Month: April 2025

Guest post by Jonas Greindberg in Germany

The US has been interfering with elections and politics in Germany and Austria for years. Below are a few examples.

In February, a federal judge ordered health care agencies to restore websites about transgenderism that President Donald Trump removed by executive order. Elon Musk revealed on X that the judge’s wife had received funding from USAID, calling him “corrupt.”

Despite the attention USAID has received in the U.S., its role in meddling with democracy in Austria and Germany is not well understood.

Surprisingly, foreign interference from the U.S. not only undermines democracy abroad, but also on American soil.

In 2017, the German journalists Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer demanded “solidarity” and a “collaborative investigation” from the media against President Donald Trump.

Obermaier and Obermayer, who broke the Panama Papers for the Süddeutsche Zeitung two years earlier, were and still are part of several USAID-funded networks that have caused the first impeachment against Trump.

Similar playbooks were used in Austria and Germany which had a much more pronounced impact than the Trump impeachment, which ultimately failed.

Voice of Europe

On March 28, 2024, the Slovak daily Denník N and the Spiegel, both of which collaborate with the USAID-funded network “Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project” (OCCRP), claimed that the AfD’s EU candidate, Petr Bystron, had been bribed by Voice of Europe. A day earlier, the EU had shut down Voice of Europe, a pro-Russian news portal based in Prague.

AfD MEP Petr Bystron

OCCRP receives half of its funding from USAID, reports show. OCCRP founder Drew Sullivan revealed in an interview with the German public broadcaster NDR, that USAID approves key personnel decisions and an annual work plan. Sullivan nevertheless claimed that OCCRP enjoys full editorial independence.

However, NDR did not enjoy full editorial independence regarding its documentary on OCCRP. A Spiegel report of December 2024 revealed that Sullivan pressured NDR not to publish the documentary. His interview, Sullivan insisted, created the impression that he was a CIA agent.

This attack on free speech during the EU elections is in line with the recommendations of a 2021 Disinformation Primer published by USAID in cooperation with George Soros’ Central European University. In addition to funding “independent media,” the primer calls for stricter “internet governance”.

Denník N and Spiegel base their claims on secret recordings made by the Czech secret service BIS of a meeting between Bystron and Artem Martschewskyj, the former CEO of Voice of Europe. Allegedly, Bystron can be heard rustling with euro bills.

Bystron vehemently denied the allegations when confronted by the Spiegel. “You must not believe all the ‘information’ you receive from Prague so that you can publish it during the election campaign.”

Bystron told the Spiegel that the allegations were part of a NATO campaign to discredit peace-minded politicians. To date, the Spiegel has received €5.4 million from the Gates Foundation.

Bystron’s immunity as a member of the Bundestag was lifted in the run-up to the EU elections on May 16. Consequently, some 70 police officers raided Bystron’s parliamentary office in the Bundestag and his private homes in Bavaria and Spain.

In a recent confrontation with a Spiegel reporter, Bystron said: “How independent is your reporting when Bill Gates is paying you?” When asked if he was being paid by Putin, Bystron replied: “Why do you deliberately spread false unproven information?”

Potsdam

On January 10, 2024, the German spy network Correctiv claimed that right-wing activists and AfD politicians had planned the “forced deportations of millions” of people from Germany during a private conference in Potsdam in late 2023.

The espionage operation, which included prolonged observations and the installation of cameras inside and outside the Potsdam hotel, was carried out by 18 Correctiv employees.

Later in the day, German public broadcasting reframed Correctiv’s speculations, which are protected as opinions under Article 5 of the German Constitution, into factual statements.

ZDF anchorwoman Marietta Slomka claimed that participants in the Potsdam conference had planned to strip German nationals of their citizenship and forcibly deport them.

In the following months, millions of people protested against the AfD, believing that the party was planning a revival of the Wannsee Conference, as Correctiv suggested. The AfD fell from an all-time high of 23 percent support to 16 percent in August 2024.

It was only until the end of the year, that the claims of ZDF and the NDR, among many others, were proven false in court.

To this day, however, AfD sympathizers in Germany regularly face social ostracism, when their convictions become known to colleagues and friends.

In 2024 alone, 1,031 AfD politicians were victims of a crime.

Correctiv and the OCCRP are members of the Global Investigative Journalism Network. Another member of this network is the “International Consortium of International Journalists”.

The ICIJ is partially funded by the U.S. State Department. It is also closely linked to OCCRP by the sources of its private funding: Both OCCRP and ICIJ receive funding from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Luminate Foundation.

Compared to OCCRP and ICIJ, Correctiv’s dependence on private foundations is more pronounced. In 2020, the Luminate Foundation became Correctiv’s largest single donor.

Other US donors include Google, Facebook and the Open Society Foundation. Correctiv should therefore prove more resilient to the USAID shutdown than OCCRP and ICIJ.

The left-wing activist Jean Peters, who led Correctiv’s espionage operation, has a loose definition of journalistic standards. Peters wrote on his blog that he „invents stories“ to influence political events. A statement he has since deleted.

In 2023, the year in which the Potsdam espionage took place, Correctiv received €1.9 million from anonymous individuals alone, with the next biggest donor being the Luminate Foundation at €660,000.

As a signatory to the Code of the International Fact-Checking Network, Correctiv is required to make transparent any source of funding accounting for more than five percent of the total revenue.

