarding the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Coronavirus. Hydroxychloroquine is a drug used to treat malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. The FDA has revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA) to use hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus. Unlike Maduro, Bolsonaro tested positive for coronavirus and claimed to have taken regular doses of his preferred drug regularly while ill.
The socialist regime spends a considerable amount of resources and manpower to manipulate Twitter’s trending tags on a daily basis. The regime uses the Patria platform, a system heavily inspired on China’s social cred score system, to pay citizens an amount that ranges between $0.21 and $0.22 per week for the boosting and promotion of his daily hashtags and narratives.
While taking advantage of free media, Maduro’s regime has closed over 600 media outlets in the past two decades of the Bolivarian Revolution, including TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, and websites. Many foreign websites have been banned altogether, and access to social media is surgically restricted whenever the Venezuelan opposition engages in a major activity. An “anti-hate speech law” that brutally penalizes dissent keeps citizens living in a state of constant fear.
Eleven months after the country was placed under lockdown, life in Venezuela continues to be dictated by Maduro’s “7×7” regime. We go one week of “radical” lockdowns where only the essential businesses are able to operate, followed by a week of “flexibilization,” where other sectors of the economy are allowed to open their doors. No other country in the world does this and there is no evidence that it works. Even Venezuela doesn’t do it quite right – Maduro extends “flexibilization” at his leisure, most recently for the beginning of Lent and corresponding Carnaval holiday. Maduro’s promotion of this unscientific measure has also failed to raise “misinformation” alarms on most social media platforms he uses.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here. | 0.4397 |
The United Nations Human Rights Council welcomed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to deliver remarks at its annual regular session on Monday, despite the fact U.N. human rights experts have accused Maduro of committing crimes against humanity.
“Crimes against humanity” is an elaborately defined crime that includes most human rights abuses committed outside of the context of war, including murder, rape, torture, and slavery. A top investigator at the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a report late last year that “found reasonable grounds” to accuse Maduro and his socialist regime of crimes against humanity.
The report did not stop the United Nations from allowing Venezuela to remain on the Human Rights Council. While Maduro has not been Venezuela’s legitimate, constitutional head of state since January 2019, the United Nations has refused to recognize the country’s true president, Juan Guaidó, as wielding power.
The Human Rights Council also hosts several other rogue states credibly accused of human rights atrocities, including China, Russia, Cuba, Libya, and Pakistan.
Maduro used his time to address the Council – about ten minutes – to condemn the United States and urge the world to “change the system of economic, capitalist, predator organizations” in light of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. He also claimed that he had managed to bring Venezuela’s coronavirus cases under control through several dubious, uncorroborated methods he would “humbly” share with the world.
#EnVivo 📹 | Sesión del Consejo de los Derechos Humanos de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas. https://t.co/v2NxgSPOfY — Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) February 22, 2021
“The grave and unexpected circumstances of Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] that humanity faces demands of world leaders a greater commitment to the work for a better future, common and shared,” Maduro told the Council. “An emergency of such a magnitude has put in evidence the need to accept health as a fundamental human right. Multilateralism is showing it is the only path available to overcome global difficulties and to construct better living conditions for peoples.”
Maduro applauded the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) – a U.N. body widely decried for hiding the true threat of the pandemic and allowing the Chinese Communist Party to spread unchecked misinformation – for its role in the pandemic, and applauded himself for allegedly controlling the pandemic in Venezuela.
The Maduro regime claims to have documented only 136,068 cases and 1,316 deaths attributable to coronavirus since the pandemic began, compared to millions of cases in neighboring Colombia and Brazil. While Maduro has claimed that his use of “rectal ozone therapy” – which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned against – and other “miracle” cures are responsible for those statistics, polling within Venezuela shows that as many as 87 percent of people told by their doctors they have Chinese coronavirus do not receive PCR tests – and thus do not show up in official statistics.
Maduro also used his time before the Human Rights Council to reject any investigation into Venezuela’s dire human rights situation.
“I reiterate that the Venezuelan state will decidedly work with the actors of this Human Rights Council, just as I ratify that we will not accept the intervention of any inquisitor mechanism against our nation, Venezuela, that seeks to use the just cause of human rights as a political tool for a government, or a regime, change in our country,” Maduro asserted. “Those who think that Venezuela will diminish the cooperation achieved with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as a consequence of these ideological provocations of a small group of governments are wrong.”
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights found “reasonable grounds” to believe Maduro guilty of crimes against humanity in a report published in September.
“The Mission found reasonable grounds to believe that Venezuelan authorities and security forces have since 2014 planned and executed serious human rights violations,” chief investigator Marta Valinas said at the time, “some of which — including arbitrary killings and the systematic use of torture — amount to crimes against humanity.”
