Month: August 2024

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Mississippi and eight other states have sued the Biden administration to block an executive order that requires federal agencies to develop strategies to expand voter registration, which the states claim aims to promote left-wing politicians and policies at elections.

The complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas on Aug. 13, accuses Executive Order 14019 on Promoting Access to Voting of “partisan infection” so severe as to undermine its claimed intent, which is to make registering to vote and voting simple and easy, and to promote the right to vote among eligible Americans.

Mississippi, which was joined in the lawsuit by Montana, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota, alleges that the executive order oversteps the boundaries of federal authority and violates the U.S. Constitution, particularly in its alleged encroachment on states’ rights to manage their own voter registration processes.

The lawsuit claims that the executive order turns federal agencies into voter registration entities, bypasses transparency, and is driven by partisan motives.

“We fully support encouraging voter registration and promoting an engaged electorate,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said in a statement. “But putting the full weight of the Oval Office behind an effort first developed by partisan activist groups and then hiding the agency activities from public scrutiny goes too far. The law does not allow it. Mississippi will not stand for it.”

The legal action seeks to block implementation of Executive Order 14019, arguing that plans for the order did not go through notice and public comment or any of the safeguards under the Administrative Procedure Act that ensure accountability and transparency.

“The partisan infection is so severe as to render EO 14019, and the agency decisions stemming from it, the product of pretext,“ the complaint reads. ”That is, rather than ensure ‘that registering to vote and the act of voting be made simple and easy for all those eligible to do so,’ or promoting or defending ‘the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections,’ … the purpose is to promote left-wing politicians and policies at elections.”

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the legal challenge.

Federal Agencies Mobilized

President Joe Biden signed the executive order on March 7, 2021. It directs federal agencies to explore ways to expand voter registration and participation by providing relevant information and resources during public interactions, facilitating access to voter services, and ensuring equal voting opportunities.

“Agencies shall consider ways to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process,” the order reads.

Various government agencies—including the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, and the Department of Agriculture—are carrying out campaigns to sign up new voters.

Ceridwen Cherry, a former staff attorney on the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, called the executive order “visionary.”

“In a democracy, governments at all levels should be doing everything they can to help eligible people register to vote,” he said in a statement. ”The voting access executive order is an important step toward achieving this goal because it gets the federal government involved in aiding with voter registration, just as state governments already do.”

Some experts have said that the executive order benefits Democrats over Republicans.

“They’re targeting welfare agencies that serve predominantly left-leaning voters,” Stewart Whitson, legal director of the Foundation for Government Accountability, told The Epoch Times in an earlier interview.

“It’s targeted voter registration, so you don’t have to worry about turning out more Republican voters if you focus your efforts in places where the vast majority of voters are going to lean left.”

A report by a coalition of progressive groups details their assessment of how well 10 federal agencies are doing in implementing the executive order and where they can do better.

Some of the report’s recommendations include urging the Department of Health and Human Services to sign up new voters in applications for health insurance under Obamacare.

The report also encourages the Department of Veterans Affairs to include voter registration for veterans who sign up for VA health benefits and suggests that the Education Department include voter registration when students apply for federal student aid.

Also, the Bureau of Prisons should work to register eligible convicts, per the recommendations of the report, which praised the Treasury Department for targeting voter registration efforts at “low income clients of its voluntary tax preparation clinics.”

Critics have said federal agencies are also partnering with private groups to sign up voters on federal agency premises.

“They’re essentially taking third-party groups and they’re bringing them onto federal land, into a federal office, and who knows what they’re doing,” Whitson said.

“Who knows if they’re following state laws governing voter registration and the collection of applications?”

He said that the Biden administration hasn’t disclosed which private groups will partner with federal agencies.

Kevin Stocklin contributed to this report.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

There was a highly conventional travel piece in The New York Times of the sort that such venues have been running for many years now, even decades.

It’s about a small resort town in Italy, namely Bologna, that is being wrecked by tourism and corporations moving in to promote it and take advantage of it, thereby changing the character of the place fundamentally.

You know the type of article. I’ve ignored them for years, dismissing such travelogs as nothing more than the kvetching of the elite rich toward the common man and his desire to see the world. There is nothing more conventional than journalists yammering about the evils of “commercialism.”

