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‘Merkel’s surrender & worst of all possible worlds’: Soros pens angry op-ed over Polish-Hungarian victory in EU budget talks
12 Dec 2020 00:26
The headline is, of course, the very opposite of the truth, in my humble opinion. Merkel may have surrendered to Hungary and Poland, but she stood up to Soros, and by doing so, the 'worst of all possible worlds' was avoided, for now.
© Reuters / Lisi Niesner
Hungary and Poland getting the EU to abandon its conditioning of Covid-19 relief on ‘rule of law’ standards aimed to control their policies has incensed international financier George Soros, who called it a German surrender.
The European Commission originally imposed “rule-of-law requirements” on member states for disbursing the pandemic recovery funds. The measure was seen as a method of pressure on Budapest and Warsaw, which have been at odds with Brussels over their laws on the media, the judiciary and LGBTQI+ rights, among other things. Hungary and Poland responded by threatening to veto the entire seven-year EU budget, prompting Brussels to back down.
To Soros, the Hungarian-born US citizen who funds ‘open society’ causes around the world, this was “the worst of all possible worlds,” and amounted to a “surrender” by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to an op-ed Project Syndicate published on Thursday.
Merkel “caved in to Hungarian and Polish extortion,” Soros wrote, blaming the German chancellor personally for the outcome of the talks. She is “something of the sole main decision-maker for the EU,” he argued, what with President Emmanuel Macron of France “temporarily distracted by the laïcité issue,” as Soros euphemistically described the country’s woes with Islamist terrorism.
Poland and Hungary are “brazenly challenging the values on which the European Union has been built,” Soros argued.
The EU was not built on the destruction of Christian values, as far as I know.
While labeling Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) government “illiberal,” much of Soros’s vitriol was reserved for Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, whose “kleptocratic regime” he alleged “has stolen and misappropriated vast sums during his decade in power.”
Orban’s government has cracked down on Soros’s NGOs, universities and other projects in Hungary over the past decade. The financier turned to Brussels for help, and in October the European Court of Justice sought to strike down the Hungarian education reform that compelled Soros to relocate his Central European University to Austria.
Budapest struck back by accusing the EU of “executing the Soros Plan” with its budget conditions, and attempting to “blackmail and pressure dissenting member states to fall in line,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs wrote last month.
Soros concluded his December 10 editorial declaring that all he can do is “express the moral outrage that people who believed in the EU as the protector of European and universal values must feel.”
That’s somewhat facetious, given the billions of dollars at his disposal
to influence lawmakers and fund media and pressure groups.
When the Hungarian culture commissioner Szilard Demeter wrote an op-ed last month described Europe as “George Soros’ gas chamber,” and called the financier “the liberal Fuehrer,” opposition politicians called for his firing while the American Jewish Committee in Central Europe and the International Auschwitz Committee demanded an apology.
“Poison gas flows from the capsule of a multicultural open society, which is deadly to the European way of life,” Demeter had written in the piece, which he was forced to retract, as well as delete his social media.
There is no place on social media for the truth. Cudos to Poland and Hungary for not selling their souls to Soros.
San Francisco man arrested for vehicle theft for 14th time in 18 months
as Soros-funded DA claims too many people are in jail
12 Dec 2020 03:50
FILE PHOTO © Reuters / Lucy Nicholson
San Francisco police apparently tried to make a point last week when they publicized the arrest of a man who had been busted for vehicle theft 13 times in 18 months – and repeatedly let out of jail to repeat his crimes.
The point must have been lost on Chesa Boudin, the district attorney who was elected last year with funding help from an associate of billionaire George Soros. The suspect was let out again. And now? He has tallied his 14th arrest for vehicle theft in 18 months after police in San Francisco's Tenderloin district again spotted him riding an allegedly stolen motorcycle.
“The same suspect continues to steal vehicles,” the police department tweeted early Friday morning. “Tonight, he is back in custody for his 14th motor vehicle theft arrest.” The motorcycle had a stolen license plate, and its vehicle identification numbers had been removed, police added.
Presumably, the suspect doesn't get caught every time he steals, so there's no telling how many vehicles he might have taken. Property crime is rampant in San Francisco, with more than 5,300 motor vehicle thefts reported in this year's first 11 months, up 33 percent from 2019's pace, according to police data. Car burglaries are even more common. In 2017-2019, a vehicle was broken into about every 20 minutes, on average.
Boudin is part of a wave of Soros-backed prosecutors across the US who are reducing enforcement of crime. After being elected, he almost immediately fired veteran prosecutors in the DA's office. The son of Weather Underground radical left extremists who were imprisoned for murder when he was 14 months old, Boudin has spoken out against mass incarceration and racial disparities in criminal justice. His plan for “rapid decarceration” was accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. San Francisco's jail population is being cut to 600 from 1,100. He also banned prosecutions of so-called quality-of-life crimes, such as prostitution, public urination and blocking sidewalks.
The result, according to some observers, is increasing lawlessness. “The city used to be a treasure,” one Twitter commenter said. “Now it's overwhelmed with aggressive, dangerous druggies and filthy streets where it's genuinely scary to walk the sidewalks in the daytime.”
News of the serial vehicle thief's 14th arrest only exacerbated such frustrations. “You can't even make this s**t up,” MMA fighter Jake Shields tweeted. Another observer said, “This is like a skit on some comedy show, back when those were funny. Soon enough, all they'll be left with is criminals and rich elitists in gated communities wondering where the taxable income went.”
