Published on May 15, 2019
By AFP
The non-profit association registered 231 physical attacks, up from the previous annual record of 188 anti-LGBT assaults back in 2013 linked to same-sex marriage legislation.
“2018 was a dark year for LGBT people,” said SOS Homophobie co-presidents Véronique Godet and Joël Deumier in the yearly report.
The number of assaults jumped 66 percent over 2017, with a spike towards the end of the year when a case a day was being reported to the group.
SOS Homophobie’s helpline, website and legal services collected 1,905 statements from witnesses of abuse of the gay community, 15 percent more than the previous year.
The breakdown of cases, which could involve multiple categories, showed 62 percent involved rejection, 51 percent insults, 38 percent discrimination and 20 percent harassment. Threats and defamation made up 17 percent each with physical assault on 13 percent.
Some 66 percent of witnesses were men, who were “more inclined to talk about it and turn to SOS Homophobie to denounce what they suffered”.
The association said the 42 percent leap in reporting of violence against lesbians appeared linked to the greater willingness of victims to speak out and the influence of the #MeToo movement.
With 23 percent of reported cases, Internet was the leading place for the expression of LGBT phobia in France.
Facebook and Twitter act like an “echo chamber” of daily cases with the social networks recording more than half of all reported cases, the group said.
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The IRC receives millions of taxpayer funds through the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. Now the organization is asking for money to pay for gifts for migrants at the Southern Border.
The committee’s website says “When families flee their homes, they often leave with nothing but the clothes on their backs.”
The IRC also notes that at “the U.S.-Mexico border and in crisis areas around the world, we provide families with emergency support and the basic necessities they need to survive and recover.”
The website adds that “Emergency kits can include food, water, diapers, hygiene items, clothing, and other critical supplies.”
The Trump administration has threatened to close the Southern border which has worried the IRC.
“As the White House continues to pursue its policy to close the U.S. southern border and push asylum-seeking families into Mexico, the IRC is urging the Administration to uphold asylum protections for desperate asylum-seeking families,” the IRC saidon its website.
The IRC is urging the Trump administration to take action on the recent migrant wave.
The IRC also is calling on the Administration to support Central American countries in their efforts to reduce the violence that is driving people from their homes.
The committee CEO David Miliband asserts that Trump is “manufacturing a crisis at the US-Mexico border to justify his hardline immigration plans.”
Miliband, who is a British citizen, said in an interview “The US government is failing in its most basic responsibilities, never mind as a global leader but as a local example of how a civilized country should behave.”
The IRC CEO blames the Trump administration for the migrant surge and its failure to provide aid to Central American countries. Breitbart News, however, noted that under Trump’s watch, the U.S. pledged to give out $10 billion in economic aid to Southern Mexico and Central America.
BLP reported on the financial costs of bringing in migrants, which has raised fiscal concerns among policymakers. Not only that, there are legitimate social concerns as well, given the nature of mass migrant waves congregating in enclaves that impede assimilation.
As reported by BLP, immigration continues to be the number #1 issue going into the 2020 election season.
By Matthew Boyle
Now, after a sustained pressure campaign from allies of the president and the first family, Burr has agreed to limit the scope and topics of the interview, as well as the length of time the president’s eldest son will be expected to appear.
Trump, Jr., will now, sources familiar with the deal that Burr and Trump, Jr.,cut early this week appear in early June sometime before the committee for between two and four hours–but no longer, terms that Burr originally opposed limiting. The scope of topics is also going to be limited. The deal that Burr has agreed to comes after last week the matter blew up in serious public fashion in Burr’s face–where an embarrassing amount of Republicans undercut Burr, including several members of his own Senate Intelligence Committee, several other committee chairs, and his own home state colleague.
While Trump, Jr. had been signaling that he might blow off the subpoena entirely, his intent sources close to him say has always been to be helpful. He had offered to answer more questions in writing, and even to testify in person again with a time and scope limitation–something Burr and Senate Intelligence Committee officials previously opposed. Now, after allies of Trump, Jr., and Republicans party-wide rejected Burr’s original subpoena, with a fierce public backlash, Burr has cut a deal to limit the time and scope of the subpoena–which allies of Trump, Jr., say was always his intention.