However, for whatever reason, I read this one in full. Buried in the article was the following:

“The slow eating of our city by mortadella [meat] shops started before COVID but accelerated when, as in many cities, lots of Bologna’s independent shops, cafes and restaurants went out of business during the pandemic. Many of those in the center of town were bought up by chains with deep pockets and a singular vision: to sell mortadella to foreigners.”

The article did not admit this, but any marketing person can immediately see the connection between mortadella and bologna; you guessed it, the American luncheon meat. That’s right, international corporations seized on the town’s name to invent a fake tradition to sell to tourists. That’s cynical, even dark, but entirely expected.

The article continues.

“Downtown has changed completely. In the streets around the historic main square there used to be many old stationery shops—a favorite sold fountain pens, inks in every color and all the hand-bound notebooks one could dream of. It had been there for as long as I can remember, but was recently turned into an ‘Ancient cold cuts butcher.’ It’s part of a chain. Just across from it, in what I think used to be a jewelry store, is a second self-styled ancient butcher from the same chain. When I asked the shop assistant how ancient they were, she replied that they had been open for three months.”

Did you catch that passing mention of “went out of business during the pandemic?” Yes, and, if you have been paying attention these past four years, you know precisely what that means. It’s not about a severe flu. It’s about the response to the flu, namely the brutal lockdowns that destroyed small businesses even as big businesses all over the world were allowed to function normally, provided the customers were masked up and vaccinated.

So any reader knows the score, even if the journalist buried the point.

These small businesses were wrecked by the government. This happened not only in Bologna but worldwide. We have no firm numbers to put on this because they do not exist. But I’m sure you have your own stories of your town.

The local shops were destroyed. Stimulus could not save them. They finally gave up, crushing dreams all around. It’s not just in the United States, not just in your hometown, but all over the world.

They were replaced by heavily capitalized multinationals that were in a position to weather the storm. This all happened in the course of a mere two years. We all felt it and saw it.

I recall getting a message from a friend who achieved his dream of making and marketing a charcoal toothpaste, working 18-hour days to develop supply chains. He had 150 employees, and life was good, with robust supply chains and a bright future. Then the lockdowns hit. Eighteen months later, he had to notify everyone that the company would go bankrupt and that everyone would lose their jobs. The end.

He cried deeply and has never recovered from the devastation. I’ve cried for him too, but millions are in his position. The lockdowns transformed life for billions of people globally, shattering dreams, wrecking businesses with long traditions, destroying intellectual and physical capital, and transforming small towns with organic structures of enterprise into hubs for multinational sellers of junk.

This story is shocking and overwhelming but largely unreported. The policy response to the pandemic might as well have been concocted by big business and big banks to crush their competition forever, for that is exactly what happened. It’s a stretch to say that this was the intention, but I fully understand those who say that this was the plot all along. That’s a normal and natural response, to believe that this was all by intention.

In the weeks following the pandemic policy response and the lockdowns, the World Economic Forum released a book called “The Great Reset.” It was about how the COVID crisis would and should be deployed to usher out one form of enterprise and invite a new form in. We should release our attachments to the physical world and property and instead embrace the digital world, green energy (wind and solar power), and the subscription model of profitability.

Whether this blueprint was an inspiration or merely an opportunistic reflection of what was happening is not known, but there was no question that something huge was taking place, the replacement of one form of commerce with another. We see it today all around us, from our hometowns to global trade flows. The old world is being swept away not by choice but by force.

The situation in Bologna is typical of what has happened worldwide.

Will it work? Not over the long term. There is a certain kind of coercive utopian unleashed on the land who believes that the old limits are no more. Not even mortality should trouble us. We can abolish scarcity with the right form of central plan. Nations of the world have been cajoled into trying this out. The new system is not socialism, and it is not communism. It is a form of corporatism that favors new elites against incumbent elites. The rest of us are merely spectators.

There is every reason to think that the “great reset,” however, is not long for this world. The seeds of failure are becoming more evident, as indebted governments deal with raging inflation, growing bankruptcy, fiscal limitations, and heightened voter discontent. Europe has already slid into recession and the United States is headed toward admitting that we never really recovered from lockdowns. Most tellingly, China itself—the world center of great-reset economic strategy—has bumped up against the limits and is facing waves of bankruptcy, inflation, and debt.

