President Donald Trump has thrown his full political weight behind Hungary’s national-conservative, anti-globalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, offering explicit support ahead of Hungary’s pivotal parliamentary elections scheduled for next April.
The endorsement, delivered in a personal letter, signals the Trump administration’s intent to openly back sovereignist governments around the world that resist globalist pressure.
Orbán himself released the letter, which praised his leadership as firm, principled, and rooted in national interest. Trump described Hungary under Orbán as a model for countries seeking to defend sovereignty, cultural continuity, and political independence in an increasingly centralized world order.
Grateful for President @realDonaldTrump’s kind words and continued friendship. U.S.-Hungary relations are stronger than ever, built on shared values as patriots. Looking forward to hosting him and his team in Budapest! 🇭🇺🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/i8wc9hWfuR
In the letter, Trump wished Orbán success in the upcoming election campaign and confirmed his willingness to visit Hungary at the prime minister’s invitation. The message underscored what Trump called a “golden era” in US–Hungarian relations, built on shared priorities and political realism rather than left-liberal cultural globalist conformity.
That relationship has deepened notably since Orbán’s visit to Washington D.C. last November, where the two leaders discussed energy security, defense cooperation, and border enforcement. During that visit, the Trump administration granted Hungary a temporary exemption allowing it to continue purchasing Russian crude oil—an unmistakable rebuke to Brussels’ one-size-fits-all energy dictates.
For Orbán, the exemption symbolized far more than economic relief, representing recognition from America that realities on the ground matter more than ideological edicts imposed by unelected EU institutions.
Orbán responded enthusiastically to Trump’s message, declaring that relations between Budapest and Washington are “stronger than ever,” emphasizing that the partnership rests on shared values—patriotism, sovereignty, and resistance to mass illegal migration.
The timing of Trump’s support is hardly an accident. Hungary heads into an election that, while still favoring Orbán’s Fidesz, looks to be the most competitive contest in over a decade as EU globalists fervently back his challenger, Péter Magyar.
Presently, Fidesz controls 135 of the National Assembly’s 199 seats, maintaining a solid governing majority. However, the emergence of the TISZA party, led by former Fidesz insider Péter Magyar, has given globalist-aligned forces a new vehicle through which to challenge Orbán.
Despite these pressures, Orbán remains the dominant figure in Hungarian politics. Even after losing some ground in the 2024 European elections, Fidesz emerged once again as the largest party, reinforcing Orbán’s position as a central pillar of Europe’s sovereignty bloc.
Trump’s endorsement undoubtedly strengthens that position internationally. It also makes clear that the United States, under Trump, views Hungary not as a problem to be disciplined—as it did under the Biden administration—but as a partner to be cultivated.
In his letter, Trump highlighted Orbán’s defense of faith, family, and national borders—values increasingly derided by Western liberal-globalist elites. He praised Hungary’s refusal to bow to EU migration quotas and its insistence on maintaining cultural cohesion.
Migration was a key theme in Trump’s remarks, reflecting his administration’s broader strategy. A US national security document released last year made clear that Washington intends to foster ties with governments willing to resist the EU’s current ideological trajectory from within.
In a celebratory post on X Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s political director, lauded Trump’s unconditional backing to Viktor Orbán ahead of Hungary’s April elections, saying it reinforces Hungary’s role as a sovereignty-focused ally and signals strengthening ties with Washington against the EU’s globalist agenda.
According to 🇪🇸 @gaceta_es, @realDonaldTrump has given clear & unconditional political backing to 🇭🇺 @PM_ViktorOrban ahead of April’s elections. The move strengthens Hungary as a key bastion of Western sovereigntism & reinforces the Washington–Budapest axis against the EU’s… https://t.co/URkhJ9zbie
Orbán, no doubt, fits that role perfectly. For years, he has stood as one of the few European leaders willing to openly challenge Brussels’ authority and call out the democratic deficit at the heart of the EU project.
Trump’s praise of Orbán as a “great leader” and his willingness to appear in Hungary during an election cycle clearly signals America is no longer pretending neutrality between nationalist governments and their globalist challengers.
For Europe’s political class, the message is unsettling. The long-assumed unity of the Western liberal order is fracturing, and leaders like Orbán are increasingly well-connected.
For supporters of national sovereignty and opponents of cultural and political globalism, however, the moment clarifies that national-conservative governments like the ones in Washington D.C., Budapest, Rome, and Prague now stand as a heavy counterweight to supranational governance, proving that resistance to globalism is not only possible but gaining significant momentum.
Once, the world’s map was red, not because of communism, but because every British colony was colored red on that map. Before WWI, and the beginning of its downfall, Britain was estimated to control roughly 24% of the world’s land. It could do this because it believed in itself.
Nothing more perfectly illustrates this than what Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General of the East India Company (“EIC”), which was the British government’s de facto controlling power in India, did in 1829. At the time, suttee—the barbaric practice that widows “voluntarily” self-immolate on their husband’s funeral pyres—was mandatory across large swaths of India, especially amongst upper-caste Hindu families. The EIC and Great Britain allowed the practice because they feared a Hindu uprising.
Image created using AI.
However, by 1829, the British were sufficiently secure in their power and their righteousness that the new consensus, led by Bentinck, was that they would no longer be a partner to this sadistic practice. Thus, on December 4, 1829, Bentinck signed a mandate abolishing suttee by declaring it a criminal practice.
Some people within his administration panicked, fearing that it would convince Hindus that a planned mass Christian conversion was underway and lead to violence. (Incidentally, with less pushback, Bentinck also stopped such hideous practices as female infanticide and human sacrifice.) Bentinck was unmoved by these objections.
What drove Bentinck? A belief in the righteousness of his British, Christian values. Thus, when pushing for the mandate, he spoke to others about “the dreadful responsibility hanging over his head in this world and the next, if…he was to consent to the continuance of this practice (suttee) one moment longer.”
That Britain—moral and self-confident—is completely dead. Allister Heath, writing at The Telegraph (so it’s probably behind a paywall), describes the UK as an “impotent, useless” nation that Donald Trump rightfully ignores:
Eighty-one years after the end of the Second World War, the Western European era is finally over, killed off by welfarism, egalitarianism, risk aversion, demographic failure, over-regulation, environmentalism, pacifism and self-hatred. Britain self-sabotaged by wantonly downsizing our military, promoting rent-seeking above wealth creation, embracing “soft power” and net zero and turning against our core values.
We willingly demoted ourselves from being America’s junior partner to vassal status. We sought to camouflage our uselessness by preaching about “human rights” and weaponising international law; that delusion too has been punctured.
