UK Police have recorded a ‘non-crime hate incident’ (NCHI) against a Conservative Member of Parliament after she merely shared an X post that described a trans person as a “man in a wig.”
The Daily Mail reports that Rachel Maclean shared the post, commenting “While the Greens don’t know what a woman is, my Worcestershire neighbours the people of Bromsgrove certainly do.”
Subsequently, ‘Melissa Poulton’ complained to police about it, accusing Maclean of ‘transphobia’ and prompting the action, which will see the MP’s name kept on police records.
Poulton, a biological male who identifies as a trans ‘woman’ is standing as a Green Party candidate in the upcoming election.
Here is footage of ‘her’ complaining about the incident.
This is Melissa Poulton, a “lesbian” who apparently thinks being a woman is simply wearing a wig.
She commented that NCHIs were originally “used as intelligence-gathering tools. It seems wrong and ridiculous to use the same tool to record that a woman said a biological man cannot become a biological woman or a lesbian.”
“NCHIs have since been widened to cover any protected characteristic. It stretches credibility to believe gender critical women are in the same category as racist murderers when it comes to police data,” Maclean added.
3/ They have been widened since to cover any protected characteristic. It stretches credibility to believe that gender critical women are in the same category as racist murderers when it comes to police data
Helen Joyce, of women’s rights campaign group Sex Matters commented “It’s both terrifying and ridiculous for the police to record a ‘hate incident’ against a female MP for speaking the truth about a man.”
Joyce added, “The expansion of what constitutes ‘hate’ to include using polite, accurate words like ‘man’ and ‘male’ for transwomen is just the latest way to shut up women who dare to talk publicly about matters that concern them, and to try to frighten other women into staying silent.”
Maclean vowed that “No matter how many times I am reported to the police, I will continue to make this stand,” adding that “as deputy chair for women, I am clear that the law allows me to say what a woman is and the difference between a woman and a trans woman.”
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Sweden’s NATO Membership Depends On US, Canada Decisions: Erdogan
It’s now widely perceived that Turkey will continue holding up final formal approval for Sweden’s entry into NATO as retaliation for the West’s support for Israel as it continues assaulting Gaza.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan added further items to the list of grievances in Tuesday remarks suggesting he’ll continue to block Sweden’s membership bid if certain demands aren’t met. He said the ball lies in the US and Canada’s court.
“Positive developments both on [the acquisition of US] F-16s and Canada’s promises [on lifting its arms embargo] would help our parliament to have a positive approach to Sweden… All of them are linked,” Erdogan told a press briefing.
He issued the words to reporters while returning from a trip to Hungary where he met with Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Hungary too had previously held out on approving Sweden’s accession, but now Turkey is seen as the final hurdle.
Turkey signaled it would give its agreement all the way back in June, but appears to have intentionally held up the legal process within Turkish parliament, particularly after the Gaza war kicked off.
Erdogan revealed that he held a phone call last week with President Joe Biden on the issue:
“In the call, Mr. Biden said: ‘You pass this (Sweden’s NATO bid) from the parliament and I will get it (F-16 sale) passed from the Congress’,” he claimed.
Following two years of waiting for the 40 F-16s and 79 modernization kits Turkey has sought, its defense ministry has turned to acquiring Eurofighter Typhoon jets from the UK instead.
Biden has previously favored Turkey’s $20 billion Lockheed Martin deal for the F-16s, but Congressional leaders have resisted due to Erdogan’s ongoing blockage of Sweden’s NATO membership bid.
Turkey has long been a thorn in the side of the Western alliance, and some have even raised the possibility of booting the Eurasian country from NATO. But it remains the alliance’s second largest military, and hosts US forces, including some of America’s tactical nuke arsenal.
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) was urged to divest from oil and gas fracking companies on Monday, when climate activists handed over a petition signed by 60,000 people demanding the Swiss central bank exit its fracking investments.
Last month, a study by SNB Coalition and Climate Alliance Switzerland showed that the Swiss bank had investments worth a total of $16.1 billion in fossil fuel companies.
According to the report from the climate campaign groups, as of the end of 2022, the SNB was invested in 69 companies that produce oil and gas using fracking or transport oil and gas produced using fracking. The total investment in fracking amounts to $9 billion.
“The SNB is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions due to fracking of around 7 MtCO2e through its investment shares. This is as much as the emissions of the entire Swiss agricultural sector,” the climate groups said.
