Month: April 2023
200 young migrants occupy abandoned school in Paris
A group of unaccompanied migrant youths have taken possession of a disused school in the 16th arrondissement of Paris with the help of a left-wing charitable organization.
An estimated 150 to 200 migrant teenagers, many of whom have been sleeping rough, took their opportunity to occupy the premises late on Tuesday evening at approximately 9.30 p.m. with assistance from volunteers of the Utopia 56 charity.
The new occupants claimed they have been left with no choice but to take matters into their own hands due to the lack of services available for new arrivals; they also said they are frequently harassed by Parisian authorities when they attempt to set up temporary camps in the capital.
“The goal is to stay until we are offered a solution. We came here two years ago,” one individual told French media, who insisted that authorities should offer social assistance to the group who claim to be minors. It is unknown whether age verification checks have been conducted on them.
The migrants are also campaigning for a presumption of minority to be declared in French law, according to Le Parisien newspaper, effectively meaning that new arrivals to France who claim to be minors are treated as such and that they are offered the necessary social support reserved for children, until a judge rules otherwise.
“I hope that we will be taken care of,” said Alpha Oumar, who claims to be 16 and arrived in France in December. He criticized the authorities for asking new arrivals living on the streets to move on in a bid to prevent the shanty towns experienced in the French capital at the peak of the 2015 migrant crisis. “The police forbid us to stay, we have to change corners,” he said. “When I arrived in France, I did not expect that.”
The Utopia 56 organization revealed on social media the police were called to the disused school on Tuesday evening but soon left, allowing the group to sleep the night on the premises.
“The first night went well, away from the violence and loneliness of the street,” the group tweeted, calling for authorities to find a more permanent solution.
“Despite our repeated requests, the prefecture of Ile-de-France as well as the Secretary of State for Child Protection, Charlotte Caubel, continually refuse to establish a consultation process with those on the ground in order to put in place lasting and constructive solutions,” the group added in a press release.
The number of migrants sleeping rough in the French capital has grown steadily in recent years as Europe experiences another migratory wave.
In a government circular acquired by Le Monde newspaper this week, authorities are trying to find new solutions to tackle the growing problem as Paris attempts to clean up its image ahead of hosting two major sporting events next year, namely the Rugby World Cup and next summer’s Olympics.
One initiative being proposed by the French interior ministry is to incentivize migrants to relocate from the capital to rural communities with the promise of accommodation. The scheme, which will initially see up to 500 homeless migrants in Paris redistributed to 10 rural locations, will apply to all, including those who have been ordered to leave France, with the promise that those subject to a deportation order will have their cases re-examined.
https://rmx.news/france/200-young-migrants-occupy-abandoned-school-in-paris/
Germany’s Leftist Government Spurns Tools to Tackle Islamist Threats
Germany’s parliament has rejected two legislative proposals aimed at clamping down on political Islam in Germany. The sponsors of the proposed bills argued that Islamism is subversive and must be opposed because it poses a growing threat to liberal democracy and social cohesion. Lawmakers representing Germany’s left-wing coalition government countered that measures to curb Islamism would unfairly single out Muslims.
The legislative setback comes just six months after Germany’s government dissolved a high-profile expert working group on political Islam — opting instead to fight “Islamophobia.”
A number of German analysts (who preferred to remain anonymous) told FWI that the government’s refusal to confront Islamism stems from its obsession with woke ideology (which posits that Muslims are an oppressed group and need protection). They asserted that this stance and the policies that result from it represent a security threat not just for Germany but also for the rest of Europe.
Germany’s violent and non-violent Islamism problem is colossal. In its latest annual report, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV) estimated that the country is home to at least 30,000 hardcore Islamists, although the actual number probably is much higher.
The BfV report listed more than 20 Islamist groups active in Germany including: al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Islamic State, Milli Görüs, the Muslim Brotherhood, Tablighi Jamaat, and the Taliban. The groups have ties to — and are believed to receive funding from — governments and Islamist organizations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
BfV warned that violent and non-violent Islamists are seeking “the partial or complete abolition of the free democratic basic order” in Germany. They are “particularly opposed to the principles of popular sovereignty enshrined in the Basic Law [German Constitution], the separation of state and religion, freedom of expression and general equality.”
