Invictus Games is an international sporting competition for injured soldiers. Wounded Ukrainian servicemen have been fighting to rebuild their lives by sport. The British prince Harry founded the event in 2014. Nazar Nozoviy is a former Ukrainian Army mechanic who had his legs amputated. Vitaliy Skaddan, a grenade launcher operator, has an artificial leg made of metal attached on what’s left of his left foot. The competition will take place in Duesseldorf, Germany between 9-16 September.
The athletes are in training far away from the front lines, in Lviv. Nozoviy claimed he had been able to swim half the length of an Olympic pool whereas he couldn’t even swim before. Veterans find that the training is “a new stage” and feel the event gives each wounded soldier the chance to believe in themselves and their abilities. Sergiy Maideniuk is a deputy commander who added, “Whatever their outcome, they are winners. They have overcome their illnesses, and their fears within themselves.”
Benjamin Nazarchuk is a former Navy soldier who was injured by two mines in Kherson, southern Ukraine, during a counteroffensive last fall. He has said that he will represent Ukraine for the next year or so. After their injuries, many servicemen found themselves again through sports. The athletes’ positive attitude motivates them “to move forward” and to “live life fully”.
ER Editor: Now it’s the turn of the Paralympics to make us shake our heads in utter disbelief. Note the personal history of the man now identifying as a woman, quite late in life. It goes somewhat beyond the situation of young Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.
The only comfort we can draw from this is that his competitors will not have their brains and skulls punched hard.
Fabrizio’s probably a nice guy.
#Fabrizio Petrillo
Morning ! A new day begins ! There are 12 days left until the start of the @Paralympics Games
So let’s remember that Fabrizio “Valentina” Petrillo is a MALE athlete and therefore has NO LEGITIMACY to compete in a women’s competition !! Would you take a picture of yourself… pic.twitter.com/e9KnawRTBF
Fabrizio Petrillo, a 46-year-old bald man and father of two children, decided to become a woman in 2019. Called himself Valentina, had a hair transplant to participate in the women’s Paralympics, stealing the place from the blind Melani Bergés by 8 hundredths of a second. pic.twitter.com/4POFahvStv
The day is over in Paris and the IPC has still not disqualified the male athlete Fabrizio “Valentina” Petrillo so the fight continues to name this imposter who will run in women’s competitions during the @Paralympics with the complicity of Andrew Parsons.
Translation: Fabrizio Petrillo was racing in the men’s category with visual impairment. Then he made his transition. He is now called Valentina Petrillo and has just broken a record in the women’s category.
Fabrizio Petrillo courait dans la catégorie masculine avec handicap visuel. Puis il a fait sa transition. Il s’appelle maintenant Valentina Petrillo et vient de battre un record dans la catégorie féminine. pic.twitter.com/CyPDpVTF3q
The Paralympics has green-lighted, for the first time ever, the participation of a “transgender” athlete in the international competition for people with disabilities.
Fabrizio “Valentina” Petrillo, a 50 year-old-man who “transitioned” to appear as a woman beginning in 2019, is slated to compete as a sprinter against women in the T12 category for athletes with visual impairment. He has already won 11 national titles in the Paralympics competing among males.
Canada’s former Olympic head coach Peter Eriksen called Petrillo’s competition against women in the Paralympics “shocking,” GBN reported on Monday. Indulging “transgender” athletes undermines the original rational basis for having sex-specific athletics in the first place, as women’s rights advocates have warned, and research affirms that physiology gives males distinct athletic advantages that cannot be fully negated by hormone suppression.
International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president, Andrew Parsons, defended Petrillo’s participation as in accordance with the “rules” of World Para Athletics, saying that he is “prepared for the criticism” he faces for approving Petrillo’s competition against women.
“We need to respect our rules, we cannot disrespect our rules. So sometimes, as an individual, I think one way or another, but we need to follow our constitution, we need to follow our own rules, and, in the specific sports, the rules of the international federations need to be respected,” he said, per GBN.
Attorney Fausta Quilleri, who also runs in the over-35s “Master” category of the Italian Paralympics, petitioned the president of the Italian Athletics Federation and the ministries for Equal Opportunities and Sport in 2021 to exclude Petrillo from women’s races, to no avail.
“[His] physical superiority is so evident as to make competition unfair,” she wrote, noting that the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) sole focus on testosterone “makes no sense” when physique also affects athletic performance.