The big picture is that the hubris of mankind has once again got the best of him, but the experiment has produced tremendous pain along the way. Finding our way out will be just as painful. Meanwhile, there is every reason to weep for the small businesses, for it is they who have paid the highest price along the way. Their stories will never be fully told, for there are too many, and telling them is too painful. But let’s not forget them.

The various proposals extant to stop taxing tips are welcome but tiny compared with what we really need. The deregulation, budget cuts, and end to the litigation thicket need to be dramatic and far-reaching in order to save small enterprises. Whether it is Bologna or your hometown, it is the small merchants who have built the best of the modern world. They deserved far better.

Big Tech’s AI dreams are coming with a big energy price tag—technology companies and their data centers are consuming more electricity than countries with many millions of people.

In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao compares Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple’s 2023 electricity use against select countries. Data sourced from company reports and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (2022).

Ranking Tech Companies Energy Use vs. Select Countries

Google and Microsoft both consume more electricity (24 TWh) than countries like Jordan (population: 11 million) and Ghana (34 million).

*U.S. territory. **Estimated value. Figures rounded. Population source: World Bank.

This highlights the enormous energy draw for these Big Tech companies that maintain massive data centers as a key part of their operations.

In their 2024 Environment report, Google said its data center electricity use grew 17% in 2023, a trend it expects to continue. It further estimated the company’s data centers accounted for 10% of global data center electricity use in 2023.

And it’s easy to see how AI is playing into this consumption. Training AI models increases data centers’ energy and cooling requirements compared to more traditional data center use, like storing files and apps on the cloud or processing emails.

Tellingly, Microsoft’s electricity use was 11 TWh as recently as 2020 and has doubled to 24 TWh in less than four years. Similarly, Google’s has also doubled to 24 TWh from 11 TWh in 2018.

Both trends coincide with the companies’ generative AI push in which they are both frontrunners.

Meanwhile, tech companies who have had a comparatively later start to the race (Meta and Apple) are further behind in electricity consumption, though Meta seems to be catching up.

Via Middle East Eye

British banking giant Barclays is planning to withdraw from new Israel government bond auctions amid pressure from pro-Palestine activists, the Financial Times reported.

The British newspaper said the bank is trying to address criticism of its investments in Israel, which have been put under the spotlight following the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Bonds are a form of debt that are sold by states to international and domestic investors in order to raise funds for public spending, with interest being paid by the state to the bond holder. 

Barclays will be withdrawing from the purchase of future Israeli bond offerings, but will continue acting as a “primary dealer”, which helps the state to sell the bonds.

Thursday’s report of a withdrawal does not mean a complete end to involvement by Barclays in the Israel bond market. The Financial Times quoted Israel’s accountant general, Yali Rothenberg, who said: “We appreciate the bank’s statement affirming its continued commitment to the State of Israel.”

“It is crucial that leading global financial institutions, such as Barclays, choose to resist boycotting Israel and support its legitimate right to self-defence as a leading western democracy,” he added.

Pressure on Barclays

Barclays has for years been the target of pro-Palestinian activism over its investments in Israel and its ties to the arms industry.

In June, pro-Palestine activists threw rocks and sprayed red paint on 20 branches of the bank over its ties to arms firms supplying Israel in its war on Gaza. Protest group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the targeting of the buildings, adding that it worked in coordination with the climate group Shut the System.

The group said it “aims to halt the Palestinian genocide by undermining suppliers of weapons to the Israeli military… along with financial companies involved with these weapons suppliers.”

In May, several Palestinian solidarity organizations published a report stating that Barclays has £2bn ($2.48bn) of investments in companies involved in supplying arms to Israel.

The list of firms in which the financial giant is reported to have interests includes Elbit Systems, and General Dynamics, a US arms firm that produces components for warplanes. Other firms include BAE Systems and Raytheon.

In a statement at the time, Barclays said it provides services to American, British and European companies “that supply defenze products to Nato and its allies.”