In Switzerland, 14 cantons, which are home to 69 percent of the Swiss population, have positioned themselves against fracking. These cantons own around three quarters of all SNB shares held by the cantons.
“Due to the broadly supported rejection of fracking by cantonal governments and the population, it can be considered a norm and value of Switzerland, which the SNB should also respect,” the climate groups said in November, noting that fracking violates the bank’s investment policy.
Some banks in Europe have started to reduce funding to oil and gas projects as part of their own climate targets.
The most drastic measure yet was taken earlier this year by France’s biggest bank, BNP Paribas, which said in May that it would no longer provide any financing for developing new oil and gas fields regardless of the financing methods.
The bank also pledged to reduce its financing for oil exploration and production by 80% by 2030 as part of its energy transition goals.
These Are The World’s Fastest-Growing Economies In 2023
Guyana, located on the north-eastern coast of South America, is emerging as a significant economic force.
As Statista’s Martin Armstrong reports, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the real GDP of this country with a population of 800,000 is expected to have grown by around 38.4 percent in 2023 (as at October 2023).
No other country has recorded a higher growth rate this year.
The main factor behind this development is oil production.
In 2015, the oil and gas company ExxonMobil discovered significant oil deposits off the coast of Guyana. The so-called Stabroek block has an estimated total volume of up to ten billion barrels of oil.
The oil fields play a central role in the current flare-up of tensions with Venezuela, as the neighboring country claims the region west of the Essequibo River and therefore most of the waters off the coast of Guyana.
The only economy to surpass Guyana’s economic boom in 2023 is the Chinese Special Administrative Region of Macau.
Known as the “Las Vegas of Asia”, Macau has become a vibrant center for commerce and entertainment. GDP growth of over 74 percent is mainly driven by industries such as tourism, gambling and real estate. Government initiatives to diversify the economy and strengthen international partnerships have helped drive economic growth.
Gross domestic product growth is an important indicator of a country’s economic strength. A look at global IMF forecasts shows that most countries are once again experiencing weak growth following last year’s slump.
The public statements since October 7 of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) and its employees, on the ground in Gaza, show a systematic bias in favor of Hamas and hostility to Israel. MSF has failed in its humanitarian purpose and violated its own charter, which proclaims “assistance… irrespective of race, religion, creed or political convictions.”
MSF has been present in the Gaza Strip since 1989. It now plays a leading role there, with at least 300 staff members, and works closely with local hospitals on a number of projects, either directly or indirectly with the Hamas “Ministry of Health”.
MSF is often quoted by the international media and is seen by public opinion as an objective, neutral and independent observer of the conflict in the region. Because of the history of the organization, which in 1999 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the French and international media have blind faith in MSF when it comes to reporting what it states.
However, a new investigative report on the social media posts of MSF and its employees has seriously called this reputation into question. The tweets and the Facebook posts of MSF and around 100 of its employees in Gaza were scrutinized.
Despite being subject to the MSF Charter, a significant proportion of its staff seem to share the Hamas point of view and support the terrorist attacks of October 7. For example, from October 7:
“Always remember that Gaza has done what all Arab armies have not done… !! It dug tunnels with its own hands. It built its weapons with its own hands…!! She sacrificed her sons, her women, her youth, her elderly, her homes and her mosques for the dignity of this land…!!” — MSF nurse (see Appendix 1).
“oh my God, we love you” — MSF doctor (see Appendix 1).
Similar comments were made by doctors from Al-Shifa, who are not members of MSF but who work with MSF doctors on a daily basis (see Appendix 6).
Not once in its official statement has MSF mentioned the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. On the contrary, it sets out without proof — based on testimonies of its local Palestinian employees — to depict the events in order to accuse Israel of all the crimes, with phraseology designed to capture the imagination, but whose veracity is questionable. For example, the words “massacres”, “annihilation”, “sacrifice assumed and organised”, “indiscriminate bombing campaign”, as well as a serious accusation made — without proof — in the official MSF X (Twitter) account on November 13:
“There’s also a sniper who attacked patients, they have gunshot wounds, we operated on three of them.”