The fact that Correctiv hides the origin of €1.9 million in donations raises the question of alleged foreign influence on the network.

Ibiza

On May 17, 2019, the German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Spiegel simultaneously published footage that led to the collapse of the coalition government between the centrist ÖVP and the right-wing FPÖ.

The footage showed then-FPÖ chairman and Austrian Vice Chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache, promising political favors to the niece of a Russian oligarch at a villa in Ibiza in exchange for positive news coverage .

What Strache didn’t know at the time: The rich Russian uncle did not exist. And the villa, which was rented for the purpose of setting him up, was bugged with microphones and cameras. The wealthy woman, an actor.

Like many media outlets that interfere in European democracies, both Süddeutsche and Spiegel collaborate with OCCRP.

In their book Die Ibiza-Affäre, investigative journalists, Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, explain how their membership in the ICIJ helped them establish themselves as internationally connected journalists.

And it was the Panama Papers, on which Obermaier and Obermayer worked extensively, that allegedly convinced the source to trust the German journalists with the incriminating material, they write.

Obermaier and Obermayer explain why they convinced their newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, to publish the illegally obtained footage, which had previously been rejected by other media.

“This is not just about Austria. Heinz-Christian Strache and the FPÖ do not exist in a vacuum. The right-wing nationalist policies of the FPÖ influence what other right-wing nationalist parties in Europe plan, how they appear and how they act.”

Some ethical doubts remained, however. The journalists admit in their book that their “source” lured Strache into a trap. An undercover report that follows journalistic standards reveals the facts.

It does not create them, the journalists stress. This ethical concern on the part of Obermaier and Obermayer begs the question: If they believed the story was unethical, why did they decide to publish it?

Julian Hessenthaler, Obermaier’s and Obermayer’s “source”, later explained why he set Strache up in an interview with Jean Peters of the above-mentioned spy network Correctiv.

The convicted drug trafficker, who had previously worked as a “private intelligence” consultant, said he feared Russian interference in European politics. Hessenthaler states that the funds for the sophisticated operation came from Mr. M, a business contact.

This was later confirmed by Iranian-born lawyer Ramin Mirfakhrai in an interview with the Spiegel. Mirfakhrai claimed that he paid the costs of about half a million euros out of his own pocket.

He only wanted to combat “extremism”, Mirfakhrai claimed. Hans-Jörg Jennewein of Freilich Magazin finds it hard to believe that Mirfakhrai was not pursuing his own financial interests in the operation.

Jennewein also mentions chat messages in which Hessenthaler tells a well-known porn star to whom he owed €70,000 to wait until “the Spiegel has paid”.

The espionage operations of Ibiza, Potsdam and Voice of Europe show how US-funded networks have vilified democratically elected politicians and carried out regime change.

While President Trump’s elimination of USAID is a good step in the right direction, the influence of private foundations on German media, especially those of Pierre Omidyar, Bill Gates and George Soros, remains.

This issue cannot be solved by the Trump administration. Only the patriotic forces of Europe, currently spearheaded by Viktor Orban’s Hungary, can put an end to this undue interference in the European continent.

The post MUST READ: Here are the Three Biggest US-Backed Interferences in Austrian and German Democracy appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Guest post by Joe Hoft at JoeHoft.com – republished with permission.

There are potentially thousands more COVID deaths related to former NY Governor “Killer Cuomo” based on a new revelation.

We learned on Tuesday, that former New York Governor “Killer Cuomo” was referred to the DOJ for criminal prosecution related to his actions during the COVID crisis.

New York Governor Cuomo Finally Referred for Criminal Prosecution for His Actions During COVID

Based on the following revelations, the number of COVID deaths attributed to former New York Governor “Killer Cuomo” may be much higher than what has been reported to date.

Governor Cuomo, for months, desperately tried every trick in the book to hide the actual number of New York seniors who died under his March 25 Department of Health nursing home mandate. His own Attorney General, Letitia James, now herself under a criminal referral to Pam Bondi’s DOJ for mortgage fraud, issued a report in January 2021, which stated Cuomo had under-counted the nursing home deaths by as much as 50 percent.

On January 28, 2021 Fox News reported:

“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration confirmed Thursday that thousands more nursing home residents died of COVID-19 than the state’s official tallies had previously acknowledged, dealing a potential blow to his image as a pandemic hero.

The surprise development, after months of the state refusing to divulge its true numbers, showed that at least 12,743 long-term care residents died of the virus as of Jan. 19, far greater than the official tally of 8,505 on that day, cementing New York’s toll as one of the highest in the nation.

Those numbers are consistent with a report released just hours earlier by Attorney General Letitia James…”

Among families harmed by the March 25 reg, it is generally believed that likely double that number, or upwards of 20,000 seniors, actually died in New York nursing homes and/or hospitals.

But there is much more.

In addition to the COVID mandate put in place by Governor Cuomo in early 2020, there were two additional regulations that have gone to date virtually unreported. In addition to the 2020 Cuomo/Zucker mandated Covid “health” regulations, which placed untested, recovering COVID hospital patients into not only NYS nursing homes (March 25, 2020), there were two other mandates that placed COVID hospital patients into ACFs (NYS Adult Care Facilities, April 7, 2020) and group homes for the disabled (NYS Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, OPWDD, April 10, 2020).