“Barclays does not directly invest in these companies… Decisions on the implementation of arms embargos to other nations are the job of respective elected governments. While we support the right to protest, we ask that campaigners do so in a way which respects our customers, colleagues, and property,” it added. 

Israel is currently defending itself from charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice over its conduct in Gaza, where it has reportedly killed at least 39,000 people. Gaza sources say the vast majority of those were women and children.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have also applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity in the military campaign.

Data from the 2024 Global Peace Index released by the Institute for Economics and Peace shows that the world has become increasingly less peaceful over the past decade and a half.

This is largely due to the indicator group Ongoing Conflict, which deteriorated by almost 20 percent since 2008, according to the index authors.

Other indicators like the terrorism impact and homicide rates, however, have significantly improved over the same period, especially in the Americas.

As Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, a recent Consumer Insights survey shows that crime is still on the minds of many residents of Latin American countries, even though the questionnaire was not specifically targeted toward the respondents’ feelings about violent crimes like murder.

Out of the five countries with the highest share of survey participants seeing crime as a major issue in their country, four were situated on the American continent, with South Africa taking the top spot with 78 percent.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Some of the world’s biggest economies are situated in the midfield of the 48 countries surveyed. Germany, for example, has 34 percent of respondents who answered that crime is an issue that needs to be tackled. In the United States, France and the United Kingdom, the shares stood at 42, 38 and 36 percent, respectively. Looking only at highly industrialized, so-called Western countries, Sweden claimed the top spot with 61 percent. This notion might be related to increased migration to the Northern European country after 2015. In 2023, Sweden tied with Ireland in the share of residents born in a non-EU country, according to Eurostat data.

On the low end of the spectrum are five countries and regions in Asia and the Middle East. China and the United Arab Emirates are the only states where less than ten percent of respondents see crime as an issue. Other places in these geographic regions rank considerably higher on the list. For example, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan reported shares of 31, 31, 30 and 24 percent, respectively.

Authored by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher, via  InfoBrics.org,

US military contractors are concerned about corruption and the security of co-production in Ukraine and are therefore in no rush to sign contracts, a US State Department spokesperson said.

Without the US being able to construct military-industrial infrastructure, Ukraine will never be able to meet its weapons and ammunition needs in the current war.

“Several US defense companies are considering joint production inside Ukraine, but questions remain about the safety of doing business in a war zone, the persistence of corruption, and the long-term business case,” Defense One reported on August 6, citing a State Department official spoken to on the sidelines of the Farnborough air show.

“The Pentagon has been pushing American defense contractors to increase collaboration with their Ukrainian counterparts, but US firms have been slower to ink deals than European companies,” ​​the report added.

According to the State Department spokesperson, the main concerns are the security of employees and facilities, corruption, and political risks.

“I think our industry is really eager, but at the same time, [it] has to make sense from a business case, right? And financing is an issue too, how you can actually pay for this stuff,” the official added.

The source noted that Washington intends to increase the number of companies cooperating with Ukraine, that a team oversees such deals, and that US companies are generally open to dialogue. However, despite this supposed enthusiasm, another major concern is corruption.

“Clearly, corruption is a concern,” the official said.

Corruption is not an issue shared only by US companies, though. A survey conducted in February by Rating found that 51% of Ukrainians believe corruption in government bodies is a greater hindrance to development than the war with Russia (46%). A survey conducted from March 1 to 15 found that 70% of Ukrainians believe that the government is profiteering from the war and increasingly sinking into corruption, a massive increase from the 43% recorded a year earlier.

Although Washington, Brussels, and Kiev claim that corruption is being stamped out, as reflected by citizen experiences, this is certainly not the case. Multimillion/billion-dollar companies do not make investment decisions based on the government’s propaganda statements but on the reality on the ground, which is that deep-rooted corruption has been consolidated into fewer hands, mostly Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his inner circle.

Beyond the issue of corruption, there is also the likely scenario that Russian missiles and bombs will destroy any military-related infrastructure in Ukraine.

“But American companies have a lot to consider before they sign up for co-production in a war zone; no one wants their facilities blown up or employees getting hurt,” the official was quoted by Defense One as saying.  