In the meantime, the evidence of Hamas operating in Gaza’s medical facilities is overwhelming. A video from October 7 shows hostages being taken by force into Al Shifa Hospital, stolen IDF vehicles in the hospital courtyard, armed men in the hospital, bodies of hostages found in the hospital, numerous weapon caches and exchanges of fire. Finally, several tunnel entrances are located in an area very close to the hospital.
MSF has had a large presence in Gaza for a long time. Moreover, in a series of tweets, MSF provided precise information on the situation at the Al Shifa Hospital, showing its perfect knowledge of the premises and the staff. Is it possible and credible that MSF and its employees knew nothing and saw nothing of Hamas’s violations of humanitarian law in the hospital?
To date, MSF has not once denounced the violation of these “sanctuaries” by Hamas belligerents, even though on October 7 it demanded:
“Health care facilities cannot become targets. We ask all parties to respect health infrastructures, which must remain a sanctuary for people seeking treatment.”
The investigation looked only at MSF’s French-language posts. Those in English and Arabic are worse. On October 7, MSF made a statement in Arabic as follows: “Israeli forces launched air strikes against the Indonesian Hospital in the Gaza Strip,” without making the slightest reference to the initial attack by Hamas on the same day.
MSF’s biased analysis of events can also be found among MSF’s official spokespeople, who — usually quick to communicate — are completely silent on the atrocities of October 7. Worse still, two of them — on October 7 — posted ambiguous tweets.
Ghassan Abou Chaar, vice-president of MSF France, reposted this:
“I think it important for people to be educated on Gaza before spewing anything from talking points you have heard.” (Appendix 5)
Louis Baudoin Laarman, Field Communications Manager in Jerusalem, tweeted: “Rockets still shooting from #Gaza right now. No Israeli response for now”, then reposted in English from MSF international talking about an Israeli strike following “the escalation,” and then in an Arabic version via “MSF Arabic”, he failed to mention “the escalation” (Appendix 5).
Dr Mohammed Abed Abu Mughaiseeb, MSF Deputy Medical Coordinator in Gaza, widely quoted by MSF, even seems to have friendly and/or family links with people close to terrorists who took part in the attacks on October 7 (Appendix 7).
MSF repeated the false claim that Israel bombed Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. In a tweet dated October 17, MSF France wrote in French:
“We are horrified by the Israeli bombing of the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, which treated patients and housed displaced people. Hundreds of people were killed according to local authorities. This is an unacceptable massacre.”
MSF did not specify that these “local authorities” are part of Hamas.
On X (Twitter), on October 17 at 9:56pm (a few hours after the rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad hit Al Ahli Hospital), MSF France quoted Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, identified as an MSF doctor in Gaza:
“We were operating in the hospital when there was a loud explosion and the ceiling of the operating theater fell. It was a massacre.”
On his Facebook page, where he identifies himself as an MSF doctor, Abu Sittah wrote the next day:
“We now know that the number of people killed exceeds 500, and this number is going to rise (…) it was the most heralded crime in history, it’s a massacre by appointment” (Appendix 4).
Abu Sittah is often quoted by MSF and has been picked up by the world’s press, including the BBC. It should be remembered that the hospital was not destroyed, that the PIJ rocket hit the hospital’s parking lot and that, according to European sources, the death toll was between 10 and 50.
Since October 7, MSF, which is extremely active on X, has not made a single tweet denouncing the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, including the abduction of over 240 Israelis and others who have been held in Gaza as hostages, and the use of hospitals as barracks or human shields. MSF has constantly denounced Israel in virulent terms, but never the violations of humanitarian law committed by Hamas.
It is vital that the media and politicians are vigilant when they use information released by MSF. It is essential to check sources and to present events in a balanced way, taking into account the perceptions of all those involved. The information provided by MSF, which often repeats without proof the words of its local Palestinian employees, should therefore be no more credible than that of Hamas.
MSF regularly refers to international humanitarian law, but its interpretations of this law varies widely. In its public communications, MSF has seriously failed in its humanitarian aim. MSF’s charter, asserts the organization’s neutrality, impartiality and independence from any political, economic or religious power. MSF must be irreproachable and neutral in its work. This is clearly not the case in Gaza.
On the evening of December 16, 1773, 250 years ago today, New England colonists disguised as Native Americans calmly boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 90,000 pounds of tea overboard.
