Month: December 2023

A prominent trans activist based in Philadelphia was arrested on charges of raping two minors, at least one of whom was under the age of 13. Kendall Stephens, 37, had recently been working in a leadership position at a children’s home for vulnerable youth.

Stephens was arrested on December 18 after charges were filed against him by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Authorities apprehended him after he allegedly assaulted two boys aged 14 and 9, according to NBC10 Philadelphia.

Stephens is reportedly accused of sexually abusing the 9-year-old at least three times in 2022, beginning when the child was 8. Stephens also allegedly gave the 14-year-old gifts to “keep him quiet” after raping him. He also allegedly told one of the victims that he would be locked up if he told anyone about the abuse.

Eight counts related to the sexual abuse of children have been laid against him, including indecent assault against a person less than 13 years old, rape, corruption of minors, unlawful contact with minor sexual offenses, and endangering the welfare of children as a parent or guardian. The incidents are said to have occurred in September of this year.

According to a court summary obtained by Reduxx, Stephens has been recorded as a “female.”

At the time of his arrest, Stephens was known for being a prominent trans activist in Philadelphia, and maintained positions of power within the city’s top LGBT organizations.

Over the past three years, Stephens had been involved with Bethany Children’s Home in Berks County, where he sat on the Board of Directors. According to the foster home’s website, Stephens, who resided at Bethany as a teen, was chosen for the role due to his experience as a “civil rights activist,” and because he was pursuing a degree in Public Health, Social Work, Communication and Activism from Temple University.

In addition to being in a leadership role among at-risk youth, Stephens has been influential in local politics.

Beginning in 2022, he worked for the District Attorney Office’s (DAO) LGBTQ Advisory Board and the Philadelphia Police Department’s LGBTQIA+ Liaison Committee. In January of last year, the DAO issued a press release announcing the committee, created in response to a “nationwide increase in reported violence toward transgender women of color.”

The LGBTQIA+ Advisory Board was designed to work with “criminal justice partners to address shortcomings that historically have made queer Philadelphians both more vulnerable to violence and to over-policing and prosecution.”

Stephens first came to the attention of the DAO in August of 2020, when, while studying at Temple University, he claimed to have been the victim of a major hate crime. Stephens said he was mobbed inside of his home without provocation by three individuals. According to Stephens, his attackers told him “you are a man, you deserve this” as they beat him.

Shortly after, Stephens set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for medical and other expenses which ultimately racked up more than $35,000 in donations.

As news of the assault on Stephens spread, District Attorney Larry Krasner took a personal interest in the incident, publicly expressing his support for Stephens shortly after securing a hate crime conviction against Tymesha Wearing.

“Nearly three years ago, Kendall Stephens endured a frightening crime that was intended to demean and silence her. Instead, Ms. Stephens continues to speak out loudly on behalf of other queer victims of violent crime – all while pursuing graduate studies,” DA Krasner said in February. “This criminal case is now closed, but Ms. Stephens will never stop fighting for the respect, support, and protections that queer people deserve in order to live safely, freely, and joyfully.”

The trans activist was also mentioned favorably during a June 2021 session of Pennsylvania’s Congress by Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, who was speaking in support of a proposal to enshrine gender identity in law as a protected characteristic via the Equality Act.

“I rise today in recognition of Pride month and to celebrate the rich history of LGBTQ activism in the greater Philadelphia area,” Scanlon said. “Today, activism within Philadelphia’s LGBTQ community continues through… people like my friend, Kendall Stephens, who’s pushing for Pennsylvania to update it’s hate crime statute to finally include LGBTQ people as a protected class.”

I was thrilled to join my @LGBTEqCaucus colleagues on the floor this week to celebrate #Pride

It was an honor to shed light on the Philadelphia region's rich LGBTQ history and activism — including more recent efforts from leaders like @AmberHikes and @PhillyKendall. pic.twitter.com/usn0pez1DY

— Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (@RepMGS) June 25, 2021

In April, Stephens announced on his Instagram that he had been given the Diamond Award, which he described as “the highest recognition a Temple student can receive.” In his post, he quotes Temple University’s description of the award as being “reserved for those who have demonstrated superior leadership, academic achievement, service to the University, and impact on a community (local, regional, or global).”

