Month: March 2023

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has made the audacious claim that opponents of his proposed expansion to the city’s ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) are members of the far right.

The Labour mayor made the claim during a People’s Question Time event on Thursday evening. He sparked a furious backlash among members of the audience for attempting to discredit those campaigning against his plans to roll out the ULEZ scheme, which sees users of the most polluting vehicles charged £12.50 (€14.12) a day for driving in the city, across the Greater London Authority boundary.

“What I find unacceptable though is some of those who have got legitimate objections joining hands with some of those outside who are part of a far-right group,” he told the hall, his words being met by resounding jeers and shouts of “Liar” from the audience at Ealing Town Hall.

“Let’s be frank, let’s call a spade a spade. Some of those outside are part of the far right. Some are Covid deniers. Some are vaccine-deniers. And some are Tories,” Khan added.

“This is a really nasty accusation about many ordinary decent residents who just oppose his policy on ULEZ expansion,” said former Labour MP for Vauxhall Kate Hoey. “So easy when he clearly can’t answer legitimate worries to label everyone as far right.”

“We are not the far right. Normal people are not the far right,” opponents of the scheme told local media.

Khan’s remarks were preceded by questions from local residents. One Londoner said to the mayor: “I want to ask you if you think it’s fair and democratic to be pushing a measure through, which was not in your manifesto and which clearly when people were consulted they said they didn’t want,” for which she received rapturous applause from the audience.

The audience member was referring to a public consultation on the extension plans last year, a consultation Khan insisted was genuine and would factor into his decision, which showed 80 percent of people in the affected area opposed the extension of the ULEZ boundary.

Another woman asked: “What are you going to do for people like me who can’t afford a ULEZ-compliant car and don’t fulfill any of the scrappage scheme criteria?”

She’s not alone in her predicament. The move is estimated to impact a further 200,000 motorists of non-compliant vehicles who will incur a daily levy for crossing into the ultra-low emissions zone, a policy decision the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) claims will “badly hit” drivers to “fill the coffers of Transport for London.” The head of roads policy for vehicle service company RAC, Nicholas Lyes, described it as “a hammer blow for desperate drivers and businesses already struggling with crippling fuel costs.”

Many MPs of Khan’s own Labour party are also concerned about the scheme’s expansion, including Seema Malhotra, Jon Cruddas, Siobhain McDonagh, and Abena Oppong-Asare, all of whom hold Greater London constituencies.

Malhotra, who currently serves as Labour’s shadow business and consumers minister, recently told broadcaster LBC: “Whilst I share the goal of reducing pollution and increasing air quality, I am very concerned about the economic impact the current roll-out plans will have on residents and small businesses.”

The scheme is currently expected to be expanded from Aug. 29.

https://rmx.news/uk/londons-labour-mayor-says-people-who-disagree-with-his-ulez-expansion-are-far-right/

A migrant is said to have tried to burn down a local government building after staff reportedly refused to give him cash handouts.

Abdulrahman Mohammed Seni, originally from Chad, is said to have tried to set fire to the children’s services building at Leeds County Council using a lighter and an aerosol can.

The migrant is said to have been motivated into the arson attack after staff at the council turned down demands for cash handouts.

According to a report by the Yorkshire Evening Post, Seni is said to have become irate after being refused the cash in early August, smashing the windows of the council building before leaving.

He is said to have returned the next day, causing damage to a photocopier within the building.

Seni’s arson attempt is said to have taken place around one week later after that, with the migrant being described as starting a blaze in one of the building’s upstairs offices, prompting a full evacuation of the premises to take place.

Though the fire failed to spread, Seni’s violent escapades are said to have shaken many of the council workers, a number of whom still refuse to return to the office as a result of the incidents.

Sentencing the migrant, David Kelly described him as caring very little about the welfare of the council staff, saying that the foreign national had expressed ” absolutely no regret” for his actions.