Despite the burgeoning threat, the German parliament (Bundestag) on March 16 rejected two legislative proposals aimed at giving German officials more power to tackle the Islamist threat. The first proposal (Antrag) — “Disclosing and Preventing the Financing of Political Islamism in Germany” (Finanzierung des politischen Islamismus in Deutschland offenlegen und unterbinden) — was submitted by the opposition center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The second proposal — “Drying Up the Financing of Islamism” (Finanzierung des Islamismus austrocknen) — was presented by Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The CDU/CSU proposal called on the federal government to require mosques and Islamic associations in Germany to disclose any foreign sources of financing to German tax authorities. It also called for expanding the BfV’s powers to investigate financial and political meddling by foreign governments with respect to the practice of Islam in Germany, and to allow it to coordinate more closely with Germany’s Financial Intelligence Unit, an official agency tasked with investigating money laundering and terrorist financing.
The CDU/CSU proposal further asked the government to hold talks with countries such as Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey with the aim of “terminating financial support for organizations of political Islamism from these states.” It also called on the government to ensure that the Muslim community in Germany “is financed as independently from abroad as possible” which would “significantly reduce” foreign influences.
The AfD proposal called for the government to “prevent the financing of Islamist organizations from tax revenue and by means of foreign donations” and to “create a directory in which all information about the sources of funding for the existing mosque communities is collected.” It further called on the government to submit an annual report to the Bundestag on the financing of Islamist organizations in Germany.
At public Bundestag hearings held in September 2022, expert witnesses overwhelmingly agreed on the need for more effective government action to counter Islamism in Germany. The head of the Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Münster, Mouhanad Khorchide, warned that Islamists are attempting “a creeping takeover of power” by “exploiting or abusing the existing legal system to undermine the rule of law and its free and democratic basic values.”
Another expert witness, Guido Steinberg of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said that although Germany has had an Islamism problem “since the 1990s,” it has “gained importance” in recent years due to the mass immigration of Muslims “from countries where Sunni Islamism is widespread.” He added that Germany’s political establishment “has reacted with only isolated and sometimes ineffective measures” that focus primarily on violent Islamists. Steinberg noted that Germany currently lacks legal measures to prevent foreign governments from funding Islamists in the country.
Hans-Jakob Schindler of the Berlin-based Counter Extremism Project told the Bundestag that the dearth of information about the financing of Islamist groups in Germany is partly due to “legal gaps and hurdles, existing limitations on the powers of the security authorities, as well as a lack of transparency requirements” for mosques and Islamic associations. He said that the legislative proposals could lead to “major improvements” in filling the knowledge gap (Erkenntnislücke) about the financing of Islamism in Germany.
In a parliamentary debate before the two proposals were rejected, Bundestag Member Peggy Schierenbeck of the center-left Social Democrats branded the proposed bills as “prejudice against people of other faiths” and claimed that if they were to be approved, “people from Muslim civil society would fall victim to generalization and stigmatization.”
Bundestag Member Lamya Kaddor of the Greens declared that “Islamism is nothing more than doing politics with religion.” Kaddor, a first-generation German of Syrian origin known for her efforts to expand the teaching of Islam in German schools, said the sponsors of the proposals “want to determine who is a ‘good’ Muslim and who is a ‘bad’ Muslim — ‘good’ means ‘secular,’ they want Muslims without Islam.” She insisted that anyone who “problematizes Islamism must also problematize Islamophobia.”
German political observers consulted by FWI all said that the current government’s commitment to woke ideology would prevent any meaningful action against Islamism in Germany. One analyst noted that the German government is obsessed with “semantics” and that it would “block any bill that does not conform to woke vocabulary.” Another remarked that the government does not want to “tackle the issue” of Islamism because “Islamists are seen first as Muslims in need of protection” and that “under no circumstances do they want to be seen as hostile to Islam.”
One of the proposals’ key sponsors, CDU Bundestag Member Christoph de Vries, told FWI that he was “very disappointed” with the government’s “unwillingness to unmask and prevent the foreign financing of radical mosques in Germany.” He said the government has been “trivializing and neglecting Islamism” ever since it assumed office in December 2021.
De Vries also accused German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser of duplicity. “The whole hypocrisy of Mrs. Faeser is shown in the fact that she wore a ‘One Love’ armband for human rights and tolerance at the German World Cup opening game in Qatar, but when it comes to the money flows to Germany from Qatar, the world’s largest donor to the Muslim Brotherhood, she does nothing at all.”