The photo of the award was shared by Stephens just one week after he attempted to publicly shame Temple University leaders for refusing his application to serve as the Undergraduate Ceremony Commencement Speaker.

“I NEVER had a A FIGHTING chance. No one on the committee that chose the student speaker was Black, Brown, or trans-identified. I was passed over due to my intersecting marginalized identities!!,” Stephens wrote. “People of color who are also trans will always be dismissed and discredited unless we have a board of trustees and top administration that reflects the diversity of our community. SHAME ON TEMPLE!!!!”

Sieh dir diesen Beitrag auf Instagram an

Ein Beitrag geteilt von Kendall Stephens (@philly_kendall)

Stephens appears to have supported prison abolition, as evidenced by a video shared in June by Philly Trans March, where he can be seen speaking in public with a megaphone. In the video, Stephens argues that “people are dying at an accelerated rate,” and that politicians are not “supporting and protecting all of the people who are LGBTQ+ identified.”

In the surrounding area, a hand-written list of demands can be seen. “Free all incarcerated trans people,” reads one, and another, “abolish the police.”

Additional demands include the full decriminalization of the sex industry, “comprehensive sex ed” in schools, and an executive order establishing Pennsylvania as a “sanctuary state,” where minors can be given puberty-halting drugs.

Multiple news outlets have reported on Stephens’ arrest by referring to him as a “woman” and using feminine pronouns.

https://reduxx.info/prominent-trans-activist-arrested-charged-with-sexually-assaulting-two-minors-recorded-as-female/

Who could have done such a thing? Might it be someone who thinks that those who believe in the divinity of Christ are “unbelievers” (Qur’an 5:17, 5:72), and “when you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks” (Qur’an 47:4)?

Belgium: Mary and Joseph beheaded, sheep taken and donkey damaged in nativity scene – https://t.co/RUXrq684VQ

— Robert Spencer (@jihadwatchRS) December 20, 2023

A 39-year-old man was charged with rape and sexual harassment in Tours on Wednesday, the 20th of December 2023. The offences reported by nine girls were allegedly committed between 2017 and 2018 while the teacher was teaching at a Koranic school in the Sanitas district.

A report from the department’s education authority in mid-October revealed a series of previously concealed allegations.

According to La Nouvelle République, 39-year-old Ab-Bacar A. was charged and remanded in custody on Wednesday the 20th of December 2023 for rapes and sexual assaults that he allegedly committed in 2017 against girls who were between 8 and 11 years old at the time of the offences. There are said to be nine plaintiffs.

The affair, which at the time was handled behind the closed doors of an Islamic association in Tours without causing a stir, only attracted late interest in a man who used to be a teacher of Arabic language and Quranic studies and taught at a “madrassa” in the Sanitas district of Tours.

In this Koranic teaching centre, Ab-Bacar A. allegedly inflicted finger penetrations, among other things, on two female plaintiffs during visits to the toilet.

Ab-Bacar A. arrived at the prison on Wednesday, the 20th of December 2023, and denied the allegations. Before the magistrate, he denied, among other things, “any intention to harass them” and was “shocked” by the accusations “made against me”.

INFO NR. Tours : soupçons de viols dans une école coranique (lanouvellerepublique.fr)

After two days and nights of difficult trilogue negotiations, the European institutions came to a preliminary agreement on the five remaining legislative chapters of the Migration and Asylum Pact, the EU’s flagship migration management framework that has been in the works for years.

Brussels’ establishment hails the deal as a just and balanced compromise, but conservative lawmakers criticized the agreement saying that it will hardly put an end to unrestrained mass migration to Europe.

The five tracks agreed upon on Wednesday include new screening and asylum procedures that will allow member states to more effectively identify and turn back economic migrants who do not qualify for international protection.

Furthermore, invoking force majeure will allow frontline countries to bypass certain restrictions (such as maximum detention periods) and speed up deportations when encountering a sudden influx of migrants, as well as receive further funds to construct protective infrastructures at the external borders.

At the same time, the ‘mandatory solidarity mechanism’—forcing countries to choose between accepting migrants or paying hefty sums into a common fund—remains part of the package, while the redistributions’ pre-agreed upper limits would essentially be scrapped in crisis situations.