“Basically, it’s all about you and how people have let you down, saying you were justified in your actions,” the judge said, claiming that the migrant has only focused on what state benefits he will be able to avail of once free from prison.

Judge Kelly sentenced the man to just 28 months — which will likely not be spent entirely behind bars, as most criminals in Britain given non-life sentences are entitled to serve a substantial portion of their terms on licence in the community.

The arson attempt by the Chad national is only one of many recent crimes committed by migrants in Britain.

For example, there has been a significant uproar over the murder conviction of Ernesto Elliott, a migrant from Jamaica, as he was set to be deported alongside 22 others illegally in Britain before a leftist campaign prompted a human rights review of the man’s situation which saw him pulled from his removal flight at the last minute.

Fred Alan Medforth

UK: Chilling video captures moments before criminal who was saved from deportation following high-profile campaign by Labour and luvvies murders man in horrific knife fight
https://medforth.biz/uk-chilli….ng-video-captures-mo

UK: Chilling video captures moments before criminal who was saved from deportation following high-profile campaign by Labour and luvvies murders man in horrific knife fight – Allah's Willing Executioners

8:22 PM February 27, 2023

Having been rescued from being thrown out of the country by left-wing campaigners, the Jamaican proceeded to get involved in a broad-daylight knife fight with another man, Nathaniel Eyewu-Ago.

The fight, involving multiple bladed weapons, is said to have lasted as long as eight minutes, finally ending when Elliott stabbed Eyewu-Ago through the heart.

The Jamaican has now been sentenced to 26 years in prison, a term the Daily Mail has predicted will cost the British taxpayer around £1.3 million (~$1.5 million) in terms of his upkeep, assuming costs do not dramatically increase over the coming two decades.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/03/03/migrant-tried-to-burn-down-govt-building-after-being-denied-cash-handouts/

By Andrea Widburg

It emerged last week that Roald Dahl’s publisher, Puffin, gave Dahl’s children’s books to a company that edits them to confirm to woke norms. Facing outrage, Puffin promised to publish a paper version of the original works but will generally opt for the bowdlerization. While it was awful to learn what happened to Dahl, it’s a good thing. A little research has revealed the company behind the changes and the person who was probably (although not certainly) responsible. If you pay attention to what she has to say, you will get a masterclass in the leftist values coming from Disney and other children’s content creators.

Caroline Downey, at National Review, dug around and discovered that the hundreds of changes that neutered Dahl’s work came from a British publishers’ consulting group called Inclusive Minds. The “About page” is as awful as you’d imagine it would be in a DEI-obsessed way.

The organization claims that it works with “book creators” to connect them to authentic “inclusion Ambassadors” who will “share nuances related to their lived experience.” No more author’s imagination. Everything must go by the lived experience of the person who works at Inclusive minds. And yes, “[o]ccasionally publishers approach us to consult Inclusion Ambassadors when looking to reprint older titles.” Here’s how that worked when it came to Roald Dahl’s acerbic writing:

Whilst this is not the main focus for the Ambassadors (and we believe better authenticity is achieved through input at development stages), we do think those with lived experience can provide valuable input when it comes to reviewing language that can be damaging and perpetuate harmful stereotypes. In all our work with marginalised young people, the very real negative impact and damage caused to self-worth and mental health from biased, stereotypical and inauthentic representation is a recurring theme.

According to Downing, the presiding genius behind the bastardization of Dahl’s works is almost certainly a woman named Jo Ross-Barrett (“they/them”). Ross-Barrett’s bio is impressive, and I mean that in the worst way possible:

Jo Ross-Barrett (they/them) is a writer and editor with a passion for championing inclusive content and policies. They have a Distinction-grade MSc in Publishing and have had work published in Bi-ble (Volume 1), an anthology about bisexuality and related identities, and AZE Journal, an online magazine for aromantic-spectrum, asexual-spectrum and agender people. Jo is an autistic, non-binary, asexual, polyamorous relationship anarchist. They work with Inclusive Minds to help authors and publishers make their books more authentically representative of marginalised groups, and have provided workshops and talks at A Place at the Table 2020 and the UK Asexuality Conference 2019. They were a shadow judge for the CILIP Kate Greenaway and Carnegie Awards, and received commendations for the quality of their feedback. They are also the producer of What The Trans!?, a news and interviews podcast made by and for transgender and non-binary people.