Twitter users speculated that the vehicle thief would be back on the street by the weekend and would soon reach arrest No. 15. One observer suggested sarcastically that the suspect must be a master escape artist who keeps getting out of jail.
“I can't wait for the movie,” he said. “I mean, the only alternative is some morons keep deliberately letting him out of jail. But that'd be stupid.”
Swiss parliament votes to allow same-sex marriage
– but public may have final say in a referendum
18 Dec 2020 15:06
Gay couple exchange rings after being married. © Reuters / Tobias Schwarz
Legislators in Switzerland have approved a bill to allow same sex-couples to marry. But it's too early to call victory for the LGBTQ community – opponents of the legislation have promised to put it to a referendum.
The vote, which took place in both chambers of the parliament on Friday, was far from unanimous. The bill was backed by 136 MPs in the National Council, with 48 against it and nine abstaining. In the Council of States, 24 deputies were in favor of gay marriage, 11 of their colleagues rejected the idea and seven abstained.
The bill, allowing gay couples to get married, while also granting lesbian couples access to sperm donations, faces yet another hurdle before becoming a law.
The conservative Federal Democratic Union party, which stands for Christian values, has announced that it's going to put the issue to a referendum vote. This means that the Swiss public might have to decide if same-sex marriages are to become a thing in their country.
"If the opponents launch a referendum, we're ready," Matthias Erhardt from the Rainbow Families association, which protects the rights of gay parents in the country, told AFP. "We have 82 percent of the population behind us," he insisted.
Switzerland remains one of the few European nations where same-sex marriage is still illegal. Members of Parliament have been debating legislation on the issue since 2013.
At the moment, the Alpine nation allows gay and lesbian couples to enter into so-called "registered partnerships," which doesn't provide the right to obtain Swiss citizenship or to jointly adopt children.
UK ex-doctors volunteering to help with Covid-19 vaccination blocked by
mandatory DIVERSITY training & paperwork forest
1 Jan 2021 21:45
FILE PHOTO: A medical worker draws an injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine into a syringe at the Hurley Clinic in London, Britain. © Reuters / PA Wire / Aaron Chown
Thousands of retired doctors and nurses volunteering to rejoin the UK’s National Health Service during the pandemic are being forced to endure “diversity training” – but vaccination training is optional.
NHS veterans applying to return to the service are required to supply a whopping 21 pieces of evidence, the Daily Telegraph revealed on Wednesday, noting that the “red tape” had created a massive bottleneck in hiring with just 5,000 of over 40,000 doctors and nurses who applied for the positions starting in March had been hired by July.
A list of the requirements was posted to social media the same day, and the service’s bizarre requests raised eyebrows across the country. In addition to standard requests like identity documents, proof of education, certification in such urgent-care basics as resuscitation, the NHS demands applicants complete courses in baffling subjects like “preventing radicalization” and “equality, diversity and human rights.”
Even as hospitals complain of staffing shortages and job applicants tear their hair out at the number of hoops they’re forced to jump through, the NHS has refused to budge on its requirements that doctors need not only be medically competent, but mentally compliant. Indeed, the service defended its “stringent recruitment process,” arguing its goal was to “recruit a wide array of individuals from a variety of backgrounds – many of whom are not registered healthcare professionals.”
What happens when ministry leaders have no training in their ministries
This is what happens when you put people in charge of a ministry who have no training or experience in that ministry. Matt Hancock is Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. He has no training or experience for either. He is a trained economist.
Sir Chris Wormald KCB, Permanent Secretary also seems to have no experience or training in health or social care.
As such, I might suggest they have more interest in doing things in a politically correct manner than in a medically effective manner, hence the emphasis on the 'variety of backgrounds' and the deemphasis on healthcare backgrounds. Just my humble opinion!
If the NHS is deliberately attempting to fill empty positions with non-medical staff, one might question why it doesn’t require applicants to show proof of training in vaccine administration or vaccine storage – two requested documents that are not listed as “required.” Surely, it’s more important for someone who will be vaccinating a large number of individuals with shots that require deep refrigeration to know how to dispense and store those vaccines than it is that they prove competency in “data security awareness.”
More ominously, vaccinators are not required to complete a course titled “Introduction to Anaphylaxis” – even as a growing number of vaccine recipients have experienced life-threatening allergic reactions. While Pfizer, whose vaccine was the first to be approved in the UK, has emphasized the importance of having staff trained in recognizing the signs of anaphylaxis and equipping vaccination sites with the materials needed to save lives, it’s healthcare providers’ job to ensure their employees are competent.
Even the chair of the Royal College of GPs, Professor Martin Marshall, has denounced the NHS’ red-tape-laden policies, as well as the lack of instruction regarding how, when, and where the Covid-19 jabs are supposed to be administered. “The workforce isn’t big enough to allow” for getting “30 million people vaccinated twice in six months,” he told the Guardian, noting that numerous chronic and acute conditions that have nothing to do with coronavirus still require doctors to treat.
But the NHS has made clear for months that competence is not their chief concern during the pandemic. Aside from its 2020-2021 list of priorities, which includes a directive to “recruit people with learning disabilities,” the service even adopted a measure in February that would allow staff to refuse treatment to patients deemed ‘guilty’ of making sexist or racist comments. The mandates seem to make a mockery of the Hippocratic oath, which requires physicians “first do no harm,” though it supposedly can’t be invoked for patients who require critical care. However, such requirements have an unfortunate tendency to turn into slippery slopes.
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