While saying the agreement was a step in the right direction, conservative MEP Nicolaus Fest (ID) commented that it “will hardly change anything” with regard to unrestrained mass migration. In a statement sent to The European Conservative, Fest stressed:

There is no agreement to consistently return illegal migrants. Illegal migration continues to be seen [by Brussels] as a natural phenomenon that must be countered with ‘management’ and redistribution– the redistribution of migrants and money within Europe. And neither are the pull factors reduced nor are the countries of origin being held responsible.

BREAKING:

The EU has reached a political agreement on the Pact on Migration and Asylum.

It will introduce permanent and mandatory migrant relocation quotas for all EU states (except Denmark)

The plan is to adopt it as law before the EU election in June pic.twitter.com/GiEETcriTe

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 20, 2023

“Today is truly a historic day,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said at the follow-up press conference on Wednesday morning. Metsola said delivering on “possibly the most important legislative package of this mandate” was “a huge success for the constructive pro-European center.” 

By “pro-European center,” Metsola meant the center-right EPP, the social democrat S&D, and the liberal Renew, the three parties that together hold a majority in Brussels and are mostly responsible for this breakthrough.

Those outside this center coalition—the Greens and The Left on one hand, and the sovereigntist ECR and ID on the other—seem to be equally disappointed in the outcome. The leftists think the agreed rules would not protect asylum seekers enough, while the Right sees the New Pact as an instrument to force them to accept migrants into their countries.

However, the outcome of the negotiations—between the parliamentary rapporteurs, the Council’s Spanish presidency, and representatives of the Commission—is still just a preliminary agreement that needs to be put to vote again both in the Strasbourg plenary and in the European Council.

“Beyond fair share”

While the Pact will not have a problem passing in the plenary (since the above-mentioned three parties are already on board), the Council—or even a single member state—might still delay or block the implementation by denying unanimous consent.

Two of the five tracks will be particularly hard to get all 27 member states aboard. Both the asylum and migration management regulation (AMMR) and the crisis management (or force majeure) regulation contain elements of the proposed solidarity mechanism that would enable the Commission to impose compulsory migrant redistribution on EU countries.

Under normal circumstances, the ‘solidarity pool’ of annual migrant relocations remains capped at 30,000 asylum-seekers annually for the whole bloc, distributed to all member states based on population size. The initially planned “contribution” of €20,000 per migrant from those who are unwilling to accept their share remains unchanged as well.

What’s different—on request of the Council—is that the individual decisions of member states on whether to accept migrant reallocations or pay up will not be made public, “but we still want to make sure that the European Parliament is informed,” MEP Tomas Tobé, the EPP’s rapporteur noted, adding that this question will be further addressed during the finetuning in the following months.

The crisis management regulation, however, will change the solidarity mechanism as well. And given the constant migratory pressure Italy and Spain experience (particularly in Lampedusa and the Canary Islands), force majeure will probably be invoked more often than not.

“If there is not enough response in the solidarity pool in order to cover all the needs [of the frontline state in crisis], then member states will be requested by the Commission to pledge additional solidarity measures,” MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D), the rapporteur of the crisis management regulation explained.

“The priority will be mandatory relocation programs,” Aguilar stressed, adding that “the Commission will make sure that member states go beyond their so-called fair share” of allocated migrants.

Veto incoming

Because of the solidarity mechanism, the first high-level endorsement of the Migration Pact during June’s EU Council Summit was prevented by Poland and Hungary, as both countries regarded the option of financial contribution as ‘blackmail’ and vowed not to implement the package if it gets adopted through bypassing their veto. 

With Poland’s conservative government out of the picture, only Budapest is expected to stand against the Pact in the Council. But as other countries are preparing to circumvent PM Orbán’s veto on the Ukraine funds in early February as a last resort, the Migration Pact could also be implemented in a similarly undemocratic manner.