Although the Biden administration does not take any warnings from Moscow with seriousness, such as the willingness to militarily intervene if the Kiev regime continued its policies of persecuting the Russian minority and pursuing NATO membership, US companies are certainly not under any illusions and are, therefore deterred from making any investments that will quite literally end up in smoke. 

It is recalled that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in September 2023: “Any facilities for the production of weapons, especially if these weapons fire at us, they become objects of special attention for our military.”

Staying true to this message, in a recent one-week period alone, Russian troops carried out 19 strikes by precision weapons and drones at Ukrainian military-industrial and energy sites, air defense systems and arms depots over the past week in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on August 9.

“On August 3-9, 2024, the Russian Armed Forces delivered 19 combined strikes by high-precision weapons and attack unmanned aerial vehicles, hitting Ukrainian military-industrial enterprises and associated energy facilities, aerodrome infrastructure, air defense systems, assembly workshops and storage sites of attack UAVs. In addition, the strikes targeted fuel bases, armament and ammunition depots, areas of massed Ukrainian army reserves, temporary deployment sites of nationalist formations and foreign mercenaries,” the ministry said in a statement.

These are the conditions under which Ukraine’s military-industrial complex must operate and why it cannot meet the Ukrainian military’s weapons and ammunition needs.

Even if corruption was not deterring American investment opportunities, to begin with, the fact that Russia destroys military-industrial infrastructure with such ease means that the interest American companies will have in setting up in Ukraine will all but end.

The global debt stock hit a new record in the first quarter of 2024, increasing by $1.3 trillion in just three months.

This deluge in borrowing is a widespread trend across economies.

While the U.S. and Japan were the largest contributors across advanced economies, China, India, and Mexico drove the largest share in emerging markets.

Overall, the global debt-to-GDP ratio reached 333% as higher debt servicing costs and growing debt burdens continue piling up.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the stock of global debt in 2024, based on data from the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

A Growing Mountain of Debt

Below, we show how global debt climbed to an all-time high of $315.1 trillion in the first quarter of 2024:

Since the onset of the pandemic, debt has surged by 21%, adding $54.1 trillion to the global total.

Today, the largest share of debt is held by non-financial corporations, at $94.1 trillion, while government borrowings follow closely behind at $91.4 trillion. Meanwhile, the financial sector holds $70.4 trillion in debt and households carry $59.1 trillion.

While stimulus measures fueled an influx of borrowing, it is leaving many economies in a more precarious state. In America, debt servicing costs are now more than defense spending, and the interest bill is set to rise further. Consequently, the government may need to raise taxes or cut spending in order to tackle its debt. So far, neither political party has a meaningful strategy that addresses the country’s fiscal sustainability.

For emerging markets, increasing debt burdens present greater risks. These risks are especially acute if a country experiences sluggish growth during a high rate environment. In this scenario, many emerging markets may need to restructure their debt as borrowing becomes unaffordable.

Even more concerningly, about a third of emerging markets have not recovered from the pandemic, with per capita income standing beneath levels seen in 2019. Over the quarter, debt held by emerging markets hit a record $105 trillion, climbing by $55 trillion over the last 10 years.

Authored by Guy Millière via The Gatestone Institute,

Paris. June 9. 8pm. The results of the European Parliament elections were made public.

In France, the party of President Emmanuel Macron garnered 14.6% of the vote, 8 points less than in 2019; the French population had turned away from Macron. The Socialist Party came out with 13.8% of the vote and Rebellious France, a far-left party, 9.89% of the vote. The moderate right party, The Republicans, received only 7.25% of the vote and continued to slide towards insignificance. The right wing National Rally received 31.3% of the vote, 10 points more than in 2019, an extremely high result for a long-marginalized party.

Macron’s policies were clearly rejected by the French electorate. A recent poll showed that only 31% of French people said they were satisfied with his management of the country. He could have decided to wait. He was re-elected in 2022 and can remain president until 2027. His party did not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly (France’s parliament) but was the leading party, which could also remain in place until 2027.

Macron could not ignore that the result obtained by the Rebellious France party was worrying: Rebellious France is not only a far-left party, it is also a party tinged with anti-Semitism and counts supporters of Islamism and terrorist groups such as Hamas in its ranks. Macron also did not ignore that the National Rally’s growing support has come from all those who rejected his management of the country and were apparently extremely worried about what France is becoming.