By 1773, the Americans had been pushing back against Parliament’s efforts to tax the colonies for roughly a decade. In 1764, Parliament passed the Sugar Act, and in 1765 the Stamp Act. These laws sparked intense resistance. The Stamp Act, requiring that all papers – legal documents, newspapers, and other publications (in addition to playing cards and dice) – bear the King’s stamp as proof of having paid the tax, sparked intense resistance, often in the form of mobs which gathered to ensure that no colonist was foolhardy enough to be the official stamp agent.
According to an old nugget of wisdom, the key to a good tax is to pluck the maximum number of feathers from the goose with a minimum amount of squawking. From that perspective, taxing writers, publishers, and lawyers was particularly ill-conceived.
But how to protest an act that faraway British subjects, with no representatives in Parliament, regarded as illegal? The colonists believed they had the right to tax themselves in their legislatures which were, significantly, the only elected legislatures in the Americas at the time.
In an age before elected legislatures were generally understood to be the heart of the government, mobbing was sometimes recognized across the board as a legitimate, albeit extreme, way of vetoing what the common people regarded as an unconstitutional law, or of blocking an illegal action by the government. Hence, colonists would distinguish between legal and illegal mobs.
Such mobs generally reflected the opinion of the local majority – they were not part of street fights between factions. Some of the Stamp Act mobs did get out of hand; others were more restrained (perhaps not by the standards of our more civilized age) and the colonists succeeded in blocking the Stamp Act, which was repealed.
Parliament saved face by asserting its right to rule the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” Parliament soon followed that assertion with the Townshend Acts, named after the Parliamentary leader Charles Townshend. These were revenue-raising duties on lead, paper, paint, glass, and tea. The colonists resisted and boycotted the goods, and in early 1770, these taxes were also repealed, with the exception of the duty on tea, which was retained – like the previous assertion of Parliament’s right to rule – as a marker defending Parliament’s claim of the right to tax the colonists. Repeal broke the boycott, although some colonists tried to sustain the boycott on British tea, preferring smuggled tea instead. Compared to other port cities, Boston’s tea boycott was less solid after 1770.
In early 1773, with the British East India Company in financial trouble, Parliament tried to help the company, and perhaps force the tax issue, by allowing it to sell directly in the colonies, eliminating the middlemen. They were blind to the reality that this act was, in fact, extremely provocative. In reaction, the boycott movement returned in full force.
In most colonies, the patriots succeeded in keeping the tea out, but in Boston, Gov. Thomas Hutchinson sought to force the issue. He refused to give the tea ships clearance to leave port. And it was illegal for a ship to leave without proper papers. The ship owner could lose everything if he failed to comply with the law. Leading colonists repeatedly lobbied the governor to let the ships go, but he was adamant.
The first tea ships arrived in Boston Harbor on Nov. 28. By law, a ship had 19 days to unload its goods, or it was forfeited to the government on the 20th day. In other words, at midnight on Dec. 17, the tea would become the government’s property, and the government could unload it forcibly and, presumably, sell it to the minority in Boston who opposed the boycott. That would confirm the legal precedent the colonists wished to prevent – it was an implicit acceptance of the right of Parliament to tax citizens without their consent.
On the afternoon of Dec. 16, after a failed final appeal to the governor, the town of Boston convened at the Old South Church, the largest meeting house in Boston. The assembly represented the “Body” of the people, not merely a faction. After the speakers concluded that there was nothing to be done, out of the streets came the whoop of the tea partiers, disguised as Native Americans, who marched down to the harbor and systematically and peacefully destroyed the tea – and nothing but the tea.
Lifting 400-pound chests of tea with 18th-century implements was skilled work. The patriot leaders had done a good job selecting workmen. They unloaded the tea chests methodically, broke them open, and made sure the tea was spoiled in the salty water of Boston Harbor. Meanwhile, the tea partiers kept their focus on the tea, blocking, for example, those who tried to break into the ships’ liquor supply. This was no unruly, out-of-control mob parading randomly about the ships or the harbor. It was focused directly on blocking enforcement of the Tea Act.
The Tea Party was a sensation. Some colonists, notably George Washington, believed it was excessive – attacking property in the name of property rights was a step too far. But then the British government reacted harshly, replacing the free government of Massachusetts with a military one, and taking other extreme measures. Parliament’s “Intolerable Acts,” as the colonists called them, did not divide the colonies as Parliament had hoped. Instead they rendered Washington’s qualms moot. In response the colonists called the First Continental Congress; several months later, fighting began at Lexington and Concord, and we were on the road to Revolution.