In other words, a troubled person who is narcissistically obsessed with her sexual identity was put in charge of editing one of the world’s most brilliant children’s authors to bring his writing into line with her worldview. This is Ross-Barrett in action:

Did you see what I see? Ross-Barrett, who is clearly bright, is also a total Marxist who embraces every leftist cultural trope in existence: transgenderism, intersectionality, anti-capitalism, racial hierarchies, deviant or mentally ill sexuality, etc. She believes books that portray the dominant culture (white, heterosexual, striving for accomplishment, able-bodied, Christian) are unrealistic and prejudiced. In other words, Ross-Barrett wishes to turn our incredibly successful Western model (traditional nuclear families, racial color blindness, Judeo-Christian values, capitalism) on its head—and she understands that literature (especially for children) is the way to go.

I urge you to stick with Ross-Barrett’s presentation because it perfectly sums up what’s coming out of Disney (as well as other mainstream children’s media) regarding, not just LGBTQ+++ sexuality, but also race, “able-ism,” Western history, etc. Listening to Ross-Barrett is, as the creators of the video claim, a masterclass in understanding the leftists’ relentless battle to control our children’s values.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/03/the_woman_behind_bastardizing_roald_dahls_writing_explicitly_states_her_values_and_goalsand_you_wont_like_them.html

The Supreme Court today said that it will set up a bench to hear the plea against the hijab ban in schools in Karnataka after the Holi vacation. The lawyer appearing on behalf of the Shariat committee said that the matter required an urgent hearing as the Pre University exams in the state will begin on the 9th of March. Chief Justice DY Chandrachud recognized the urgency of the matter but said that it should not have been brought up on the last day of work before Holi Vacation.

It is to be noted that the matter was brought before the court in January after the Karnataka High Court upheld the Government Order banning the wearing of hijab in government schools and colleges.

The lawyer representing the Shariat committee said ” The exams will begin in five days”, to which the CJI replied, “why are you coming on the last day?”

The lawyer further added that many girls had shifted from government colleges to private ones just so they could go to college wearing hijabs. But exams happen in government colleges and girls are barred from wearing hijabs there.

The SC refused to grant the wishes of the counsel for an urgent hearing, and gave the next date of hearing for March 17, after the Holi vacation.

On the counsel’s pleading that the Hijab girls have missed one year of college and might miss another year if they are not allowed to wear hijab inside the exam halls, and what would they do now as the exams are starting in 5 days, the CJI said that he cannot answer that question.

As per reports, on February 22, advocate Advocate Shadan Farasat had mentioned the matter for seeking interim directions to allow the hijab-wearing Muslim students to attend the PUC exams by wearing their religious headscarves.

The Karnataka government has made it clear that no hijabs will be allowed inside exam centres. The Karnataka hijab controversy had broken in 2021 when a few Muslim girls in Udupi suddenly started wearing hijabs inside the college in defiance of the uniform dress code. The college and the government had clear orders that all students have to comply with the uniform dress code and no religious garments will be allowed. The matter soon snowballed into a debate, then a political controversy.

Eventually, the Taliban, which has restricted girls in Afghanistan even from basic education, also started supporting the hijab girls.

Earlier, the High Court of Karnataka upheld the government order stating that all students will have to comply by the uniform dress code inside educational institutions.