Britain represents what happens when leftism is ascendant, and worse, it’s allied with Islam. Both, in their lust for power, willingly destroy every Western institution, with each confident that, in the great battle at the end, it will prevail. (My money’s on Islam, which hasn’t jettisoned gender and still believes in an afterlife that rewards warriors.)
Speaking of Islam, Britain’s once vaunted academic institutions (e.g., Oxford, Cambridge, etc.) have become so crazy that the UAE, a rational Muslim nation that has enthusiastically embraced the Abraham Accords, will no longer support its students there:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has reduced government funding for students who want to study in the United Kingdom. This decision reflects rising tensions between Abu Dhabi and London, especially over how the UK deals with Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
The move came after the UAE education ministry released a new list in June of overseas universities that qualify for government scholarships and official recognition. While the list included universities from countries such as the United States, Australia, France, and Israel, British universities were missing. [Emphasis mine.]
British officials were unfazed: “In response, UK officials said academic freedom must be protected.”
Ask yourself if they’d say the same if a professor were to offer a class on the wonders of Donald Trump. Actually, you don’t need to ask. Last year, at Henley College in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, a mere 30 minutes by car from the famous and ancient university town of Oxford, a politics teacher was reported to the government’s counter-terrorism program for showing his students videos about Donald Trump while discussing American politics:
A teacher was referred to a government counter-terrorism programme after showing videos of Donald Trump to his US politics class.
The Oxfordshire teacher in his 50s said he was “likened to a terrorist” after he showed the videos, including footage of Mr Trump’s inauguration, to A-level students, the Telegraph reported.
Henley College, a sixth form in Henley-on-Thames with more than 2,000 students, reported the teacher to the local child safeguarding authority.
The local authority then decided he should be referred to Prevent, the Government’s counter-terrorism programme, as a “priority”.
The college then forced the teacher out of his job.
But all is not lost. The disaster that is the UK comes from the ruling class. Of course, the lumpen masses, given the opiate of free “healthcare” (which offers free access without much actual care), allowed this to happen. Now, though, as they’ve seen their culture denigrated, their institutions overrun, their children abused, and their freedoms destroyed, they’re beginning to push back.
Only about 18% of Britons view Keir Starmer favorably, with 72-74% actively disliking him. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is the most popular political party in the UK, with national support at 26% (or higher), compared to 17% for Labour and 19% for the Conservatives.
Moreover, the massive turnouts for the 2025 flag protests across Britain hint that there are a lot of little British worms turning…with some transforming into fierce, patriotic dragons. (Special kudos to Tommy Robinson!) That the British willingly gave up their arms puts them at a disadvantage, but the British police, while vicious, are also unarmed and so inept in actual confrontations that the British people’s lack of weapons may be overcome.
I’ve long considered Britain to be a dead country walking, and that’s certainly true if the elite continues to have unfettered control over its institutions. So, let’s hope that the British people, the core of that once proud, great empire, can rouse themselves and resuscitate their country.
“With increasing Islamophobia – the day will come where we have to ask ALL Women to wear a head scarf to show solidarity with those who do so for religious reasons”
Underage girls in Austria are reportedly being approached by men of Arab descent who offer them drugs and promise more in Vienna, it has been claimed, after authorities revealed the death of another 16-year-old girl in a Viennese hotel room.
As reported by Heute, investigators have concluded that the victim likely died from a drug overdose after she was discovered in a hotel near Vienna’s Stadthalle on Oct. 31 last year. Information regarding the death was only released on Thursday.
According to Austrian broadcaster ORF, sexual exploitation by a migrant gang is among the scenarios being examined by investigators.
Heute reports that seven minors under the age of 18 who were under the supervision of child and youth services died in Vienna in 2025 as a result of drug use. Many of those affected are girls from unstable family environments or living in foster or group care.
Incidents are not limited to the Austrian capital, with Salzburg also reportedly a breeding ground for gangs preying on vulnerable young girls who are plied with drugs and alcohol, and exploited.
Belinda Plattner, head of child and adolescent psychiatry in Salzburg, told ORF that the scale of youth drug consumption has sharply increased. “We are currently seeing significantly more young people who use drugs. At least in Salzburg, this has never been the case to this extent before,” she said.
She told the broadcaster’s ZIB2 news program, “Girls have no value in this male-dominated society – they are worthless girls who can be easily manipulated. They are devalued – at the same time, they are lured to be taken into these apartments. And then, as they told me, sexual assaults repeatedly occur.”
Plattner described how girls aged 14 to 16 are deliberately targeted, particularly around Salzburg’s main train station. “The girls say that they are approached at Salzburg’s main train station by young men of Arab descent who offer them drugs and promise them even more drugs in Vienna. And many of these girls then go with them.”
Girls are then allegedly offered hard drugs like cocaine and crystal meth — both highly addictive substances — free of charge, and are initially treated with respect and invited to live with foreign men, “but often this leads to sexual abuse and demeaning behavior towards the girls,” Plattner said.
The psychiatrist has filed a formal complaint with Vienna police related to the latest death. The Vienna state police headquarters confirmed that an investigation is underway but said that “for investigative reasons, no further details will be released at this time.”
Concerns have also been raised at the political level. In November, Salzburg Social Affairs Councillor Wolfgang Fürweger of the FPÖ said authorities had gathered multiple indications of criminal activity linked to the exploitation of minors. “We ourselves collected information through the Child and Youth Welfare Office, about half a dozen pieces of evidence. We handed these over to the criminal police at the beginning of December,” he said. “Our clear request is: If you observe such things, don’t remain silent. Inform the authorities. Incredible things are apparently happening right before our eyes.”
Further details about the Vienna death were reported by MeinBezirk. Police said the girl was found dead in a hotel in Vienna’s 15th district and that there is currently no evidence of violent crime. A drug overdose is considered the most likely cause of death. Investigators are examining whether the teenager consumed the drugs alone or with others present, and whether the drug use was connected to a sexual encounter.
The girl lived in a group home operated by Vienna’s Child and Youth Welfare Office, MA 11. On the evening of her death, she did not return to the facility but instead checked into the hotel, where she was found the following day.
Remix News has extensively covered the ongoing grooming scandal in the Austrian capital. The most high-profile case was that of 13-year-old Austria schoolgirl Leonie, who was brutally raped and murdered by three Afghan migrants in June 2021. Her body was discovered by passers-by leaning against a tree next to Viktor-Kaplan-Strasse in the Austrian capital. She was found strangled, with her body dumped in a green strip close to the apartment of one of the attackers in Vienna-Donaustadt.