“Far from being isolated acts, these crimes were coordinated and committed pursuant to State policies, with the knowledge or direct support of commanding officers and senior government officials,” Valinas said. “Security forces used lethal force against the victim when it was not strictly unavoidable to protect lives. Security forces also used less-lethal weapons in a lethal manner, which resulted in the death of the demonstrators.”
The high commissioner herself, former Chilean socialist president Michelle Bachelet, has also accused Maduro of “grave human rights violations.”
The International Criminal Court at the Hague (ICC), the top world court to process human rights crimes, also issued a statement in December finding Maduro similarly suspect of committing human rights atrocities. The ICC stated that “a reasonable basis to believe” Maduro is guilty of crimes against humanity existed, opening the door to Maduro being prosecuted by the court. The ICC has jurisdiction against individuals accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.
The official legal definition of “crimes against humanity” requires a finding of “a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack” featuring at least one of a long list of crimes, including murder, “extermination,” rape, torture, slavery, or “other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter. | 1.674703 |
Doctors forced to work for Cuba’s slave doctor program revealed in remarks Thursday they fabricated data on Chinese coronavirus investigations, making up names of “patients” they had treated who did not exist to make the Communist Party appear more productive.
Similarly, doctors lied about the kind of treatment they were offering, sometimes listing an individual who visited a clinic with a question as someone who had just received an advanced surgery. Officials in Havana actively encouraged this, according to the anonymous doctors who spoke to Diario de Cuba on Thursday. The doctors are participating in a case organized by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Cuban Prisoners Defenders against the Communist Party before the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC can only process cases in which defendants stand accused of genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity, of which slavery is the latter.
Hundreds of doctors have defected from Cuba’s medical slavery, denouncing the Communist Party for stealing their salaries and forcing them to work in some of the most dangerous places in the world. The doctors say they have no input into the trajectory of their careers and their families face potential punishment at home if the doctors disobey the state. Doctors who abandon the medical slavery program are banned from entering the country for eight years, often blocking them from seeing family, including elderly parents and young children.
Despite the involuntary and abusive nature of the program, leftists around the world have praised Cuba for its alleged philanthropy. A far-left British politician nominated the Cuban state for a Nobel Peace Prize this year, arguing the slave doctor program is especially important in light of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
Cuba is estimated to make $11 billion a year selling medical slaves.
The doctors speaking to Diario de Cuba revealed that much of the work they were forced to do was fabricating medical records listing people who did not exist.
“When the pandemic began, they told us that we had to run tests every day. They gave us a mask today and we had to remind them to give us a new one every ten days,” one of the doctors, who requested to remain anonymous fearing for his family still in Cuba, told the newspaper. “We had to go to dangerous areas; many times I had to go alone.”
That doctor, who labored in Venezuela, said that program managers insisted on a quota of 150 tests a day, “but that was impossible.”
“I tested a couple of houses and then made up names and identification numbers. I even put names of people that I knew in Cuba. They never noticed, they didn’t even check, because the important thing was the numbers,” the doctor recalled.
Similarly, the doctor said the Castro regime mandated 15 to 16 surgeries a day. “We operated on, at most, five or six. There were patients who showed up to ask us something and we jotted them down as surgical patients,” he said.
The doctor told Diario de Cuba that to properly hide the fraud, he would have to destroy the medications that would have been necessary to treat the fake patients; for example, any surgical supplies that would have gone to an operation that never happened.
The latter is particularly egregious in light of the dire healthcare situation in Venezuela. After two decades of socialist policies, over 95 percent of the medications on the World Health Organization (W.H.O.)’s list of basic products to run a functional medical system are nowhere to be found in the country. Doctors are forced to routinely amputate limbs on individuals with infections easily treatable by antibiotics that are not available. Treatable cancers and other diseases have become lethal.
Another doctor speaking to Diario de Cuba emphasized the outrageous limitations on Cuban doctors completing medical missions abroad, such as a law that bans them from associating with individuals who have ideological differences with the doctor, who is presumably communist.
“You have to give from 75 to 90 percent of your salary [to the state] and work 64 hours a week. We worked 48 hours and were on guard for another 16. With the money left, you had to pay the rent, water, electricity, transportation, and food,” the second doctor detailed. “They were giving me the equivalent of almost $10 a month when a pound of meat costs about that much.”
The stories published this week are consistent with past testimonies from defecting doctors. During a press conference at the State Department Foreign Press Center in New York in 2019, multiple Cuban doctors testified to being forced to destroy medicine on missions in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil.
“On a daily basis, you had to write on a piece of paper fake names, fake dates of birth, fake medical conditions, for patients we never saw,” Dr. Ramona Matos revealed at the event. “These were statistics the agents following and controlling us forced us to write. If we didn’t write that down, we had to go back to Cuba without our salary and we’d lose the money frozen in our accounts.”
“Since we weren’t seeing any real patients, medication wise, we had to correlate the medication prescriptions to these patients who didn’t exist, so we had to destroy medicine to keep up,” she added.