In September 2022, Faeser discontinued the so-called Expert Group on Political Islamism (Expertenkreis Politischer Islamismus). The group, which consisted of eleven people from a variety of academic disciplines, had been established by the previous government to identify measures to counter the spread of Islamism in Germany.
De Vries said that Faeser’s decision to dissolve the group of experts represents “the culmination of a policy of looking the other way and ignoring Islamism as a phenomenon that endangers democracy.” He described the move as “a slap in the face to all those who work against religious extremism and for our democracy.”
The Austrian government financed Islamist associations with Corona aid money
During the Corona pandemic, the state spent vast sums of aid money, and not in a purposeful way, as the Court of Auditors criticised only on Tuesday. Now it turns out that even associations with extremist backgrounds, of which the Documentation Centre Political Islam warns, benefited from subsidies.
Non-profit organisations (NPOs) were also extensively supplied with Corona funds during the pandemic. For this purpose, the government set up its own fund – the NPO Support Fund. Grants flowed from it to “non-profit organisations from all walks of life”, it says on the homepage, “from the social sector to culture to sport, voluntary fire brigades or legally recognised religious communities”.
Around five million euros of this went to Islamic associations in the past three years, some of which, however, clearly belong to political Islam, as the Freedom Party now criticises. “This is a scandal and a real slap in the face of the Austrians,” says Freedom Party Secretary General Christian Hafenecker.
As an example, the Freedom Party points to the “Turkish-Islamic Union for Cultural and Social Cooperation in Austria”, or ATIB for short. “Even the Documentation Centre for Political Islam of the Federal Government attests in a basic report that this organisation has close ties to the state religious authority of Turkey and to Erdogan’s party AKP”, Hafenecker underlines. “It is therefore simply inconceivable that an essential arm of political Islam is being promoted with Corona aid money at taxpayer expense.”
Hafenecker believes that it was already foreseeable at the beginning of the pandemic that there would be funding for Islamist movements. In November 2020, Freedom Party (FPÖ) constitutional spokesperson Susanne Fürst introduced a motion in the National Council that aimed to stop funding for political Islam through the NPO Fund. “This Freedom Party motion was rejected at the time by the ÖVP, the Greens and the SPÖ. This was an oath of revelation that these parties deliberately wanted to make organisations of political Islam eligible for funding through the NPO Fund,” says Hafenecker.
These subsidies are available on the website of the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Public Service and Sport, which is legally obliged to publish all disbursements exceeding 1,500 euros per calendar year.
As a review of the funded associations shows, numerous funds also were given to associations of the “Islamic Federation”, which is considered the Austrian section of the Turkish Milli-Görüş movement. According to the Doku-Stelle Politischer Islam, the view of the “order of the West” as a “system to be overcome” is essential for the ideology. And: “Another relevant phenomenon is the effort to establish a parallel education system, which is supposed to serve as a shield against influences that are interpreted as un-Islamic. There are also links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
https://exxpress.at/fpoe-kritisiert-fuen-millionen-euro-corona-gelder-an-islamistische-vereine/
Pakistan: Human rights fact sheet exposes appalling condition of minorities, from textbooks to streets, non-Muslims face discrimination everywhere
According to a Human Rights Observer 2023 fact sheet in Pakistan, during the year 2022, the amount of anti-minority religious content in curricula and textbooks grew, and several enduring and new issues with the educational system surfaced in the Islamic nation. The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) issued the annual fact sheet on March 30.
The report addressed five significant issues that have an impact on religious minorities, including prejudice in the educational system, the prevalence of forced conversions to Islam, the misuse of blasphemy laws, the creation of the National Commission for Minorities, and jail remissions for minorities’ prisoners.
‘Blasphemy laws’ claiming dozens of victims
As per the information divulged in the fact sheet, 171 persons have been charged with violating blasphemy laws, with Punjab and Sindh accounting for 65% and 19%, respectively.
Karachi recorded the highest occurrence, which was then followed by Chiniot, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Dera Ghazi Khan, Nankana Sahib, Lahore, and Sheikhupura. The majority of the victims (88) were Muslims, followed by 75 Ahmadis, four Christians, and two Hindus.