In December 2022, a Vienna court found the Afghan migrants had plied the victim with ecstasy with the intention of raping her; an autopsy report concluded she died of a drug overdose and asphyxiation.
The main 24-year-old defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment, while two accomplices, aged 19 and 20, were jailed for 19 years and 20 years respectively.
In December last year, a 27-year-old Syrian migrant was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl who was reported missing by her family. The court heard how the girl had been approached by three Syrian men who took her back to their apartment in the Donaustadt district of the city and plied her with drugs.
In September 2025, ten migrant defendants aged between 16 and 21 faced charges of sexual offenses against a 12-year-old girl who was approached through Snapchat and pressured into sex after refusing. According to prosecutors during the trial, the assaults took place over several months in parks, stairwells, hotel rooms, and private apartments in the city’s Favoriten district. The defendants were controversially acquitted after the court raised doubts about the girl’s testimony. Judges cited inconsistencies, including her initial failure to report coercion, her having presented ID and claiming to be older, and her appearance, which led the court to conclude it was unclear whether the defendants knew she was underage.
The events unfolded during Austria’s national holiday on Oct. 26, 2024 when the suspects approached the teenagers, inviting them to a party. Shortly after midnight, the girls entered a taxi with them, only to be taken to an abandoned office complex in Vienna’s 20th district — an area reportedly used as an illegal asylum shelter and drug den.
The prosecution told the court: “The defendants administered various debilitating substances to the two minors,” a fact later confirmed by blood tests. The victims reported being forced to swallow ecstasy tablets under the threat of death.
The 31-year-old first defendant allegedly raped the 15-year-old, telling her that no one would hear her screams and threatening to kill her if she resisted. Medical examinations later confirmed strangulation marks, bruises, and scratches consistent with her testimony.
Also in Vienna last September, a 27-year-old Afghan was jailed for six and a half years for raping a 17-year-old girl as she walked home from a party. The court found that the victim had been approached by her attacker and asked if she wanted to have sex with him. When she refused, she was placed in a chokehold and dragged behind a parked car, where she was raped by the man while he filmed himself covering her mouth.
In court, the attacker was described as a “well-integrated and law-abiding resident of Austria,” who arrived during the migrant crisis of 2015. The man worked in the hospitality industry and had no previous criminal record.
Labour has been accused of backing cousin marriage by refusing to support a Private Members’ Bill seeking to ban the “medieval” practice.
Shadow Minister Richard Holden warned Labour MPs were “turning a blind eye” to cousin marriage after today’s scheduled second reading vote was stalled.
The Basildon & Billericay MP put pressure on Sir Keir Starmer’s Government to support his proposed ban, with the Prime Minister last year rejecting his request to whip Labour MPs in support of prohibiting close family members from tying the knot.
Mr Holden told GB News: “If you don’t back first-cousin marriage, you can just say so.
“But Labour do back first cousin marriage and they’re trying to hide their secretive support for the practice.
“It is an issue bound up with serious health implications, closed communities, and the isolation of the vulnerable.
“I am appalled, but sadly not surprised, that Labour is once again turning a blind eye to the issue and allowing it to be kicked into the long grass rather than taking a genuine stand or even explaining why they continue to back first-cousin marriage in the UK.”
The Marriages (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Bill was due to return to the House of Commons for its second reading today, having initially been slated for January 17 last year.
The Private Members’ Bill was also listed in parliamentary business papers in March 2025 following an objection taken via a standing order.
However, the House of Commons is no longer expected to sit on January 9, meaning no legislative progress has been made in 395 days.
The Private Members’ Bill was also listed in parliamentary business papers in March 2025 following an objection taken via a standing order.
However, the House of Commons is no longer expected to sit on January 9, meaning no legislative progress has been made in 395 days.
Sir Keir previously rejected Mr Holden’s request for the Prime Minister to instruct his whips and the Leader of the House of Commons to allocate time for his proposed ban to be debated.
Mr Holden is now racing against the clock as all outstanding Private Members’ Bills will fall from the legislative agenda after the next King’s Speech.
The Tory MP would then be forced to reintroduce the proposed ban from scratch to kickstart the legislative process again in Parliament’s next session.
Only a small number of Private Members’ Bill ever return to the House of Commons for a second reading, with Fridays being exclusively allocated as the day to debate such legislation.
Mr Holden’s bill is also not near the top of the list, meaning it will continue to be kicked into the “long grass” unless others fall or are withdrawn.
However, Labour MP Neil Coyle has voiced his support for a ban, warning: “The prevalence of infant mortality and birth defects alone warrants the ban.”
During an exchange at Prime Minister’s Questions last year, Sir Keir was urged to “think again” after No10 was accused of “instructing the whips to block this legislation”.
However, the Prime Minister replied: “We’ve taken our position on that Bill, thank you.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting later called on the NHS to apologise for publishing guidance that said first-cousin marriage had potential benefits.
Mr Streeting, who stopped short of backing the ban, said: “First-cousin marriages are high risk and unsafe, we see the genetic defects it causes, the harm that it causes. That’s why that advice should never have been published.”
Mr Holden proposed banning the practice, which was outlawed until Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1540, as a Ten Minute Rule Bill in December 2024.
However, pro-Gaza MP Iqbal Mohamed became the first parliamentarian to voice support for cousin marriage, pointing out that the practice remains “common” because it “helps to build family bonds and puts families on a more secure financial foothold”.
Cousin marriage remains a prevalent practice among 10 per cent of the world population, including in the Middle East and North Africa.
However, over 80 per cent of people marry their cousins in parts of rural Pakistan.
The rate also remains significantly above the global average in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran.
Despite cousin couples remaining relatively uncommon in the UK, consanguineous marriage rates stood at 46 per cent among British Pakistanis in inner-city Bradford in 2023.
First-cousin marriages are also statistically more likely among members of the Irish Traveller community.
A bombshell poll released last year by YouGov revealed Pakistani and Bangladeshi Britons are most likely to support first cousin marriages, with 39 percent of those polled saying it should be legal and 47 per cent backing the proposed ban.
Meanwhile, 77 per cent of white and Indian Britons support a ban, with the proportion soaring to 82 per cent among black Britons.
Labour received a plurality of votes from Pakistani and Bangladeshi Britons at the 2024 General Election, hauling in 44 per cent of the vote.