Here are these mandates.

Enacted March 25, 2020, Nursing Homes:

Enacted April 7, 2020, Adult Care Facilities:

https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/04/doh_covid19_acfreturnofpositiveresidents_040720.pdf

Enacted April 10, 2020, NYS OPWDD Certified Residential Facilities: https://web.archive.org/web/20200531135252/https://opwdd.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/04/4.11.2020-opwdd_crfreturnfromhospital.pdf)

These three brief, simple and secret NYS health regulations led to immediate, needless and cruel deaths for thousands upon thousands of vulnerable seniors and disabled people unfortunate to be stuck living in various NYS congregate care facilities as Covid-19 hit.

But for TGP’s coverage, the fact that there were not one, but three different, deadly NYS health regulations would have remained unknown.

To this day it also remains unknown if the health regulations were EVER rescinded, resulting in yet more unknown deaths.

Governor Cuomo claimed he rescinded the March 25 mandate. However, his Health Commissioner Howard Zucker – the man actually in charge of the promulgation of New York health regulations – in subsequent testimony in front of a 2020 NYS Legislative committee hearing, claimed the March 25 regulation had actually NOT ever been rescinded!

In sworn testimony, Zucker contradicted his boss, Andrew Cuomo. These two obviously didn’t get their stories straight before going public.

No one followed up on this outrageous ambiguity – including the corrupt Democrat-controlled NYS legislature – and, to this date, we don’t know how many MORE seniors actually died due to this deadly March 25 “health” regulation.

These three simple, secret regs when combined appear to have quietly paved the way for an efficient mass murder event in New York which outrageously targeted New York’s vulnerable senior citizens and its disabled.

It is likely not a coincidence that these individuals represented a huge yearly outlay from New York’s Medicaid budget, adding to the state’s then $4.2 billion deficit. Their deaths took fiscal pressure off of the man, actor James Woods in 2020, dubbed as “Killer Cuomo.”

Five years’ later, media (except for TGP) did not EVER report out the two additional, what do appear to be kill orders, deployed in April 2020 by Cuomo and Zucker.

When Cuomo’s alleged crimes got to a Congressional Committee, the House Oversight Committee in September 2024, the committee members, therefore, also had no knowledge of these two additional, legally-enacted and purely evil NYS health regulations.

These two regs likely substantially upped the count of the number of vulnerable people who cruelly and needlessly died, while housed in various NYS congregate care facilities during Covid under the Cuomo regime.

Those NYS OPWDD group homes, by the way, were for “developmentally disabled” individuals who must have acquired their disability before the age of twenty-two. Disabilities can include autism, Cerebral palsy, brain injuries, mental retardation, and other intellectual disabilities. The ages of the OPWDD group home residents can, therefore, include children, young adults, adults and senior citizens.

How many vulnerable, innocent New York children – children! – died as a direct result of the Cuomo/Zucker secretly-enacted, brutal April 10, 2020 regulation, which TARGETED the disabled? How many New York parents are still mourning the death of their children housed inside NYS OPWDD group homes at the virtual hands – via a pen – of these two monsters? Will we ever know? Will these families ever have retribution or justice?

The resulting, inevitable deaths among all three different types of New York congregate care facilities were the direct result of these sick public policies enacted by sick New York public officials.

The public and these affected families have no hope of EVER knowing the actual number of seniors and people with disabilities who died under what were, actually, three separate and secret NYS Covid regs.

The pain, grief and outrage of the families in NYS who lost loved ones due to this horrific mass murder event deployed by NYS Governor Andrew A. Cuomo and his Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, JD, MD – especially including the parents and families of both the people with disabilities (young and old) in NYS OPWDD group homes AND adults in NYS Adult Care Facilities – has NEVER EVEN BEEN PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGED IN TOTAL. It’s as if it never happened to some of these families, a type of pain and torment no family should have to endure nor bear alone.

These families remain unknown and hidden, victims of cruel, vicious and criminal public policy, which caused the deaths of their family members who were stuck as virtual prisoners in the locked-down NYS congregate care system during Covid in 2020: a system then-controlled by two vicious tyrants, Cuomo and Zucker. They suffer and mourn in silence – to this day! – with absolutely no hope of justice and closure, no hope that these two perpetrators will ever be exposed and brought to justice.

Now these families are being forced to endure the campaign actions of Cuomo as he makes a bid for NYC mayor, unchecked by the corrupt NYS Democrat Party, which could easily pull the plug on his power-hungry, greedy ambitions. Clearly it serves these NY Dems’ purposes to run a monster for NYC mayor.

The secret enactment of these three short regulations in 2020 was a crime against humanity. How many really died from these horrible policies?

The post SHOCKING Revelation Leads to Potentially Thousands More COVID Deaths Linked to Former NY Governor ‘Killer Cuomo’s’ Policies appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Sperm race / Screenshot

Two American students went head-to-head in what organizers are calling the world’s first sperm race, held at one of Los Angeles’ most famous venues.

Four young entrepreneurs from the United States raised $1.5 million to host the unusual event, which took place at the Hollywood Palladium on Friday night.

The competition involved sperm samples from two healthy university students racing against each other along an 8-inch (20-centimeter) track designed to mimic the female reproductive system.