The hijab girls, who are just a few among over a hundred Muslim girls in that college in Udupi, had stated that the hijab is more important to them than their education and had preferred to miss their exams last year too.

https://www.opindia.com/2023/03/hijab-karnataka-govt-cji-supreme-court-islamists-girls-uniform-exams/

Between February 11^th and March 1^st, 2013 – ten years ago last week – Pope Benedict XVI did something of ongoing historical significance. He made a remarkable statement known as the Declaratio, supposedly signifying the abdication of his Papacy. He read it in Latin, which alone is binding, to a group of Cardinals assembled before him. It contained invalidating linguistic errors, oddities, and ambiguities – purposely so, according to Italian author Andrea Cionci – that went unnoticed or were blatantly ignored by the cardinals and by the worldwide press. An illegitimate conclave was swiftly summoned to replace the Pope so vehemently opposed – by the curia, globalists, and press – with anti-Pope Bergoglio (Francis).

All of this was mainly ignored until Benedict XVI’s death two months ago, on the last day of 2022. And it remains largely ignored (despite growing awareness about this massive issue in recent years). But its significance remains – and must be reckoned with at some point.

What should we make of the fact that Benedict XVI subsequently stated that he composed his Declaratio in Latin so that he wouldn’t make any errors? Might his text, peppered with errors, have had a specifically crafted meaning that was not readily apparent?

A very good number of particular details, Cionci argues, do happen to line up in support of this view.  But even if he is mistaken in some way with his interpretation of Benedict XVI’s intent, the text of the Declaratio itself suffices to establish that it simply is not a properly manifested abdication.

No doubt this sounds bold or fanciful, especially to those first hearing about this matter. After all, if this theory had any traction, one might naturally wonder, why hasn’t it come to the forefront?  That is a good question (as are so many other ‘why this’ or ‘why that’ questions that spring to mind concerning Benedict XVI’s act and subsequent communication over the following nine years). Everyone would be crying foul, it would seem. But this falsely presumes a genuinely widespread concern for the truth – an illusion exploded by the past few “pandemic” years.

One might also rightly wonder: why is there such little curiosity among the relevant authorities and the press about the abnormally high mortality figures (known as “excess deaths” in populations overall, compared to steady historical expectations) occurring in so many nations following the lockdowns and vaccine mandates? Only callousness and mendacity can explain why the relentless hype about any death – those tenuously attributable to the “pandemic” – suddenly evaporated while much greater and highly unusual spikes in mortality have been emerging in the wake of mandated responses to the “pandemic”.

Whatever Benedict XVI’s precise mindset, the more closely one looks at his Declaratio, the more evident – indeed, obvious – it becomes (just from the Document itself) that Benedict XVI did not renounce the Papacy.  This might seem somewhat arcane, but he did not renounce the munus – the office or charge or investiture of the Papacy itself.  Failing to do so means he retained the Papacy.

He did relinquish the ministerium – the practical exercise of power emanating from the office. And he specified that this would take effect 17 days later, on February 28^th, at the 20^th hour. That’s a bit odd. The first thing to note is that a valid, properly manifested abdication of the Papal office occurs instantaneously. It cannot be deferred to some later date, so this stipulation would seem to invalidate even a genuine attempt to abdicate.

Cionci recently presented another fascinating detail that seems to fit with several other remarkable pieces of the puzzle. There has long been such a thing in Italy and the Papal States known as “Roman time”, which does not correspond with our current International Time system. Enumerating the hours of a day in that ancient system begins at sunset. So according to Roman time, the 20^th hour of February 28^th corresponds to 1p.m – 2p.m. on March 1^st  – precisely the hour after which the Dean of Cardinals convened a (illegitimate) conclave.

Is that just a coincidence? Benedict XVI would have known that they – his enemies bent on ousting him – would do this at that specific time, because that is the hour when the daily Bulletin of the Holy See is read (between noon and 1p.m.).

This, Cionci argues, explains why Benedict XVI delayed his “resignation”: to signal, even if understood only in retrospect, that it (the renunciation of the practical exercise of power but not his Papal authority) was not something that would kick in of his own volition the night of February 28^th, but rather something that would be imposed once the Cardinals announced plans to elect a Pope during the noon hour of the next day, even though Benedict XVI still retained the munus or Papal office.