Petrillo first officially competed as a woman in the 2020 Italian Paralympics Championship, where he won gold medals in the 100m, 200m, and 400m T12 events.
Despite his gender confusion, Petrillo married and had a son, but revealed his love of cross-dressing to his wife in 2017. After her initial shock, his wife supported his desire to live as a woman.
In January 2019, he began using hormones, which he said triggered anemia, mood swings, and led to decreased physical strength.
However, Petrillo has admitted that so-called “trans women,” who are really males, have physical advantages over women.
Gender-confused men “are on average taller, bigger and stronger than cisgender women [actual women] even after hormone therapy [sic], and those are advantages in many sports,” he told the BBC.
Source
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Published to The Liberty Beacon from EuropeReloaded.com
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During a July 24 campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, former President Donald Trump claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris was responsible for passing legislation in the U.S. Senate to cut Medicare spending by nearly $300 billion.
“As Vice President, Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to cut, as you know, Medicare by $273 billion,” Trump told rally attendees. “She cast a vote to cut Medicare.”
Trump gave no further explanation for which vote he was referring to or how he arrived at that figure. A campaign spokesperson told KFF Health News in an email that Trump was referring to a statistic from a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Tomas Philipson, aUniversity of Chicago economist and a former Trump administration official.
Philipson’s op-ed argued that the Inflation Reduction Act — a sweeping climate and health care measure passed in 2022 for which Harris cast the tie-breaking vote — would harm Medicare patients by driving up costs. His article cited a Congressional Budget Office analysis showing that the measure’s health care provisions would reduce the federal deficit by $237 billion over 10 years. “(M)ost of that reduction comes from the program spending less on prescription drugs,” Philipson wrote.
But the government’s spending less on Medicare programs would not amount to the kind of “cut” to Medicare benefits Trump implied, experts told KFF Health News. Several provisions in the law pertaining to prescription drug pricing are widely seen by health policy experts as beneficial to both consumers and the government. Individual patients are expected to spend less out-of-pocket on their prescription drugs, while the government will reduce Medicare spending without any impact to services offered.
We dug into the facts surrounding Trump’s claim and the law’s effect on Medicare. It resurfaces a long-running debate over Medicare savings versus cuts and the question of whether lowered spending automatically leads to a reduction in benefits for Medicare enrollees.
Following the numbers
The Inflation Reduction Act’s many provisions include some intended to lower prescription drug costs for older Americans and others receiving Medicare insurance coverage.
The law caps the cost of insulin at $35 per month for most Medicare beneficiaries, establishes out-of-pocket spending limits for Part D drug coverage, and institutes penalties for drug companies that raise prices faster than the inflation rate. The law also authorizes Medicare officials, for the first time, to negotiate drug pricing directly with pharmaceutical manufacturers.
“The idea behind drug price negotiation is that Medicare can use its buying power to get a better price than what is currently being negotiated for these drugs,” said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the program on Medicare policy at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.
According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan federal agency that calculates the financial impact of new legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act’s health care measures will have a mixed effect on spending. Some steps, such as the cap on beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket prescription drug spending, will likely cost the government more. But others, including the drug price negotiations, are projected to save the government money. All together, the Inflation Reduction Act’s health care measures are expected to save taxpayers $237 billion over 10 years.
On the numbers, Trump said the law would “cut Medicare” by $273 billion; he likely meant $237 billion.
Despite the government being expected to spend less overall, beneficiaries’ services would not necessarily be cut, as Trump claimed. Most Medicare recipients would likely see their costs decrease, too, while keeping the same level of benefits.
“There are big shifts in who’s paying for what,” said Andrew Mulcahy, a senior health economist who researches prescription drug markets at the Rand Corp., a nonpartisan think tank. “But that doesn’t mean they’re getting any less. If anything, they’ll have better access to drugs.”
Cubanski, echoing Mulcahy, said: “When you’re reducing Medicare spending, that’s not the same thing as a cut to Medicare or cutting Medicare benefits. If you buy eggs every week and now you’re getting them cheaper, you’re still getting the eggs, you’re just getting them for a lower price.”
A year ago, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services named the first 10 drugs on which it will focus, though the exact savings from the drug pricing negotiations process won’t be known until the government and drug manufacturers reach agreements. The the new pricing for this first batch of medications is set to take effect in 2026.