The goal was to raise awareness about male fertility, which scientists warn is collapsing at a troubling speed.

The spectacle included livestreams, instant replays, and even live betting odds.

The winner, 20-year-old Tristan Milker from the University of Southern California, was eventually crowned champion.

“There could be this dystopian future where no one will be able to make babies,” said 17-year-old Eric Zhu, the high schooler who created the idea for the competition.

Watch the clip below:

At the event, a man wearing a lab coat used pipettes to place sperm samples — collected beforehand — onto tiny tracks only 2mm wide.

The races were magnified 100 times using a microscope and filmed with a camera that fed the footage into 3D animation software.

The resulting video was then broadcast to the audience.

“There’s no way to really tell if this is real, but I want to believe it is,” said Felix Escobar, a 20-year-old spectator.

Zhu’s concerns about falling fertility rates echo similar ideas from the growing pro-natalist movement, although he denied being part it.

“I have nothing to do with this, I’m not like an Elon Musk, who wants to repopulate the Earth,” Zhu added.

Last week, it was reported that the Trump administration had begun exploring ways to address America’s demographic crisis.

This exploration included a range of proposals designed to encourage families to have more children.

Among these proposals include reserving 30 percent of Fulbright scholarships for applicants who are married or have children, giving mothers a $5,000 payment following childbirth and fund programs to educate women on reproductive health and fertility awareness.

Trump Exploring Ways to Resolve America’s Demogaphic Crisis — Including $5,000 ‘Baby Bonus’ For Mothers

The post World’s First ‘Sperm Race’ Held in Los Angeles to Highlight Problem of Plummeting Male Fertility (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

President Trump and Melania Trump attend the funeral of Pope Francis (Screen Image/White House)

President Trump set the internet ablaze by donning a royal blue suit, rather than a traditional black or navy suit, at the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican City on Saturday.

Accompanied by the First Lady, who wore all black, with a long black veil, President Trump boldly stood out as the lone dignitary choosing to forgo the more traditional funereal black attire.

For those researchers who have traced President Trump’s movements over the past decade, many believe that President Trump frequently uses symbolism to communicate a deeper intended meaning behind certain executive decisions.

For example, when President Trump broke the internet in 2017 by tweeting, “Despite the constant negative press covfefe,” millions of X accounts furiously scrambled to try and decode the president’s intended meaning.

President Trump deleted this viral tweet six hours later, alternatively posting, and then deleting, “Who can figure out the true meaning of covfefe? Enjoy!!!”

Later that day, Press Secretary Sean Spicer brilliantly confounded the media by saying, “A select group of people know exactly what [President Trump] meant.”

In addition to the “covfefe” bonanza, hundreds more of President Trump’s quotations, social media post timestamps, and even his aesthetic and decor decisions have sparked debate amongst an inestimable number of internet accounts, as to the possible deeper meaning behind President Trump’s expressions.

To that end, after President Trump opted to wear blue at the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, many commentators began to speculate as to whether President Trump donned this attire as a sign of disrespect to the late Pope Francis.

If so, the consensus wagered, then President Trump must have a very deep-seated reason for his personal disdain of Pope Francis – and details of this fissure would inevitably remain outside the public purview for reasons of national security.

However, this rivalry between President Trump and Pope Francis over the span of years has been no total secret.

When President Trump visited the Vatican in 2018, President Trump infamously grinned ear-to-ear while posing for photos with the media. President Trump was then juxtaposed with Pope Francis, who appeared incredibly sullen and dour.

Francis stands with US President Donald Trump and his family at the Vatican in May 2017 pic.twitter.com/xUUPXMr263

— 777 Venom (@LadyViceVenom) April 21, 2025

Pope Francis often lectured President Trump for not allowing millions of illegal immigrants into America to reshape the country. Pope Francis similarly pushed an illegal immigration agenda into Europe, where the negative ramifications are evident.

Nowadays, rival news outlets remain hyper-focused on President Trump’s attire choices, at the most superficial level.

On the contrary, as the Vatican conclave elects the new pope in the coming weeks, the Gateway Pundit will continue to provide fair coverage, targeting the core of the Vatican’s ills, and, we pray, its increased return to grace.

The post President Trump Wears Blue Suit to Funeral of Pope Francis – Sets Internet Ablaze appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Can man live by garden centers alone?

That question was implicit in one aspect of the public-health response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which, five years ago, had already begun its march to mow down Americans’ civil liberties and personal freedoms. 

Half a decade ago—so long ago, so strangely fresh in memory—workers, students, worshipers, and pretty much everybody else whose post was deemed “nonessential” were instructed to cocoon themselves within their homes. As public health officials and the elected officials who putatively worked for them saw it, the population was akin to a juvenile delinquent who, upon getting in trouble with the teacher, is sent home to Mom with a suspension. 

In addition to those who were restricted from their place of business, education, or worship, countless others were prohibited from the pleasures of everyday existence. In Ohio, where I make my home, a “stay-at-home” order from April 2020 not only forbade most gatherings numbering more than 10 persons but specifically shut down the operation of “all places of public amusement,” a litany that included movie theaters, theme parks, aquariums, zoos, museums, and, perhaps most ominously, funplexes. (I confess that I do not know what a “funplex” is, but if the government is outlawing it, I am in favor of its existence.) In the same order, restaurants were deemed “essential,” but in a qualification that is only comic in hindsight, the preparation and service of food had to be intended for “consumption off-premises”—resulting in an era defined by expensive meals that were boxed-up and unappetizingly “steamed” while being transported from the restaurant in question to their consumers’ home. 