This seems to support the notion that Benedict XVI, on account of his effective incapacitation due to rank insubordination, designed his declaration in such a way that if the Cardinals seized the opening it created, he, as Pope, would be exiling himself into an impeded see – a specific condition accounted for in Canon law; Cionci maintains he did this with resignation.

This interpretation is admittedly a lot to absorb – and from it, of course, further challenging questions arise.  I get why some would feel abandoned as a result of Benedict XVI’s decision, and decry the turmoil that has ensued. But might he have thought this was the best way to ultimately expose the apostasy and rot within? This must at least be considered a possibility. It is also worth keeping in mind that if Benedict XVI had been killed or had validly resigned, then the election of Bergoglio would have been valid; perhaps he wanted to avoid such an outcome.

In any event, what is actually on display now for all to see? For one thing, with the massive clerical abuse crisis – chiefly one of pederasty enabled and covered up by members of the hierarchy – still in the rear view mirror, we currently have a “pope” who protects and promotes those of the same ilk.

And the media yawns.  Curious, that.

So why is it that even prelates alarmed by Bergoglio’s subversive actions haven’t seemed all that eager to inquire into the legitimacy of Francis’ papacy itself, given the manifest anomalies of Benedict XVI’s resignation? That is difficult to answer.

The recently (and, following successful surgery, somewhat suspiciously?) deceased Australian Cardinal George Pell, for instance, was critical of Francis and deemed his agenda (specifically an ongoing series of gatherings being called a “Synod on Synodality”) a “toxic nightmare”. But as far as I know, he never pursued the most fundamental canonical issue: is Francis actually a validly elected Pope?

Another example would be Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Nuncio to the United States. He has been splendidly outspoken on many pressing matters of the day – such as the existence of a “Deep Church” akin to the “Deep State”.  For all of this we can be grateful. He too has been quite critical of Bergoglio, and has approached the question of what led to Benedict XVI’s resignation, even implying hostile forces on the American Left may have precipitated it to some extent.

But Viganò had also implied (prior to Benedict’s death) that neither Benedict nor Francis is the pope, and has shied away from definitely weighing in on, or calling for an investigation into, the status of Benedict XVI in light of his curious Declaratio.

Surely Viganò is aware of the relevant canonical questions, and the arguments circulating regarding the anti-Papacy of Bergoglio. Indeed, Andrea Cionci publicly appealed to him to address this critical issue – but received no reply. Cionci was also met with silence when he engaged the German Cardinal Müller, who has also been critical of the wrecking ball Bergoglio has been wielding.

Why would such prominent figures ignore such a sincere, well-founded request to explore such a serious matter?  I don’t know the answer. Could it be that they consider it trivial, outlandish or otherwise beneath them? Or might they have other motivations or interests? I cannot say.

Just because figures quite well placed to act have not acted does not mean that resolution is no longer required. If it is true that Francis is an anti-Pope (as, in my view, Canon Law plainly indicates), then it will eventually come to light somehow, sometime. Unfortunately things may well get even uglier before that time.

It is unclear where things are headed in the near term, but we can expect more of the same.  On the geo-political front, anyone should be concerned about how Bergoglio genuflects to the “New World Order”, the Chinese Communist Party and Islam.  Inside the Church, more egregiously unwarranted attacks upon the Traditional Latin Mass are on the horizon, as is the aforementioned travesty vaguely termed the “Synod on Synodality”, whatever that means. Suffice it to say that it contains an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable: the Gospel of Christ with the anti-gospel of the alphabet mafia.

It has come to this under Bergoglio: Traditional Latin Masses are in the crosshairs, while sacrilegious alphabet mafia “friendly” masses get a pass. Does this not epitomize the “signs of the times”?

Just as there have been multiple anti-popes over the centuries, there have also been occasions in which the Church was entirely without a Pope for an extended period of time. We are in just such a time, so in the meantime, and as ever, holding fast to hope is good counsel.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-bergoglian-anti-papacy-ten-years-and-counting/