Macron could see, according to polls, that if legislative elections were organized immediately, his Together party would lose; Rebellious France would gain even more political weight, and the National Rally could win an absolute majority.

He was also aware that the Olympic Games were about take place in Paris, and that since 2017, when he came to power, demonstrations and riots in France have been frequent; any decision on his part could create massive disorder at an extremely bad time.

He nevertheless decided to dissolve the National Assembly and hold legislative elections on very short notice.

He did not warn anyone.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, whom he appointed just six months earlier, learned of the decision while speaking on television. He was not shy about showing his anger. Other members of the government learned of the decision at the same time as Attal.

On June 30, the first round of elections led to the expected results. Together (Macron’s party) received a slightly larger share of votes than in the European Parliament elections, but a far smaller than in France’s 2022 parliamentary elections, and was heading towards a scathing defeat. Rebellious France managed quickly to form a left-wing coalition (the New Popular Front), which it dominated and on which it imposed an extremely radical program. It promised large tax increases, disarming the police and immediate regularization of all illegal immigrants in the country.

The left-wing coalition has clearly been gaining ground. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of Rebellious France, to emphasize that he accepts anti-Semitism and supports Hamas and Islamism, gave a speech on June 30 about his party’s results in the first round, while standing on stage next to an Islamist pro-Hamas activist, newly-elected Member of European Parliament Rima Hassan. Hassan wore a keffiyeh and displayed on her clothes a small Palestinian flag.

The National Rally won an even better result than it had in the European elections: a third of voters gave it their support. The National Rally was well ahead in all electoral districts in the country, except in big cities. It clearly looked able to win a majority in the second round.

Macron then decided to wage total war against the National Rally. He described it in extreme terms and used vocabulary as radical as that used by the leaders of Rebellious France. He could see that the National Rally has a conservative program that is perfectly respectful of institutions, but nevertheless falsely described it as a party belonging to a “fascist” extreme right and a “threat to democracy“. He warned that if the National Rally came to power, the survival of the French republic would be at stake, and added that all parties, including Rebellious France, must unite against the National Rally to defeat it.

An unprecedented situation in France took shape: all the candidates from other parties were asked to withdraw from the election and support the candidate of another party better placed to defeat the National Rally candidate, even if the better-placed candidate belonged to a party that they totally rejected.

Some candidates from Together asked people to vote for Rebellious France candidates, and some Rebellious France candidates asked people to vote for Together candidates. The Republicans also participated in the mayhem. Former President François Hollande, running for a seat in the National Assembly, supported Rebellious France.

The French mainstream media contributed to the operation and fueled fear of “fascism”. They accepted the propaganda. Rappers, who are widely listened to in Islamic no-go zones, released a song that calls for the murder of Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, the rape of party leader Marine Le Pen, and the elimination of “Zionist Jews”. The song was described by some journalists as a courageous “song of resistance” and was broadcast over the radio. One of the lines from the song goes: “From the Jordan to the Seine, Palestine will be free” – a call not just for the destruction of Israel, but for the submission of France to Sharia law and Islam.

On the evening of the second, run-off, round, which was held July 7, it became clear that scaring the public had worked.

The National Rally won only 142 seats out of 577.

Macron’s party, Together, lost a third of its seats and sank from 245 to 166 seats.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s anger is apparently still intact. The other members of the government are also less than euphoric. They knew that Attal could resign soon (he resigned on July 16 and remains in caretaker role), and that it will be the end of the government of which they are part. Any support that Macron still had on June 9 has almost completely evaporated. Macron is alone, discredited.

The “left”, with 184 seats, became the largest group in the National Assembly; Rebellious France, its most powerful component. The party’s leaders present themselves as the spearhead of the “anti-fascist struggle”; claim that they must govern the country, and that to remove them would be to make “concessions to fascism”. They do not bother to hide their anti-Semitism and their support for Hamas and Islam. One of them, Raphael Arnault, a leader of the Antifa movement in France, is on the list established by the French police of people dangerous for the security of the country. This is the first time that a leader of a movement that is officially dangerous for the security of the country has become a member of the National Assembly.