At least in my state, though, garden centers were among the lucky few entities given the nod to keep their doors open—or, as the case may be, their gates open.

No, we could not see a movie, attend a symphony concert, or dine in public with friends and family, but we could make purchases in furtherance of refreshing our flower bed or sprucing up our hedge—as though gardening, of all things, was somehow a compensation for the indefinite adjournment of modern civilization.

Somewhat to my chagrin, I can recall ambling through my local garden center, which, owing to the novelty of its fully operational status, seemed to be teeming with bored people in the spring and summer of 2020. This distressed me not because I was concerned about catching Covid—I was, even then, certain that all of us would eventually come down with the flu-like ailment—but because the garden center’s popularity suggested to me the ease with which people had been shepherded into an economic activity not of their choosing. Undoubtedly there were some bona-fide green thumbs milling among the arborvitae and maple trees, but there were surely many who were shopping at the garden center because it was open—and, like sufferers of Stockholm syndrome, we were glad for it. 

In the public health apparatus that sprang up at the time of the pandemic, garden centers functioned as something like the opium of the masses: they were allowed to operate to appease a public that might have grown weary of not being able to go to school, to work, to a movie, to a zoo—whatever. But to paraphrase what Sir Thomas More said to Richard Rich in Robert Bolt’s great play (and movie), A Man for All Seasons: “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world—but for a garden center?”

Even more to my chagrin, I contributed to the charade that summer by ordering a truckload of plantings for my yard: three pear trees and four crabapple trees, if I recall correctly. Yet I could not fully enjoy these additions since my yard essentially died that summer: The water company in our area had requested that customers limit their water usage due to the hot temperatures. (More bureaucratic overreach!)  As it turned out, I had planted some handsome trees in a barren yard that came to be infested by something called sod webworms. By the time this happened, Home Depot again permitted in-person shoppers in its stores, but the gentleman who counseled me on the state of my yard donned a mask—and so, to my shame, did I. It was that kind of year.

Even the garden center, once a kind of mirage of freedom amid the striking lack of freedom that had overtaken the nation in 2020, did not remain free of signs of the mass hysteria over the contagion. At Christmastime, when I went to this same garden center to buy some wreaths, seemingly every customer and employee was masked. It was then that it first occurred to me that some of these maskers might even relish their face coverings to buffer them against the cold—a bleak normalization of masking.

My pandemic-era gardening, then, was a notable failure—and, to the extent that I partook in a regime that, through its lockdowns, had reduced all of society to a garden center, something to look back upon with real regret.

I admit I know next to nothing about how to properly care for a lawn, but since that’s the case, the next time the government imposes respiratory virus-induced tyranny, please don’t make me spend all my time at a garden center.

The post When Garden Centers Ruled the Earth appeared first on The American Conservative.

Nothing has entered Gaza for more than 50 days. Charity kitchens are warning they are only days away from shuttering services. Two million people on the brink. We are currently witnessing Israel’s solution to the Gaza question—an unmistakable humanitarian crisis engineered by the Israeli government to remove from its borders an entire people it has deemed the equivalent of locusts. 

“No one cares about us,” stated an emaciated man in the ruins of Gaza this week. Women and children with pots outstretched beg for crumbs. Families survive on one meal a day. Trash, sewage, and disease overwhelm the 25-mile long Gaza strip. “The scene we come across every morning, hundreds of people queue for long hours, waiting with empty pots and pans, clamoring to get food for their families back in tents or displacement sites,” reported Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud on Tuesday. “Many of them are scouring piles of garbage to get trash to start fires in order to cook or to keep family members warm during the nighttime.”

“Utter desperation” read the headlines out of Gaza this week. “Civilians are being attacked in incessant military violence,” reported Gavin Kelleher with the Norwegian Refugee Council. “People are selling their belongings, they’re selling their clothes to get access to cash to get food. People are trying to sell diapers for a bag of lentils. Begging is overwhelming at this point.” Nothing is getting through. One of the great famines of the 21st century is happening before our eyes in real time. The bombings continue unabated. Since March, nearly 600 children have been killed in the Gaza region. Another 1,600 wounded have been sent to hospitals where medical supplies are running thin with no relief on the way.

On Tuesday, at least 10 human beings were wiped from this earth in a center housing displaced families. On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes destroyed a school and hospital in Gaza claiming the lives of 39 people. “Are these terrorists?” screamed a distraught man standing over a dead body in the aftermath. “Are these the ones threatening you, Netanyahu? Are these the ones shooting rockets?” In response to the killings, the Israeli military argues it is targeting “militants.” 

Israel’s own allies in Europe are horrified by the conditions. In a joint statement released Wednesday, leaders in France, Germany, and Britain urged the Israeli government to lift its nearly two-month long blockade that has created “intolerable” conditions on the ground. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has been particularly outspoken in recent weeks, telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the suffering “must end.” The international outpouring of condemnation has done little to sway Israeli politicians, who seem intent on rooting out the more than two million people who call the Gaza strip home. 