At the Second Continental Congress, which met not long after those battles, Massachusetts’ John Adams nominated Virginia’s George Washington to lead the Continental Army. The Union was coming together. On the other side, Gov. Hutchinson, unwilling to bend to overwhelming public opinion, lost the right to rule. British government would suffer the same fate across the colonies.
Riots, mobs, and the like have historically been the tool of outsiders. The Tea Party was not quite that. It was the act of men who, by 1773, had long been part of their colonial political system. Yet they were outsiders in British politics. The British wished to fix that by creating a separate class of their kind of gentlemen who ruled over the colonists. The scope of the people’s role in colonial government made them shudder. In other words, they sought to change the norms of colonial government to make them more like the norms of British government. That’s what the taxes would pay for. The colonists had other ideas. And the Revolution came.
Americans today might consider a couple of lessons from the Tea Party. One has to do with tea itself. Only in the 18th century did tea begin to become a staple in Britain or British America. Enjoying daily tea and other like consumer goods became common and not merely a luxury for gentlemen and aristocrats. Tea drinking grew with the rise of global trade and the British merchant class. It was part of the revolution of rising standards of living that began in that age. (As we know today, drinking tea has health benefits. It has antioxidant properties and other good things. Globalization has many benefits.)
Back in the 18th century, the economic turn that produced an expanding middle class enjoying consumer goods, combined British liberties and literacy came the desire of more and more colonists to be respectable – and recognized as solid and responsible members of society. That meant one should not merely drink tea, but one ought to do it properly, in that way becoming a civilized British subject. Drinking tea and other respectable activities were signs that one was worthy of the responsibilities that came with British liberties. Part of the reason the colonists reacted so strongly against the efforts by Parliament to tax them without their consent was that their English cousins were, by implication, treating them as inferiors not truly worthy of the political rights that were their due.
Another lesson has to do with the mobs. This was one way those outside the political system could make their voice heard. After the Revolution, replacing bullets with ballots and mobs with peaceful mass meetings, protests, and petition campaigns represented a fundamental turn.
On the other side, the question of the right to block the government when it violates the law remains a problem, and probably will be as long as governments are staffed with human beings. In the late 1760s John Adams successfully defended John Hancock when he had his men forcibly block government agents trying to conduct an illegal search below the deck of one of his ships. Their warrant was only for the deck; Hancock kept them to the letter of the law.
The larger move from mobbing to voting was itself built upon a more robust idea of rights – the rights of men rather the rights of Englishmen. And that points to the looming crisis of slavery. As soon as the colonists transformed the rights of Englishmen into the rights of men, slavery was logically and morally untenable. Yet it was deeply entrenched. In some ways, slavery and racial caste grew deeper in a human and also perverse way to manage the tensions between American slavery and American freedom, and, as the centuries pass, the problems of race and the legacy of slavery threaten to be the dram of evil in the tragedy of American liberty.
Finally, there is in the Tea Party the eternal political problem of elites and commoners. All societies have them. When an elite grows distant (or is literally distant) and loses touch with the bulk of the people, it always causes trouble. The less connection it has to the local democratic process, the more likely it is to be a problem. On the other side, if the people have rights, they also have responsibilities.
Two hundred and fifty years after the Boston Tea Party, are our elites once again the snobs who look down on the common citizens, deeming them unworthy of full participation in government? On the other side, does the common citizen still understand that to be a citizen is, in a sense, to be a little bit of an aristocrat, with the duties and responsibilities that necessarily entails?
On this anniversary of the Tea Party, as we begin the 250th celebration of the American Revolution, we ought to begin, once again, to think seriously about what it means to live in a democratic republic, and how we might sustain it for another 250 years.
Richard Samuelson is an American historian and associate professor of government at Hillsdale College, Washington, D.C., campus.
The “Post-Degree” Era Is Here: Study Reveals Top 10 Six Figure Careers That Don’t Rely On College
During a day and age when the idea of going to college looks less and less like a way to get ahead in the world and more and more like a path for a guaranteed “woke” lobotomy, younger generations are starting to question the importance of higher education.
We already know that kids out of high school who learn a trade are often on a fast track to starting their own businesses and making six figure incomes with far less debt than college students, in quicker time.