While the pro-Palestine Green Party surged to 29 per cent, support for all other major parties among British Pakistanis and Bangladeshis remained at single digits.
However, backlash against Labour’s stance on Palestine resulted in independent pro-Gaza candidates picking up four once-staunchly red seats.
First-cousin marriages are also statistically more likely among members of the Irish Traveller community.
A bombshell poll released last year by YouGov revealed Pakistani and Bangladeshi Britons are most likely to support first cousin marriages, with 39 percent of those polled saying it should be legal and 47 per cent backing the proposed ban.
Meanwhile, 77 per cent of white and Indian Britons support a ban, with the proportion soaring to 82 per cent among black Britons.
Labour received a plurality of votes from Pakistani and Bangladeshi Britons at the 2024 General Election, hauling in 44 per cent of the vote.
While the pro-Palestine Green Party surged to 29 per cent, support for all other major parties among British Pakistanis and Bangladeshis remained at single digits.
However, backlash against Labour’s stance on Palestine resulted in independent pro-Gaza candidates picking up four once-staunchly red seats.
Mr Holden’s intervention has sparked further commotion in the Commons.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick quizzed Shabana Mahmood on Labour’s position in December 2024.
The then-Justice Secretary replied by insisting Sir Keir’s Government was looking at “broader reform of marriage law”.
Justice Minister Alex Davies-Jones last year rejected proposals to crack down on cousin marriage.
The Safeguarding Minister later acknowledged some faith communities permit cousin marriage, later insisting the topic remains “complex and sensitive”.
However, then-Labour MP Ann Cryer called for a debate on the health risks of cousin marriages back in 2005.
The outspoken ex-Keighley MP, who was smeared as a racist for speaking out on grooming gangs, said: “As we address problems of smoking, drinking, obesity, we say it’s a public health issue, and therefore we all have to get involved with it in persuading people to adopt a different lifestyle.
“I think the same should be applied to this problem in the Asian community.
“They must adopt a different lifestyle. They must look outside the family for husbands and wives for their young people.”
GB News has approached the Labour Party for comment.
By arresting Nicolás Maduro in a flawless military operation and taking control of the political transition in Venezuela, Trump has once again struck hard and caught everyone off guard. As the world absorbs the abrupt arrival of a new geopolitical era, the debates between “legalists” and “realists” fade in the face of the fait accompli, and observers are forced to acknowledge the obvious: The EU is completely out of the game. Kallas’ statement supported by 26 Member states (Hungary refusing to sign), is a collection of platitudes and contradictory diplomatic stammering.
Through these inaudible reactions and its attempts to reassert an order that has been shattered, the EU is acknowledging its impotence, if not its obsolescence. Europe is naked; it carries no weight. It dreamed of being a trendsetter, a benevolent regulator of a globalised world, and finds itself brutally ejected from the course of history. All that remains for it is to rearm itself, to clean house (illegal migration, security, competitiveness, energy prices), to speak the language of interests, and to ask itself the uncomfortable question: What if this “ever closer Union” is an exercise of collective castration based on the silly idea that Europe’s power comes from weakening its nations? Europe is now embarking on a long journey through the desert during which it must reinvent itself, beginning with a drastic reform of a messianic EU that has only pushed its countries toward irrelevance. On the international stage, it has nothing to say; it is therefore better for it to remain silent and let its 27 member states express themselves freely “in all their diversity”.
Especially since, with regard to Venezuela, the EU’s compass and that of the Big Coalition were pointing in the wrong direction. While everyone rushes now to condemn Maduro’s tyranny, the far Left, the Greens, the Liberals, and the Socialists refused to vote for a resolution condemning Maduro’s blatant electoral fraud in June 2024. The European Parliament eventually adopted the text through the unprecedented alliance of the EPP with all the groups to its Right, a breach of the sacrosanct cordon sanitaire that the guardians of the establishment denounced as the worst of anathemas. This precedent speaks volumes about the dogmatism and ideological blindness of the almighty coalition.
Of course, nothing surprising from The Left group (GUE), which has always hailed Chavez and Maduro as their own, with the fanatics of La France Insoumise and Podemos leading the charge—the latter party being financed by the Caracas regime. Nor from the Greens, who are decidedly red when you scratch the surface. But there is reason to ask some questions about the European Socialists, their president Iratxe García, and, above all, the President of the Socialist International and natural leader of this political family: Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, who must be sweating bullets since Maduro’s arrest.
For several months, Sánchez has been mired in scandals that reveal systemic corruption within his family circle, his party, and his government, as well as… ties as strong as they are sulphurous with the Maduro regime. In 2020, José Luis Ábalos, Sánchez’s second-in-command and now imprisoned, made headlines by receiving Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s right-hand, at Madrid airport. Rodríguez was banned from the Schengen Area under EU sanctions. It was an illegal and highly dubious visit: No trace of the forty suitcases Delcy left at the airport…Yet, the Spanish government managed to get her invited to the CELAC-EU Summit in Brussels in July 2023.
The second episode involved the €53 million bailout during the pandemic of an obscure Venezuelan airline with only one plane, which didn’t stop the Spanish government from deeming it a “strategic enterprise”. Who was pulling the strings? Maduro’s man in Europe, a certain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former Spanish Socialist president turned opaque international lobbyist, extremely close to the Chavista regime and whose personal wealth has allegedly skyrocketed in recent years. This bailout was at the heart of a money laundering investigation in France and Switzerland, which led to the detention of the company’s president and a Spanish businessman whom Zapatero had met secretly three days earlier.
And that is only the tip of the iceberg. The Spanish press revealed that the Venezuelan government provided a luxurious flat to Zapatero in Caracas and Maduro’s former Head of Intelligence, Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, accused him in very concrete terms of receiving payments from the Venezuelan regime. Enough for Zapatero to be under the radar of the Trump administration and under investigation by a US federal judge.
No one should be therefore surprised that Spain was the only European government to sign the statement issued by the left-leaning governments of Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia and Mexico denouncing Maduro’s arrest. Nevertheless, behind this staunch defence of international law, there is primarily panic and a desire to save their own skin. In Spain, the fall of the Venezuelan regime is causing Pedro Sánchez considerable anxiety. In Europe, European socialists can no longer pretend to ignore the highly dangerous connections and systemic corruption of their leader.
Claire Brennan, a 54-year-old mother of four, appeared Monday in Coleraine Magistrate’s Court in Northern Ireland on three charges under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act. She is charged with three counts of “doing an act inside a safe access zone” outside Coleraine’s Causeway Hospital in September, October, and November. The Causeway Hospital commits abortions.
