- Get Woke, Go Broke: New "Queer" 'Doctor Who' Suffers Worst Ratings In Series History
Get Woke, Go Broke: New “Queer” ‘Doctor Who’ Suffers Worst Ratings In Series History
Woke activists today often like to hearken back to nostalgic media from the 1960s; what they consider the golden era or genesis moment of far-left movements in British and US history. These were the days when being a progressive was considered “counter-culture” and cool, with every major rock star and celebrity tapping into youth angst and hippie philosophy. The progressive shift led to considerable social instability in the 1970s.
It is common these days to hear leftists in popular media argue that TV shows like Star Trek or Doctor Who were “always woke” and that they are simply carrying on the tradition. This is simply not true. While many productions in the US and in Europe displayed liberal sensibilities, woke activists are not liberal and do not hold liberal values. They are, rather, a hybrid ideology combining elements of Marxism/communism/fascism, collectivism, moral relativism and narcissism.
One could argue that the woke cult is the natural end state, the unavoidable final evolution of liberal thinking. That may be true, but that’s a debate for another day. The point is, the woke activism of today has very little in common with the political movements of the 1960s. In fact, if you were to go back in time only 15 years ago and tried to explain to a typical Democrat in the US or Labour member in the UK what leftists are trying to get away with in 2024, they would laugh in your face and call you crazy.
In our decade nearly every major television and film franchise of the past has received the woke treatment; what leftists call “updating for modern audiences.” As a consequence, nearly every franchise has suffered an extreme collapse in audience number, ad revenues and box office receipts. Why? Because woke ideology is a fringe movement making up a tiny percentage of the population. Almost no one likes it, hence the reason why “Get Woke, Go Broke” has become a rule rather than a theory.
Doctor Who has not been able to escape this rule despite being considered an open sci-fi world where almost anything goes. The problem is, it doesn’t matter what the canon technically allows or what the writers want – In the end the fans always dictate what succeeds and what fails. When a show starts preaching at people about respecting gender pronouns, they aren’t going to stick around to see what happens next.
The BBC show (working hand-in-hand with Disney) has been on an unstoppable decline for the past few years as it becomes increasingly woke. The real collapse started with the introduction of a female and decidedly feminist Doctor (played by Jodie Whitaker) for three seasons. The series ratings fell exponentially and Whitaker became one of the most hated iterations of the main character in the history of the show.
You would think the BBC would have learned not to be confrontational with the fans, but as we all know leftists never admit failure, they only double down. The newest version of the character is being applauded as the first “black queer” Doctor Who, played by Rwandan-Scottish actor Ncuti Gatwa. The show also features a villain played by Drag Queen and trans activist Jinkx Monsoon.
Long considered a family show, parents are turning away from Doctor Who because they don’t want their children constantly exposed to gender propaganda. Not surprisingly, the show’s audience numbers have imploded by roughly 50% compared to the previous two seasons. The mainstream entertainment media blamed “warm weather” in the UK for the ratings disaster, but numerous representatives from the production openly attacked fans for their opposition to its woke direction and told them not to watch.
As Ncuti Gatwa told Variety when discussing fan criticism:
“Don’t watch. Turn off the TV. Go and touch grass, please, for God’s sake…As the world darkens – and I do think the world is darkening around queer rights – there is a joy and a celebration, and there’s a community…”
It would seem the audience took Gatwa’s advice to heart. They aren’t watching and his show is now facing an embarrassing collapse into obscurity.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 05/16/2024 – 02:45 - Israel Will 'Set Sights' On Turkey If Hamas Defeated, Erdogan Claims
Israel Will ‘Set Sights’ On Turkey If Hamas Defeated, Erdogan Claims
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on 15 May that Israel would “target” Turkey if victorious against the Hamas and other Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
“Israel will not stop in Gaza, and if not stopped, this rogue state will eventually target Anatolia with its delusions of a promised land,” Erdogan said during a parliamentary group meeting in Ankara. “We will continue to stand by Hamas, which fights for the independence of its own land and which defends Anatolia,” the Turkish president stressed.
Turkey’s Erdogan Erdogan and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, shake hands during their meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, April 20, 2024. Turkish Presidency via AP “On Nakba, the Day of Catastrophe, we once again declare with all our being and resources that we stand by Palestine and the Palestinian cause … We will also ensure that the perpetrators of genocide face justice,” Erdogan added.
For the past several months, the Turkish president has harshly criticized Israeli authorities, accusing them of overseeing ongoing genocide in Gaza. However, his actions trailed far behind his words, as it took over six months for Ankara to end its highly lucrative trade ties with Israel.
Days after announcing a trade freeze, the Turkish government partially walked back its decision by issuing temporary approval for the supply of construction materials to Israel. Ankara has also refrained from obstructing the flow of oil from neighboring Azerbaijan to Israel.
For its part, Tel Aviv has been quietly returning diplomats to Turkey in recent weeks after withdrawing them months ago over “security concerns.”
Nevertheless, Turkish officials continue to send mixed signals, as earlier this week, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his country decided to submit its declaration of official intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
“Israel systematically killing thousands of innocent Palestinians and rendering a whole residential area uninhabitable is a crime against humanity, attempted genocide, and the manifestation of genocide,” Fidan told reporters.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 05/16/2024 – 02:00 - Escobar: De-Dollarization Bombshell – The Coming Of BRICS+ Decentralized Monetary Ecosystem
Escobar: De-Dollarization Bombshell – The Coming Of BRICS+ Decentralized Monetary Ecosystem
Get ready for what may well be the geoeconomic bombshell of 2024: the coming of a decentralized monetary ecosystem.
Welcome to The Unit – a concept that has already been discussed by the financial services and investments working group set up by the BRICS+ Business Council and has a serious shot at becoming official BRICS+ policy as early as in 2025.
According to Alexey Subbotin, founder of Arkhangelsk Capital Management and one of the Unit’s conceptualizers, this is a new problem-solving system that addresses the key geoeconomic issue of these troubled times: a global crisis of trust.
He knows all about it first-hand: a seasoned financial professional with experience in investment banking, asset management and corporate matters, Subbotin leads the Unit project under the auspices of IRIAS, an international intergovernmental organization set up in 1976 in accordance with the UN statute.
The Global Majority has had enough of the centrally controlled monetary framework put in place 80 years ago in Bretton Woods and its endemic flaws: chronic deficits fueling irresponsible military spending; speculative bubbles; politically motivated sanctions and secondary sanctions; abuse of settlement and payment infrastructure; protectionism; and the lack of fair arbitration.
In contrast, the Unit proposes a reliable, quick and economically efficient solution for cross-border payments. The – transactional – Unit is a game-changer as a new form of international currency that can be issued in a de-centralized way, and then recognized and regulated at national level.
The Unit offers a unique solution for bottlenecks in global financial infrastructure: it is eligible for traditional banking operations as well as for the newest forms of digital banking.
The Unit can also help to upend unfair pricing in commodity trading, by means of setting up a new – fair and efficient – Eurasian Mercantile Exchange where trading and settlement can be done in a new currency bridging trade flows and capital, thus paving the way to the development of new financial products for foreign direct investment (FDI).
The strength of the Unit, conceptually, is to remove direct dependency on the currency of other nations, and to offer especially to the Global Majority a new form of apolitical money – with huge potential for anchoring fair trade and investments.
It is indeed a new concept in terms of an international currency – anchored in gold (40%) and BRICS+ currencies (60%). It is neither crypto nor stablecoin – as it’s shown here.
The Beauty of Going Fractal
The Global Majority will instantly grasp the primary purpose of the Unit: to harmonize trade and financial flows by keeping them outside of political pressure or “rules” that can be twisted at will. The inevitable consequence translates as financial sovereignty. What matters in the whole process are independent monetary policies focused on economic growth.
That’s the key appeal for the Global Majority: a full ecosystem offering independent, complementary monetary infrastructure. And that surely can be extended to willing Unit partners in the collective West.
Now to the practical level: as Subbotin explains, the Unit ecosystem may be easily scalable because it comes from a fractal architecture supported by simple rules. New Unit nodes can be set up by either sovereign or private agents, following a detailed rule-book in custody of the UN-chartered IRIAS.
The Unit organizers employ a distributed ledger: a technology that ensures transparency, precluding capital controls or any exchange rate manipulation.
This means that connection is available to all open DEX and digital platforms operated by both commercial and Central Banks around the world.
The endgame is that everyone, essentially, may use the Unit for accounting, bookkeeping, pricing, settling, paying, saving and investing.
No wonder the institutional possibilities are quite enticing – as the Unit can be used for accounting and settlement for BRICS+; payment and pricing for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU); or as a reserve currency for Sub-Saharan Africa.
And now comes the clincher: the Unit has already received backing by the BRICS Business Council and is on the agenda at the crucial ministerial meeting in Russia next month, which will work out the road map for the summit next October in Kazan.
That means the Unit has all it takes to be on the table as a serious subject discussed by BRICS+ and eventually be adopted as early as in 2025.
Will Musk and the NDB Be on Board?
As it stands, the priority for the Unit conceptualizers – whom I followed for over a year during several, detailed meetings in Moscow – is to inform the general public about the new system.