Whether the government can negotiate meaningfully lower costs versus current prices is unclear, especially since pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs — interveners in the negotiations among drug companies, insurers and pharmacies — are tasked with doing that.
“I think for many of the drugs selected in the first year, my expectation is that the government won’t be able to do much better than the PBMs,” Mulcahy told KFF Health News.
The Medicare drug pricing program could have negative side effects. Philipson, for example, argued in his op-ed that the negotiations will “deter companies from developing new medicines” and threaten older Americans’ access to doctors, as manufacturers and hospitals would likely be reimbursed less for their drugs and services.
Cubanski brushed off such concerns.
“The drug industry certainly has a vested interest, you know, in raising alarm bells,” she said. “I think it’s just still too early to talk about ‘the sky is falling’ with regard to pharmaceutical innovation.
Our ruling
Trump’s statement is wrong both on the hard numbers and his interpretation of what they mean.
The analysis Trump cited, per his campaign, said the Inflation Reduction Act’s health care provisions would lower the deficit by $237 billion — not $273 billion, as the former president claimed. Moreover, whatever the exact number is, multiple experts rebuttedpushed back against the notion that the savings equated to a “cut” to Medicare, as Trump claimed.
Kansas City Royals (67-55) at Cincinnati Reds (60-62)
How to Watch This Game
TV Channel: BSKC
Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo
When: 6:40 PM ET
Where: Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, Ohio
Reds Starter: Nick Lodolo (9-4, 3.99 ERA)
Royals Starter: Michael Wacha (9-6, 3.5 ERA)
Minnesota Twins (69-53) at Texas Rangers (56-67)
How to Watch This Game
TV Channel: BSSW
Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo
When: 7:05 PM ET
Where: Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas
Rangers Starter: Nathan Eovaldi (8-6, 3.75 ERA)
Twins Starter: David Festa (2-2, 5.2 ERA)
Boston Red Sox (64-57) at Baltimore Orioles (72-51)
How to Watch This Game
TV Channel: MASN
Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo
When: 7:05 PM ET
Where: Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland
Orioles Starter: Cade Povich (0-0, 0 ERA)
Red Sox Starter: Brayan Bello (10-5, 4.97 ERA)
San Francisco Giants (62-62) at Oakland Athletics (52-70)
How to Watch This Game
TV Channel: NBCS-CA
Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo
When: 7:07 PM ET
Where: Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California
Athletics Starter: Osvaldo Bido (3-3, 3.92 ERA)
Giants Starter: Hayden Birdsong (3-2, 5.4 ERA)
Chicago White Sox (30-93) at Houston Astros (65-56)
How to Watch This Game
TV Channel: SCHN
Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo
When: 7:10 PM ET
Where: Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas
Astros Starter: Hunter Brown (10-7, 3.96 ERA)
White Sox Starter: Chris Flexen (2-11, 5.34 ERA)
Los Angeles Dodgers (72-51) at St. Louis Cardinals (60-62)
How to Watch This Game
TV Channel: FOX
Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo
When: 7:15 PM ET
Where: Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri
Cardinals Starter: Andre Pallante (4-6, 4.21 ERA)
Dodgers Starter: Bobby Miller (0-0, 0 ERA)
Cleveland Guardians (72-50) at Milwaukee Brewers (70-52)
How to Watch This Game
TV Channel: FOX
Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo
When: 7:15 PM ET
Where: American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Brewers Starter: Freddy Peralta (7-7, 4.11 ERA)
Guardians Starter: Tanner Bibee (10-4, 3.39 ERA)
San Diego Padres (69-54) at Colorado Rockies (45-78)
How to Watch This Game
TV Channel: SDPA
Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo
When: 8:10 PM ET
Where: Coors Field in Denver, Colorado
Rockies Starter: Kyle Freeland (3-4, 5.75 ERA)
Padres Starter: Dylan Cease (11-9, 3.41 ERA)
Atlanta Braves (64-58) at Los Angeles Angels (53-69)
How to Watch This Game
TV Channel: MLB Network
Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo
When: 9:38 PM ET
Where: Angel Stadium of Anaheim in Anaheim, California
Angels Starter: Griffin Canning (4-10, 5.18 ERA)
Braves Starter: Chris Sale (13-3, 2.61 ERA)
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On Monday, the United States hosted peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan to ease tensions over the disputed enclave Nagorno Karabakh. Both sides have been at war in 1990 and 2020 resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. Azerbaijan’s announcement that it had established a checkpoint along the Lachin Corridor – the only land route between Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh – violated the ceasefire agreement between the two parties, causing tensions to rise. According to an official from the US, the United States expects both sides to engage in an open, frank and honest discussion. The talks will be centered on a normalization of the relations between the two countries, rather than a peace agreement.