Cuban Prisoners Defenders published its 400-page report to the ICC in September, the result of interviews with over 600 defecting doctors participating in the global complaint against the Cuban Communist Party.
“I was forced to falsify patient histories and population statistics which, in order to comply with instructions, exceeded the real population of the place,” an anonymous doctor quoted in the report stated. “Medicines were discarded and thrown [away] for that: they were not used and expired because the population did not go to the doctor’s office given the remote location where it was located.”
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter. | -0.175839 |
ROME — Pope Francis condemned racism Sunday, comparing it to a mutating virus that hides beneath the surface where it always threatens to reappear.
“Racism is a virus that quickly mutates and, instead of disappearing, goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting,” the pope tweeted on the day designated by the United Nations as International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
“Instances of racism continue to shame us, for they show that our supposed social progress is not as real or definitive as we think,” he said, adding the hashtag “#FightRacism.”
Last summer while the United States was in the throes of Black Lives Matters protests, the pope denounced the sin of racism while also insisting that responding with violence and rioting is “self-destructive and self-defeating.”
“I have witnessed with great concern the disturbing social unrest in your nation in these past days, following the tragic death of Mr. George Floyd,” Francis said to his “dear brothers and sisters in the United States” in a brief greeting last June.
“My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life,” the pope said. “At the same time, we have to recognize that the violence of recent nights is self-destructive and self-defeating. Nothing is gained by violence and so much is lost.”
“Today I join the Church in Saint Paul and Minneapolis, and in the entire United States, in praying for the repose of the soul of George Floyd and of all those others who have lost their lives as a result of the sin of racism,” he continued. “Let us pray for the consolation of their grieving families and friends and let us implore the national reconciliation and peace for which we yearn.”
Again last December, Francis asserted that the year 2020 had been marked a worrisome a surge in “nationalism, racism, and xenophobia.”
“Sad to say,” alongside all testimonies of love and solidarity during the coronavirus pandemic, “we have also seen a surge in various forms of nationalism, racism and xenophobia, and wars and conflicts that bring only death and destruction in their wake,” he said in his message for the 2021 World Day of Peace.
Follow @tdwilliamsrome | -1.959066 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider reinstating the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, presenting President Joe Biden with an early test of his opposition to capital punishment.
The justices agreed to hear an appeal filed by the Trump administration, which carried out executions of 13 federal inmates in its final six months in office.
The case won’t be heard until the fall, and it’s unclear how the new administration will approach Tsarnaev’s case. The initial prosecution and decision to seek a death sentence was made by the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president.
But Biden has pledged to seek an end to the federal death penalty.
In late July, the federal appeals court in Boston threw out Tsarnaev’s sentence because it said the judge at his trial did not do enough to ensure the jury would not be biased against him.
The Justice Department had moved quickly to appeal, asking the justices to hear and decide the case by the end of the court’s current term, in early summer. Then-Attorney General William Barr said last year, “We will do whatever’s necessary.”
Tsarnaev’s lawyers acknowledged at the beginning of his trial that he and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, set off the two bombs at the marathon finish line in 2013. But they argued that Dzhokar Tsarnaev is less culpable than his brother, who they said was the mastermind behind the attack.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died following a gunfight with police and being run over by his brother as he fled. Police captured a bloodied and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hours later in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he was hiding in a boat parked in a backyard.
Tsarnaev, now 27, was convicted of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer during the Tsarnaev brothers’ getaway attempt. The appeals court upheld all but a few of his convictions. | 0.501421 |
President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans to propose new regulations that will override the Trump administration’s rule barring Title X family planning funds from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.
A press release from the HHS Office of Population Affairs (OPA) Thursday stated a memorandum from President Joe Biden issued January 28 directed HHS to “ensure that undue restrictions are not put on the use of federal funds or on women’s access to medical information.”
OPA said its revision of the Trump Title X regulations would be “substantively similar to those issued in 2000.”
The pro-life Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) observation that the announcement the Trump administration’s Title X family planning rule would be overhauled came on the same day Xavier Becerra, known to have close ties to the abortion industry, was confirmed to head up the Biden HHS:
BREAKING: Day 1 of Xavier Becerra's new job as Secretary of HHS, and the agency has already announced their intention to rewrite the Title X rule, forcing taxpayers to send even more tax dollars to Planned Parenthood & the abortion industry Our statement: https://t.co/nexR4HBWcS pic.twitter.com/ConGEP7uoM — Susan B. Anthony List (@SBAList) March 18, 2021
Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA List president, said in a statement:
From day one the Biden-Harris administration has pushed a radical and deeply unpopular agenda on abortion. On the very same day Xavier Becerra – a notoriously eager pro-abortion advocate – is confirmed to lead HHS, the agency announces plans to rewrite Title X and force taxpayers to fund the abortion industry. President Trump’s Protect Life Rule sought to honor both the plain statutory language and the will of Americans of all stripes who oppose using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion on demand.