The Unit team is not interested at all in getting straight into political hot waters or to be cornered by ideologically-laden arguments. Direct references to inspiring but sometimes controversial concepts or authors like Zoltan Pozsar may bury the Unit concept into pigeon holes, thus limiting its potential impact.
What may lie ahead could be extraordinarily exciting, as the Unit appeal could extend all the way from Elon Musk to the BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB), hopefully engaging an array of crucial actors. After a positive evaluation by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov – who remains on the post in the new Russian government – it’s not far-fetched to imagine Putin and Xi discussing it face to face this week in Beijing.
As it stands, the major takeaway is that the Unit should be seen as a feasible, technical solution for the theoretically Unsolvable: a globally-recognized payment/trade system, immune to political pressure. It’s the only game in town – there are no others.
Meanwhile, the Unit conceptualizers are open for constructive criticism and all manners of collaboration. Yet sooner or later the battle ranks will be lined up – and then it will be a matter of seriously upping the game.
“Academically Sound, Technologically Innovative”
Vasily Zhabykin, co-author of the Unit white paper and founder of CFA.Center, Unit’s technological partner at Skolkovo Innovation Hub in Moscow, crucially stresses: the Unit “represents apolitical money and can be the connector between the Global South and the West.”
He’s keen to point out that “the Unit can keep all the wheels turning unlike most of the other concepts that feature ‘dollar killers’, etc. We do not want to harm anybody. Our goal is to improve efficiency of currently broken capital and money flows. The Unit is rather the ‘cure for centralized cancer’’’.
Subbotin and the Unit team “are keen to meet new partners who share our approach and are ready to bring additional value to our project.” If that’s the case, they should “send us 3 bullet points on how can they help and improve the Unit.”
A bold follow-up step should be, for instance, a virtual conference on the Unit, featuring leading Russian economist Sergey Glazyev, Yannis Varoufakis, Jeffrey Sachs and Michael Hudson, among others.
By email, Glazyev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) , summed up the Unit’s potential:
“I have been following the development of Unit for more than a year and can confirm that Unit offers a very timely, feasible solution. It is academically sound, technologically innovative and at the same time complementary to the existing banking infrastructure.
Launching it under the auspices of an UN institution gives Unit legitimacy, which the current Bretton Woods framework is clearly lacking. Recent actions by the US administration and loud silence from IMF clearly indicate the need for change.
A decentralized approach to emission of potential global trade currency, whose intrinsic value is anchored in physical gold and BRICS+ currencies, makes Unit the most promising of several approaches being considered. It balances political priorities of all participants, while helping each sovereign economy develop along its optimal path.
The New Development Bank (NDB) and BRICS+ shall embrace the concept of Unit and help it to become the pinnacle of the new emerging global financial infrastructure, free from malign political interferences while focused instead on fair trade and sustainable economic growth.”
A clear, practical example of possible Unit problem-solving concerns Russia-Iran trade relations. These are two top BRICS members. Russian trade with Iran is unprofitable due to sanctions – and both cannot make payments in US dollars or euros.
Russian companies suffer significant losses after switching to payments in national currencies. With each transfer, Russian businesses on average lose as much as 25% due to the discrepancy between the market rate in Iran and the state rate.
And here’s the key takeaway: BRICS+ as well as the Global Majority can only be strengthened by developing closer geoeconomics ties. The removal of Western speculative capital shall free up local commodity trading, and enable the pooling of investable capital for sustainable development. To unlock such a vast potential, the Unit may well be the key.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 23:40 - Environmental Protection Not A Major Issue For Majority
Environmental Protection Not A Major Issue For Majority
In a survey of 38 countries carried out by Statista Consumer Insights, only between 21 and 44 percent of respondents said that they considered environmental protection a major issue for their country.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, respondents in Brazil were the most concerned about the environment, with those in Mexico and Colombia also rating environmental protection as more important than most countries in the survey.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The picture was more mixed in Asia, with Indonesians seeing the issue as highly important, while respondents in Indian and China hit around the survey average and Pakistan ranked lower in the international comparison. However, the countries rating the environment as a major issue typically also rated many other issues as highly problematic. Despite fewer people seeing the problem in China and India, environmental protection was still rated as the second and fourth most important issue, respectively, by respondents in these countries behind the likes of health/social security or unemployment, education and poverty.
In developed countries, climate change was typically rated more important than environmental protection, while it was the other way round in developing countries. European ratings ranked from 40 percent in Italy deeming environmental protection a major issue to just 19 percent saying the same in Ireland. Among U.S. respondents, 27 percent thought the issue was major – rank 13 among 20 issues.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 23:20 - A Nanny State Idiocracy: A Tale Of Too Many Laws And Too Little Freedom
A Nanny State Idiocracy: A Tale Of Too Many Laws And Too Little Freedom
Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military.”
– Simone Weil, French philosopher
We are caught in a vicious cycle of too many laws, too many cops, and too little freedom.
It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or a Nanny State Idiocracy.
Whatever the label, this overbearing despotism is what happens when government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.
The government’s bureaucratic attempts at muscle-flexing by way of overregulation and overcriminalization have reached such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someone’s hair, as ludicrous as that may seem.
As the Regulatory Transparency Project explains, “There are over 70 federal regulatory agencies, employing hundreds of thousands of people to write and implement regulations. Every year, they issue about 3,500 new rules, and the regulatory code now is over 168,000 pages long.”
In his CrimeADay Twitter feed, Mike Chase highlights some of the more arcane and inane laws that render us all guilty of violating some law or other.
As Chase notes, it’s against the law to try to make an unreasonable noise while a horse is passing by in a national park; to leave Michigan with a turkey that was hunted with a drone; to refill a liquor bottle with different liquor than it had in it when it was originally filled; to offer to buy swan feathers so you can make a woman’s hat with them; to enter a design in the Federal Duck Stamp contest if waterfowl are not the dominant feature of the design; to transport a cougar without a cougar license; to sell spray deodorant without telling people to avoid spraying it in their eyes; and to transport “meat loaf” unless it’s in loaf form.
In such a society, we are all petty criminals.
In fact, Boston lawyer Harvey Silvergate estimates that the average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to an overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal and an inclination on the part of prosecutors to reject the idea that there can’t be a crime without criminal intent.
The bigger the government grows, the worse the red tape becomes.
Almost every aspect of American life today, including the job sector, is now subject to this kind of heightened scrutiny and ham-fisted control.
Whereas 70 years ago, one out of every 20 U.S. jobs required a state license, today, almost 1 in 4 American occupations requires a license.
According to business analyst Kaylyn McKenna, more than 41 states require that makeup artists be licensed. Twenty-eight states require a license before you can work as a residential painter. Funeral attendants, whose duties include placing caskets in visitation rooms, arranging flowers and directing mourners, have to be licensed to do so in Kansas, Maine and Massachusetts.
The problem of overregulation has become so bad that, as one analyst notes, “getting a license to style hair in Washington takes more instructional time than becoming an emergency medical technician or a firefighter.”
This is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.
Overregulation is just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon in which everything is rendered illegal, and everyone becomes a lawbreaker.
As policy analyst Michael Van Beek warns, the problem with overcriminalization is that there are so many laws at the federal, state and local levels—that we can’t possibly know them all.
“It’s also impossible to enforce all these laws. Instead, law enforcement officials must choose which ones are important and which are not. The result is that they pick the laws Americans really must follow, because they’re the ones deciding which laws really matter,” concludes Van Beek. “Federal, state and local regulations — rules created by unelected government bureaucrats — carry the same force of law and can turn you into a criminal if you violate any one of them… if we violate these rules, we could be prosecuted as criminals. No matter how antiquated or ridiculous, they still carry the full force of the law. By letting so many of these sit around, just waiting to be used against us, we increase the power of law enforcement, which has lots of options to charge people with legal and regulatory violations.”
Case in point: in New Jersey, in what journalist Billy Binion describes as “yet another example of the effects of overcriminalization, which increases interactions between civilians and police with little benefit to actual public safety,” police went so far as to arrest a teenager and seize other teen’s bicycles for so-called traffic violations and a failure to register their bikes with the state.
This is the police state’s superpower: it has been vested with the authority to make our lives a bureaucratic hell.
That explains how a fisherman can be saddled with 20 years’ jail time for throwing fish that were too small back into the water. Or why police arrested a 90-year-old man for violating an ordinance that prohibits feeding the homeless in public unless portable toilets are also made available. Or how states across the country, in a misguided attempt to disperse homeless populations, have criminalized sitting, sleeping, or resting in public spaces; sharing food with people; and camping in public.
The laws can get downright silly.
For instance, in Florida, it’s against the law to eat a frog that was used in a frog-jumping contest. You could also find yourself passing time in a Florida slammer for such inane activities as singing in a public place while wearing a swimsuit, breaking more than three dishes per day, farting in a public place after 6 pm on a Thursday, and skateboarding without a license.
“Such laws,” notes journalist George Will, “which enable government zealots to accuse almost anyone of committing three felonies in a day, do not just enable government misconduct, they incite prosecutors to intimidate decent people who never had culpable intentions. And to inflict punishments without crimes.”
Unfortunately, the consequences are all too serious for those whose lives become grist for the police state’s mill.
In this way, America has gone from being a beacon of freedom to a locked down nation.