Nonetheless, the Hungarian position on the Migration Pact remains clear, and Budapest will continue to oppose it, Hungarian MEP Balázs Hidvéghi told The European Conservative. As the lawmaker explained:

The EU needs a fundamentally new approach, which is based on the strong protection of external borders and a system where asylum claims are decided outside the territory of the European Union. Any other system would incentivize illegal migration towards Europe and it is, therefore, unacceptable. Hungary will not accept the relocation of illegal migrants into its territory.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/eu-agreement-on-migration-will-still-force-member-states-to-either-take-migrants-or-pay/

by Giulio Meotti

The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah in the Dutch city of Enschede took a strange turn, after the mayor refused to be seen near the Israeli ambassador. The Enschede synagogue had invited mayor Roelof Bleker to the Hanukkah celebration and reserved a seat for Bleker next to the Israeli ambassador, Modi Ephraim. But a few hours earlier, the synagogue received a phone call from Bleker with some preconditions. “The mayor did not want to sit next to the ambassador and did not want to shake his hand.”

Enschede’s small Jewish community – 45 Jews in total – was already frustrated with Bleker, who rejected their requests for greater security and surveillance after October 7, despite a wave of anti-Semitic attacks across the country.

But what is better than Hanukkah without Israelis in Europe from which Jews are disappearing to celebrate multiculturalism? When there are no longer even 45 Jews in Enschede, will they call Hamas to light the Hanukkah candles?

Perhaps Europe can invite the Arab residents of Gaza to resettle there?

Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, was also celebrated in Neukölln, the Berlin neighborhood where 40 to 50 percent of school-age children are Muslim and also known as “the Ottoman principality”. Everything seemed normal, if it weren’t for the massive police protection. It is Rabbi Jeremy Borovitz and his kippah who make the evening abnormal. Borovitz lives in Neukölln. There are easier places for a rabbi. Yet he had never wanted to move since he arrived from New York five years ago. He always proudly wore the kippah on the streets of the neighborhood even at the cost of being insulted and spat on. Whatever had happened the day before, Borovitz would walk out the front door the next morning with his kippah on his head.

Until October 7th. A Jewish friend who runs a security company told him about the Hamas terrorist attack, the dead and kidnapped people. Meanwhile, a Palestinian Arab network celebrating the killings was handing out sweets on Sonnenallee just a hundred meters from their apartment. “No more kippahs in the streets, not a word of Hebrew in the subway,” his friend pleaded. And Borovitz and his wife also hid their Jewishness. “I felt how fear gripped the Jews in Berlin.” Jews from all over the world wrote to him urging him to leave the country.

In Sweden, Holocaust remembrance day was organized without inviting the victims of the time: the Jews. Carrine Sjöberg, head of the Jewish community, was shocked when she learned that the Jews had not been called. Jan Hägglund of the socialist party Arbetarpartiet said he could not guarantee their “safety”. According to Sjöberg, however, it was a political decision: “The real reason was that they wanted the event to focus on Muslim refugees. In my eyes, this is a scandalous historical distortion. The memory of the Shoah is ignored.”

The confirmation comes from Hägglund himself, who told the Swedish media: “In previous years, we have had Palestinian flags and banners where the Israeli flag has been identified with a swastika. The Jewish community was not invited because we thought they might be uncomfortable.”

Remember when a UK cinema chain has canceled all screenings of a film about Muhammad’s daughter after branches were besieged by Muslim activists? A cinema manager even went outside where Muslims were protesting to apologise. The video shows him humiliating himself while shouting “Allahu Akbar”.

This week in London after protests and threats, an advertising company removed billboards showing Israeli hostages taken by Hamas terrorists on October 7. The advertising company in question, London Lites, had signed a deal for the billboards to be displayed across London. Posted on December 5, the signs were removed after six days due to “an unusual volume of complaints from the public” as well as personal threats directed at company staff.

No one has ever tried or succeeded in removing the billboards in London that say “For the love of Allah”. They are on houses, on buses, on the subway.

The hell of Eurabia is paved with inclusive intentions. Multiculturalism is the tomb of our guilty illusions.

Israeli hostages are not welcome in London (israelnationalnews.com)

Two asylum seekers living on board the controversial Bibby Stockholm migrant barge have been arrested for a suspected sexual assault in a nearby nightclub.

The suspects, aged 24 and 27, were detained in relation to an incident that occurred at the Kika Beach Bar in Weymouth, Dorset on Dec. 10.