President Donald Trump, who is arguably in the strongest position to affect change in the region, has offered essentially no support to the Palestinian people. In March, Trump posted an AI-generated video of a revamped Gaza that featured gold statues in his image. The video’s creator called the edit a “political satire” and was as surprised as many Israeli critics on the right when Trump enthusiastically shared the edit. In April, Trump called for a U.S.-led “Peace Force” to establish a “Freedom Zone” in the Strip. For a man who campaigned on ending forever wars, especially in the Middle East, the comments rang eerily reminiscent of the “Freedom Fries” era that came to define the GOP of old that Trump has allegedly toppled. 

In April, Trump rolled out the red carpet in DC for Netanyahu, a man who faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to Israel’s military actions in Gaza. There are many countries where Netanyahu is no longer permitted entry, but when he showed up on America’s eastern shore, Trump did everything in his power to make Israel’s hardman feel right at home in Washington DC. 

Perhaps the most consequential thing Trump and his administration has done to permit the blockade and continued suffering in Gaza is the tactics employed in its escalating war with university officials stateside. Trump has single-handedly squashed the pro-Palestinian protest movement that was whipped into fervor during the final year of President Biden’s administration. On Thursday, Trump called Harvard an “anti-semitic, Far Left institution” that allows foreign students “accepted from all over the World” to “spew fake ANGER AND HATE.” Trump noted that “other institutions” have also engaged in allowing the spread of what he deems to be impermissible speech on campuses through the United States. 

With threats of deportation for foreign students who pen op-eds against the genocide and loose language from Trump about sending “homegrown criminals” to terror prisons in El Salvador, the president has successfully struck fear into the hearts of students, foreign and domestic, who dare speak ill of the Israeli government and its ongoing crimes against humanity. The campus, long known as a protest vehicle and the spark for political sea change in the United States dating back to the days of Kent State, has been essentially castrated by an administration that rose to power, in part, on the promise to overturn the censorious attitudes of college administrators who signaled out conservative views and students. In its wake, the Trump administration has created an equally untenable position in the other direction.

As Trump ramps up his rhetoric against “antisemitism” on college campuses, new Gallup polling finds that support for Israel has cratered. A majority of Americans now hold negative views of Israel, with support for the nation falling to a 25-year low. In the age of widespread connectivity, many simply cannot look away at the horror and destruction taking place without pause in the Gaza Strip.

Relief for the people of Gaza is nowhere in sight. As the economic chaos created by Trump’s tariff plan dominates news headlines across the West, Gaza is conveniently out of sight and out of mind for Israel as it continues its campaign of horror. As the world squabbles about supply chains and semiconductors, the people of Gaza enter a new phase of death and destruction. 

As the days roll on and the death toll piles up, how will future generations remember the role we played in this disaster? Will they view us, and Trump, as peacemakers and not the ones that looked away? It is not our responsibility or in our interest to save the world, true, but it’s also naive to believe that we do not play a sizable role in permitting Israel’s continued bombardment and starvation of the Palestinian people. Something must change and quickly or the blood of innocents will forever be stapled to the recorded rule of Trump and the MAGA right.

The post The Starvation of Gaza appeared first on The American Conservative.

As the term of the Chilean president Gabriel Boric winds to a close, the candidates hoping to succeed him are putting their campaigns in motion. In Chile, currently dominated by a left-wing coalition led by Boric’s Frente Amplio party of social democrats, the political winds have shifted significantly—the vital energy is now on the right. 

Boric and his social democrats, elected on the back of the estallido social—the “social outbreak,” a major wave of protests and civic unrest—have failed in their goal to fundamentally transform the country. The Chilean left suffered a humiliating defeat when their proposed new constitution, intended to replace the Constitution of 1980 put in place by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, was decisively rejected by voters. (The situation became humorous when a second constitution, this time drawn up by the right, was also rejected in a popular referendum, although by a significantly smaller margin.) Boric, once the shining star of the young Latin American left, is now an exhausted political figure, as the region’s youth turn rightwards in concert with much of the world.

Aware of the threat to their political position, the Chilean left is pinning their hopes on a unity candidate to carry the banner in this year’s November presidential election. The various candidates for the Chilean communists, social democrats, progressives, and the green movement have entered a binding primary that will go to the polls in June, allowing the coalition to solidify around a single presidential aspirant for the general election. At the moment, that candidate looks most likely to be Carolina Tohá, who was the first female mayor of the Chilean capital city of Santiago and until recently served as the minister of the interior under Boric.

The candidates on the Chilean right, in contrast, are hungry to capitalize on the new national mood, and no one is eager to potentially bring their presidential ambitions to a premature end by participating in a primary—they’d rather enter the general election directly, even at the risk of vote splitting. The center-right candidate, Evelyn Matthei, currently holds the overall presidential polling lead, with the populist right wing vote divided between traditional left-wing bogeyman José Antonio Kast of the Chilean Republican Party and rising star Johannes Kaiser of the National Libertarian Party, who alternate between second and third place in the polls.