However, the religious identity of the two accused could not be ascertained. Four individuals were executed extrajudicially in 2022, two in Punjab, and one each in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bringing the total number of such killings from 1987-2022 to 88.
From 1987 and 2022, at least 2,120 people had been charged with blasphemy. In Punjab, the abuse of blasphemy laws has increased by more than 75% overall over the previous 36 years. Despite their modest percentage (3.52%) in Pakistan’s population, 52 per cent of the accused belonged to minority communities.
‘Girls and women from minority communities are being forced to convert to Islam’
The fact sheet examined 124 documented instances of girls and women from minority faiths being forced to change their religious beliefs. Of these, 81 were Hindu, 42 were Christian, and one was Sikh. Merely 12 per cent of the victims were adults, while 28 per cent of the victims’ ages were unknown.
Twenty-three% of the victims were girls under the age of 14 and 36% were females between the ages of 14 and 18. In 2022, 65% of incidents of forced conversion were reported in Sindh, followed by 33% in Punjab and 0.8% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, respectively.
Even though this concession has been provided to Muslim convicts since 1978, the fact sheet revealed that no progress had been achieved in giving remission to minority prisoners throughout 2022.
The National Commission for Minorities (NCM), is yet to be established. In March 2023, a poor and imbalanced draught was reportedly presented to parliament, which might lead to more delays and the eventual foundation of the NCM.
Peter Jacob, the executive director at CSJ and editor of the human rights observer, commented that the annual fact sheet contained recommendations to address the problems as well as concrete steps for the realisation and protection of minorities rights. He urged the government to take stock of these problems and uphold the human rights of minorities.
Notably, this is not the first time Pakistan has come under fire for its egregious treatment and appalling condition of religious minorities living in the country. Another similar revelation surfaced earlier this month, exposing the terrible lies Pakistan uses in its textbooks to instil its hate of India and Hindus in the next generation.
According to the report, history textbooks taught in Pakistani schools for grades 8 and 9 are full of material that is anti-India and anti-Hindu, including veiled references to Mahatma Gandhi, accusations, blame, and claims of being ‘Muslim nationalists.’
The textbooks provided to young minds present pupils with an incorrect and antagonistic image of their neighbouring country from the very beginning. They are written and produced by academics of the country in line with its national curriculum.
In 2021, a BBC documentary exposed the blatant anti-Hindu bias in Pakistani textbooks. In the video, several Pakistani Hindus drew attention to the ubiquitous and pervasive anti-Hindu propaganda promoted in the school textbooks and describe the humiliation they suffered at the hands of their friends, coworkers, and classmates just because they were Hindus.
The video additionally demonstrated how anti-Hindu bigotry has become commonplace in Pakistani government-approved school textbooks.
France: A ‘Field of Ruins’
Paris, France. March 23, 8 p.m. A demonstration took place; as usual now, riotsfollowed the demonstration and swept through the center of the city, then to other cities. Cars were burned, shop windows smashed, garbage dumpsters set on fire. A garbage collectors’ strike began two weeks earlier; nearly ten thousand tons of garbage, still strewn on the sidewalks, almost completely block some streets. The proliferation of rats threatens disease. Oil refineries are shut down; gas stations are running dry. More demonstrations took place March 28 — and more riots.
France, once again, is on the verge of chaos.
The subject of the discontent is the adoption of a law reforming the pension systemin a minimal way: the legal retirement age in France has been set at 62 since 2010; the law raises it two years, to 64.
As soon as the law was presented by the government, all the trade unions called for strikes. Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), a union with communist roots, said that a compromise with the authorities is “not an option“. Leaders of the leftist railway workers’ union, vowedto bring the French economy to its knees. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of Rebellious France, the main left-wing party in France, told his followers: “Block everything you can”. Members of the rightist National Rally were essentially on the same position as Rebellious France: a year ago, they campaigned for the retirement age to be set at 60.
Neither members of the government nor economists on television dare to speak the truth: The French pension system is collapsing. The reform just adopted will not be enough to save it; just allow it to survive a bit longer.
The system, created in 1945, is essentially a system of redistribution: mandatory contributions deducted from the salaries of today’s employees are used to pay the pensions of today’s retirees; today’s employees rely on future contributions that will be deducted from the salaries of people employed at the time they retire. It seemed, when it was created, that the system could work: the ratio then was five employees per retiree. Life expectancy in France then was 65 years (68 for women, 63 for men). The retirement age was set at 60. On average, pensions had to be paid to retirees for only five years.