The nightclub is located approximately six kilometers from the floating barge used to accommodate migrants who illegally entered Britain in small boats via the English Channel and subsequently claimed asylum.

The details relating to the alleged sexual assault are unclear, but police attended the venue last week to acquire CCTV footage of the night in question to further their investigation.

The suspects have since been released from custody and are on police bail.

“We received a report at 3:10 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 10, 2023, that a woman was sexually assaulted in Kika Beach on The Esplanade in Weymouth,” read a statement by Dorset Police.

“Officers attended and two men, aged 24 and 27, from Portland were arrested on suspicion of sexual assault. They have been released on police bail while inquiries continue.”

Staff at the nightclub told The Sun newspaper: “There was an accusation made last weekend. We have been spoken to by the police who have also looked through our CCTV.”

Portland residents had expressed concern that the new arrivals on board the floating migrant barge could see a rise in crime in the area.

“Local people aren’t happy that the barge is close by and have been fearing something like this might happen,” one told the U.K. tabloid newspaper.

Ahead of the migrants’ relocation to the area, residents had claimed the move would hit the tourist industry and place further pressure on already failing public services.

“We need to all stand up and fight this lunatic idea before it’s too late and we lose our only income from tourists. The government is so useless and has systematically ruined our country,” one said back in April.

“(At) two doctors’ surgeries (clinics) here, those of us who live here now can’t get an appointment for over two weeks,” added another.

“We just don’t want it here really, a lot of the locals,” said a third. “The locals are being forgotten about, the homeless are being forgotten about.”

https://rmx.news/crime/uk-two-asylum-seekers-living-on-migrant-barge-arrested-for-sexual-assault-in-nearby-nightclub/

The President of the Austrian Catholic Bishops’ Conference has declared that priests may not refuse to bless gay couples, just two days after the Vatican permitted the practice for the first time.

Salzburg Archbishop Franz Lackner said Monday evening in an interview with Austrian television that at this point priests have no excuse for refusing a blessing to a gay couple that asks for it.

When asked how a priest should react when a same-sex couple requests a blessing, the 67-year-old archbishop said: “Basically, you can no longer say no.”

A blessing is a basic need “like bread, which, in principle, should not be denied to anyone,” Lackner told Austrian Catholic news outlet Kathpress, adding that he welcomed “with joy” the Vatican’s decision to allow gay blessings.

“I believe that the Church recognizes that a relationship between two persons of the same sex is not entirely without truth,” the archbishop said. “There is love, there is loyalty, there are also hardship shared and lived in faithfulness. This should also be acknowledged.”

The church wants to “promise good things in the name of God to couples in irregular situations who stand together in loyalty and love,” he said.

The bishop’s statement illustrates the recurring phenomenon by which once something is allowed it becomes practically obligatory.

Something analogous happened when the Holy See permitted Chinese clergy to join the state-run Catholic Chinese Patriotic Association (CCPA) in 2019.

The Vatican had always forbidden priests from enlisting in the CCPA, which has never recognized the authority of Rome and basically functions as a parallel church under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Once membership in the CCPA was permitted, those priests who refused to join looked no longer like faithful sons of Rome but rather like obstinate rebels who rejected the Vatican’s generous offer.

This led the former bishop of Hong Kong, the redoubtable Cardinal Joseph Zen, to say that Pope Francis’ policies in dealing with the CPC are “killing” the underground Church in that country.

Permitting priests to register with the CCPA was “simply incredible,” Cardinal Zen said. “The document says, ‘To minister openly, you need to register with the government.’ And then you have to sign. To sign something in which it says that you have to support the independent church.”

“The document contains something against our orthodoxy and they are encouraged to sign,” he said. “When you sign, you accept to be a member of that church under the leadership of the communist party. So terrible, terrible.”

The next time I see the pope, “I’m going to tell him: ‘You are encouraging a schism. You are legitimizing the schismatic church in China,’” Zen said. “Incredible.”

Similarly, now that the Vatican has allowed priests to offer blessings to gay couples, their refusal to do so looks like obstinacy and a failure to accept Vatican leadership, rather than fidelity to the Church’s moral teaching on sexuality.

Just two years ago, however, the Vatican declared that it was illicit for priests to bless a homosexual couple, insisting that the Church has no authority to give such a blessing, since God Himself “does not and cannot bless sin.”