Brennan hails from Doneyshiel Road in Rasharkin, and court documents claim that she protested “with the intent of, or being reckless as to whether, it had the effect of causing harassment, alarm, or distress in connection with the protected person attending premises for a purpose mentioned in Section 3 of the Abortion Services Act.” Three women are named in the charges.
Brennan was first arrested for praying outside the hospital in October 2023 with fellow pro-lifer David Hall, who uses a wheelchair. She was praying the Lord’s Prayer and holding a rosary a month after the Abortion Services Act — which criminalizes pro-life protest within 150 meters of locations where abortions are committed — came into effect. Police officers asked her to move. Brennan responded that she had “a moral duty to stay here and pray.”
One officer told her she was being “really stubborn and ignorant,” and both Brennan and Hall were arrested and charged.
“It is a deeply disturbing law which tells free citizens that they will be arrested if they pray,” Brennan said in 2024. “The expansion of abortion services in Northern Ireland in recent years has been appalling. Our laws, beliefs, and culture on upholding and protecting life in this country have been trampled on. If we are not free to express prayer against abortion outside of a clinic without being criminalized, then none of us are free.”
Brennan was ultimately convicted of conducting an illegal protest and is currently appealing that conviction. (Hall admitted guilt.) In what Christian Concern, which is supporting Brennan, called “an unprecedented development,” Brennan successfully petitioned for the recusal of presiding County Court Judge Ciaran Moynagh when his extensive history of abortion activism came to light.
“I am a Christian and I am a pro-life activist, so it is my moral duty to stand in the gap for the least of the little ones and to defend their rights, their rights to live,” Brennan previously told the court. “No man can touch what is sacred and no human being on earth has the right to take life because it is sacred.”
In December, 76-year-old retired pastor Clive Johnston went on trial at Coleraine Magistrate’s Court for preaching a sermon on a passage from the Gospel of John at the edge of the buffer zone outside the same hospital. He has been charged with two offenses against the Abortion Services Act, even though he did not mention abortion and spoke only on the text “for God so loved the world.”
Brennan’s next court appearance on the three charges is scheduled for February 2, and her appeal is similarly due to be heard later in 2026.
Some leaders of a farmer’s union opposed to a massive European Union free trade deal that could wipe out agriculture on the continent have been arrested as tractors overwhelmed police roadblocks to drive into the centre of Paris.
Farmers across Europe turned out to protest the so-called Mercosur deal due to be voted on by the European Union on Friday, a massive free trade agreement with South America which would so flood the continent with cheap food the agricultural sector fears it would all but wipe out farming in Europe. Highways have been blocked in Greece and convoys of tractors are descending on Paris, leading to tense standoffs with police ordered to seize tractors from drivers who disobey commands.
The French government called the protest in Paris “illegal” and “unacceptable” on Thursday, after farmers overwhelmed and sidestepped police roadblocks to get into the city, against government orders. Tractors have been used to block key roads, and “we will not die in silence” protest farmers have set up camp around key junctions and landmarks including the Arc de Triomphe and outside the National Assembly parliament buildings.
Many more tractors are on the outskirts of Paris, in showdowns with riot police deployed by the interior ministry. Police are ordered, reportsLe Figaro, to arrest farmers who are not cooperative and to seize their tractors. This itself has become a major point of contention between farmers and the government in recent months, as the seizures are of equipment farmers need to do their jobs.
Screengrab youtube
Some farmers brandished ‘Frexit’ signs, signalling opposition to the European Union’s trade policy so strong that total withdrawal from the bloc is preferred.
Overnight, regional leaders of one of the more militant right-wing farmers unions Coordination Rurale were arrested, leading to yet more farmers to blockade the city of Rodez in response. Separately, a fuel depot has been blockaded in the Bordeaux region.
As it is, the French government is likely to vote against the Mercosur deal at the European Union, but protesters say it lacks conviction and hasn’t fought for them hard enough in Brussels. France also lacks allies in the bloc to defeat the deal, which is strongly backed by Brussels and wealthy European nations as it would open South America to high-tech and industrial exports in return for food. The leader of France’s centre-right Republicans has warned President Emmanuel Macron that he will impeach the government if they vote for the deal.
In neighbouring Germany, Mercosur protesters also saw tractors take to the highways, with the A4 and A9 motorways blocked by farmers. In the eastern city of Dresden, farmers called a protest in the centre today, with tractors due to descend on the famed Frauenkirche later today, local media reports. In Catalonia, Spanish farmers built blockades across major roads to support the protests.
Across the continent in Greece farmers are also protesting on Thursday. Convoys of tractors are enacting a 48-hour nationwide blockade of key highways and junctions to protest Mercosur, but did clash with police as the nation’s conservative government ordered officers to stand back, reports the Associated Press. It notes the government made last-minute concessions to farmers including a tax cut on Wednesday night to smooth over divisions.
This is not enough, however, for as elsewhere Greek farmers fear the impact of the Mercosur deal flooding Europe with food imports from countries with lower mandatory standards and lower production costs. One protest organiser is reported to have said: “If this agreement goes through, Greek agriculture is finished… Greece depends on agriculture and tourism. We don’t have heavy industry like Germany or France. Production costs here are 300% higher than in Latin America.”
These protests have now been going on for weeks and tractor demonstrations have become a familiar part of European life in recent years, as the rural community fights against its own extinction and for its interests against the politics of the ever-more-urban ruling class. As reported, farmers were engaged in a pitched battle with police at the very doors of the European Union in Brussels last month, launching potatoes at officers and burning a great bonfire in the historic city square before the bloc’s parliament against the Mercosur agreement.
Editor-in-Chief of Deutschland Kurier David Bendels via Deutschland Kurier
In what most Americans would consider unthinkable, a prominent German journalist working in the country’s alternative media, has been slapped with seven-month suspended prison sentence for sharing a satirical meme mocking a former left-globalist government minister.
The case has ignited international concern over Germany’s accelerating war on free expression—and raised eyebrows far beyond Europe.
Last April, David Bendels, editor-in-chief of the national-conservative outlet Deutschland-Kurier, was sentenced by a court in Bamberg to seven months’ probation after posting a doctored image criticizing former Interior Minister Nancy Faeser—a social democrat politician who’s written articles for a publication with links to far-left extremism.
The punishment also included heavy financial penalties and a court-ordered written apology to the former minister herself. The image at the center of the case showed Faeser holding a sign reading “I hate freedom of expression,” a satirical alteration of a real photograph. Bendels argues the post was unmistakably political satire—an argument the kangaroo court rejected outright.