If, however, the ratio of employees per retiree decreased and life expectancy increased, the contributions paid by the employees would have to increase until reaching unbearable amounts. After the post-war baby boom, the number of children per woman fell, and the ratio of employees per retiree fell as well: today there are only 1.7 employees per retiree. Life expectancy in France has increased to nearly 82.5 years (85.3 for women, 79.4 for men). On average, pensions must be paid to retirees for more than 20 years.
The system has been bankrupt for years, but its bankruptcy is growing more costly.
The French government is in a situation where it had to “do something.” Raising taxes to partially offset the deficit of the pension system is effectively impossible: France already has one of the highest tax burdens in the developed world (45.4 percent of GDP); at the same time, the country’s economic competitiveness is crumbling. French public expenditures are already the highest in the developed world and increasing. Increasing taxes would mean further crushing the taxpayers and indebting the country. Reducing public spending would imply cuts to welfare spending (a third of public spending), but a large part of the benefits paid go to immigrant and non-integrated populations in the “no-go zones.” The cuts would trigger the risk of even more violent uprisings.
The budgets of successive French governments have been in deficit every yearsince 1970; the country’s debt has reached alarming levels. The French debt to GDP ratio reached 100% in December 2019. It now stands at 113.7%.
The French pension system is not the only system collapsing. The country is facing a much larger crisis.
The French health insurance system, also based on mandatory contributions deducted from salaries, also is in terrible shape. The decline in the ratio of workers to retirees and the increase in life expectancy similarly cause public healthcare expenditures to increase faster than the sum of contributions, and the system is in increasing deficit. In 2000, a socialist government created a state medical benefit, which finances “free” medical care for illegal immigrants in France – a benefit further skyrocketing the deficit.
Food prices in 2022, meanwhile, increased 14.5%. The French standard of living is deteriorating.
In the face of a crime wave, insecurity is sharply rising. The number of assaults increased by 33% percent between January 2017 and January 2022. Last year, the number of rapes reached an alarming figure, 84,500, an increase of 11% compared to 2021.
According to surveys, the French population is the world’s most pessimistic. A poll published in March 2021 indicated that only 9% of French people thought the economic situation had a chance of improving (the figure for Mexico, where the situation is far more difficult than in France, was 46%; for India, 62%).
The crisis that France is going through is also a political one. In May 2017, Emmanuel Macron was elected president — not due to the enthusiasm of voters for his program, but due to their rejecting his opponent, the National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen, whom Macron had described as an incarnation of fascism and as a dangerous extremist. Macron had formed a party by gathering around him the main political leaders of the center left and center right, “The Republic on the Move“. Having thus destroyed the center-left and center-right parties that had ruled the country for decades, he easily won election by an overwhelming majority.
Before 2017, he had declared that workers in a factory about to close were “illiterate“, and spoke of the difference between “those who succeed and those who are nothing”. Even after becoming president, he showed contempt for the poor: “Some are concerned about having end-of-the-month problems”, he said, but hetakes care of problems concerning “the end of the world“. In November 2018, he was confronted with a revolt — the “yellow vests” (gilets jaunes) — largely motivated by the anger that many French people felt towards him and rising fuel costs. Portraits of Macron were burned in the streets; effigies of Macron were hanged and trampled on.
Macron responded to the uprising with fierce police repression. Police threw sting-ball grenades into crowds and fired rubber bullets at close range. Hundreds of demonstrators were wounded, dozens mutilated with the loss of an eye, hand or foot. The uprising, which lasted for months, was followed by a long public transportation strike along, of course, with riots.
Calm returned only in March 2020 with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic — and with extraordinarily strict lockdown rules by the government. The French were forced to stay in their homes for weeks and only allowed out for one hour a day, at a maximum distance of half a mile. They also had to have on them a document indicating their address and the time at which they left their house to present to the police, if asked.
When vaccines became available, freedom of movement was gradually restored, but only for vaccinated people, who at all times had to carry a vaccination passportto enter shops, restaurants and all administrative services. These restrictions were lifted only a few weeks before the presidential election.
In May 2022, Macron was re-elected by the voters’ rejection of Marine Le Pen. The abstention rate was unusually high.