Planned Parenthood celebrated the announcement of the Trump rule rewrite:
🙌YES! This is a key step towards what we’ve been fighting for — it’s time we #FixTitleX and restore access to essential reproductive health care. https://t.co/HrsYP7NeYd — Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) March 18, 2021
The proposed rule is expected to be released by April 15, with a final rule in place “by early fall and effective in time for the Fiscal Year 2022 funding announcement,” OPA said.
HHS released the announcement in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month to hear a challenge to the Trump rule brought by Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the American Medical Association.
However, on March 12, Biden’s Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the case.
In 2019, the Trump administration issued the final rule, which drew a firm boundary between abortion and family planning.
The rule barred Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from receiving Title X federal family planning funds if they continued to “perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.”
The Trump administration rule reinstated President Ronald Reagan’s “Protect Life Rule,” which prohibits the “co-location” of federally funded family planning clinics with abortion clinics.
As a result of the Trump HHS rule, Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses were blocked from approximately $60 million in federal Title X grant money.
Subsequently, Planned Parenthood decided to withdraw from the Title X grant program, rather than give up referring women and girls for abortions. | 0.096417 |
New Mexico Republican Elisa Martinez is vying for the recently vacated U.S. House seat in her state, telling host Matthew Boyle on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday she intends to fight for the working class and combat the Biden administration’s energy and immigration plans should she be elected.
Martinez, a native New Mexican who is Hispanic and Native American, is one of nine Republicans the state’s central committee members will consider as their candidate to replace former Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM), who was confirmed last week as President Joe Biden’s Department of Interior secretary.
The committee will vote March 27 on the candidate and a special election will take place June 1. Boyle observed the election is “fast approaching” and that although the seat is winnable for Republicans, it will be “a little bit of an uphill climb.”
“Despite the fact that this district is an uphill climb, a D plus seven, we know that New Mexicans are fed up. They’re tired,” Martinez replied. “There is a lot of pressure on our middle class, on New Mexicans and Americans right now. And the bottom line, you know the pressure that they’re seeing at the gas tank, the rising food prices that we’re seeing as a result, the rising prices for pharmaceuticals, insulin prices, these are all attacks on the middle class. … All of this is as a result of unilateral action by the Biden administration and congressional Democrats that really is alarming.”
LISTEN:
Martinez also railed against Biden’s ban on new oil and gas leases on federal lands. “New Mexico is kind of almost ground zero for this oil and gas crisis that we’re seeing and the moratorium on the new leases because New Mexico, 40 percent of our budget depends on oil and gas revenues.”
Martinez vowed to “immediately introduce” legislation to prohibit the Biden administration from blocking new leases without congressional approval, as well as sign on to new legislation exempting New Mexico in the meantime. “We need someone that’s obviously going to push back against these government mandates to transition — and effectively what this moratorium has done is it didn’t even allow for a transition. The American people had the rug pull out from under them.”
The New Mexican Republican, who is campaigning as a “different kind of Republican” — being working class, “not part of the establishment,” and “not a career politician” — also lambasted Biden’s immigration policies given her state’s geographic position makes it one of the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of them. Martinez called the recent massive influx of migrants, including unaccompanied children, at the southern border a “humanitarian crisis” and demanded an end to catch and release, a reinstatement of the Remain in Mexico policy, and the continuation of the southern border wall construction.
“We need to take care of American citizens first,” Martinez said. “Right now, we cannot even address the rampant homelessness, the poverty, single mothers that are struggling, Native Americans without running water and electricity, unemployment is on the rise here in New Mexico. We have the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country and business owners who have lost everything. So before we can allocate resources, healthcare services, welfare services, free schooling, to noncitizens that are trying to get in through our southern border, we need an economic recovery for our own citizens right now.”
Steve Pearce, New Mexico GOP chair, also spoke with Breitbart News Saturday this past weekend and called the open congressional seat in his state’s first district a “pickup opportunity” for Republicans. Pearce said, “People are asking significant questions between Biden and Michelle Lujan Grisham, our governor, that just believe this is a pickup opportunity for the Republicans. Nationwide, it would set the Democrats’ House upside-down when we win this race, and so we’re all in for it.”
Breitbart News Saturday broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
Write to Ashley Oliver at [email protected]. | 1.430799 |
During this week’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) acknowledged the Biden border plan, which has led to what some are describing as a crisis, much to be desired.
She said, however, there was a plan in place the Biden administration had shared with members of Congress.
“[N]ow Jonathan, we have a situation that is a humanitarian concern,” she said. “We do have issues with any number of children. The numbers are coming up, but I will say that the Biden administration has met with members of Congress. They have a plan. The plan does not look like it’s working at this time, but you have to get it implemented.”
Jackson Lee walked through what the plan was, which she said included measures for preventing the spread of COVID-19.