We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the so-called name of the national good by an elite class of governmental and corporate officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
We increasingly find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for their militarism, agonizing as a result of their inaction, feigning ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence, turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes.
The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its corporate partners in crime) are all around us: censorship, criminalizing, shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular; warrantless surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; community-wide lockdowns and health mandates that strip Americans of their freedom of movement and bodily integrity; armed drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that spy on, collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.
Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies—the heavy-handed, punitive-laden dictates inflicted by a self-righteous, Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace—that illustrate so clearly the degree to which “we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense, moral judgment, fairness, and intelligence, not to mention lacking a basic understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a functioning community.
In exchange for the promise of an end to global pandemics, lower taxes, lower crime rates, safe streets, safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, and readily accessible technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door to lockdowns, militarized police, government surveillance, asset forfeiture, school zero tolerance policies, license plate readers, red light cameras, SWAT team raids, health care mandates, overcriminalization, overregulation and government corruption.
We relied on the government to help us safely navigate national emergencies (terrorism, natural disasters, global pandemics, etc.) only to find ourselves forced to relinquish our freedoms on the altar of national security, yet we’re no safer (or healthier) than before.
We asked our lawmakers to be tough on crime, and we’ve been saddled with an abundance of laws that criminalize almost every aspect of our lives.
We wanted criminals taken off the streets, and we didn’t want to have to pay for their incarceration. What we’ve gotten is a nation that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world, with many doing time for relatively minor, nonviolent crimes, and a private prison industry fueling the drive for more inmates.
We wanted law enforcement agencies to have the necessary resources to fight the nation’s wars on terror, crime and drugs. What we got instead were militarized police decked out with M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers, battle tanks and hollow point bullets—gear designed for the battlefield, more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year (many for routine police tasks, resulting in losses of life and property), and profit-driven schemes that add to the government’s largesse such as asset forfeiture, where police seize property from “suspected criminals.”
We fell for the government’s promise of safer roads, only to find ourselves caught in a tangle of profit-driven red light cameras, which ticket unsuspecting drivers in the so-called name of road safety while ostensibly fattening the coffers of local and state governments.
This is what happens when the American people get duped, deceived, double-crossed, cheated, lied to, swindled and conned into believing that the government and its army of bureaucrats—the people we appointed to safeguard our freedoms—actually have our best interests at heart.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the problem with these devil’s bargains is that there is always a catch, always a price to pay for whatever it is we valued so highly as to barter away our most precious possessions.
In the end, such bargains always turn sour.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 23:00 - Convicted Non-Violent Felons Can Own Guns, Ninth Circuit Rules
Convicted Non-Violent Felons Can Own Guns, Ninth Circuit Rules
In what must be the first time California’s 9th circuit has ruled in favor of the 2nd Amendment, non-violent convicted felons can now own guns.
The decision stems from a 2020 case, in which California resident Steven Duarte was arrested after tossing a handgun out of a moving car during a traffic stop. He was indicted by a federal grand jury for possessing said firearm while being previously convicted of “a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” in violation of the federal “felon-in-possession” law.
A customer shops for a pistol in Tinley Park, Ill., on Dec. 17, 2012. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) Duarte had five prior non-violent criminal convictions in California; vandalism, felon in possession of a firearm, drug possession, and two convictions for fleeing a police officer – each of which is punishable by one year or more in prison. After pleading not guilty, Duarte’s case proceeded to trial, where he was found guilty and sentenced to 51 months in prison.
Not so fast!
As the Epoch Times notes further, in a 2-1 decision handed down on May 9, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. Duarte’s conviction violated the Second Amendment as applied to him.
Specifically, the court’s majority found that the federal government failed to prove that its felon-in-possession law supports disarming convicted felons for life under a two-step framework established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2022 “New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen” case.
The two-step process, put forth by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, first requires the court to determine whether the Second Amendment’s “plain text” covers an individual’s conduct. If so, then that conduct is presumptively protected, and the government must prove that its law is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
“Because Duarte is an American citizen, he is part of the people whom the Second Amendment protects,” Senior Circuit Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the majority.
“The Government argues only that ’the people‘ in the Second Amendment excludes felons like Duarte because they are not members of the ’virtuous’ citizenry,” he wrote. “We do not share that view.”
The burden then fell back to the federal government to show that its gun possession policy aligns with the “historical tradition” of the United States.
However, during the Early Republic era, Mr. Duarte’s past convictions either would have been considered misdemeanors, didn’t exist as a crime, or may have had predecessors for which the government failed to provide evidence of their existence, Judge Bea noted.
‘Historically Understood Meaning’
“Based on this record, we cannot say that Duarte’s predicate offenses were, by Founding-era standards, of a nature serious enough to justify permanently depriving him of his fundamental Second Amendment rights,” the majority opinion read.
“The Second Amendment’s plain text and historically understood meaning therefore presumptively graduate his individual right to possess a firearm for self-defense.”
Judge Bea, a George W. Bush appointee, was joined by Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, a Donald Trump appointee. The majority opinion overturned a 2010 Ninth Circuit precedent, “U.S. v. Vongxay”, which upheld the federal prohibition on possession of firearms by felons.
Circuit Judge Milan Smith, a George W. Bush appointee who penned the Vongxay opinion, dissented and urged the appeals court to order a new hearing of Mr. Duarte’s case before a full, 11-judge panel.
He argued that Buren does not override Vongxay, at least not before the U.S. Supreme Court further clarifies the constitutionality of the federal felon-in-possession law.
“One day—likely sooner, rather than later—the Supreme Court will address the constitutionality of [the federal felon firearm ban] or otherwise provide clearer guidance on whether felons are protected by the Second Amendment,” Judge Smith wrote in his dissenting opinion.
“But it is not our role as circuit judges to anticipate how the Supreme Court will decide future cases.”
The Ninth Circuit’s vacation of Mr. Duarte’s conviction added to the post-Bruen “Circuit Split” over the scope of the Second Amendment.
The Ninth Circuit joins, at least for now, the Third Circuit to rule in favor of Americans permanently stripped of Second Amendment rights because of past non-violent offenses, while the Tenth Circuit has reaffirmed its precedent upholding the restriction on those individuals.
In a 2-1 ruling last October, the Tenth Circuit observed that the Bruen Court “didn’t appear to question the constitutionality of longstanding prohibitions on possession of firearms by convicted felons.”
Instead, it argued, “Bruen apparently approved the constitutionality of regulations requiring criminal background checks … to ensure that the applicant is a ‘law-abiding, responsible citizen.’”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 22:40 - Toxic Atmosphere At FDIC Spurs Calls For Chair's Resignation
Toxic Atmosphere At FDIC Spurs Calls For Chair’s Resignation
Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics,
The White House did not offer their full faith and credit to the FDIC chairman when asked by RealClearPolitics about a bombshell 234-page investigation that detailed a toxic environment within the agency.
Other than noting that Martin Gruenberg, the official in question, had already “apologized and spoke[n] to” allegations that he presided over a culture of bullying, harassment, and mismanagement, Karine Jean-Pierre, the president’s spokeswoman, mostly demurred.
Gruenberg will not skate by so easily when he testifies before Congress this week. Republicans in both the House and Senate are hell-bent for leather. And his scalp.
The report was published by law firm Cleary Gottlieb last week and followed a Wall Street Journal investigation last November that documented a federal agency akin to “a good ol’ boys club” where female employees were subjected to stalking, unwelcome illicit messages, and sexual harassment.
The episode is an embarrassment to President Biden, who promised on the first day of his administration to fire “on the spot” anyone who engaged in such behavior.
It is also a political liability. If Gruenberg, a Biden nominee who served in both the Obama and Trump administrations and the Senate confirmed by voice vote, exits under pressure, it would leave the FDIC board deadlocked during an election year. “A 2-2 vote would stall and probably doom politically sensitive banking policy,” observed Renaissance Macro Research. The regulatory policy of the administration would then hang in limbo.
These realities are not lost on many in the FDIC workforce who want reform. In a statement obtained by RCP, current employees expressed their concern that “the egregious issues documented in the Cleary report by over 500 employees have become partisan.”
Working at an agency now under scrutiny for a history of reprisals against whistleblowers, the statement was left unsigned, though the drafters noted that they “have a wide range of political views, ranging from far left to far right.”
“The FDIC employees behind this statement do not have confidence that the chairman and executive management have the willingness to truly make the cultural and structural changes necessary to fully address the [matters] identified in the report,” they write.
For his part, Gruenberg has already offered an apology.
“I want to also thank everyone who shared their experiences throughout this process. I know that doing so was difficult. To anyone who experienced sexual harassment or other misconduct at the FDIC, I again want to express how very sorry I am. I also want to apologize for any shortcomings on my part,” he said in a statement when the Cleary Gottlieb report was published.
“As chairman, I am ultimately responsible for everything that happens at our agency, including our workplace culture,” Gruenberg added.
The chairman, whom the report found has a history of anger and belittling staff, plans to announce a new, independent office devoted to professional conduct at the agency, according to prepared testimony before the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday. But the head of that committee, Republican Chairman Patrick McHenry, has already called for his resignation. And some FDIC employees are already registering their dissatisfaction.
“The Chairman has communicated the action plan that he oversaw the creation of as proof of his commitment to improving conditions at the FDIC. We, however, do not have confidence that this action plan is meaningful,” they wrote.