Now, experts at Velents AI have offered up research to find other modern careers that could earn six-figure salaries without requiring a college degree, what they are calling the “post-degree” era.
Their methodology involved analyzing Google data, studying salary ranges from Indeed and ZipRecruiter, and examining job listings on Indeed until December 2023.
The study found that:
Video game streamer is leading the list as the highest-paying job accessible without a degree and offers earnings up to $170,000.
Virtual assistants, with potential earnings of up to $123,180, are the most sought-after on the list, with the most job openings and over 3 million searches on Google.
Event planners, despite having the fewest available positions, were still searched on Google over 632K times.
Freelance writers rank second, earning $60,990 to $156,000, with over 900 job listings on Indeed and significant interest on Google.
Third, affiliate marketing specialists can earn $72,620 to $142,450, open to individuals regardless of formal education. Content creators, fourth on the list, potentially earn $115,730 to $128,500, with 787 job openings on Indeed, suitable for skilled storytellers and media influencers.
Virtual assistants, at the midpoint, have potential earnings of $74,660 to $123,180, being the most sought-after role with 3,930 job openings on Indeed. Social media managers, in sixth place, can earn $64,370 to $113,000, with 767 job openings on Indeed, requiring skills in online branding.
Seventh-ranked influencers have earning potentials of $65,098 to $104,100, building careers on social media platforms through personal branding. Event planners are eighth, with earnings between $60,759 and $101,000, requiring creative planning skills and having 443 jobs listed on Indeed.
Ninth are graphic designers, earning $58,130 to $97,850, with 1,860 job openings and over 1 million Google searches. Customer support representatives, rounding out the top ten, can earn $52,200 to $71,700, with 446 job openings on Indeed.
To which we can only reply: video game streamers are making $170,000 a year? Maybe we’ll have to cut out the “sitting at home in mom’s basement” jokes for a little while…
Javier Milei’s landmark election as president of Argentina might prove a turning point in the dominance of leftist governments in Latin America. Some are hoping it goes beyond.
“He’s starting a revolution that begins here, is going to go through America, all the way to the north and then on to Europe,” Lilia Lemoine, a newly elected congresswoman in Argentina and long-time Milei ally, told The Epoch Times at President Milei’s inauguration on Dec. 10.
President Milei, a libertarian and self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” has bucked the left-wing grip that, by the beginning of 2023, has held all nations in the Americas except Uruguay, Paraguay, El Salvador, and Ecuador.
“Just like the fall of the Berlin Wall marks the end of a tragic era for this world, this election marks the turning point of our history,” President Milei said in his inaugural address.
Brazilian lawmaker Cristiano Caporezzo called Milei’s election “absolutely historic.”
“It marks a very strategic moment for Latin America, a right-wing ‘reconquering’ of the continent,” Mr. Caporezzo told The Epoch Times.
“Milei’s arrival in Argentina will give the Chilean elections some strength. More countries in Latin-America will start walking towards conservatism.”
Colombian Senator María Fernanda Cabal also attended President Milei’s inauguration in Buenos Aires on Dec. 10.
“He today gave us hope, in Latin America, also in the U.S. and worldwide,” she told The Epoch Times.
“What we see is that Javier Milei has opened the door and all these governments that have been ruling, societies that have been suffering with all these activists that go against the nature of human beings … currently, everything is going to turn right,” Ms. Cabal said.
“We hope that Trump wins. We hope that Jose Antonio Kast in Chile wins, and we hope that we can save Colombia too.”
Ernesto Araújo, former minister of foreign relations of Brazil, now a strategic aid for international affairs at Spain-based think tank Fundación Disenso told The Epoch Times he sees a global shift towards conservatism.
“This can be a true ‘reconquest’ of freedom worldwide, which might be starting here in Argentina. I like to think big, and I think this might indeed be the case,” Mr. Araújo said.
“If [the Milei administration’s proposals] work out, people might realize that the ideas of freedom work. That they work in a big country.“
In his first week in office, President Milei slashed nine government ministries, took steps towards strengthening trade partnerships, and prepared to crack down on protests that may arise from upcoming drastic economic measures.
He has promised to reduce government spending, eliminate Argentina’s Central Bank, and potentially adopt the U.S. dollar as an official currency. During his campaign, he pledged to replace the public education system with a voucher-based alternative, and move the public health care model to an insurance-based system.