“[W]e need to put in more resources so that our asylum protocols can go quickly and those that do not meet the standards — they have to be returned safely and securely,” Lee continued. “But what the administration is saying that they’re not going to cage children. They’re not going to turn children back to their deaths. They’re not going to have young girls, 13 years old, subject to rape and pilage. And so it does look a little unseemly. But these are human beings. And so, they’re not coming to endanger our lives. They’re coming basically to save their lives.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 0.835688 |
Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Department of Justice prosecutor Michael Sherwin discussed his ongoing investigation into the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot.
During the interview, CBS’s Scott Pelley asked if former President Donald Trump has been a part of the investigation for his role in the riot.
Sherwin would only say investigators are “looking at everything,” but acknowledged it is “unequivocal that Trump was the magnet that brought the people to D.C.” that day.
“It’s unequivocal that Trump was the magnet that brought the people to D.C. on [Jan. 6],” Sherwin outlined. “Now, the question is, is he criminally culpable for everything that happened during the siege, during the breach? What I could tell you is this — based upon, again, what we see in the public record and public statements in court — we have plenty of people — we have soccer moms from Ohio that were arrested saying, ‘Well, I did this because my president said I had to take back our house.’ That moves the needle towards that direction. Maybe the president is culpable for those actions. But also, you see in the public record, too, militia members saying, ‘You know what? We did this because Trump just talks a big game. He’s just all talk. We did what he wouldn’t do.'”
Pelley asked, “In short, you have investigators looking into the president’s role?”
“We have people looking at everything, correct,” Sherwin replied. “Everything’s being looked at.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | -0.840446 |
In an interview with Steve Malzberg on his weekly Sunday commentary show Eat the Press, progressive feminist author and former Democrat adviser Dr. Naomi Wolf expressed alarm regarding President Joe Biden’s current state of health and its implications for U.S. national security.
Addressing Biden’s health, Wolf stated that “as Americans, we would be remiss not to notice that this is a man who is struggling physically, and our national security kind of depends on our being grown-ups.” She said, “when a very elderly president is struggling physically, it’s an important national security concern” that all should be able to discuss “without partisanship.”
Wolf also discussed her regret voting for Biden, noting the serious “erosion” of First and Fourth Amendment rights under his administration.
“I was so eager to have to see the end of the Trump era that I hoped for better decisions,” she said. “What I have seen is a complete erosion of First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights.”
In what she terms “bio-fascism,” Wolf expressed concerns regarding the far-reaching implications of curbing freedoms during the current pandemic.
“The President of the United States has no right whatsoever under the Constitution of the United States of America to tell anyone where they can go or whom they can see or to say anything about what you do in your private home,” she said.
“I’m incredibly concerned that we’re at kind of step ten of the ten steps to fascism that I identified in my book The End of America and that it’s under the guise of what I call bio-fascism that this pandemic has been used as an excuse to suppress everyone’s liberties and to really usher in a totalitarian state,” she stated.
Describing former President Donald Trump as a “racist” who “minimized” sexual assault, Wolf explains that she could never have voted for him, though, she adds, voting for Biden was equally the wrong option.
“You know there was no right answer for this election,” she said.
In November, Wolf expressed regret voting for Biden due to his support for lockdowns in his efforts to combat COVID-19.
“If I’d known Biden was open to ‘lockdowns’ as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic, and a terrifying practice, one that won’t ever end because elites love it, I would never have voted for him,” she wrote.
If I’d known Biden was open to ‘lockdowns’ as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic, and a terrifying practice, one that won’t ever end because elites love it, I would never have voted for him. — Dr Naomi Wolf (@naomirwolf) November 9, 2020
The current president’s questionable health has been a subject of ongoing concern for many.
On Friday, a video showed President Biden stumbling several times while boarding Air Force One.
Many have noted the media’s double standard in disregarding instances that call President Biden’s health into question after having sought endlessly to exaggerate instances in order to question former President Trump’s health.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein. | 0.344268 |
NBC host Chuck Todd during Sunday’s “Meet the Press” on NBC called the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is a political crisis “with no easy way out.”
Todd said, “It’s fair to call the deteriorating situation at the U.S.-Mexico border a crisis — even if the Biden administration refuses to use that word. But it’s more than that: It’s a political crisis for the new president, with no easy way out.
He added, “Republicans are quick to blame Mr. Biden for the growing number of migrants crossing the border, saying it’s his rhetoric and policy shifts that caused the surge in migrants. The Democratic administration says it was left with an unworkable immigration system left by President Trump. Conservatives want a big wall. Progressives want nothing less than humane treatment from migrants fleeing violence wherever it is, and a path to citizenship for those already here.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0.17379 |
Anchor Martha Raddatz said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the Biden administration was falling short on their promises of transparency at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Raddatz said, “We join you this morning from El Paso, Texas. Mexico just beyond that fence you see right behind me. So many on the other side desperate to cross the border, and so many here on U.S. soil calling for change, pressuring the Biden administration is loathe to label this a crisis even as the tide of migrants surges.”