More than a dozen Republicans now oppose Gruenberg. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, has called for his resignation. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst has called on the Department of Justice to open an investigation. Only one Democrat, however, Illinois Rep. Bill Foster, has followed suit, calling for the FDIC chairman to step down.
Rep. Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on Financial Services, blasted the report, not the FDIC chairman, for focusing too much on current leadership. Democrats are expected to circle the wagons to protect Gruenberg during his testimony – an irony given the propensity of Democrats, not Republicans, to rail against toxic workplace environments.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen signaled her displeasure, telling reporters Tuesday that “the kind of abuses that were documented in the report are a totally unacceptable way to treat employees at the FDIC and not in line with the core values of the Biden administration.” She stopped short, however, of joining Republican calls for his resignation.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 22:20 - "Make Innocence Great Again": Mothers Gear Up To Decide The 2024 Elections
“Make Innocence Great Again”: Mothers Gear Up To Decide The 2024 Elections
Authored by Russ Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A voter casts her ballot with her child during the midterm primary election at a polling station at Rose Hill Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., on June 21, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) “Make innocence great again.”
It’s a mantra that Juliana Ormond feels strongly about. The suburban mom of three children seeks to call attention to the importance of preserving the purity and innocence of childhood. She said she desires a return to a time when she contends innocence was valued and protected, which conflicts with the complexities and challenges of the current culture.
“The only way to bring back innocence is to keep our children away from those who want to make everything about sexual identity,” Ms. Ormond said. “I look for political candidates who support policies that align with the Bible.”
She said she has watched the culture become more progressive since she was young. From her home in suburban Orlando, Ms. Ormond told The Epoch Times that two of her children are 10 years apart. Her younger daughter had a radically different school experience from her older sister.
“One day, my younger daughter brought a girlfriend home after school,” she said. “The friend proudly proclaimed that she was nonbinary. I was shocked. That ideology wasn’t pushed when my older daughter went to school.”
Mothers such as Ms. Ormond represent a significant demographic segment of the population and make up a sizable portion of the electorate. Candidates recognize the importance of appealing to this demographic group to secure their votes. Their motivations are deeply personal, rooted in parenthood’s daily struggles and triumphs. From grassroots activism to high-profile political campaigns, mothers harness their perspectives and experiences to advocate for change on issues ranging from abortion, health care, and education to the environment and social justice.
“I believe both the Democrat and Republican parties have left the people,” Ms. Ormond said. “I am dissatisfied with our government and think they are all in cahoots with one another.”
Moms of various social and political stripes are welcomed in the corridors of strategic planning, and mothers are stepping out and striding onto the political stage with vigor and determination, reshaping the political landscape. These women assert their influence in the public arena, driven by a deep-seated desire to create a better world for their children.
Mama Bears Bite Back
With almost 89 million women eligible to vote, they represent the largest and possibly most persuasive voting bloc in the United States. Among this constituency are those who identify as “mama bears.”
The Mama Bear movement is growing and altering the nation’s political climate. These mothers represent a diverse group of everyday women who are driven to shield their children from the agendas of special interest groups who think they know what’s best for kids.
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich talked with The Epoch Times about parents’ growing concern about public education and parental rights. In 2021, three mothers from Florida founded Moms for Liberty to combat COVID-19 restrictions.
“Moms are troubled about the country’s future and education crisis in America,” she said. “Schools have been infiltrated with woke ideologies, so moms are looking closely at private schools or homeschooling their children.”
Ms. Descovich, a former Brevard School Board member in Florida, said Moms for Liberty focuses on the 2024 state school board elections nationwide, where progressive agendas thrive.
In April, the Biden administration reversed changes made under President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that updated Title IX regulations governing schools’ responses to sexual misconduct. The revised rules, which go into effect in August, reinterpret what constitutes harassment and sex discrimination to prohibit actions driven by sexual orientation, gender identity, sex stereotypes, and pregnancy.
To date, 15 states have sued the administration over the new policy. Moms for Liberty has elevated its effort to inform moms about the changes.
“Many moms are deeply troubled with the rewriting of Title IX,” Ms. Descovich said. “We must stand up for the parental right to raise our children and support them as they navigate significant life lessons.”
For these reasons, she said, many parents seek alternative education options such as homeschooling or private schools.
Moms for Liberty is represented in 48 states, with 300 chapters and 330,000 members. Ms. Descovich said the organization recently discovered that more than half of its members have not voted more than once in the past eight years in a primary.
“Most moms are not historically politically active,” she said. “We’re working on getting them registered to vote on our issues.”
Progressive Moms Embrace Social Diversity
Alexandria White founded Student Affairs Moms, the largest online community for mothers in the student affairs profession. She is the mother of one daughter and a seasoned diversity, leadership, and inclusive communities trainer. The resident of Oxford, Mississippi, said she understands the desire to maintain innocence with children but also said that complex social issues must be addressed.
“I believe in preparing my children for complex topics,” Ms. White said.
Such topics include, for instance, a classmate who has two moms.
“This kind of preparation reduces bullying,” she said. “Our children are more likely to be more empathetic.”
Ms. White told The Epoch Times that moms seek candidates who identify with their family needs and align with their community and family values.
“There is no perfect candidate,” she said. “We must, however, have passion in our hearts and reason in our minds. What can a particular candidate do that connects with my heart but also reasoned with my mind regarding policies?”
Ms. White consults clients who work hard to meet the financial needs of their families and women who seek “work-life harmony.” She engages moms, who evaluate these issues and demands as they vote.
“The pulse is on what candidate can make the average person’s dollar go the farthest,” Ms. White said. “Most moms are worried about their children’s overall mental, spiritual, or physical health.”
According to a survey conducted by The Current Project, nearly 70 percent of black single mothers with school-age children think the nation is headed in the wrong direction. About 90 percent of respondents said they believe that the current public school system does not adequately serve students’ needs, and 56 percent have considered transferring their children to different schools in the past year. The Current Project, a New York City-based advocacy group, surveyed 504 middle-to-low-income black mothers who are single.
Six out of 10 respondents strongly agreed they would be more inclined to support a candidate who advocated granting parents greater flexibility in selecting the school for their children. The respondents emphasized after-school child care, gifted and talented programs, respect for their child’s gender identity, and class sizes.
“I’m concerned that some of the social wedge issues are being used to defund public education,” Merisa Bowers, a mom of a 7-year-old son and City Council president of Gahanna, Ohio, told The Epoch Times. “We need vital public education systems for workforce development and a system that creates an educated population.”
She acknowledged that following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Ohio voters last year overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that guarantees access to abortion and reproductive health care.
“All politics is local,” Ms. Bowers said. “While presidential cycles are important and do a lot of good, most politics at the state and local level affect individuals and families. It’s important that moms evaluate what’s happening politically in their local communities.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 22:00 - Boeing Could Face Criminal Prosecution Over 737 MAX Crashes: Justice Department
Boeing Could Face Criminal Prosecution Over 737 MAX Crashes: Justice Department
Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The U.S. Department of Justice determined on May 14 that Boeing violated a deferred prosecution agreement that allowed the aerospace company to evade criminal charges after two crashes of its 737 MAX jet that killed everyone on board.
The logo for Boeing appears on a screen above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on July 13, 2021. (Richard Drew/AP) Justice Department prosecutors delivered the news to a federal judge on May 14 after hosting a closed-door meeting with the families of the victims of the 2018 and 2019 crashes on April 24. The agency now has until July 7 to decide whether it will file criminal charges against Boeing, during which time it will tell the court how it plans to proceed, the Justice Department said.
Glenn Leon, the head of the Justice Department’s fraud section, said in a letter that the aerospace company failed to implement measures to prevent it from running afoul of federal anti-fraud laws, which is a violation of its 2021 deferred prosecution agreement.
The Justice Department said it could prosecute the company “for any federal criminal violation of which the United States has knowledge,” including a fraud charge that Boeing hoped to sidestep with its $2.5 billion settlement with the U.S. government.
The government did not say whether it would move forward with prosecuting Boeing, one of its biggest aerospace contractors.
“The Government is determining how it will proceed in this matter,” the Justice Department said in a court document.
The 2018 and 2019 737 MAX crashes involved a new flight-control system that Boeing added to the jet without notifying airlines or their pilots, according to investigations. The aerospace company then discounted the system’s importance and failed to overhaul its application until after the second crash caused further casualties.
The Justice Department then investigated Boeing before settling the case with a deferred prosecution agreement on Jan. 7, 2021. The department agreed not to prosecute for the charge of defrauding the government in misleading the regulators who approved the 737 MAX after closed-door negotiations with Boeing.
Instead, Boeing paid a total of $2.5 billion in settlement fees. That included nearly $1.8 billion to airlines whose 737 MAX jets were grounded, a $500 million fund for compensating victims, and a $243.6 million fine to the U.S. Government.
“The tragic crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 exposed fraudulent and deceptive conduct by employees of one of the world’s leading commercial airplane manufacturers,” Acting Assistant Attorney General David P. Burns of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in 2021.
“Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception.”
U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox, for the Northern District of Texas, was also featured in the Justice Department’s 2021 statement on the Boeing agreement.