In the parliamentary elections that followed the presidential election, the party created by Macron (now called Renaissance) obtained only a thin majority, making it harder to pass laws.
Macron evidently saw that modifying the pension system was an imperative. Rather than trying to convince his opponents, he decided to use Article 49.3 of the French constitution, which allows a law to be passed without being debated, by asking parliament to vote for or against the government. The pension law, though controversial, was passed, but with disorder sure to follow.
The anger that had been silenced by lockdowns and police repression two years earlier resurfaced. Polls show that 68% of the French disapprove of the reform.
Macron has reacted the same way as when he faced the uprising of the yellow vests. On March 22, he said that the street will not dictate his political agenda, and again resorted to fierce police repression.
He seems to fear that if he gives in and abandons his latest reform, he will be extremely weakened. Carrying out any other reforms during the rest of his presidency would be impossible. Clearly, he does not intend to give in. He also seems to understand that without reform to extend the retirement age by two years, France could find itself in insolvency fairly fast.
Macron likely also fears that if he decides to dissolve the National Assembly and call for new parliamentary elections, he would not again win a majority giving him more freedom of action. The center-left and center-right parties are dead. Neither the Rebellious France Party nor the National Rally Party would be able gather enough votes to constitute an alternative majority. The political situation is blocked.
Commentators with access to Macron say he hopes the crackdown will be enough to push protesters into giving up. That response, however, is not what happened in 2020. And this time, there is no pandemic to confine the population.
France seems deadlocked, the possibilities of unblocking it nowhere in sight.
Vincent Trémollet de Villers, opinion page editor of the daily Le Figaro, on March 23 described France today as a “field of ruins”, adding:
“A modest reform based on an implacable demographic observation has tipped France into an existential crisis in which everything is wavering… A much deeper malaise is rising to the surface. That of a country haunted by its decline”.
“Have we hit rock bottom?” asked journalist Franz-Olivier Giesbert. “No, not yet.”
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19549/france-field-of-ruins
The defeat of Sanna Marin: Finns were tired of the rule of leftist fanatics
Despite successfully leading the country through a very difficult time of pandemic and war, culminating in the historic decision to join NATO, the majority of Finns rejected Sanna Marin. Why did she fail when things were going so well? Because the Finns have grown tired of the rule of leftist fanatics.
The conservative National Coalition Party, which won the elections in Finland, and the right-wing populist Finns Party, which came in second, may co-govern Finland, although this is by no means certain.
The Finns Party gained support in the polls by opposing immigration, calling for the country not to take on debt in the face of an impending recession, but mainly by criticizing the EU’s plans to introduce carbon neutrality. They campaigned on the economy needing stabilization after the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, meaning there was no room now for costly changes of this kind.
Of course, such a right-wing coalition is one of two options, as in the democratic theater, the National Coalition Party could form a coalition with the left-wing party of the previous prime minister.
However, the results of the election in Finland shed an interesting light on the mood we are seeing in many countries across Europe, not only in its eastern part.
Finland is yet another country after Sweden and Italy where the majority of society rejected leftist rule. It is interesting because the Social Democrats fulfilled their promises to increase spending on education and various state initiatives. There was also no end to the admiration for how well Sanna Marin handled the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, she lost.
Marin was a favorite of the European left and performed well in the media, but she proved to be more of a left-wing activist than a pragmatic politician, and that’s what brought her down.
State debt, increased spending, and inflation proved too dangerous for the Finns, and the majority concluded that the celebrity prime minister did not control public finances in the face of an incoming recession.
https://rmx.news/poland/the-defeat-of-sanna-marin-finns-were-tired-of-the-rule-of-leftist-fanatics/
EPIC! President Trump is Selling Historic “NOT GUILTY” T-Shirts
Stormy Daniels Ordered to Pay Trump Another $122,000 in Legal Expenses over Failed Defamation Suit
Former President Donald J. Trump secured another legal victory over Stormy Daniels on Tuesday, with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reportedly ordering the pornographic actress to cover an additional $121,972.56 of his legal fees incurred during her failed defamation lawsuit.
While the former President was in New York City to be arrested over 34 counts of falsifying business records over his alleged hush payments to Stormy Daniels, Mr. Trump won another legal victory over the porn star on the other side of the country.