After the fighting in 2020, Moscow mediated a ceasefire and deployed peacekeepers on the Lachin corridor. The United States and European Union are trying to encourage a thawing of relations because Russia does not want to damage its relationship with Azerbaijan’s main ally Turkey. Catherine Colonna, France’s foreign minister, visited both countries in an attempt to calm tensions about the border checkpoint. Blinken participated in two previous trilateral meetings, one in November of last year and the other in February.
The US believes that direct dialogue is the key to solving issues and achieving a lasting peace. The talks are intended to resolve their decades-long dispute and normalize the relations between both sides. Blinken, the US Secretary of state, stressed the importance of peace talks and promised continued US support.
As the UK descends into tyranny, where just re-Tweeting something the government doesn’t like can land a person a multi-year jail sentence, Americans are wondering, “can it happen here?” After all, we have the guarantees of the First Amendment.
But while we shake our heads at UK authorities jailing people for their social media posts this past week, we should not kid ourselves. The answer is that silencing dissent can happen here and it is happening here.
Here are just three recent examples of how the “deep state” or the permanent government is conspiring to restrict political dialogue in the United States.
First is the revelation that former US Representative and former US presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has been placed under the bizarrely named “Quiet Skies” program. As reported by journalist Matt Taibbi based on revelations by TSA whistleblowers, this July Gabbard was flagged as a terror threat, and every time she travels her boarding pass is marked so that she is pulled aside for extensive screening. According to the whistleblowers, “Gabbard is unaware she has two Explosive Detection Canine Teams, one Transportation Security Specialist (explosives), one plainclothes TSA Supervisor, and three Federal Air Marshals on every flight she boards.”
As Gabbard herself revealed recently on the Laura Ingraham show, “A few weeks ago, I had the audacity to tell the truth: that Kamala Harris would essentially be a mouthpiece and puppet of the Military Industrial Complex and National Security State. The next day, July 23, they retaliated. Sadly this is what we can expect from the ‘Harris Administration.’”
Next we have the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump. It seems every day brings a new revelation that calls into question whether the massive failure to protect the Republican presidential candidate was just an “honest mistake.” We know from 1963 what can happen to presidents who cross the “deep state” and we know from Trump’s four years in office how “former” deep state officials can conspire to undermine the presidency with lies like “Russiagate.”
Finally we have the case of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Up until the Trump assassination attempt, the Biden/Harris Administration refused to provide the independent presidential candidate with Secret Service protection. RFK, Jr. has consistently and effectively criticized not only the current administration but the “deep state” itself while out on the campaign trail. Even though there were credible threats against him on the campaign trail the Biden/Harris administration refused to budge for months. Why? Did they want to silence him?
The US government learned an important – and dangerous – lesson from Covid: all you have to do to crush political dissent is to use the weight of the government to force the “private” sector to do the censoring for you. It is only a half-step away from forbidding us from expressing our thoughts on a virus to sending us to prison for expressing other thoughts the government does not like. And maybe worse.
There will be a reaction in the UK to the brutality of the Starmer regime. We can only hope for their – and our – sake that the reaction will be a newfound determination by the people that no government should have the authority to shut them up or jail them for their political views. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “free speech, if you can keep it.”
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The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
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Transportation Department Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a frequent cable news surrogate for Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, praised the track record of her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Buttigieg rebutted rhetoric from Republican presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance about Democrats being “antifamily.”
“So, if you want to talk about promoting children, promoting family, put your money where your mouth is,” Buttigieg said Aug. 11. “Same with a lot of other policies, like, I don’t know, paid family leave, something that Tim Walz delivered in Minnesota, something that the Biden-Harris administration sought to deliver for the American people. Right now, Republicans are blocking it, but that’s something that they could certainly change their tune on, but they haven’t.”
Buttigieg was responding to Vance’s comment earlier in the show that “our country has become antifamily in its public policy.” Vance has gotten backlash over two interviews he gave in 2021, one in which he said the U.S was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies.”
We decided to examine Buttigieg’s claim about Walz signing paid family leave in Minnesota and whether “Republicans are blocking” it on the federal level.