“The misleading statements, half-truths, and omissions communicated by Boeing employees to the FAA impeded the government’s ability to ensure the safety of the flying public,” she said.
The agreement between Boeing and the U.S. Government was set to expire on Jan. 7, two days after a mid-air blowout of a door panel on an Alaskan Airlines flight, also featuring a 737 MAX. That incident triggered the Justice Department’s 2024 investigation into whether Boeing violated the 2021 settlement.
As a result of the various crashes and incidents, Boeing has faced multiple civil lawsuits, Senate and House investigations, and increased public scrutiny of its business practices.
Paul Cassell, the attorney representing the 737 MAX crash victims’ families, said in late April that he was worried the Justice Department was giving Boeing “preferential treatment” after the April 24 closed-door meeting with the agency yielded no decisive updates on its investigation.
“We don’t understand how it could possibly be in the public interest to dismiss the charges and avoid a trial that could shed light on so many of the safety issues that continue to surface regarding the 737 Max that’s made by Boeing,” he told The Epoch Times.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 21:40 - Glenn Greenwald Makes An Important Prediction On Ukraine
Glenn Greenwald Makes An Important Prediction On Ukraine
It was Tuesday night that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was leading a bizarre rock anthem as the guitar and vocals front man at a Kiev bar, singing Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” — and the internet collectively cringed. But only the next morning, on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared he was canceling all upcoming foreign trips at a moment his forces are getting hammered in the Kharkiv region.
“Volodymyr Zelenskyy has instructed that all international events scheduled for the coming days be postponed and new dates coordinated. We are grateful to partners for their understanding,” said Zelensky’s press secretary Sergii Nykyforov.
Just a quick reminder that you and your family can’t afford rent, gas, and groceries because inflation is out of control and your tax dollars are being spent on things like Secretary of State Tony Blinken playing guitar at a bar in Ukraine.
Please be more pissed off. pic.twitter.com/bbyXMuiG0p
— NotKennyRogers (@NotKennyRogers) May 14, 2024
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Ukraine’s military leaders are “making all decisions based on comprehensive information. Additional forces are being deployed, reserves are available,” Nykyforov stated.
Among the foreign trips which have been postponed were expected visits of Zelensky to Spain and Portugal. Spain has just recently given up at least one of its Patriot missile batteries for Ukraine after considerable pressure from EU and NATO leaders.
Commenting on these developments, journalist Glenn Greenwald has made an important prediction and point…
By this time next year, there will be about 15 people still admitting they supported this bloodshed and debacle of the US blocking diplomatic solutions and instead fueling this futile war in Ukraine.
Everyone else will pretend they opposed it. US war propaganda is always false. https://t.co/VOycKd5QLH
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 15, 2024
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He wrote Wednesday, “By this time next year, there will be about 15 people still admitting they supported this bloodshed and debacle of the US blocking diplomatic solutions and instead fueling this futile war in Ukraine.”
“Everyone else will pretend they opposed it. US war propaganda is always false,” Greenwald concluded.
Indeed this is very similar with how the Iraq war turned out: “everyone” was on board, until they weren’t.
And those who had it horribly wrong all along suddenly fell silent and ‘forgot’ their past gatekeeping and rabid denunciations of the minority ‘other side’ whose ‘unpopular’ predictions proved accurate.
Never forget pic.twitter.com/9PdsEwNwLy
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) May 15, 2024
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…Behold the predictable pattern of US Empire in a long, slow decline.
* * *
A golden oldie…
This had to be one of the greatest Freudian slips in modern history pic.twitter.com/QslbvNMvG8
— An0maly (@LegendaryEnergy) May 15, 2024
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 21:20 - FBI And DHS Issue Warning On Foreign Terrorist Groups For June "Pride Month'
FBI And DHS Issue Warning On Foreign Terrorist Groups For June “Pride Month’
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,
The FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a public service announcement saying that foreign terrorist organizations like ISIS and related terrorist organizations could target certain events across the United States during “Pride Month”-related events in June.
“Organizations like ISIS may seek to exploit increased gatherings associated with the upcoming June 2024 Pride Month,” the announcement said. The two agencies said the terror threat is “compounded” by the “current heightened threat environment” in the United States.
The terrorist threats could come via the mail, in person, or online, the agencies said, without elaborating or providing specific details.
The bulletin noted that June 12, 2024, is the eighth anniversary of the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in which 49 people died. After the incident, pro-ISIS groups “praised this attack as one of the high-profile attacks in Western countries” and “supporters celebrated it,” the FBI and DHS said.
There was no evidence that the ISIS terrorist group was directly involved in plotting that shooting, the shooter, Omar Mateen, called 911 after the incident started and pledged allegiance to the group.
The agencies cited that in February 2023, an ISIS-related message board had included “rhetoric and rallied against the growth and promotion” of LGBT groups, the FBI said. “Messages also called for ISIS followers to conduct attacks on soft targets, though they weren’t specific” to those venues, it added.
Last June, three ISIS sympathizers tried to attack a parade in Austria, using vehicles and knives, according to the FBI and DHS.
The two agencies revealed “possible indicators” of what they called “potential threat activity,” which includes “unusual surveillance or interest in buildings, gatherings, or events” as well as “unusual or prolonged testing or probing of security measures at events or venues,” violent threats made online or in person, or photography of security related equipment or personnel.
Other FBI Warnings
In April, the FBI announced that it had arrested an 18-year-old Idaho man for allegedly plotting to carry out a terrorist attack targeting local churches. The man, identified in court documents as Alexander Mercurio, is accused of telling an FBI informant about his alleged plans and that he wanted to launch an attack last Sunday, April 7, but was thwarted by officials.
“The defendant allegedly pledged loyalty to ISIS and sought to attack people attending churches in Idaho, a truly horrific plan which was detected and thwarted by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force,” the FBI said in a statement issued at the time
It comes as FBI Director Chris Wray last month that foreign terrorist groups are again looking to attack the United States in an “increasingly concerning” way, adding that his agency is attempting to prevent an attack on U.S. soil via terrorist groups such as ISIS-K, a regional branch of ISIS mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“Foreign terrorists, including ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their adherents, have renewed calls for attacks against Jewish communities here in the United States and across the West in statements and propaganda,” Mr. Wray said at the event. He then made reference to a terrorist attack claimed by ISIS in Moscow, Russia, that left more than 140 people dead.
“The foreign terrorist threat and the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, like the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia Concert Hall a couple weeks ago, is now increasingly concerning. Oct. 7 and the conflict that’s followed will feed a pipeline of radicalization and mobilization for years to come,” he added.
In the meantime, Mr. Wray has been issuing warnings about the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), often warning this year that the regime is actively targeting U.S. systems. The CCP’s hacking programs are much larger than the U.S.’s cybersecurity structure.
“To put it simply, [the Chinese Communist Party] is throwing its whole government at undermining the security and economy of the rule-of-law world,” the FBI director said earlier this year.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 21:00 - France Declares State Of Emergency, Sends Troops, To Quell Deadly Riots In Pacific Territory
France Declares State Of Emergency, Sends Troops, To Quell Deadly Riots In Pacific Territory
French President Emmanuel Macron has declared a 12-day state of emergency starting Wednesday as a result of deadly riots which have gripped France’s Indo-Pacific territory of New Caledonia.
Four people died and many others were wounded in clashes with police Tuesday night, with reports of looting and buildings burned to the ground. The mayhem was sparked by a vote in France’s parliament, the National Assembly, which authorizes residents who’ve resided in New Caledonia for 10 years to cast ballots in provincial elections.
Car with flag of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front, AFP But the archipelago’s indigenous Kanak people have for decades chafed over what they see as a power grab favoring the descendants of colonizers who want to remain part of France. These ethnic tensions have simmered for many years, and have boiled over this week.
The French territory lies east of Australia and is ten time zones ahead of Paris, and it has about 270,000 people. The new state of emergency aims “to restore order in the shortest time possible” – according to a parliament statement.
There are widespread reports that French military troops have been deployed to put down the pro-independence riots, and a ban on TikTok has also reportedly been issued, but Paris officials have sought to downplay these draconian measures.
According to the Associated Press, “Asked if France could deploy the French military to the island, Thevenot said it’s not the army’s job to maintain order but that it is helping with the transport of police reinforcements.”
A montage view of the destruction and fires raging:
New Caledonia hit by deadly unrest as France approves local voting system change
Follow us on Rumble: https://t.co/Nuc9nUzlmx pic.twitter.com/3SwO7U95LK
— RT (@RT_com) May 15, 2024
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However, later the AFP news agency wrote that France has deployed army personnel at New Caledonia ports as well as the main airport.
New Caledonia’s president Louis Mapou has said that the deaths from the last 24 hours of unrest included three young indigenous Kanak people and a French gendarmerie police officer who had previously sustained wounds. Hundreds of protesters and police have been injured.
“The moblie gendarme seriously wounded by a bullet in New Caledonia has just died,” Darmanin announced. “Our thoughts are with his family, those close to him and his friends. Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies violence. Order will be restored.”
Paris has confirmed an extra 500 French police officers have been sent to the territory to help restore order.
The French Empire has deployed its military to put down insurgents in the Pacific island of New Caledonia, which is near Australia!
And France has also banned TikTok in that island to hide human rights violations.