According to a post on social media from Trump attorney, Harmeet K. Dhillon, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles ruled that Daniels must reimburse Mr. Trump another $121,972.56 in legal expenses for a failed defamation lawsuit she brought against then-President Trump in 2018.
“Under the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA), Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code $ 27.009(a)(1), attorneys’ fees in the amount of $121,972.56 are awarded in favor of appellee Donald J. Trump and against appellant Stephanie Clifford. See 9th Cir. R. 39-1.9. This order amends the court’s mandate,” the court ruled.
The latest ruling means that, when added to previous rulings in Trump’s favour in terms of expenses, which totalled around $500,000, Daniels will owe approximately $600,000 to Trump in legal fees, with the former president reportedly also owing her around $54,000 in legal expenses.
Responding to the latest ruling, the son of the former president, Donald Trump Jr. wrote on social media: “BREAKING!!! the 9th Circuit just awarded Trump $121,962.56 in attorney fees from Stormy Daniels. Order just released. This in addition to the roughly $500k she already owes him.
“LOL glad she’s out there saying her T-shirt sales are booming she’ll be able to afford to pay Trump!”
Ahead of the decision, Stormy Daniels took to her social media account to make lewd comments on the arrest of Mr Trump, writing: “Y’all keep saying ‘cum dumpster’ like it’s a bad thing. It’s definitely more fun being under my sexy man instead of under arrest.”
The ruling that Daniels must pay Trump the additional $121,972.56 is from a separate case than the criminal proceedings launched by far-left New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg over the $130,000 paid out in alleged hush money to Daniels from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
The defamation case against Trump was launched by Daniels in 2018 after then-President Trump dismissed a composite sketch of a man the porn actress claimed had tried to intimidate her about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump as a “total con job”.
Her then-attorney, Michael Avenatti — who was later jailed for extortion — said at the time: “By calling the incident a ‘con job,’ Mr. Trump’s statement would be understood to state that Ms. Clifford was fabricating the crime and the existence of the assailant, both of which are prohibited under New York law, as well as the law of numerous other state.”
However, the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed last year. After being awarded nearly 300,000 from Daniels in March of last year, Mr. Trump once again denied ever having an affair with Daniels and said in a statement: “The lawsuit was a purely political stunt that never should have been started, or allowed to happen, and I am pleased that my lawyers were able to bring it to a successful conclusion after the court fully rejected her appeal.
“Now all I have to do is wait for all of the money she owes me.”
The former president added: “P.S. The Fake News probably won’t report this story!”
Raising the Alternet
By M.B. Mathews
The internet has been a staple of the American diet for many decades, growing geometrically the more information is fed into it.
It has become a behemoth and it is where much of American life is transacted. News, commerce, education, and all other facets of human life are now in some way fed through the internet. We have come to depend on it to such a degree that if a person’s YouTube or Twitter account is cancelled through censorship, the victim of the censorship is financially and reputationally harmed, often irreparably. This should not be, especially since the traditional internet censors the living hell out of conservative websites and information.
We need something else. An Alternet, let’s call it.
In recent years, an Alternet has sprung up. Companies not dependent upon Google (which owns YouTube) now advertise that they are patriotic, God-loving, Christian or conservative. Some companies banned by Twitter or YouTube are going elsewhere and being successful doing it. Rumble and Truth Social are two Alternet sites anyone can use in place of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Dan Bongino, part owner of Rumble, recommends it because of all the ghosting being done in traditional search engines such as Google. Even the Brave browser and DuckDuckGo are now showing signs of ghosting conservative sites and information.
Bongino also recommends paralleleconomy.com, a place to go instead of the woke PayPal, for example, to avoid the wokeness being exhibited by liberal-owned and woke-addled companies such as Google. We conservatives have alternatives now. We don’t have to be censored and locked into the search engines and websites that abhor everything we stand for.
Rod Dreher, who wrote “The Benedict Option,” opines that Christians and conservatives stop using woke companies. I agree. Let’s strike out into the Alternet to find non-woke alternatives. Form a parallel economy and one’s own banks wherever possible. Create your own schools. Build your own stores and houses. Patronize businesses who advertise as Christian, conservative, or patriotic. Such businesses as Patriot Mobile, Henry Repeating Arms and many others can starve the beast that is the wokenet. Get cracking on the Alternet. Create a life line for conservatives who want to do unfettered business and information online.
We can do this.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/04/raising_the_alternet.html