“The number of unaccompanied children and teenagers in border patrol custody reaching record numbers,” she continued. “Children forced to stay longer in overcrowded facilities. The media not allowed inside. The administration restricting access despite promising transparency, citing COVID and privacy concerns. The issue that at times plagued the previous administration now presenting a challenge to the Biden administration, one that shows no sign of abating any time soon.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1.364082 |
Viewers are reportedly switching off CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time as host Chris Cuomo’s brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), faces multiple scandals and calls to resign.
“‘Cuomo Prime Time’ averaged 2.2 million viewers from March 20 to June 24, 2020 when the now-embattled governor regularly appeared on his kid brother’s program, often for light-hearted interviews,” Fox News reported Friday.
The show wrapped up 2020 boasting a yearly average of 1.8 million viewers, which made it the network’s most popular program.
“But 2021 has seen Gov. Cuomo’s political standing shaken over multiple scandals, and ‘Cuomo Prime Time’ viewership decline coincided with the governor’s woes,” the report continued:
“Cuomo Prime Time” has averaged only 1.6 million viewers since CNN said Gov. Cuomo wouldn’t be covered anymore on the program, a 28-percent drop from the three-month period in 2020 when he was a regular guest. Since CNN banned Chris from covering his brother, “Cuomo Prime Time” is also down 20 percent compared to its 2020 total viewership.
In addition, CNN has reportedly been losing viewers since former President Donald Trump left office, dropping about half of its audience in key metrics since January.
On Friday, one of Gov. Cuomo’s aides publicly accused him of sexual harassment, the first allegation brought forward by a current member of his staff, according to Breitbart News.
Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is reportedly investigating whether aides to the governor offered false data regarding the number of deaths in New York’s nursing homes amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Breitbart News reported:
As the nursing home probe continues to advance, Cuomo faces growing calls to resign due to multiple allegations of sexual harassment and unwanted touches brought forth by multiple former female aides. Top Democrats, such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), have said Cuomo should step aside as New York Attorney General Letitia James’ independent investigation looks into the allegations.
In regard to viewership, Cuomo Prime Time is reportedly in the midst of its worst week of 2021, averaging 1.2 million viewers and 323,000 among the key demographics from March 15 to 17, the Fox article read.
Data cited in the report is courtesy of Nielson Media research. | 0.582995 |
Americans’ awareness of global hostility toward Christians made a leap forward in 2021, according to a survey released this week.
Most significantly, the poll revealed that 57 percent of U.S. Catholics believe the persecution of Christians around the world is “very severe,” up from just 41 percent a year ago, a jump of 16 percent.
Moreover, nearly 50 percent of U.S. Catholics recognize that half or more of religiously based attacks around the world are directed at Christians, and 67 percent say they are “very concerned” about the issue.
The fourth annual nationwide poll, conducted in February 2021 by McLaughlin & Associates for the Christian watchdog group Aid to the Church in Need-USA (ACNUSA), sought to assess — among other things — the extent to which American Catholics are aware of Christian persecution around the world, the countries and regions where they believe Christians are most severely persecuted, and specific measures and policies they want the U.S. and other Western governments to pursue.
For years, anti-persecution groups have lamented the widespread ignorance in the West of the extent and vehemence of global Christian persecution.
Apart from reports by Christian persecution watchdog groups, the abuse of Christians receives virtually no coverage from mainstream media, and most people are not privy to information concerning how Christians are hounded, incarcerated, assaulted, and killed across the world.
The pervasive ignorance is aggravated by outright denial of Christian persecution as if it does not exist. Despite the undeniable evidence of ongoing persecution of Christians on a massive scale, some insist that reports of such persecution are nothing more than whiny Christians looking for attention or, worse still, evidence of a “Christian persecution complex.”
The online Wikipedia resource has an entire entry devoted to “Christian persecution complex,” defining it as “a belief, attitude or world view that Christian values and Christians are being oppressed by social groups and governments.”
The article never asks if this oppression is actually occurring but starts from the presupposition that such a belief must represent an irrational “complex.”
This week’s survey suggests that the situation may be changing.
“It is heartening that, compared to a year ago, significantly more US Catholics say that Christian persecution around the world is very grave and that the issue has become a matter of concern to more faithful,” George Marlin, ACNUSA chairman, said. “They also want both their Church and their government to step up efforts to do more to combat the issue.”
Still, there is a long way to go in educating the public regarding the extent and nature of Christian persecution around the world.
A major 2019 report titled “Persecuted and Forgotten?” revealed that “Christians are the victims of at least 75 percent of all religiously-motivated violence and oppression” around the world, asserting that the persecution of Christians today is worse than any time in history in terms of the number of people involved, the gravity of the crimes committed, and the impact of the hostility.