Freedom, democracy and Western values on display: pic.twitter.com/0PViDdpt74
— S.L. Kanthan (@Kanthan2030) May 15, 2024
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All schools and public buildings in the capital of Noumea have remained shut. Hundreds of buildings have been damaged or have been set on fire.
Fresh reporting in The New York Times demonstrates how seriously France is taking it, with President Macron having canceled an overseas trip:
The French authorities have undertaken what they called a “massive” mobilization of security forces since violent protests broke out in New Caledonia this week over a proposed amendment to the French Constitution that would change local voting rules in the territory. A vote in France’s Parliament approving the amendment on Tuesday ignited riots overnight that left four people dead, including a law enforcement officer.
#UPDATE ⚡️🇫🇷 —Events are growing in New Caledonia.
At least 4 people were killed in the riot in New Caledonia. – LS pic.twitter.com/yEsNWZ2ONH
— UK R REPORT (@UKR_Report) May 15, 2024
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According to more:
The French government said that more than 1,800 security officers were already in the territory and that 500 reinforcements would arrive in the next 24 hours.
At a crisis meeting, Mr. Attal said that the army was being deployed to secure ports and the airport.
Following a crisis security meeting chaired by Macron on Wednesday, the French president’s office issued a statement expressing “strong emotion” of the deaths as a result of the riots.
The statement further said that “All violence is intolerable and will be subject to a relentless response” to ensure that order and peace are restored.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 20:40 - Al Gore Said The Ice-Caps Would Be Gone By 2014… Yes 2014!
Al Gore Said The Ice-Caps Would Be Gone By 2014… Yes 2014!
Authored by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,
The Press refuses to hold all of these failed Climate Change forecasts to task…
All they do is keep moving the date for our doom, all due to CO2.
In fact, the real crisis is the continued weakening of the magnetic field, which leads to pole shifts about every 43000 years – yes, that conforms to the ECM frequency.
The major shifts we discovered from the data scientists provided us came out to be 720,000 years.
Either way, they both seem to be lining up in our lifetime.
We are headed more into a pole shift than a climate change thanks to CO2.
The fact that they are targeting farmers when we should be stockpiling food now is either the most idiotic human decision in history or intentional with hopes of reducing the population.
If I keep forecasting every year that the stock market would crash by 90%, I think they would call me a nut-job and laugh after ten years of perpetual failed forecasts.
But with the climate, they just love to keep the fraud going.
After June 6th, they are whispering about restricting travel to reduce CO2 this summer.
They want to deprive you of your vacation this year as well.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 20:20 - Mississippi Passes Law Banning Trans-Friendly Bathroom Policies In Public Schools
Mississippi Passes Law Banning Trans-Friendly Bathroom Policies In Public Schools
A lot of Americans are asking how we so quickly got to a point where a man could simply declare he is the opposite sex, throw on a wig and a leotard, and then walk into a women’s restroom while being protected by government officials?
In some Democrat controlled states if you try to stop these people from doing this you could even be arrested or sued. Even worse, the gender ideology has now infiltrated public schools where young and vulnerable children are subject to trans exceptionalism.
How did this happen?
Through a combination of political support, NGO influence, ESG money, corporate promotion, media propaganda and astroturf activism the trans movement gained momentum too swiftly to be countered in a practical way. The gears of local and state government turn slowly and convincing public officials that the gender ideology problem was a reality took time. That is how a movement representing only 1% of the population was suddenly in a position to dictate the speech and behavior of the other 99% – They had the backing of every major institutional power structure.
With Big Tech companies censoring or banning almost anyone questioning the gender cult and government officials vying to pass laws making criticism of trans people a hate crime, the effort was almost victorious. A lot of people were afraid to speak up for fear of being “cancelled.” Then public schools, teacher’s unions and other organizations started pushing gender theory onto kids and this is when things changed. Mess with people’s children and now you have a war on your hands.
The idea of biological males being allowed to enter girls bathrooms in a school setting was perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back. This was a situation in which parent tax dollars were going towards the indoctrination of their own kids and putting those kids at risk from mentally unstable people. This is why homeschooling in the US in 2023 remained 45% higher than it was in 2019, even after covid mandates had been lifted. Public school enrollment has been falling nationwide. Americans don’t want their kids exposed to activist controlled environments.
Multiple red states are finally taking action to rectify the situation, much to the outrage of progressives. In particular, Utah and Mississippi have recently passed laws requiring trans people to use the bathroom that corresponds to their biological sex in public education centers (including in dorms and locker rooms). Mississippi State Governor Tate Reeves notes:
“It’s mind blowing that this is what Joe Biden’s America has come to…Having to pass common sense policies that protect women’s spaces was unimaginable just a few years ago. But here we are… we have to pass a law to protect women in bathrooms, sororities, locker rooms, dressing rooms, shower rooms, and more.”
Rob Hill, the Mississippi state director for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, called the new law an attempt to “strip basic rights from LGBTQ+ people in our state”:
“This bill does nothing but attempt to push us further apart at the expense of LGBTQ+ people, who deserve the freedom to be and to use bathrooms and locker rooms without the prying eyes of politicians peering over the stall…Shame on the governor and the MAGA agenda of hate.”
But it’s the prying eyes of mentally deranged weirdos that these laws are specifically designed to address. Why are leftists so insistent on trans-friendly bathroom laws? It’s not about bathroom convenience. They know that it is a way to get their foot in the door in terms of special legal protections and government affirmation for the trans ideology. In other words, if the government recognizes your delusion your delusion becomes real. Trans friendly bathrooms in public schools are also a short skip away from trans privileged speech laws like those seen in Europe and Canada.
The political left relies on the conservative and moderate sense of compromise to gain advantage. Give them and inch and they will always take a mile, until one day your kids wake up in a world where being “trans” is the only way to get the government to take your concerns seriously.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 20:00 - Thousands Of Children Prescribed Ivermectin Or Hydroxychloroquine For COVID: Study
Thousands Of Children Prescribed Ivermectin Or Hydroxychloroquine For COVID: Study
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
Doctors prescribed ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine more than 4,400 times to children with COVID-19 during periods of time when the drugs were not recommended against the illness by authorities, according to a new study.
Doctors issued 813 prescriptions of hydroxychloroquine to minors with COVID-19 after the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society on Sept. 12, 2020, advised against using hydroxychloroquine outside of a clinical trial, researchers found. The recommendation came after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revoked emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19.
Another 3,602 prescriptions of ivermectin for children with COVID-19 were issued after Feb. 5, 2021, when the Infectious Diseases Society of America released guidelines advising not to use ivermectin outside of a trial. The FDA later in 2021 urged people not to take ivermectin against COVID-19, although it has since been forced to rescind those warnings.
Dr. Julianne Burns, a clinical assistant professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, and other researchers examined records from Komodo Healthcare Map, a health care claims database that Komodo Health says covers 330 million patients. They looked for children who had acute COVID-19 from March 7, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2022.
After excluding some children, including those who did not have continuous insurance coverage for at least one year prior to diagnosis, the researchers found approximately 4,480 prescriptions of “nonrecommended medications.”
All but a few dozen of the prescriptions were for ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.
Both drugs are approved by the FDA, but not against COVID-19. Some agencies, groups, and doctors say the drugs should not be used against the illness, pointing in part to clinical trials that have found little or no evidence that they’re effective. Other organizations and doctors, though, say the drugs work against COVID-19, citing their own experience and other trials that found the drugs were beneficial. Off-label prescriptions are common in the United States.
Dr. Burns and the other researchers who conducted the new study, which was published by the American Academy of Pediatrics’ journal, said their findings showed “children were prescribed ineffective and potentially harmful medications for acute COVID-19 despite national clinical guidelines.”
The only data on effectiveness or lack thereof they cited was the FDA’s authorization revocation for hydroxychloroquine and the guidance from the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and Infectious Diseases Society of America. As for their safety description, they pointed to a federal advisory that found a 24-fold increase in ivermectin prescriptions and a five-fold increase during the same time of ivermectin-related calls to poison control centers.
Dr. Robert Apter, who was not involved in the study, highlighted how the study referred to potential issues but cited no evidence of actual issues from usage of the drugs against COVID-19.
“The fact that there was a report of increased calls to poison control centers about ivermectin doesn’t mean a thing. When something gets in the news and people are curious about it, they may call the poison control center,” Dr. Apter told The Epoch Times.
He said that the drugs “have a long history of safe use in children.”
Dr. Apter has prescribed treatments for thousands of COVID-19 patients and was one of the doctors who sued the FDA over its anti-ivermectin statements. He said he’s prescribed ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine for several teenagers who became so sick that their families became concerned. Those children improved quickly and there were no side effects, according to the doctor.
Dr. Burns did not respond to a request for comment.
The researchers said limitations to their study stemmed from their reliance on health care records, which can’t account for COVID-19 infections that were not reported to a health care provider and might contain mislabeled codes. Funding came from the Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute. No conflicts of interest were listed.