🇩🇪GERMAN EDITOR GETS PROBATION FOR FAKE “I HATE FREE SPEECH” SIGN
David Bendels, editor of the Deutschland-Kurier, got 7 months’ probation for photoshopping Interior Minister Nancy Faeser into a meme holding a sign that read “I hate freedom of speech.”
German judges ruled that the meme constituted a “deliberately false factual claim” capable of harming Faeser’s public standing. In doing so, the court elevated a politician’s personal reputation above freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
The prosecution was initiated under Section 188 of Germany’s criminal code, a law designed to give special protections to politicians against what it describes as “defamation.” Critics of the statute say it effectively criminalizes sharp criticism of those in power and has become a blunt instrument for silencing dissent—in most cases from conservatives.
The case was initially triggered after a government-linked, left-wing ‘anti-hate’ reporting portal flagged the meme to federal police authorities. From there, the machinery of the state moved swiftly, demonstrating how Germany’s speech-policing infrastructure now operates in practice.
Bendels, who has no prior criminal record, has vowed to appeal the ruling and fight what he—and others—refer to as a landmark attack on press freedom. He says no journalist in postwar Germany has previously faced prison time for mocking a government official.
In a statement given to The Gateway Pundit, Bendels said:
“In a functioning constitutional state governed by the rule of law, the critically satirical “Faeser meme” at issue is, of course, fully covered by and protected under the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press and freedom of speech. In my view, this proceeding therefore lacks any legitimate legal basis whatsoever. It is an absurd, preposterous, and—most importantly—deeply dangerous development for democracy, one that is being reported on with great astonishment and profound unease not only elsewhere in Europe but even worldwide.
Criticism of power and criticism of government are core, indispensable duties of a free press. Such criticism of power and government can—and indeed must—also be expressed in a sharply pointed, harsh, and even taste-stretching manner. The “Faeser meme” published by Deutschland-Kurier, in its form, expression, and execution, constitutes a constitutionally protected manifestation of precisely such pointed criticism of power and government.
I am firmly convinced that an overwhelming majority of the citizens of our country share this view.
Deutschland-Kurier and I personally will always, using all media-related, political, and legal means at our disposal, stand up and fight—resolutely, steadfastly, and persistently—for freedom of the press and freedom of speech in our country, as well as for the freedom of speech of the German people. We will consistently and courageously oppose any attacks on freedom of the press, freedom of opinion, and freedom of speech.
Moreover, I am of the opinion that the former Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, has a highly problematic, deficient, and distorted relationship with freedom of speech.
Viewed in a critically pointed—and permissible—manner, one could therefore quite reasonably assert:Nancy Faeser hates freedom of speech.”
The appeal hearing, scheduled for January 14, is already drawing international attention. Observers, journalists, and legal analysts from outside Germany are expected to attend, viewing the case as a bellwether for Europe’s democratic health.
Reports indicate that the US Embassy in Berlin is closely monitoring the proceedings, reflecting growing concern in Washington over Europe’s tightening speech laws. These concerns align with repeated warnings from senior US officials that free expression is a non-negotiable pillar of Western civilization.
Former presidential adviser Elon Musk publicly reacted to the case, calling it “crazy,” while US Vice President JD Vance has repeatedly warned that societies that criminalize speech ultimately undermine their own legitimacy. The Bendels case appears to confirm those fears.
What has shocked many observers is the breadth of backlash inside Germany itself. Even figures on the political left have criticized the ruling as wildly disproportionate and dangerous.
Green Party politician Ricarda Lang, typically hostile to national-conservative alternative media, stated that the verdict no longer had anything to do with proportionality. Other lawmakers echoed her concerns, arguing that satire—whether tasteful or not—must never be a criminal matter.
British-German columnist Alan Posener, a longtime left-wing journalist, acknowledged the meme was provocative but insisted that provocation is not a crime. In a free society, he wrote, bad taste is tolerated precisely to protect open political debate.
Meanwhile, AfD leaders condemned the ruling as evidence that Germany’s political class has armored itself against criticism while dismantling democratic norms. They argue the country’s leadership increasingly resembles an unaccountable administrative elite governing by intimidation rather than consent.
At the center of the controversy stands Nancy Faeser, whose tenure as interior minister has been marked by aggressive speech regulation and expanded surveillance powers. Critics of Faeser—of which there are many—say case confirms a deep hostility toward dissent masquerading as “democratic defense.”
For American audiences, the implications are stark. In Germany, mocking a cabinet official can now cost a journalist his freedom, his income, and force a state-mandated apology—an outcome unimaginable under the First Amendment.
If the conviction stands, Germany will have crossed a line from managed democracy into something far more authoritarian. Satire, criticism, and political opposition would exist only at the pleasure of those in power.
The Bendels case is no longer just about one meme or one minister. It has become a test of whether Europe’s largest economy still believes in free speech—or whether dissent itself is now treated as a criminal offense.
A Ukrainian family in California says Child Welfare removed their teenage daughter from their home and placed them on the child abuse registry after they declined to “affirm” her transgender identity. Speaking to Reduxx under the condition of anonymity, the parents say the removal followed a report filed by their daughter’s psychiatrist without their knowledge.
The mother, who will be referred to as Ellie, told Reduxx that a social worker from Shasta County Child Welfare Services arrived at the family’s home on June 3, 2024, without prior notice. According to Ellie, the worker accused the parents of emotional abuse and demanded access to their daughter, who will be referred to as Maya, without presenting a warrant or court order.
“She just kept saying, ‘You’re emotionally abusing your child,’” Ellie said. “But she had nothing in her hands. No paperwork. Nothing.”
The removal was a dramatic climax following years of instability that Ellie says began in early childhood. After the family immigrated to the United States in 2007, Maya began experiencing anxiety, anger issues, attention difficulties, and emotional dysregulation. Her mental health concerns, which once resulted in a temporary placement in a psychiatric facility, were made worse by the persistent bullying she experienced at school starting in first and second grade. She said the bullying came not only from other students but also from indifferent teachers, and that repeated complaints to school administrators were dismissed.
In an effort to protect their child, the family relocated multiple times, hoping to improve their daughter’s environment.
“It felt like every time we tried to give her a fresh start, something else happened,” Ellie said, explaining that they eventually settled down in Redding, California, after her husband found an expansive, idyllic ranch Ellie described as heaven for their family.
Artwork pained by Ellie of herself and her child. Image provided by family.