“This new social contract [people voted for] offers us a different country, a country in which the State does not direct our lives, but rather safeguards our rights, a country in which people are held accountable for their actions,” President Milei said during his inaugural speech.
Hermann Tertsch, a Spanish member of the European Parliament, celebrated President Milei’s victory at the latter’s inauguration in Buenos Aires on Dec. 10.
“I believe this victory—of the truth—in Argentina is a historical victory, and a victory of enormous repercussions,” said Mr. Tertsch told The Epoch Times.
“It’s so important, and it has implications for all of the Americas, and for all of the West, an extremely important turnaround.”
The recent win in The Netherlands by conservative Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom, has buoyed conservatives in the region. Mr. Wilders won the election, but must form a majority coalition with other political parties in order to become Prime Minister.
“We can, for the first time in the history of the European Parliament, make right wing politics,” Mr. Terstch said.
“We can stop the monstrosities of the 2030 Agenda, of the green pact, of all their permanent meddling into the livelihood [of people], the liquidation of subsistence that the current European Commission is pushing. This can change. We can change the Commission. And then we’ll see a difference in Europe.”
The 2030 Agenda is the United Nations plan to achieve 17 “sustainable development goals” by the year 2030. The goals include “gender equality,” “responsible consumption and production,” and climate action.
“The green pact” referred to by Mr. Tertsch is the “European Green Deal,” a framework in which European Union countries have committed to achieving “climate neutrality” by 2050.
“We have yielded so much in 50 years, 60 years, that we can yield no more. Now we can only reconquer. And we are in a full reconquest campaign,” Mr. Terstch said.
But conservative and libertarian politics are up against some determined and well-coordinated forces.
“[This] is not just about the economy, this is not just about Argentina’s runaway inflation, it’s not about the fact there’s no growth,” Mr. Araújo said.
“It is also about the matter of narco-trafficking, of organized crime. It is the problem of Latin-American organized crime being connected with worldwide organized crime. It is the problem of the China-Russia-Iran totalitarian bloc.”
Socialist administrations across Latin America, particularly the Venezuelan regime, have facilitated or engaged in international drug trafficking and coordinated with Iran, China, and Russia against United States interests and regional security for years.
In 2020 the U.S. Department of Justice charged Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and 14 other current and former officials in a “narco-terrorism” conspiracy to “flood” the United States with narcotics.
In February 2023, Irani military ships sanctioned for terrorism docked in Brazil and in June a defense deal between Iran and Bolivia bound the two nations closer together.
Latin American socialist regimes have enabled Iran-backed terrorist groups to operate broadly in South America for years.
The Chinese communist regime has been spreading its influence widely in Latin America for years with trade deals, an expanding military presence, and ties to radical leftists groups in the region.
The São Paulo Forum is the hub for leftist groups and political administrations.
Created in 1990 by Brazil’s President Lula da Silva and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, it united narco-terrorist communist guerrilla groups such as Colombia’s FARC and political parties often in power, including Mexico’s MORENA and Brazil’s Workers Party.
The group’s stated goal is to move the region further left.
The São Paulo Forum inherited a framework of cooperation among left-wing parties that have been coalescing for more than a century with organizations such as the Third Communist International.
The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzales has called the São Paulo Forum “the world’s largest and most impactful Marxist international organization.”
The group’s leaders often flaunt anti-American rhetoric and either are authoritarian or condone authoritarianism.
The Chinese Communist Party has cooperated increasingly with São Paulo Forum parties, some of which are now in power.
In March 2022, ahead of elections in Brazil and in Colombia, the Chinese Communist Party and the São Paulo Forum held a series of conversations. During a talk, CCP official Sun Yanfeng, affiliated to the China Institute of Contemporary International relations and to the China’s Ministry of State Security, said he rooted for leftist victories in both countries.
MSM Knives Are Out For DeSantis Over Super PAC “Illegal Coordination” Claims
With Former President Donald Trump firmly in the lead of the 2024 GOP primary field (nothing new), the establishment’s only hope appears to be with Nikki Haley.
To that end, the Washington Post took the opportunity to seize and pounced on DeSantis‘ super PAC, Never Back Down, for allegedly coordinating with the campaign. Hours after the report was published, a top strategist left the operation.