Global Christian persecution reached a record high in 2020, with over 340 million Christians facing “high levels of persecution,” according to the World Watch List 2021, published by Open Doors, a group monitoring the persecution of Christians worldwide.
One in eight Christians around the world experiences high levels of persecution and discrimination — far more than members of any other religion, the Watch List reported, while also providing an in-depth look at the 50 countries where it is most difficult and dangerous to be a Christian.
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Another witch has been publicly burned at the stake in the town square.
The crazed, lusty mob is satisfied. For now.
An Internet “journalist” named Alexi McCammond is this week’s burnt offering. She had just been hired as editor of Teen Vogue magazine.
Triggered by her success, the mob went after her for being “racist” and “homophobic.” Her crime? Twitter messages she wrote as a college freshman over a decade ago. Now she is out of her big, new job.
No word on whether Ms. McCammond will return to her old job covering President Biden for a Washington website called “Axios,” which is a tip sheet developed to help political hacks “sound smart” while talking to other political hacks at dull parties in Washington.
On second thought, perhaps being burned at the stake was a step up for Ms. McCammond.
Anyway, “burned at the stake” is an imprecise description as it suggests Ms. McCammond is, in fact, some kind of racist witch. In truth, there is no evidence she is an actual witch, rather than merely a former idiot young person in college who typed stupid, idiotic messages on social media.
In other words, there is not a human alive in America today who won’t eventually be next. Once the Woke torch mob runs out of other “witches,” they will be coming for you.
Ms. McCammond is particularly unlucky because her visit to the town square happened to coincide with a major campaign by the deranged mob to pit the world against “Asian-Americans.” (You see, the mob likes their hyphens because otherwise, everyone would just be “Americans” and then the mob would have nothing to talk about and no way to advance their segregationist worldview.)
Talking about “Asian-Americans” these days is all the rage with the mob because — for some strange reason — they are desperate to conjure up a war between non-Asian-Americans and Asian-Americans over the fact that the COVID-19 plague, which has killed millions around the world, originated in China.
These people are so profoundly racist that they are unable to distinguish between the lying, corrupt, and evil Chinese Communist Party and “Asian-Americans,” who are our neighbors and fellow countrymen and have absolutely nothing to do with China’s Communist government.
But there is, literally, no travesty on Earth these twisted maggots won’t exploit to push their rotten political agenda.
Their latest feast is the horrific murders of eight people at three different massage parlors around Atlanta this week. Since the crimes took place at massage parlors, their demented thinking goes, it all fits neatly into their preconceived fever dreams about some kind of war on “Asian-Americans.”
Talk about wanton prejudice.
At a press conference after the suspect was heroically apprehended by Georgia State Police, law enforcement officers fielded crazy conspiracy theories from the media. Reporters kept insisting that the suspect had killed the victims because they are of Asian descent — even though the victims weren’t even all of Asian descent.
Gingerly — and with great respect — the law enforcement officials explained that, in fact, there is no evidence whatsoever to support their racist conspiracy theories. Instead, they patiently explained, the suspect claimed he was motivated by a “sexual addiction.” He told authorities he had targeted massage parlors that his inner demons found otherwise impossible to resist.
This fact did little to dampen the mob’s enthusiasm for their imagined war on Asian-Americans. But it does feed another one of their favorite conspiracy theories: Crazed gunmen inspired to violence by Christianity.
As you read this, they are digging through his social media history.
• Charles Hurt is opinion editor. He may be reached at [email protected]. | 0.824174 |
After a recent video showed President Joe Biden stumbling several times while boarding Air Force One Friday, conservative pundits and Twitter users noted the media hypocrisy as it sought to exaggerate any instance to question former President Donald Trump’s health status, while disregarding instances that call Biden’s health into question.
In the video, President Biden stumbles several times while running up the steps of Air Force One on his way to visit Atlanta, Georgia, to meet with Asian-American community leaders.
The 78-year-old Biden is seen with one hand on the railing when he tripped twice before falling over as he climbed up the stairs of the idling aircraft at Joint Base Andrews.
Many were quick to note the stunning double standard applied to the current and former presidents.
“I remember the press bashing Trump for touching the rail once,” wrote Donald Trump, Jr.
“Biden falls repeatedly but I’m sure he’s the picture of health,” he added. “No wonder all our enemies are pouncing simultaneously and mocking him publicly.”
I remember the press bashing Trump for touching the rail once. Biden falls repeatedly but I’m sure he’s the picture of health. No wonder all our enemies are pouncing simultaneously and mocking him publicly. pic.twitter.com/R1qN9DDHFW — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 19, 2021
“FLASHBACK: CNN’s Jim @Acosta reveled in Joe Biden questioning President Trump’s physical stamina: ‘Mr. Trump’s slow dissent down a ramp at a West Point commencement earlier this year,’” recalled journalist Curtis Houck.