But it was around this time that Ellie says Maya became increasingly preoccupied with psychology and mental health. She began researching diagnoses, requesting testing for ADHD, and asking about psychiatric medications. Ellie believes it was her daughter’s attempt to better understand her difficulties at school.
“She was looking for an explanation,” Ellie said. “Perhaps something that would explain why she felt the way she did, why she was different, and why she had been bullied or difficulties making friends.”
In January of 2022, Maya suffered a head injury while being dropped off at school after another vehicle backed into her as she exited the car. Two months later, she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder during a phone-based evaluation conducted by a psychologist after a single remote appointment. According to Ellie, the diagnosis was based largely on questionnaires with no in-person assessment.
Throughout that year, Ellie said Maya continued to pursue additional diagnoses and medications, often requesting specific prescriptions she had researched herself. Maya also began making gradual changes to her appearance. She cut her long hair shorter, shifted to androgynous clothing, and asked to be called by a unisex name. Ellie said she and her husband accommodated these changes in order to reduce conflict and support their daughter.
“We don’t speak English at home, and our native tongue is a very gendered language. But we even changed how we referred to her to try and keep her happy,” Ellie said. “We tried to be careful. I even used this new name in public for her.”
At the end of that year, the family visited Mercy Medical Center for a routine check-up that would change their fate forever. While speaking with the doctor, Maya requested a referral to see a psychiatrist. Believing she was just seeking more counseling for her difficulties at school, Ellie was initially supportive.
The girl was referred to Dr. Michelle Sager, who she began to see in early 2023. Dr. Sager worked through both Mercy Medical Center and a clinic called the Children’s Legacy Center for Resilience, a mental health facility in Redding described to the parents as being “trauma-focused.” Under Dr. Sager’s care, Maya was prescribed lithium and later antidepressants, with frequent medication adjustments.
While Ellie typically sat in during the counseling appointments, in March of 2023, Ellie says her daughter requested to meet with Dr. Sager alone.
“My daughter asked [Dr. Sager] ‘do you help with LGBTQ issues,’ and then asked me to leave the room. I had concerns, but I did it because I didn’t want to be perceived as imposing on my daughter’s therapy,” Ellie explains, adding that she knew almost nothing about transgenderism or any other LGBTQ issues at the time.
Artwork of ‘Maya’ made by her mother. Image provided by family.
Following private meetings with Dr. Sager, Maya began to express an explicit interest in pursuing a transgender identity. Around the same time, Maya told her parents that she had joined an LGBTQ Discord server where she felt accepted.
“I did not suspect anything. I wanted her to be happy so badly. It had been so long since she was happy. So when I would walk by her bedroom and hear her laughing and playing games with her online friends, I was so happy for her. I thought maybe she had finally found her friends and we could have some peace,” Ellie recalls.
But the peace did not last long.
In April of 2023, Ellie says that Maya began making chilling comments during casual conversations.
“One day, she said ‘mama, did you know that in California there are laws that if you don’t affirm a trans child they can come and take the child from you?’ I instantly felt frozen,” Ellie says. “I replied ‘no, honey, I didn’t know that.’ And then she said, ‘well, I stand right with you guys right now.’ But it was like a black cloud was hovering over our heads from that moment. A cold feeling.”
Ellie says she believes Maya got this information from the LGBTQ Discord server where her daughter began spending so much of her time. Throughout the remainder of the year, Maya became increasingly isolated from her family, preferring to be in her bedroom speaking with her online friends.
By early 2024, the situation escalated further. Maya, then 14, began demanding hormone replacement therapy and spoke explicitly about wanting a hysterectomy. Her parents refused, asking her to wait until she was 18 before making serious medical decisions.
After this refusal, Ellie said Maya became entirely unmanageable. She stopped eating with the family, and accused her parents of abuse.
Desperate for help, Ellie repeatedly contacted Dr. Sager, describing the family as being in crisis and asking for family therapy.
“She said, ‘it sounds like you guys need a good family therapist. I’m taking it upon myself to find you a good family therapist.’ And I trusted her,” Ellie recalls. “I trusted her to help us. I thought she was on our side.”
Unbeknownst to Ellie, Dr. Sager was already in the process of filing a report with county child welfare services to have Maya removed from their custody.
On June 1, the family experienced an explosive argument. Maya demanded to be placed into foster care, telling her parents she would have an easier time accessing hormones and surgeries if she were in state custody.
Two days later, a social worker arrived at the family’s residence.
“It was Monday, June 3, at noon,” Ellie describes. “I had been working on an art piece and was distracted. But there was a persistent knock at the door, and my son called me to answer it. He said there was a woman at the door.”
After Ellie opened the door, the woman introduced herself as being from Shasta County’s Department of Health and Human Services, and stated that a complaint of child emotional abuse had been filed against the family.
“She had no paperwork, no badge, no documents. Nothing. She just kept saying we had emotionally abused our child, and demanded we produce her immediately. I was so confused, I kept asking her ‘who did this?’ and she wouldn’t answer. She just kept asking to see my daughter,” Ellie said, noting that the blow was so sudden that she had an immediate physical reaction and became ill. Her husband then stepped in to speak with the case worker.
Desperate for answers, Ellie went to her daughter’s room and asked if it had been Dr. Sager who had filed the report.
“She started screaming and swearing and told me to get the fuck out of her room,” Ellie says. “I left back to where my husband was still talking to the case worker. He again demanded any proof from her – a court order, a copy of the report, anything. She said ‘I don’t have to have that.’ So he told her that because she had provided no evidence that she was who she said she was, she was not allowed to speak with my daughter. We told her to leave.”
The case worker then left, stating she would call the police to assist with the removal. As the case worker left the house, Ellie says her daughter ran out behind her.
“She was barefoot. She wasn’t wearing any shoes. And I heard the case worker tell her ‘I can’t legally drive you, so just follow behind the car.’ She was going to let my child run behind her car, barefoot. I tried to throw her some flip-flops, at the very least. I was still worried about her feet and begged her to put the flip-flops on.”
Shortly after, eight police officers arrived to assist with the removal.
“My daughter had left everything in her room. All of her stuff. Her laptop, even. She had taken nothing with her, so focused on running away with the case worker,” Ellie says.
Because Maya had left her computer behind and unlocked, Ellie says she noticed the final thing she had been doing was chatting with one of her Discord friends.
“I could see the Discord chat up. She had been communicating with another user up until the moment she left,” Ellie recalls, adding that she saw chats where this other user had advised her daughter on how to successfully be removed from her family’s custody. According to Ellie, the messages contained instructions on how to accuse her parents of emotional abuse, what terminology to use with authorities, and how to ensure removal from the home.