On Monday, nonprofit watchdog Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint alleging that DeSantis “illegally coordinated” with the super PAC, and that Never Back Down violated an “explicit legal requirement that super PACs must remain ‘independent.'”
As The Hill describes things, this is the latest in a “string of setbacks and shakeups” for the Florida governor’s campaign, “as he struggles to hold on to second place in the Republican presidential field.”
“When things go badly in a campaign, the wheels tend to come off. There’s a lot of finger-pointing, there’s a lot of blame, and it inevitably spills out into the public and just compounds the problems,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist, adding that the Post‘s story of “a trouble structure” within the campaign and super PAC, “read like a post-mortem.”
GOP strategist Doug Heye said it’s not clear whether the reports of super PAC tumult signal the wheels coming off DeSantis’s campaign — or if the wheels actually “have never actually been on.”
Never Back Down chairman Scott Wagner said in a statement to The Post that senior officials were terminated “following mismanagement and conduct issues, including numerous unauthorized leaks containing false information.”
But a lawyer for the employees claimed Wagner’s assertions were false, and the statement was revised to refer to “opinions regarding mismanagement and conduct issues” and to say the super PAC and the senior officials “parted ways,” according to the report. -The Hill
“I cannot in good conscience stay affiliated with Never Back Down (NBD) given the statements in the Washington Post today. They are not true and an unwanted distraction at a critical time for Governor DeSantis,” said Never Back Down adviser Jeff Roe, following his departure from the super PAC.
I can’t believe it ended this way. I’m so proud to have worked alongside these men and women at NBD 24/7 the past nine months to save the country. Good luck the next 28 days and a wake up. I’m so sorry I can’t be there with you. pic.twitter.com/Rh4oQQ1tAE
The DeSantis campaign is putting on a good face, saying in a statement: “We have full confidence in the NBD ground game and field operation, which is second to none. There is a stellar team in place and we appreciate their independent efforts to fight for Ron DeSantis.”
On Monday, DeSantis reportedly said that Roe’s resignation is “not a distraction,” and stressed that he has nothing to do with the “separate entity.”
By Michael Msika, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist
With good news on interest rates and the economy priced into stocks at this point, chasing the rally could soon become a lot more difficult.
Fed officials tried to tone down excitement about rate cuts over the weekend, with markets starting to look seriously stretched. European stocks have jumped 11% since late October, with about two-thirds of Stoxx 600 members now above their 200-day moving average — although the level of bullishness is not yet extreme. And adding risk at the end of December is probably not on the cards for many investors.
For Societe Generale strategists led by Roland Kaloyan, an upside scenario has been supported by Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments on rate cuts, strong US jobs data and an unexpected drop in oil prices. But the strategists are warning against buying into the rally from here and recommend caution around a Goldilocks outcome where the job market and consumer demand remain resilient but inflation falls quickly.
“It is far easier for the market to price in the monetary policy impact — the Fed gave three cuts, the market is pricing in six — rather than the impact of inflation trends on revenues and margin,” Kaloyan says. “The market made a similar mistake last year by pricing in rate hikes but mispricing the impact of inflation on profits. The risk could be the other way around for 2024.”
Meanwhile, the ECB had a much less dovish stance than the Fed at its last meeting, which could mean a slower pivot in Europe than in the US. Final Eurozone inflation numbers later today will help set the tone this week.
Still, talk from central bankers won’t change investor positioning that much, according to Pierre Veyret, technical analyst at ActivTrades. “While some may think markets may have gone too high too quickly, investors will probably need more substantial evidence than just plain semantics that they were wrong with their dovish anticipations before bringing significant adjustments to their risk exposure,” he says.
With that in mind, traders may seek refuge in technicals and watch how benchmarks behave around key levels. DayByDay technical analyst Valerie Gastaldy says that the next big level for the MSCI World index is an all-time high, which could be reached by the end of the year.
Still, “overbought conditions are a hanging sword,” she says, while also noting that softness in the market is possible after December’s option expiry.
Trading volumes also typically come down after the December expiry and as holidays approach, setting the scene for some slightly less predictable market moves and providing another reason for caution into the year-end.
“Recent developments point to a good year for stocks in 2024, even if the current enthusiasm seems somewhat exaggerated from a shorter-term perspective and a setback is highly likely,” says Unicredit strategist Christian Stocker. “The positives are priced in, sit back and enjoy the holidays,” he says.