We found that Walz signed paid family leave into law in 2023. The state program won’t take effect until 2026.
As for Buttigieg blaming Republicans for the lack of a federal family leave policy, the Biden White House pointed to the stalled Build Back Better legislation and the Family Act, a longtime Democratic bill. The White House also highlighted Republican opposition to a family leave proposal in Michigan, where a Michigan House GOP memo described a Democratic proposal as “a new tax to pay for summer break for adults.”
Minnesota is among 13 states to enact mandatory paid family leave
In 2022, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party in Minnesota flipped the Senate and maintained control of the House, and Walz won a second term as governor. That trifecta allowed the party to pass paid medical and family leave after a yearslong push.
Walz signed a bill in May 2023 to provide up to 12 weeks of paid medical leave for employees and up to 12 weeks of family leave, which includes bonding with a child, caring for a family member, supporting survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and supporting for active-duty deployments domestically or abroad. There is a maximum of 20 weeks available in a benefit year if someone takes both medical and family leave.
The state will pay leave benefits in the program, which applies to small and large businesses and takes effect in January 2026. Recipients will be paid based on a formula. The maximum weekly benefit payment for eligible workers is equal to the state average weekly wage ($1,337 in 2023).
“By signing paid family and medical leave into law, we’re ensuring Minnesotans no longer have to make the choice between a paycheck and taking time off to care for a new baby or a sick family member,” Walz said in May 2023.
The state used a projected budget surplus to jump-start the program; funding will then shift to a payroll tax split between employers and workers.
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, 13 states and the District of Columbia have enacted mandatory paid family leave systems.
Federal paid family leave efforts have stalled
The U.S. is an outlier on paid maternity and parental leave. Polls show widespread support, including by Republicans, but Congress has not passed legislation.
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) requires 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually for parents of newborn or newly adopted children if the parents work for a company with 50 or more employees. In 2020, the policy was extended to caregivers of sick family members. The law applies only to unpaid leave.
Every Congress since 2013 has filed the Family Act to create paid leave for workers. The current version, introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., with a counterpart in the House, has only Democratic co-sponsors and has not received a vote. That legislation is modeled on what has worked in the states’ legislation, said Vicki Shabo, an expert on paid family leave at New America, a left-leaning think tank.
Jane Waldfogel, a paid leave expert and a Columbia University School of Social Work professor, told PolitiFact that Republicans are more supportive of paid leave than they’ve been in the past, but that there are disagreements about who should be covered and how the leave would be funded.
“Democrats favor a comprehensive bill that would cover paid family and medical leave for new parents and those needing leave for their own serious illness or to care for a seriously ill family member, while Republicans have focused on leave for new parents only,” Waldfogel said. “And Democrats favor a social insurance model, while Republicans instead have proposed that workers would draw funds from their future (Social Security) or child tax credits.”
Some Republicans have taken steps toward expanding paid parental leave, but those efforts have fallen short for most workers.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump backed six weeks of paid maternity leave. In 2020, he supported an idea by his daughter and adviser Ivanka to provide paid maternity leave. He didn’t keep the campaign promise for all workers, but he did sign a law offering most federal employees 12 weeks of paid leave for the arrival of a child. (That left out the other 150 million-plus workers outside the federal government.)
In 2018, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, introduced a bill to let new parents borrow from their future Social Security benefits to pay for their child-related leave. Supporters liked it because it created no new taxes, but critics said it would hurt low-income workers. It drew zero co-sponsors.
Biden promised in the 2020 campaign that he would create a national paid family and medical leave program that would allow all employees to take up to 12 weeks of paid time off. The promise is Stalled on our Biden Promise Tracker.
After originally being negotiated out of Biden’s sweeping Build Back Better spending bill framework, the family leave provision returned in a more limited form. The spending bill that passed the House in November 2021 included four weeks of paid annual family and medical leave. It had no Republican support. The package had provisions about clean energy, child tax credits and health care and included additional taxes on wealthy Americans. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., spoke for more than eight hours about his objections, predicting it would be bad for the economy.
But in the Senate, Joe Manchin, then D-W.Va., objected to the bill’s social policy spending on child tax credits and paid leave; this and Republican opposition doomed the bill’s chances in the Senate. (Manchin later became an independent.)
Republicans opposed the legislation, saying it was too expensive.