France has become almost ungovernable. No political party has a majority. No party can form a government coalition without having to renounce the most essential part of its program.

The power acquired by Rebellious France means that a government which does not have its approval cannot claim to govern. In addition, no new parliamentary elections can be organized for a year.

France seems to be condemned to political instability and disorder.

National Rally leaders emphasize that their party received the largest number of votes and that Macron’s maneuverings stole the election from them.

Polls have shown for months that a majority of French people would like a firm fight against crime, a stop to illegal immigration, and an end to the Islamization of the country. All these points were on the program of the National Rally.

By having strengthened Rebellious France, Macron created a situation where there will undoubtedly be less fight against crime, more illegal immigration, an increase of Islamization.

Economic data shows that France is currently in a recession. The country’s debt is growing. The debt has increased by 30% in seven years. Year after year, the government budget is in a deficit that is increasing. By the endo of 2024, France’s budget deficit will be 5.1%.

Every year, on average, 500,000 new immigrants, mainly from the Muslim world, settle in France. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants reside in the country. Few are expelled. Islamic no-go zones are growing.

On the evening of July 7, Rebellious France organized a large rally in Paris’s Place de la République. Palestinian flags were everywhere; French flags almost nowhere. Speakers presented hateful slogans against the National Rally, Israel, Jewish journalists, and the police. Demonstrators burned cars and trash cans, and destroyed stores.

Many French Jews are aghast. Before the elections, Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld and the former president Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, Dr. Richard Prasquier, said that, faced with the rise of Islamic left-wing anti-Semitism, they had decided to vote for the National Rally. In fact, the National Rally throughout this period was the only party to explicitly denounce Islamic left-wing anti-Semitism.

Commenting on the results of the election, the Rabbi Moshe Sebbag, of the Grand Synagogue of Paris, said, “there is no future for Jews in France”. He recommended that Jews who could, should leave France.

The Olympic Games, which ended on August, featured in the opening ceremony a decapitated Queen Marie Antoinette, carrying her severed head in her arms, and a blasphemous reenactment of the Last Supper by drag queens, with a nearly-naked man, painted blue, served on a platter. The author Éric Zemmour responded on X

“The great architects of this spectacle (Macron, Boucheron, Hidalgo, etc.) have taken the beauty of Paris, the most beautiful setting in the world, hostage. But these people are not us. They don’t represent us. They are foreign to what we are. Enemies of what we were. They want to impose on us a vision of Man that is not ours.”

At the end of the ceremony, Macron, to loud boos from the crowd, declared the Paris Olympic Games open.

The columnist Ivan Rioufol, in a book published seven years ago, analyzing the first decisions taken by Macron at the start of his presidency, noted that Macron had acted impulsively; had sought to destroy the political parties that had governed France for decades; seemed to have no defined guideline, and seemed to despise the French population. Rioufol added: “His reign will end in a nightmare”.

Are we about to find that out?

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

States that have permissive policies on squatting—a growing phenomenon in the United States—need to make the practice a criminal offense, the writers of a new report from Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) say.

Squatting is occupying an unoccupied or abandoned area of land or a building without having legal permission to use it. Although squatters don’t pay rent and sometimes damage the properties they take over, evicting them can be difficult and costly.

Most states are reluctant to allow criminal prosecution of squatters as trespassers and prefer treating incidents as landlord and tenant disputes. Police who wish to avoid potentially violent confrontations often don’t want to take direct action and instead advise property owners to seek eviction orders from judges.

Kyle Sweetland, strategic research manager at PLF, is a co-author of the report, “Locking Squatters Out: How States Can Protect Property Owners.”

Sweetland acknowledged that there are some thinkers who say squatting is a legitimate means of redistributing wealth.

On the other hand, “legal scholars argue that states’ treatment of squatting as a civil rather than criminal offense amounts to a government-approved taking of private property without just compensation, a violation of property owners’ Fifth Amendment rights,” he said in an Aug. 13 interview.

States are “letting somebody live rent-free at your home while you have to wait for this much longer process” to unfold to regain possession of it, he said.