“This Don Jr. ‘compromise’ is classic Art of the Deal,” Cliff Sims, a former White House official who is close with Trump, Jr., told Breitbart News. “Take a hardline position, mount a PR campaign, throw out a ‘compromise’ you know the other side won’t accept, end up getting what you actually wanted all along while the other side thinks they’re getting a win.”
The New York Times summarized it similarly, laying out how what Trump, Jr., and his team did was very similar to his father’s political playbook.
“The move by the younger Mr. Trump’s associates was straight out of his father’s playbook — set the terms of the debate at the most extreme end of the discussion by saying he would not appear, then cut a deal and look gracious,” the Times wrote in its report on the matter.
Trump, Jr., is also, sources familiar with his thinking say, very pleased with the many Republicans party-wide who stood up for him during this process, and intends to help them in future political battles to come.
So, for now, the temperature on this fight comes down–but simmering tensions between Burr and the Trump universe are unlikely to fade forever, and this may foreshadow a bigger fight to come in the future sometime between the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump-world.
What’s more, it further clears Trump, Jr.–who did nothing wrong with regard to Russia, despite countless media and Democrat attacks on his character. “This compromise further proves that Don Jr. continues to be open and honest throughout this process,” another former White House official told Breitbart News. “He has nothing to hide and has graciously permitted the previous agreement to be reneged on in order to reiterate there was no collusion at all, just like the Mueller report found.”
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“On Friday, May 3rd the family was notified by the hospital that the Ethics Committee had made the decision to take Carolyn Jones off of the ventilation by the power granted to them by the Texas’ Advance Directives Act [Futile Care Law],” Mark Dickson of East Texas Right to Life said to Faithwire.
The family begged hospital personnel to “please don’t do this,” but they went ahead and pulled the plug anyway. Similar to British child Alfie Evans, the supreme authority of the corporate state is prioritized before basic human decency.
“The Texas 10 Day Rule went into effect and on Monday, May 13th at 2:00 pm Carolyn Jones was taken off of her ventilator,” Dickson added.
The Texas Advance Directives Act (199), also known as the “Texas Futile Care Law,” is a rule that allows health care providers to cut individuals off from life support after giving the family 10 days notice.
The so-called medical professionals claim that treatment has become futile, but her family strongly disagrees. Jones continues to remain alive, defying the odds, and still giving her family hope that she can ultimately pull through.
“To the surprise of many, she did not die. As of 7:00 AM she is currently still alive and breathing on her own. At this point, the family has been told by the hospital that no other life-sustaining measures will be provided,” Dickson said.
A video shared with Faithwire by the family shows that Jones continues to be somewhat lucid despite her malady. Kina Jones, Carolyn’s daughter, can be seen in the video asking her mother to “give me another yawn,” and she complied a few seconds later.
“It’s not right, not for someone that is loving and is caring and has done nothing but serve 61 years of help, to just discard her like an animal,” Kina Jones said.
The family does not have the ability to transfer their beloved matriarch to a different hospital, but they have not given up hope and urge people to pray for Carolyn as she battles to hang on despite the callous nature of hospital personnel.
“Right now the family’s only option is to keep on fighting for the life of Carolyn Jones,” Dickson said. “Her life, like everyone else’s life is worth fighting for and none of us plan on giving up anytime soon.”
Former 2008 Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin once received massive criticism from the fake news for claiming that death panels would be apart of the leftist drive to socialize health care services.
Palin said in 2009: “And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
The essence of Palin’s statement is correct, as bureaucrats and health care officials get to play God and decide who lives and who dies at their discretion.
Published on May 14, 2019
Come on, if there was one thing kids’ TV programming was desperately crying out for, it was a gay cartoon rat getting married, teaching us all a timely lesson about “diversity.”
So, that’s exactly what the season premiere of the Public Broadcasting Service’s (PBS) “Arthur” cartoon delivered. The episode featured a surprise wedding between the titular aardvark’s humanoid rat teacher and his male partner who appears to also be an aardvark…as CNN put it, “leaving us all in happy tears.”
While many people seemed unsurprised that Mr. Ratburn, a ‘man’ whose principal interests include eating cake and bird-watching, turned out to be a homosexual, there were, nonetheless, heavy celebrations across social media post-nuptials.
Indeed, social justice warriors everywhere were hardly able to contain their glee over the inter-species, same-sex pairing up. If nothing else, the episode confirmed that even kids just barely out of toddlerhood can no longer avoid being pummelled with lessons about identity politics.