“The best Christmas gift Washington could give working families would be putting this bad bill on ice,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said about a week before Christmas in 2021.
The bill that earned Manchin’s support and passed the Senate in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act, was limited mostly to policies on climate change, health care and corporate taxation, and omitted family and medical leave.
Since then, a bipartisan House working group has released a policy framework for paid leave but has yet not released a new bill.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a leader of a bicameral working group, said in a July 30 virtual discussion about paid leave, “The key thing is how do you pay for it, that’s the rub.”
Our ruling
Buttitieg said Walz delivered paid family leave in Minnesota but “Republicans are blocking” a Biden-Harris proposal.
Walz signed a bill in May 2023 to provide for paid family leave. It takes effect in 2026.
Republicans, citing spending concerns, have broadly resisted federal paid family leave similar to the kind Walz signed into law. Trump failed to expand paid leave to all workers when he was president.
In 2021, Biden’s Build Back Better proposal, which included four weeks of paid family leave annually along with many other programs, failed to garner enough support when all Republicans and then-Democratic Sen. Manchin opposed it.
A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers have taken steps to research paid family leave, but it hasn’t led to a bill. Democrats have proposed paid family leave bills akin to what Walz signed for a decade.
The statement is accurate about Walz’s record but needs clarification about why family leave has not passed at the federal level. We rate this statement Mostly True.
RELATED: It’s true: The US is an outlier on paid parental leave
RELATED: Family leave provision not included in final Senate bill
RELATED: Kamala Harris has worked to expand the child tax credit, not end it, as J.D. Vance said
The Alabama High School Athletic Association recently recognized Andalusia High School as one of 107 high schools statewide that were ejection and sportsmanship fine free throughout the 2023-2024 school year.
AHS was one of 18 Class 4A schools that received the recognition and the only one named to the list in Covington County as well as District 2. Schools were announced during a principals and athletic directors meeting on the final day of the AHSAA Summer Conference last week.
“We are extremely proud for our athletes who work hard in the classroom and on the field or court of their respective sports. We are grateful for the leadership all of our coaches exhibit. They teach our kids it is much more than fielding, catching, throwing, and shooting. As a result, students at Andalusia High School learn to represent who they are and show our community how proud they are to be Bulldogs,” Athletic Director John Dugger said.
This year’s total of 107 high schools is up 27 from the 2022-2023 school year’s 80 schools that reached this goal.
According to an AHSAA release, Class 1A led the way this year with 27 schools. In other classifications, there were 23 in 2A, 16 in 3A, 12 in 5A, six in 6A, and four in 7A.
According to a communiqué released by Arab Foreign Ministers who met in Amman on Monday to discuss Syria’s current conflict, the voluntary and safe return to Syria of refugees is “a top priority”. In the latest regional engagement, foreign ministers of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia met with their counterparts in Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to discuss the ongoing conflict in Syria. The United Nations reports that 5.5 million Syrians have fled the country since the conflict began. They are now registered in Lebanon Jordan, Turkey Iraq and Egypt. The communique called on increased cooperation between Damascus and host countries, as well as the United Nations, to organize repatriation missions in a “clear timeline”.
In the 12-year civil conflict in Syria, more than 500,000 people have died. Nearly half of the population is now internally displaced or refugees. Assad’s regime has reclaimed much of the territory it lost in the early war but large swathes remain outside its control. Syria was suspended in 2011 from the Arab League for Assad’s brutal crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrations. Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Saffadi said the Amman talks followed a “consultative” meeting in Saudi Arabia held last month.
Nine Arab countries, including Gulf States, met in Jeddah in order to discuss the possibility of Syria rejoining the 22-member Arab League. Safadi described the Amman meeting as “good and positive” and said it focused on “humanitarian aspects and potential steps to ease the suffering of the brotherly Syrian population”. Safadi and his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad met privately before the talks in Amman, under strict security. They discussed Arab involvement to reach “a political resolution to the Syrian Crisis”, according to a Jordanian statement. It was the first time a Syrian Foreign Minister visited Jordan since the start of the war.
Guy Millière | The Gatestone Institute via ZeroHedge
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?
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(TLB) published this article by Guy Millière in the The Gatestone Institute as posted at ZeroHedge
Header featured image (edited) credit: French President Emmanuel Macron during the G-7 Summit in Italy. Photographer: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images
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By: Ron Paul