Matthei, the oldest candidate in the race, represents the forces of mainstream Chilean conservatism. Once a firm supporter of Pinochet’s regime—a political stance that in recent years has become far more controversial in contemporary Chile—she has tacked steadily towards the center, disavowing both her prior defense of the dictatorship of her youth and the hardline social conservatism of the traditionalist Chilean right (she has expressed support for same-sex marriage and liberalization of abortion law, positions anathema to the still-powerful Christian right). Her service as a labor minister and also as mayor of Providencia, one of Santiago’s wealthiest communes, has allowed her to cultivate an image of competence and pragmatism that appeals to Chilean business interests, and she has the potential to appeal to young urban professionals who have grown wary of the social democrats but dislike the policies and personalities of the populist right.

But while Matthei currently holds the lead in presidential polling, her biggest obstacle will come not from the left but from her right flank. The combined vote share of populist right-wing candidates José Antonio Kast, a firebrand social conservative who lost to Boric in 2021, and Johannes Kaiser, the Chilean echo of Javier Milei, is consistently larger than her own base of support.

Kast, who is viewed as something of a Trumpian figure among the Chilean left, continues to draw from a loyal base that yearns for a more aggressive rollback of Boric-era reforms and a clampdown on migration and crime. His Republican Party, founded in 2020, has become the dominant right-wing party in Chile, pushing Kast into competition for the presidency in 2021. A hardline social conservative, Kast draws especially strong support from the growing population of Chilean evangelical Christians, who appreciate his iron opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. He is also hoping to capitalize on Chilean frustrations with the soft-on-crime, left-wing approach by running a law-and-order campaign, while also promising a liberalization of the economy to strengthen Chile’s economic growth.

That youthful energy on the right, however, is being captured by a new force in Chilean politics: the national libertarian movement. The success of President Javier Milei, who is the manifestation of this political tendency in neighboring Argentina, has given a major boost to the aspirations of like-minded politicians in Latin America. In Chile the standard bearer for this novel right-wing movement is a politician with the striking Teutonic name of Johannes Maximilian Kaiser Barents-von Hohenhagen, a YouTuber and social media maverick turned politician who has taken a surprise leap in the presidential polls. 

Originally a proponent of José Antonio Kast and a politician for the Republican Party, Kaiser broke from his compatriots by voting against the 2023 constitution drawn up by the right. Kaiser has criticized Kast and the Republicans for being too statist. “We don’t believe in the state as the guide of public morals,” he said in an interview with the Chilean online publication Emol. Kaiser’s appeal is much less oriented around social conservatism—although he is an Orthodox Christian convert—than around opposition to the Chilean state apparatus: He proposes a radical reduction of taxes and regulations, major cuts to the government budget, and, most controversially, the privatization of Chilean state-controlled mining enterprises. Like Milei, his appeal is particularly strong with younger men, many of whom do not consider themselves conservative or right-wing.

The factionalism of the Chilean right means that Matthei, Kast, and Kaiser are essentially wagering on taking second place in the first round of the presidential election this November. Whatever right-wing candidate came in second would then proceed to, and almost certainly be favored in, the second-round runoff election against the left-wing candidate. In this election, second really may be the best—and whichever candidate achieves it could set the course of the Chilean right for years to come.

The post The Chilean Right Gears Up for a Fight appeared first on The American Conservative.

If there is one issue that everyone in the country agrees on, it’s that we desperately need more new housing to be built. Everyone knows we need it but many states have too much red tape and regulations in place to get the job done quickly.

In the state of Montana, Republicans are leading the way. The GOP controlled House in the state is passing massive reforms to encourage the building of new housing, easing restrictions on things like parking.

Every state legislature should look at what’s happening here. This needs to be replicated everywhere.

The Sightline Institute reported:

House Bill 492, introduced by Rep. Katie Zolnikov (R-Billings), sets a high bar for other states pursuing parking reform. Beginning in October 2026, any home smaller than 1,200 square feet in Montana’s ten largest cities will be exempt from costly local parking mandates. Because more than 80 percent of apartments and condos in the United States are already smaller than 1,200 square feet, this effectively means that multifamily buildings in those cities will no longer be required to have any particular number of off-street parking spaces.

HB 492 also exempts small detached homes, all deed-restricted affordable housing, assisted living homes, and daycares. And it strikes down excessive parking mandates in many smaller cities, giving property owners there almost as much flexibility over how many parking spaces they need.

This is a major change for many of Montana’s fastest growing cities such as Bozeman, Missoula, and Whitefish—all of which currently require one to two parking spaces for every home. It’s hard to understate the potential impact of HB 492. A recent study found that eliminating parking minimums alone can boost new home construction by 40–70 percent.

People are talking about this on Twitter/X:

Last week, Montana voted to:
– legalize 6-story apartments on most commercial land
– sharply cut parking mandates
– limit excess impact fees
– cut condo defect liability
– require equal treatment for manufactured homes
– legalize single-stair buildings up to 6 stories statewide pic.twitter.com/IyY2ftwdyd

— Michael Andersen (@andersem) April 25, 2025

Chicago, the city that invented the skyscraper can’t even get garden apartments approved. We’re being outdone by MONTANA? A state with a population 1/10th of Illinois? https://t.co/VmIIGWqeRz

— Miguel Chacon (@Chacon312) April 26, 2025

republicans in montana are currently passing more progressive, sustainable, pro-housing legislation than democratic supermajorities in New York and California https://t.co/4INE7dL6la

— sam (@sam_d_1995) April 26, 2025

It’s red states like Montana that are leading the way on housing reform: Cutting mandates, legalizing more homes, and standing up for working families. While blue states strangle growth, Montana is building a future of opportunity. https://t.co/G4ptC0nZxB

— Gavin M. Wax (@GavinWax) April 26, 2025

Republicans understand what is at stake.