Arthur has been on the air for a whopping 22 SEASONS, making it the longest running children’s cartoon on television. So, perhaps we can chalk its success up to being so very in tune with the zeitgeist — and its willingness to take on responsibilities that might otherwise be left to parents. Like lessons about gay marriage, for example.
Should decisions of when and how to teach children about adult relationships really be made by television producers trying to impart their personal values onto everyone else’s kids? Regardless of whether the relationship is heterosexual or same-sex, marriage is hardly a topic many people would expect to be cropping up in a cartoon for four-year-olds.
What’s next? Are busy parents going to have to start vetting the shows their toddlers are watching and pick ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ ones depending on their own political persuasions? Can a parent not sit their child in front of a television show without wondering what wisdom and life lessons the friendly animated characters are going to be imparting next?
Of course, there’s no grave danger in a child learning about marriage and the basics of sexuality (some people are gay, some are straight, etc.), but are these topics really age-appropriate for the under-fives?
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It’s not the first time that PBS has dealt with same-sex relationships in a supposedly child-friendly manner, either. The publicly-funded network ran an episode in 2005 which ambitiously featured two lesbian couples. Although, it appears on that occasion, “Arthur” was a bit ahead of its time and it was forced to pull the episode following parental complaints.
In a statement to People magazine, the network commented on the importance of accurately representing “the diversity of communities across the nation,” as well as the “wide array of adults in the lives of children who look to PBS KIDS every day.”
Social media reaction varied from extreme excitement that wedding bells were finally ringing for Mr. Ratburn to concern that PBS had taken their efforts to promote diversity and educate young kids a tad too far. Some were even downright angry that the channel had decided to “burden” children with thoughts of sexuality and adult relationships, homosexual or otherwise.
By ARTHUR LYONS
The vast majority of the 23 pages that were banned supported Italy’s currently governing coalition made up right and left wing populist parties La Lega (The League) and the 5-Star Movement (MS5), Italy’s La Stampa reports.
Facebooks cited ‘hate speech’ and ‘divisive content’ regarding vaccines, immigrants, and Jewish people as justification for the drastic move.
Apparently, the tech giant’s decision to ban these pages was informed by a report which was created by a leftist NGO by the name of Avaaz, which claims to focus on environmental campaigns and what they regard as ‘human rights’.
A spokesperson from Facebook commented, saying, “We thank Avaaz for sharing its research so we could investigate…We are committed to protecting the integrity of the EU elections and around the world. We have removed a series of false and duplicate accounts that violated our policies on the subject of authenticity, as well as several pages for violation of the policy on changing the name.”
“We have also taken action against some pages that have repeatedly spread misinformation. We will take further measures if we find other violations,” the spokesperson added.
In Avaaz’s report, which was presented to Facebook earlier this month, the NGO claimed that it had discovered 14 Italian networks operating on social media platform which included 104 pages, 6 groups, with a reach of more than 18.2 million individual users.
Of these networks, actions taken by Facebook this week targeted 23 of its pages – totaling nearly 2.45 million individual users and 2.44 million interactions over the past three months.
On top of this, Facebook has also apparently ‘weakened’ pages that it has arbitrarily deemed to be spreading content containing ‘fake news’ – presumably limiting their visibility to Facebook users.
Facebook asserts that its primary motivation for banning these pages was that the page creators had initially chosen page themes which didn’t cite any involvement with political parties or movements, but which had later switched the themes.
Included among the banned pages are ‘Lega Salvini Premier Santa Teresa of Riva’, ‘We want the 5-Star Movement in government’, which had 129,000 followers and nearly 700,000 interactions in just three months, ‘Lega Salvini Sulmona’ — which had 307,000 followers – ‘We Are 5 Stars’, as well as ‘Beppe Grillo for President’.
Facebook’s most recent efforts in Italy to influence this May’s European elections are only the tip of the iceberg, according to Italian media.
Earlier this month, Facebook opened up a ‘war room’ in Dublin, Ireland with 40 teams of full-time engineers, researchers, threat specialists, scientists, and experts for each country who devote their efforts to the European electoral campaign, according to the Italian La Repubblica.
Apparently, there are 500 individuals working on the elections, with the help of 21 so-called ‘fact checkers’, working in 14 different languages.
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