A previous study, examining claims data from Dec. 1, 2020, through March 31, 2021, identified 128 prescriptions of ivermectin for children for non-parasitic infections, with researchers assuming the prescriptions were for COVID-19. That paper drew from IQVIA’s health claims database. The researchers also examined data from patients with Medicare Advantage insurance and found some ivermectin prescriptions, though none for children.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 19:40 - These Are The Most Polluted Cities In The US
These Are The Most Polluted Cities In The US
According to the World Health Organization, air pollution is responsible for 7 million deaths annually, and could cost the global economy between $18–25 trillion by 2060 in annual welfare costs, or roughly 4–6% of world GDP.
And with predictions that 7 in 10 people will make their homes in urban centers by mid-century, cities are fast becoming one of the frontlines in the global effort to clear the air.
In this visualization, Visual Capitalist’s Chris Dickert uses 2024 data from the State of the Air report from the American Lung Association to show the most polluted cities in the United States.
What is Air Pollution?
Air pollution is a complex mixture of gases, particles, and liquid droplets and can have a variety of sources, including wildfires and cookstoves in rural areas, and road dust and diesel exhaust in cities.
There are a few kinds of air pollution that are especially bad for human health, including ozone and carbon monoxide, but here we’re concerned with fine particulate matter that is smaller than 2.5 microns, or PM2.5 for short.
The reason for the focus is because at that small size, particulate matter can penetrate the bloodstream and cause all manner of havoc, including cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and chronic pulmonary disease.
The American Lung Association has set an annual average guideline of 9 µg/m³ for PM2.5, however, the World Health Organization has set a much more stringent limit of 5 µg/m³.
The 21 Worst Polluted Cities in the U.S.
Here are the top 21 most polluted cities in the U.S., according to their annual average PM2.5 concentrations:
Rank City, State Annual average concentration, 2020-2022 (µg/m3) 1 Bakersfield, CA 18.8 2 Visalia, CA 18.4 3 Fresno, CA 17.5 4 Eugene, OR 14.7 5 Bay Area, CA 14.3 6 Los Angeles, CA 14.0 7 Sacramento, CA 13.8 8 Medford, OR 13.5 9 Pheonix, AZ 12.4 10 Fairbanks, AK 12.2 11 Indianapolis, IN 11.9 12 Yakima, WA 11.8 13 Detroit, MI 11.7 T14 Chico, CA 11.6 T14 Spokane, WA 11.6 15 Houston, TX 11.4 16 El Centro, CA 11.1 17 Reno, NV 11.0 18 Pittsburgh, PA 10.9 T19 Kansas City, KS 10.8 T19 Las Vegas, NV 10.8 Note: The American Lung Association uses Core Based Statistical Areas in its city and county rankings, which have been shortened here to the area’s principal city, or metro area in the case of the Bay Area, CA.
Six of the top seven cities are in California, and four in the state’s Central Valley, a 450-mile flat valley that runs parallel to the Pacific coast, and bordered by the Coast and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. As a result, when pollution from the big population centers on the coast is carried inland by the wind—cities #5 and #6 on the list—it tends to get trapped in the valley.
Bakersfield (#1), Visalia (#2), and Fresno (#3) are located at the drier and hotter southern end of the valley, which is worse for air quality. The top three local sources of PM2.5 emissions in 2023 were farms (20%), forest management / agricultural waste burning (20%), and road dust (14%).
Benefit to Economy
While the health impacts are generally well understood, less well known are the economic impacts.
Low air quality negatively affects worker productivity, increases absenteeism, and adds both direct and indirect health care costs. But the flip side of that equation is that improving air quality has measurable impacts to the wider economy. The EPA published a study that calculated the economic benefits of each metric ton of particulate matter that didn’t end up in the atmosphere, broken down by sector.
Sector Benefits per metric ton Residential Woodstoves $429,220 Refineries $333,938 Industrial Boilers $174,229 Oil and Natural Gas Transmission $125,227 Electricity Generating Units $124,319 Oil and Natural Gas $88,838 At the same time, the EPA recently updated a cost-benefit analysis of the Clean Air Act, the main piece of federal legislation governing air quality, and found that between 1990 and 2020 it cost the economy roughly $65 billion, but also provided $2 trillion in benefits.
Benefit to Business
But that’s at the macroeconomic level, so what about for individual businesses?
For one, employees like to breathe clean air and will choose to work somewhere else, given a choice. A 2022 Deloitte case study revealed that nearly 70% of highly-skilled workers said air quality was a significant factor in choosing which city to live and work in.
At the same time, air quality can impact employer-sponsored health care premiums, by reducing the overall health of the risk pool. And since insurance premiums averaged $7,590 per year in 2022 for a single employee, and rose to $21,931 for a family, that can add up fast.
Consumers are also putting their purchase decisions through a green lens, while ESG, triple-bottom-line, and impact investing are putting the environment front and center for many investors.
And if the carrot isn’t enough for some businesses, there is the stick. The EPA recently gave vehicle engine manufacturer Cummins nearly two billion reasons to help improve air quality, in a settlement the agency is calling “the largest civil penalty in the history of the Clean Air Act and the second largest environmental penalty ever.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 19:20 - US Suspends EcoHealth Funding Over Wuhan Lab Compliance
US Suspends EcoHealth Funding Over Wuhan Lab Compliance
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
U.S. officials have cut off funding to a nonprofit that funneled government money to a laboratory in China located in the same city where the first COVID-19 cases appeared.
Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, testifies before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in Washington, on May 1, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times) EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), the nonprofit, “did not adequately monitor” compliance from the Wuhan lab with the terms and conditions of a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Henrietta Brisbon, a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH’s parent agency, said in a May 15 letter to EcoHealth President Peter Daszak. Officials also found that the subaward to Wuhan lacked requirements that would make the grant in compliance with federal law and regulations.
“Given the issues regarding the management of EHA’s grant awards and subawards, I have determined that the immediate suspension of EHA is necessary to protect the public interest,” Ms. Brisbon added later.
EcoHealth, which is based in the United States, passed more than $1 million to the Wuhan lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, over the years to study bat coronaviruses.
In 2019, the experiments yielded a more virulent version of a bat virus in mice, according to an annual report for 2019 that was not conveyed to the U.S. government by EcoHealth until 2021.
U.S. officials then asked for laboratory notebooks and other files regarding the testing. EcoHealth officials said they did not have the files, but had forwarded the request to the Wuhan lab. Wuhan officials never provided the files, according to U.S. and EcoHealth officials.
EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said in a statement. “These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action. EcoHealth’s immediate funding suspension and future debarment is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer, but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide.”
EcoHealth & Dr. Daszak facilitated gain-of-function research in China without proper oversight & willingly violated multiple requirements of @NIH grants.
They should never again receive a single penny from the U.S. taxpayer.
Read Chairman @RepBradWenstrup‘s full statement👇 pic.twitter.com/Jw9VQVVBIf
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) May 15, 2024
Dr. Wenstrup, chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, released a report on May 1 recommending federal prosecutors investigate Mr. Daszak over violations of the grant terms.
Dr. Wenstrup, for instance, noted that EcoHealth blamed the delay in providing the annual report on being “locked out” of the NIH’s system, but that a forensic audit by the government uncovered no evidence supporting that claim.
Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the subcommittee, said in a statement that he welcomed the suspension of funding to EcoHealth.
“Every recipient of federal taxpayer funding has an obligation to meet the utmost standards of transparency and accountability to the American public,” he said. “EcoHealth Alliance’s failure to do so is a departure from the longstanding legacy of good faith partnerships between NIH and federal grantees to advance science and the public interest, which remains essential for the continued work of preventing and preparing for future threats to our nation’s public health.”
Mr. Daszak, who holds a doctorate in parasitic infectious diseases, told the subcommmittee in a recent hearing that “in all of our federally funded projects, we have maintained an open, transparent communication with agency staff” and “rapidly provided information critical to public health and agriculture.”
EcoHealth currently has three grants being funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, including a grant to experiment on bats with antibodies against the Nipah virus could be re-infected in lab experiments.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is suspending all funding to EcoHealth and proposing the nonprofit be debarred, or unable to receive funding for a period of time that could last years or even decades.
“The length of debarment, if ultimately imposed, will be based on the seriousness of the cause for debarment,” Ms. Brisbon said.
EcoHealth has 30 days to contest the findings from the HHS.
“EcoHealth Alliance is disappointed by HHS’ decision today and we will be contesting the proposed debarment,” a spokesperson for the organization told The Epoch Times in an email. “We disagree strongly with the decision and will present evidence to refute each of these allegations and to show that NIH’s continued support of EcoHealth Alliance is in the public interest.”
The HHS inspector general said previously that both NIH and EcoHealth officials failed to properly monitor experiments done under the grant.
The NIH, for example, did not make sure the annual report was submitted in a timely manner, the watchdog said.
EcoHealth, the watchdog added, should have submitted the report by the end of September 2019 but did not do so until August 2021.
The HHS previously debarred the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) from receiving U.S. taxpayer funds over its failure to provide the requested materials.
The debarment, announced in September 2023, is for 10 years.
“The NIH determined that WIV may have conducted an experiment yielding a level of viral activity which was greater than permitted under the terms of the grant,” Ms. Brisbon said in a letter to the lab’s director at the time.
The lab’s refusal to hand over notebooks and other materials means the determination is undisputed, she said. “As such,” she wrote, “there is risk that WIV not only previously violated, but is currently violating, and will continue to violate, protocols of the NIH on biosafety.”