Blessings require “that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation,” the Vatican’s doctrinal office said at the time.

“For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage,” it read, “as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.”

Understandably, it will be difficult for some priests to see how God cannot bless sin one day and the next day He can.

https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2023/12/20/austrian-archbishop-says-catholic-priests-cannot-refuse-blessing-to-gay-couples/

There is that wonderful scene in Roman Holiday, where Gregory Peck scares Audrey Hepburn’s princess by pretending to have his hand bitten off by the Bocca della Verità (Mouth of Truth). The Roman marble mask is reputed to bite off the hand of a liar.

During last weekend’s love in between the British PM, Rishi Sunak, and the Italian PM, Giorgia Meloni, they did not visit the Mouth of Truth. If they had it is hard to see how Rishi would have returned home to Yorkshire with a full complement of limbs.

Rishi was in Rome at the invitation of Brothers of Italy, Meloni’s party that is today the standard bearer of the populist Right in Europe. He was there to try and get some of her glamour and her credibility on strict immigration controls back home.

Sunak’s Conservatives have been nominal allies of Brothers of Italy since 2019 when they joined the same European parliamentary group, the ECR. But it is an alliance that has, until now, been one that London has been at pains to keep very quiet.

The reason for this is very simple: her brand of Chritian cultural nationalism with dashings of belief in the ethnic substitution theory of immigration. She also has a harsh and no nonsense Roman Catholic approach to LGBT matters, supporting a change in the Italian constitution to ban LGBT couples from adopting.

All this stuff, kryptonite in UK electoral circles, is nothing to the fact that at last weekend’s shindig not only was Sunak a guest and near playmate of Meloni, but Santiago Abascal the leader of Spain’s Vox party, was also present.

Abascal said of Gibraltar this year, “We will dismantle the networks of piracy, drug trafficking, smuggling and money laundering that extend from Gibraltar and we will apply all the international pressure necessary to recover this occupied territory”, branding the peaceful and law abiding British territory as some sort of pirate port. Only a couple of weeks ago the same gathering was applauding the victory of Geert Wilders.

But more important to Sunak was the appearance of Edi Rama, the Albanian Prime Minister. He was there to talk with both Meloni and Sunak about possible deals to house illegal migrants.

In 2022 the UK Government signed a series of deals with Rama funding redevelopment work, police forensics and infrastructure. Rama is an old friend of Tony Blairs and has for years been advised by Alistair Campbell, Blair’s disgraced former spin doctor.

Rama has taken advantage of the fact that for the past few years Albania’s greatest export is its people (in 2022 alone 12,000 illegally entered the UK, of which 10,000 were men) to extract money and promises from the UK Government. Now he has struck a deal with Meloni to become the offshore processing centre for Italy.

Sunak clearly wants a bit of that. And Rama would want more money.

Meloni has signed a deal with Rama, ratified by the EU early in December, for Albania to take migrants that have landed in Italy – but the deal is not cheap. Albania would take 3,000 per month, for a period of no more than 40 days. If they are accepted for asylum they will be returned to Italy for settlements. If they cannot be sent back to their country of origin, even if they have failed their asylum tests, they will also be sent back to Italy.

For this the Albanians receive all the costs involved in building and staffing the centres, plus 100 million euro per year for their trouble.

The costs of transporting the migrants will also be covered by Italy. While this might sound a good financial deal compared to Sunak spending just shy of 300 million EUR and only managing to send a series of Home Secretaries to Rwanda, it will only scrape the surface of the problem for the UK, and will not shift any dials in his or the Conservatives electoral chances.

Yes, the number of Albanians coming to the UK has dropped this year, thanks mostly to the fact that most Albanians that want to come to Britain already have. Even if a deal is to be struck, the costs for the UK will be far greater than for Italy simply due to the process, history, and distance.

But Sunak, whose team has trumpeted the Albanian solution to the UK’s migration woes, was left with nothing. Tirana said ‘no’, and all he managed to do was to pledge money to help Italy and the EU fund its work with Tunisia filtering migrants to Albania.

Sunak claimed in Rome that he was the heir to Maragaret Thatcher on migration. The result was nothing concrete, spending yet more money to no effect, not so much an heir, not even a spare.