“She was being instructed on how to better file emotional abuse claims. How to be removed from the home. How to ‘dig a grave for your parents.’ Me and my husband were so emotional seeing that. I completely broke down. I said to the officers, ‘ok, fine, she wants to go this badly – take her. Take her away.’ I will regret those words forever.”
From that moment, Ellie says her family was thrust into months of “hell.”
Constant hearings never resulted in any indication Maya would be returned to them, and, as the family finally got the chance to access reports and more information, they learned their cultural background had been cited by the state as being “in conflict” with the child’s gender identity.
From one of the custody petitions filed by the state. Report provided to Reduxx by the family and shared with consent.
Maya also routinely used self-harm as leverage, telling case workers she would harm herself if she was sent back to her parents. She has expressed concerns she would be isolated from her online friends, and has cited her family’s “transphobia” as a reason to stay in state care.
Ellie notes that she never had particularly strong opinions on gender ideology prior to her daughter being removed from her custody, but that she simply wanted Maya to wait until adulthood before making any irreversible medical decisions.
Following the custody battle, however, she began to research more into the subject and found community in a Facebook group of parents who had experienced similar familial upheavals as a result of a transgender-identifying child.
As a result of taking to social media to appeal for assistance in her case, Maya has told her case workers that her parents are “[spreading] so much hate about the LGBTQ+ and transgender community.”
From a 2025 custody report. Maya is referred to using “he/him” pronouns. Report provided to Reduxx by the family and shared with consent.
Ellie also says that many of the claims cited by Child Protective Services were total fabrications or highly misrepresented.
One of the allegations she cites as an example is that CPS wrote that Maya had been forced to live in a “shed” by her family. But the building humorously referred to as the “shed” by the family is in fact a fully-finished suite on their 2.6 acre property. Ellie shared photos of the “shed” with Reduxx to evidence her statements.
“It has everything. Bedrooms, bathrooms, heating, Wi-Fi. It is not some dirty place. It is like a whole second house,” Ellie clarifies, adding that they had openly discussed using this separate property as a voluntary conflict resolution measure with Dr. Sager, believing that giving Maya some privacy and distance would help her de-escalate when she became volatile.
The “shed” cited in the child welfare report. Photo provided by family.
Maya has also reportedly told caseworkers that she was physically abused by her family, an allegation her mother strongly denies. Court records and medical reports reviewed by Reduxx contain no evidence supporting claims of physical abuse. A 2024 forensic psychiatric evaluation prepared for the court further indicates that Maya fabricated the sole incident in which she alleged her father was physically violent and could not recall any other instances in which her parents caused her physical harm.
That psychiatric evaluation, which can not be shared publicly due to the amount of sensitive medical information included, also confirms that Maya received “high levels of support and validation from the LGBT online communities in which she participated” after beginning to identify as transgender, and that her desire to leave her familial home only emerged after her otherwise supportive parents refused to allow her to medically transition.
The drafting psychiatrist diagnosed Maya with gender dysphoria, along with a host of mental health concerns including Borderline Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and ADHD.
A 2025 Detention Report also claimed that Maya’s family was “unwilling” to have her in the home, something Ellie dismisses as “a ridiculous lie” considering the extensive efforts and costs they have incurred to reunite their family. Part of reasoning cited by the report is the family’s unwillingness to sign off on a transgender-based case plan they would be required to comply with.
Shockingly, Ellie says that she and her husband have been entered into the California Child Abuse Central Index (CACI). This registry contains the names of individuals whom county Child Protective Services agencies have identified as suspected child abusers. Crucially, being listed on CACI does not require a criminal charge, arrest, or conviction. A person can be entered into the database solely based on a child welfare investigation and report. The abuse does not have to be physical, and “emotional abuse” is included as a justification for placement on the registry.
Being listed on CACI can have life-altering consequences, even without criminal charges, as those on the registry are generally barred from working with children and can fail routine vulnerable sector checks.
Ellie says this has impacted her ability to work as a teacher, and fears that it may impact her husband if he is ever required to produce a background check for his job.
“We are now registered child abusers and we have been unable to file a grievance against this. I have no idea how long it lasts, or if it can ever be removed at all,” Ellie says.
Since 2024, the family has also been gradually removed from any decision making authority with respect to their daughter’s care or education. Her school began refusing to allow them to have access to her records so they could review them, and medical decisions were assumed by Maya’s foster parents.
Ellie says they only became aware that their daughter was being prescribed medication after it was billed to their insurance – demonstrating that their daughter was taking the antidepressant Pristiq and had also been prescribed birth control pills. Ellie has expressed concern about this, noting that her daughter had not been sexually active prior to entering state care and that her daughter was being housed in the same room as a teenage boy because she identified as “male.”
Faced with conflicting messaging and urgent concerns about their daughter’s safety, the family filed a federal lawsuit in December of 2025.
According to documents from the case, on August 29, 2025, the judge preceding over the custody hearings had noted that Ellie and her husband had provided Maya with exceptional care, and that “no evidence suggests that the parents intentionally harmed the child.” Yet despite this, Maya remains in the custody of the state and Ellie and her husband are still classified as “child abusers” in the state’s registry.
Due to a lack of representation, Ellie says she is worried the federal case will be dismissed and hopes to find a lawyer willing to assist her family.
“My daughter is 17 now. She is going to age out of care and custody, and we would have never had a resolution,” Ellie laments. “Someone needs to hold Shasta County and the state of California to account for what they’ve done to my family. To my daughter – I will always be waiting for you to come back.”
Ellie’s story closely mirrors that of the Kolstad family in Montana, who lost custody of their teenage daughter in 2023 after opposing medical gender transition. In that case, the parents were accused of emotional abuse after refusing to consent to testosterone and puberty blockers, following their young daughter’s declaration of a transgender identity.
🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨
A family in Montana has lost custody of their 14-year-old daughter after refusing to "affirm" her gender transition to a "boy."
Krista and Todd Kolstad have chosen to tell their story despite a court order demanding they remain silent.https://t.co/n7P1XwzfSS
The Kolstads’ daughter was removed after the family sought help from clinicians, only to find those interactions later used as the basis for state intervention. Court records showed that the parents’ refusal to affirm a transgender identity was framed as psychological harm, despite testimony that they had always met their daughter’s needs. The parents were later barred from contact with their child under conditions tied to gender “affirmation.”