Correct. But further accountability is needed. Both for EcoHealth and for EcoHealth’s enablers.
— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) May 15, 2024
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 19:00 - Tyson Foods CEO Unsure When Nation's Collapsing Beef Herd Will Reverse
Tyson Foods CEO Unsure When Nation’s Collapsing Beef Herd Will Reverse
Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King spoke at the BMO Global Farm to Market Conference in Toronto on Wednesday, expressing much uncertainty about when US ranchers will rebuild tight cattle herds meaningfully.
Reuters was the first to report King’s comments at BMO’s farm conference. He stated ranchers had been pressured in recent years to offload cattle due to high grain costs and drought, which, in return, sent the nation’s beef cattle herd plunging to the lowest in more than half a century.
King provided some encouraging news, citing slightly lower grain costs and improved grazing conditions in the Midwest as factors in increasing the US herd. However, he noted that a high-interest rate environment is a significant headwind.
All in all, King’s comments did not provide confidence that the nation’s beef cattle herd would reverse from seven-decade lows as ranches continue offloading cows to slaughterhouses. The latest figures from the US Department of Agriculture show that the nation’s cattle herd is 87.2 million head (as of Jan. 1), the lowest level since 1951. Data from USDA in the chart below only goes back to 1974.
Shrinking herds means fewer cows, as the latest slaughter price per 100 pounds is around $186, the highest ever and in breakout territory.
We have explained that ranches have been culling more cows for several years because of droughts, surging feed costs, and high interest rates.
- Dwindling US Cattle Herd Implies Supermarket Beef Prices May Rise Even More
- Hamburger Prices Might Continue To Rise As US Cattle Herd Shrinks
- US Cattle Prices Hit Nine-Year High As National Herd Drops To Half-Century Low
- US Beef Prices Hit Record High As Nation’s Cattle Herd Expected To Shrink Through 2025
This perfect storm has sent beef prices at the supermarket to record highs.
Lane Broadbent, president of KIS Futures Inc. in Oklahoma City, told Bloomberg earlier this year that herds aren’t expected to rebound before at least 2026.
We suspect retail prices will go higher until demand destruction is achieved. Seasonally, outdoor cookouts ignite an upswing in beef demand in the coming weeks.
Can the Fed just print more beef? Oh wait, no, but you know who can: Bill Gates.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 18:40 - Slovak PM Robert Fico Expected To Survive; UK Media Appears To Justify Assassination Attempt
Slovak PM Robert Fico Expected To Survive; UK Media Appears To Justify Assassination Attempt
Update(1840ET): Prime Minister Fico is said to be improving, following reports that he was in surgery due to several gunshot wounds from the Wednesday assassination attempt. Deputy Prime Minister Tomas Taraba has told the BBC he “is not in a life-threatening situation at this moment.”
“Fortunately, as far as I know, the operation went well – and I guess in the end he will survive,” the statement indicated.
Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak has told reporters in a briefing that “there is no doubt” that the attack was a politically motivated assassination attempt. “The inability to accept the will of some part of the public, which some group does not like, is the result that they have worked towards today,” he said in reference to Fico’s political opponents. A video is widely circulated of the detained suspect’s interrogation wherein the man, identified as Juraj Cintula, confesses to saying he “disagreed” with his government’s policies.
Western media coverage of the attempted killing has been interesting to say the least. Fico was alongside Viktor Orban a dissenter when it comes to the NATO line on Ukraine.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald has commented, for example, “Listen to this Sky News report on the shooting of Robert Fico. Not only do they come close to justifying it because he opposes aid to Ukraine, but they also casually imply that he’s being paid by the Kremlin. This casual accusation is so prevalent in the West, and toxic.” The Sky segment in question which calls Fico “very pro-Russian” and that it’s “not surprising” that the attack took place is below:
Unsurprisingly, Sky News has literally justified the assassination attempt on Slovakian PM Robert Fico. Despicable ghouls.
Reposting it, because the previous one has “mysteriously disappeared”. pic.twitter.com/JXPGJzgnTF
— Olga Bazova (@OlgaBazova) May 15, 2024
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Update(1220ET): The identity of the shooter has been revealed in national media, and video of the actual moment the shots range out and PM Fico went down has emerged on some social media platforms.
Several local media reports, citing visuals and witnesses at the scene, report that the man who shot the Slovak PM is a writer and activist named Juraj Cintula.
While a clear motive has yet to be established, Cintula is said to be part of the pro-West and socially liberal “Progressive Slovakia” party.
New: moment that Slovakia was shot pic.twitter.com/KRF6h18BQ8
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) May 15, 2024
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Statements have poured in from Western leaders: “Shocked and appalled by the shooting of Prime Minister Robert Fico. I wish him strength for a speedy recovery. My thoughts are with Robert Fico, his loved ones, and the people of Slovakia,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on X.
Photographs have emerged of the shooter being taken into custody. He also appears to be wounded or have suffered injury after being swiftly taken down by security…
The Shooter who attempted to Assassinate the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico earlier today has been Identified by Slovakian Media as a 71-Year-Old Poet and Member of the Pro-Western Progressive Party, Juraj Cintula from the Town of Levice. Cintula had previously been… pic.twitter.com/KebqzkD5NM
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 15, 2024
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And from Hungary’s Orban:
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Wednesday expressed “deep shock” over the “heinous attack against my friend” Slovakia’s premier Robert Fico, who was reportedly shot and hospitalised after a cabinet meeting.
“I was deeply shocked by the heinous attack against my friend, Prime Minister Robert Fico. We pray for his health and quick recovery! God bless him and his country!,” the nationalist fellow EU leader wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Russian media and others have pointed out that Fico’s most controversial stance concerned Ukraine and NATO funding. Sputnik has the below partial list of recent controversies centering on the Slovak PM:
- Fico earned NATO’s ire after vowing to block the delivery of weapons to Ukraine during his latest run for office. Fico has also expressed dissatisfaction with Bratislava’s defense pact with Washington, promising to review it.
- Fico has expressed fervent opposition to Ukraine’s membership in NATO, and said he believes Russia began its military operation as a result of neo-Nazis running rampant in Ukraine.
- Fico has warned that Western military assistance to Ukraine will only prolong the crisis and increase the number of victims, and has accused foreign forces of meddling in the conflict, which “could have been extinguished at the very beginning.”
- Fico believes anti-Russian sanctions have “negatively affected” the lives of ordinary Slovaks.
- Fico has been bashed by European legacy media as a left-wing populist analogue of Hungarian right-wing populist Viktor Orban, with outlets pulling out all the stops to accuse him of “democratic backsliding” and “flouting European norms,” including over his push to reform the criminal code.
- The Slovak PM has also made enemies with powerful European political and business interests, promising to launch an independent inquiry into the EU’s authoritarian pandemic-era policies.
* * *
Slovakia’s populist prime minister Robert Fico has been shot, according to breaking news reports, after which he was rushed to the hospital and appears to be alive according to early reports. But some reports have listed his condition as “very serious” and that he had to be airlifted.
According to emerging details in The Associated Press, Fico “was injured in a shooting and taken to hospital. The incident took place in the town of Handlova, some 150 kilometers northeast of the capital, according to the news television station TA3.”
Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico, file image Local authorities say that a suspect is in custody. The shooting happened in front of the House of Culture where a government meeting was taking place.
One eyewitness “saw the prime minister being lifted from the ground by security guards and loaded into a car and driven away.”
Several people were greeting Fico and the moment the shots rang out, after which the prime minister fell to the ground. The would-be assassin was then taken by police. No details have been released as to the extent of his injuries.
Unconfirmed video of the immediate aftermath:
🇸🇰 Details on the assassination attempt on Slovakian PM Robert Fico:
The shooter was hiding in the crowd that had gathered at the building where the Prime Minister was speaking. He fired from within the crowd, presumably 3-4 times.
He then tried to escape but was apprehended by… pic.twitter.com/jS3waHm9q0
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) May 15, 2024
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He has been outspoken against deepening Western involvement in the Ukraine war, for which he’s made many enemies and critics among Western allies, and of course within Ukraine itself.
For example, here’s how CNN last October described his ascendancy to prime minister and leader of the small NATO member state… “A party headed by a pro-Kremlin figure came out top after securing more votes than expected in an election in Slovakia, official results show, in what could pose a challenge to NATO and EU unity on Ukraine.”
However, at this early point a motive is unknown.
A national outlet in Slovakia has reported the following unconfirmed details of his condition (machine translation):
According to the available information, which immediately began to spread, Prime Minister Robert Fico was hit by 2-3 wounds, allegedly in the limb, chest and abdomen. It is said that up to 4-5 shots should have been fired. According to information from the PLUS 7 DAYS weekly , someone from the crowd called out “Robo, come here” and the shooting started.
“It’s a gunshot wound to the abdomen and arm. He’s currently out of danger. They’re going to operate on him,” our well-informed source told us at 3:30 p.m.
Some conflicting reports say he may have been shot in the head.
Meanwhile, there is growing speculation that this could be connected to Fico’s contrarian stance on Ukraine against the hawks in NATO, where he has only one other prominent ally…
Double your security, Mr. Prime Minister. They’re out for blood. https://t.co/nf26dtqoaq
— Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) May 15, 2024
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developing…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/15/2024 – 18:40
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