It was wise not to go anywhere near the Mouth of Truth, it would have bitten off far more than his hand.

https://brusselssignal.eu/2023/12/dont-be-taken-in-by-rishi-sunaks-love-in-with-giorgia-meloni-it-amounts-to-much-less-than-it-seems/

Regional lawmakers in the German city of Stuttgart have approved next year’s financial budget, which includes €30,000 to be set aside for the return of a porn festival that features a sex party held at a secret location after the event.

It will be the third time the festival will be held in the city since 2021 with the governing SPD claiming it enhances the debate on gender equality.

The previous events have been hosted by the Delphi Arthaus cinema and attracted over 1,000 attendees. A “carefully curated film program” is expected to be shown at the venue with titles featuring in years prior including the aptly-named “Fuck Them All” as well as the not-to-be-missed hits, “What About My Butt?” and “Fucking Hilorious.”

For the bargain price of €30, guests can apply to attend the after party, a sex-fest held at a secret location, provided they have a recent clean test certificate for sexually transmitted diseases.

Organizers also asked attendees not to bother anyone engaged in lewd activities during the festival, as “many people want to remain undisturbed in the middle of sexual contact, even if it takes place publicly.”

Opposition lawmakers slammed the decision to use taxpayer funding for the event, with CDU parliamentary group leader Alexander Kotz saying the move is “inappropriate, disturbing, and offends many Stuttgart residents.”

“Anyone who sees porn festivals as a political priority in Stuttgart is living in the wrong world. The left-wing majority is burning hard-earned tax money,” added CDU local party leader Thrasivoulos Malliaras as cited by the Bild newspaper.

The co-governing SPD, however, defended the plans with its parliamentary group leader Jasmin Meergans describing the event as a “feminist festival” that will “contribute to breaking taboos around the topic of sexuality, initiating important discourses, and ultimately promoting gender equality.”

https://rmx.news/germany/stuttgart-lawmakers-blow-taxpayer-cash-on-porn-festival-with-sex-after-party/

New government guidance tells British schools there is “no general duty” to allow their gender-questioning pupils to ‘socially transition.’ But even before the long-awaited release of the guidance document, headteachers said they wouldn’t let it change their approach.

There is nothing in the document that can change the course of what reports have labelled these “activist schools,” since non-statutory guidance is not backed by the law.

The document, produced by the Department for Education alongside the government’s ‘Equality Hub,’ is supposed to provide schools with “clarity” and parents with “reassurance.” Yet, its wording is far from definitive. It says that when a child requests to ‘social transition’—explained in the guidance as “changing names, uniforms, or using different facilities to help a child appear more like the opposite sex”— schools “should make parents aware” (emphasis added), except in “the very rare situation where informing parents might raise a significant risk of harm to the child.” Also that “we would expect parental consent to be required” (emphasis added), but “in the vast majority of cases,” rather than on all occasions.

Former Prime Minister Liz Truss is leading a group of Tory MPs who believe the guidance “does not go far enough,” according to The Daily Telegraph. She said:

During the many months we have been waiting for its publication, it has become increasingly clear that non-statutory guidance will provide insufficient protection and clarity, and that a change in the law of the land is required. …

I fear that activists and others will be able to exploit loopholes in the guidance and the existing legal framework to pursue their agenda, leaving children at risk of making irreversible changes and with single-sex spaces not sufficiently protected.

A government source responded that “this guidance goes as far as we can within the confines of existing law.” This may be true, but it is the government’s fault that existing law is as confining as it is. Ministers had considered banning pupils from changing their gender identities in school altogether but decided they didn’t want to go through the hassle of changing the law to do so.

The Times suggests that many schools are likely to follow the guidance, despite it being non-statutory, since it will offer them some protection in their decision-making.

But Kevin Sexton, the executive head of a high school in Liverpool which has gender-neutral toilets and uniforms and where around 30 pupils who reportedly identify as transgender, non-binary, or ‘genderfluid,’ told Sky News in no uncertain terms: “I’m not going to change what has worked for our school for the last 10 years.”

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/uk-tories-transgender-guidelines-for-schools-dont-go-far-enough/