FLASHBACK: CNN's Jim @Acosta reveled in Joe Biden questioning President Trump's physical stamina: "Mr. Trump's slow dissent down a ramp at a West Point commencement earlier this year." pic.twitter.com/RA6Rl904hQ — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 19, 2021
“Biden previously bragged about his ability to climb stairs,” wrote Republican strategist Arthur Schwartz. “So it’s fair game.”
“Someone should ask him about this at his press conference,” he added.
Biden previously bragged about his ability to climb stairs. So it’s fair game. Someone should ask him about this at his press conference. pic.twitter.com/HdGt7NzcIV — Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) March 19, 2021
“Biden keeps falling up the stairs as he boards Air Force One,” wrote Kellyanne Conway, former senior counselor to President Trump. “It matters.”
“It may matter less if not for the five-alarm fires every time his energetic predecessor touched a handrail or a bottle of water with two hands,” she added.
Biden keeps falling up the stairs as he boards Air Force One https://t.co/p47e5RTFfq — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) March 19, 2021
“Where is the health analysis?” asked former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, tagging major journalists in his post.
“You certainly dished it out on Trump,” he added.
“Don’t worry Ric, I’m sure the media is on it!” quipped libertarian podcast host Dave Rubin.
“Apropos of nothing, here’s a Joe Biden delegate suggesting in June 2020 that perhaps Trump had Parkinson’s for walking down a ramp slowly,” wrote public affairs consultant Drew Holden.
Apropos of nothing, here's a Joe Biden delegate suggesting in June 2020 that perhaps Trump had Parkinson's for walking down a ramp slowly. https://t.co/oRuFkg87VN — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 19, 2021
“I expect the NYT to have a whole story speculating on Biden’s health after he fell three times walking up the steps,” wrote columnist Eddie Zipperer.
I expect the NYT to have a whole story speculating on Biden’s health after he fell three times walking up the steps. pic.twitter.com/8pYjOtBgjI — Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) March 19, 2021
“Going to be an interesting test of the media that ran ‘Trump grabs handrail’ headlines to see how they handle Biden falling down on the stairs,” wrote Dylan Byers, senior media reporter at NBC News and MSNBC.
“Every news organization is entitled to its own editorial judgment, but if you set the precedent…” he added.
Or rather, lack of handrail… pic.twitter.com/8IR7H6wZR1 — Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) March 19, 2021
“If this had happened in the previous administration, it would get blanket coverage on CNN and would be part of every late night TV host’s monologue,” wrote reporter Mike Glenn.
If this had happened in the previous administration, it would get blanket coverage on CNN and would be part of every late night TV host's monologue. https://t.co/lNCfPkhXUV — Mike Glenn (@mrglenn) March 19, 2021
“Just gonna leave these here,” wrote political correspondent Jack Posobiec, as he shared images of the media attacking former President Trump for a supposed fear of stairs.
Just gonna leave these here pic.twitter.com/rKXoKQXzOL — Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) March 19, 2021
“Perhaps this is connected to why Joe Biden has held zero press conferences,” wrote former CIA Officer Bryan Dean Wright.
Perhaps this is connected to why Joe Biden has held zero press conferences. https://t.co/bDN5c8xcSn — BDW (@BryanDeanWright) March 19, 2021
“Watching Biden climb the stairs feels like elder abuse,” wrote political commentator Ian Miles Cheong.
“Remember when the media mocked Trump for not walking down a steep ramp fast enough?”
“Biden doesn’t even actually trip on anything. His leg appears to have given out,” he added.
Biden doesn't even actually trip on anything. His leg appears to have given out. — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 19, 2021
“Trump would frequently, privately give Obama tons of credit for how he negotiated AF1 stairs (which can be daunting),” wrote Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). “‘He always popped down so fast and cool.’”
“‘You fall once and it’s all they remember,’ 45 would say,” he added.
Trump would frequently, privately give Obama tons of credit for how he negotiated AF1 stairs (which can be daunting). “He always popped down so fast and cool.” “You fall once and it’s all they remember,” 45 would say. https://t.co/qR4AWVxpro — Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) March 19, 2021
“This is both sad and disturbing,” wrote conservative political commentator Eric Bolling. “We should all be concerned with this.”
This is both sad and disturbing.
We should all be concerned with this.
-*Is this man capable of leading the country through very unsettled geopolitical waters for 4 years?
-*Will VP Harris have to assume the Presidency? *Legitimate questions BOTH political sides should ponder. https://t.co/1yZ7RzVC02 — 🇺🇸ERIC BOLLING🇺🇸 (@ericbolling) March 19, 2021
On Friday, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said President Biden did not require medical attention after falling twice while climbing the stairs of Air Force One.
“I know folks have seen that President Biden slipped on his way up the stairs to AF1, but I’m happy to report that he is just fine and did not even require any attention from the medical team who travels with him,” Bedingfield wrote on social media.
“Nothing more than a misstep on the stairs,” she added.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein. | 0.291764 |