Blue states send them their huddled masses who have been priced out by disastrous “community-driven” housing policy.

That displaced population gives republicans an advantage in presidential elections and congress.

Our turn @GovPritzker https://t.co/tkFEgUnWbo

— Michael McLean (@cornoisseur) April 26, 2025

This kind of reform is needed in every state. Make it easier to build more housing and the market will respond.

(Image:Source)

The post THIS IS THE WAY: Republicans in Montana Are Passing Aggressive Reforms to Build New Housing appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Just last week, the Gateway Pundit reported that there are people working in the entertainment industry in Hollywood who are afraid that Los Angeles could ending up becoming the next Detroit.

California has made it so expensive and difficult to do business there that the film and TV industry is constantly moving production to other countries that offer tax breaks and other incentives.

Just after being elected, Trump appointed actors Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone as Special Ambassadors to Hollywood.

Next week, Jon Voight is set to offer some recommendations to Trump on how to keep film and TV production in the United States.

Townhall reports:

Jon Voight Will Present Trump With Plan to Fix Hollywood

Actor Jon Voight, along with his manager, Steven Paul, plan to present ideas to President Trump as early as next week in order to help increase film and TV production in the United States.

Ideas Voight plans to propose may include infrastructure incentives, tax code changes and job training, all while exceeding tax credits that states usually offer.

“It’s important that we compete with what’s going on around the world, so there needs to be some sort of federal tax incentives,” Paul said.

In January, Trump named Voight as a special ambassador to Hollywood, alongside fellow actors Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone.

Trump referred to Hollywood as a “great but very troubled place.”

Currently, states compete with generous tax credits in order to lure film productions. The group wants national initiatives to help the U.S. win business over other countries, Paul added.

In the clip below, actor Rob Lowe talks about how California’s current leadership has made it near to impossible to make movies and TV shows in the state:

“It’s criminal what California and LA have let happen. It’s criminal. Everybody should be fired” – Rob Lowe, calling out corrupt politicians like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass for chasing away the entertainment industrypic.twitter.com/Iscc3pX48c

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) March 23, 2025

The entertainment industry has always been a golden goose for California. Somehow, the Democrats in charge of the state have almost managed to kill it.

The post REPORT: Actor Jon Voight to Present Trump With Plan to Increase Film and TV Production in the United States appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Milwaukee County judge Ana Berrios-Schroeder / screen image

Another Milwaukee judge is joining the rebellion after judge Hannah Dugan was arrested by the FBI for obstructing an ICE arrest last week.

The DOJ on Friday announced Judge Dugan was charged with “obstruction of proceedings before a department or agency of the United States, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and concealing a person to prevent arrest, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison.”

And now a rebellion is growing among other radical judges in Wisconsin.

As TGP reported earlier, in an act of defiance, Sawyer County, Wisconsin, judge Monica Isham said she has “no intention” of allowing any illegal aliens to be taken out of her courtroom, after another Wisconsin judge was arrested for obstructing an ICE operation.

Judge Isham has been on the bench for less than two years and boasts of being the “first woman, first Native American, first minority” to serve as a circuit court judge in Sawyer County.

“Enough is enough. I have no intention of allowing anyone to be taken out of my courtroom by ICE and sent to a concentration camp, especially without due process as BOTH of the constitutions we swore to support requires. Should I start raising bail money?” Wisconsin Circuit Judge Monica Isham wrote in an email obtained by Wisconsin Right Now.

“If there is no guidance for us and no support for us, I will refuse to hold court in Branch 2 in Sawyer County,” she said.

“We have a Judicial District 10 meeting on May 9th and I respectfully ask that we be given some guidance by then so we may discuss as a group in District 10,” the judge said.

In signing off, Judge Isham proudly said she is willing to lose her job or get arrested for doing ‘the right thing.’

“If this costs me my job or gets me arrested, then at least I know I did the right thing,” the judge wrote.

Wisconsin Judge Monica Isham threatens not to hold court over Hannah Dugan’s arrest https://t.co/88OGUlgrW4

— Wisconsin Right Now (@wisconsin_now) April 26, 2025

Milwaukee County Judge Ana Berrios-Schroeder responded to Judge Isham to let her know she supports her.

Judge Berrios-Schroeder thanked Judge Isham for being “brave” and floated “new courthouse policies” in their quest to shield illegals from ICE agents.

Wisconsin Right Now obtained the email from Judge Berrios-Schroeder to Judge Isham.

A Milwaukee Co judge Ana Berrios-Schroeder has responded to Judge Monica Isham’s email, which included her threat to not hold court because of Hannah Dugan’s arrest, thanking her for her “brave” words that “give voice to the voiceless” and “speak to our hopes and dreams.” Email… pic.twitter.com/1qdkDxPA5M

— Wisconsin Right Now (@wisconsin_now) April 27, 2025

The post Another Milwaukee County Judge Joins Rebellion, Floats “New Courthouse Policies” in Response to Radical Judge Vowing to Shield Illegals from ICE Agents appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.