Model Legislation

PLF, a national, nonprofit public interest law firm, has developed model legislation called the Stop Squatters Act that state legislatures can use to level the legal playing field, he said.

The legislation declares that “the right to exclude others from entering, and the right to direct others to immediately vacate, residential and commercial real property are fundamental property rights.” It also provides civil and criminal penalties for squatters.

PLF senior attorney Mark Miller said, “It is long overdue that we start treating squatters like what they actually are—trespassers.”

“Squatters illegally take property that doesn’t belong to them, and some sell the owner’s belongings, trash the property, or use it for illicit activities,” Miller said in a statement.

“They shouldn’t be given special legal protections.”

The White House has acknowledged that squatting is a problem but has been wary of promoting federal policies to deal with it amid calls for national anti-squatting legislation.

On April 8, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “This is a local issue” and that it was “critical that communities take action to address this issue in a way that works best for them.”

“It is important that we protect the rights of both property owners and also renters. But I also want to be clear here: Anyone found guilty of a crime should be held accountable,” she said.

Statistics Show Squatting on the Rise

Quantifying the problem is difficult because the FBI’s national crime database doesn’t track squatting.

The PLF report says national statistics on squatting incidents are unavailable, but in 2023, the National Rental Home Council surveyed its members and reported that Atlanta (1,200), Dallas (475), and Orlando (125) experienced the greatest numbers of homes subjected to squatting at some point, although the figures weren’t broken down by year.

But case counts for litigation against squatters that were obtained from civil court records in Georgia and New York showed an upward trend that began in 2019.

The case count in Georgia rose from three in 2017 to 50 in 2021 and 198 in 2023. In New York, there were nine cases each in 2020 and 2021, and 62 in 2022. The figure for 2023 fell to 37.

But these figures likely understate the true number of cases filed because the records examined for Georgia covered courts in only 25 of the state’s 159 counties, and the records for New York exclude local civil courts in towns and villages, the report says.

Meanwhile, public concern over squatting has caused eight state legislatures to pass new laws to criminalize the practice and make it easier for property owners to remove squatters, according to the report.

Although most states treat squatting as a civil matter to be resolved in court, as of May 2024, Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia have laws on the books that make squatting a crime.

Legislation has been introduced in North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania that would bolster property owners’ rights against squatters.

Some states, such as Colorado, have created an expedited legal process for removing squatters. Since April, Georgia has had a law in place that cuts the time for repossession of a property to 10 days from eight months, the report says.

Since July, Florida law has allowed property owners to ask law enforcement to immediately remove squatters. The local sheriff can remove an unauthorized person if ownership of the property can be verified. To guard against abuse, a person wrongfully removed can sue for damages equal to triple the fair market rent.

Sweetland said that the attention now being paid to squatting has helped some legal reforms happen and that this is giving homeowners “a much better process of getting repossession of their homes.”

South Africa ranks third in Africa on the Global Organized Crime Index. Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban are among the most dangerous cities in the country, suffering from high levels of violent crime, carjackings, robberies, and murders.

Given the South African government’s inability to protect individuals and businesses from the chaos, one South African company has developed a non-lethal remote control gun mounted on light poles that shoots intruders. 

Johannesburg-based Sublethal developed the non-lethal remote-control gun that fires standard .68 caliber paintballs with solid nylon bullets or pepper balls. 

“This weapon is frequently used in security in South Africa and internationally where non-lethal force should be used,” Sublethal wrote on its website. 

A video of the weapon in use in South Africa has gone viral on X in the past day, garnering more than 5 million views. 

En Sudáfrica hay una cámara de seguridad que cuando detecta a un chorro lo caga a tiros kjjj
Para que aprendan las viejas acá con las alarmas vecinales pic.twitter.com/7A9CAtN6E5

— ElBuni (@therealbuni) August 14, 2024

Here’s the full video:

Sublethal noted, “The remote gun will not autonomously shoot anyone. The gun is controlled either from a control center or from the user’s cellphone. Either way, there is a human who decides when to shoot.” 

It’s only a matter of time before this non-lethal remote-control gun, mounted on light poles, finds its way into commercial yards across the US, given the Democrats’ inability to uphold common sense law and order.