Gun Violence in America out of control: as blind-folded political and public followers of Donald Trump, master of deception and deceit on many fronts, are being fooled to believe in his "nonsensical rhetoric" - by RM

Donald Trump the master of deception

If you think of driving to Florida or anywhere else in the US for that matter, think again.

Gun violence is going totally out of control in America and politicians there, many on the payroll of the powerful gun lobby NRA - National Rifle Association,  are doing nothing about it.

So far it has led to a large number of innocent people who have lost their lives, a significant loss of income for America from the international tourist business, with large numbers of tourists now avoiding America they consider  an unsafe tourist destination, and considerable sums of Public money being spent on security issues, as the result of a lack of proper gun control laws.

For recent statistics on gun violence in America Gun Violence Archive

Just recently in Florida more than a dozen drivers were shot at in three different counties while traveling along two major highways in Central Florida — and deputies are searching for the ones responsible. It happened on New Year’s Day.

The victims were traveling eastbound on Interstate 4 and northbound on Interstate 95 when they were shot at by a passing vehicle, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies say the calls came in shortly before 6:30 p.m. Wednesday December 31

In the South Florida Miami area, authorities announced the death of Melissa Gonzalez, 22, on Saturday, January 4 in the afternoon.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Gonzalez was shot while driving southbound on I-95, near the 79th Street exit in the West Little River neighborhood of Northwest Miami-Dade County.

Gonzalez’s passenger, identified by FHP as 26-year-old Julian Cortina, heard the gunfire, looked over and saw she had been hurt.She died a few days later.

On December 5  a police pursuit of a carjacked UPS vehicle ended in a shootout on the streets of South Florida that left four people dead, including two suspects, officials said at a press conference. The victims have not yet been identified. 

In a more recent development gun rights advocates and militia members from around the U.S. are urging thousands of armed protesters to descend on Virginia’s capital this month to stop newly empowered Democrats from passing gun-control bills, the Washington Post reports.

What began as a few rural Virginia counties declaring themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries” has become an internet phenomenon. Far-right websites and commenters say Virginia is the place to take a stand against what they see as a national trend of weakening gun rights. Unlike blue bastions like California and New York, Virginia is a former Confederate state with strong rural traditions and lax gun laws. Guns represent the strongest, reddest line against the demographic changes that have seen voters usher in a new era of Democratic leadership.

The State of Nevada-based Oath Keepers said it’s sending training teams to help form posses and militia in Virginia. The leader of a Georgia militia called Three Percent Security Force posted calls to arms on Facebook, urging “patriots” to converge on Richmond. The right-wing YouTube “American Joe Show” warned without evidence that Virginia will cut the power grid to stop the army of protesters. Law enforcement officials are monitoring the situation, including threats to Gov. Ralph Northam, worried about the potential for violence at a rally planned for the state Capitol Jan. 20. State police briefed Northam for two hours last week. The Virginia Citizens Defense League, the grass-roots organization planning the rally, told the state to prepare for as many as 100,000 people.

“There’s a dangerous intersection here of speech and guns,” said Adam Skaggs of the Giffords Law Center, adding that it is “critically important … that we don’t see the sort of armed intimidation and even violence that resulted …in Charlottesville.” Democratic lawmakers who control the General Assembly are considering rules changes to limit where guns can be carried.

In the meantime the impeached US President Trump, who is creating all kinds of diversionary tricks to distract the American public, including a confrontation with Iran, which unfortunately could create a new Middle East war, and is unwilling to provide essential information, re his shady dealings with Ukraine,  is also doing absolutely nothing to stop the ever increasing gun violence in the US.

High time America wakes up before it implodes.

EU-Digest 

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article238898068.html#storylink=cpy

The Netherlands: Nationalists and populists issues lose favorability in the Netherlands

There was faltering support for the Netherlands to withdraw from the European Union, according to a survey of voters and non-voters in the Netherlands during the 2019European Parliamentary elections. 

The poll, conducted by Ipsos for broadcaster NOS, also showed several nationalist issues falling out of favor with the Dutch public. Just 15 percent of people agreed with a mandate saying the Netherlands should leave the EU. That is down from 24 percent of respondents five years ago. About 65 percent disagreed with the sentiment, with the rest saying they either did not know or did not care. 

Interestingly, about 60 percent of voters said the Netherlands is better as part of the European Union, while fewer than 40 percent of non-voters said the same. Still, about 69 percent want to see the EU grow even stronger because of international tensions, while only 7 percent disagreed.

Read more at:
https://nltimes.nl/2019/05/23/nexit-nationalist-issues-lose-favorability-netherlands

EU Elections: Opponents of nationalism rally before EU vote

Tens of thousands of people opposed to right-wing populism and nationalism have taken to the streets in European cities ahead of the European Parliament elections from May 23.

Demonstrations were held on Sunday in more than 50 cities in 13 countries, including Germany and France.

In Berlin, organizers say more than 20,000 people took part in the rally and marched on the streets for about two hours.

They oppose intolerance against refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. They are also against nationalists who prioritize their countries' interests and claim that they should restore sovereignty from the EU.

One demonstrator told NHK that Europe should not be governed by ultra-right political parties that could try to destroy democracy.

Another participant said European countries should be united to solve the problems they are facing.

Note EU-Digest: During this past Sunday's demonstrations throughout Europe against the extreme right-wing populist parties and their leaders, including Matteo Salvini in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet in the Netherlands, Jorg Meuthen in Germany, Nigel Farage in England, etc., it might be good, again, to remind voters participating in the upcoming European elections, that all these populists are Donald Trump 's buddies, who spend a lot of time talking nonsense, like he does, but have never achieved anything concrete in heir lives. 

They are however masters in promising castles in the sky. Hopefully you the voter will not be seduced by these deceitful populists? Europe belongs to us all. Nationalism has never worked in Europe and has no place in the EU.
 
Read more at: Opponents of nationalism rally before EU vote - News - NHK WORLD - English

Britain and the Brexit Impasse: A national government or “no deal” - by Brendan Donelly

In a recent article for the New York Times, the distinguished historian of the Conservative Party, Professor Tim Bale, argued that the “will to power” of the Conservative Party would enable it in the long term to reconstruct its inner cohesion, currently compromised by the Brexit debate. Professor Bale’s argument is controversial but, even if accurate from a historical perspective, it is highly unlikely to be reflected in the functioning of the Party over the crucial next three months. Last Wednesday’s ballot of Conservative MPs was at best a Pyrrhic victory for the Prime Minister.  The 117 votes recorded against her probably if anything understated the degree of opposition to her proposed texts for the Withdrawal Agreement from the EU and its accompanying Political Declaration. It is clear she cannot possibly rely on her Parliamentary Party to steer these proposals through the House of Commons against the opposition of the Labour Party and others.

But there is no conceivable majority among Conservative MPs for any other course of action either. A divided and dysfunctional Conservative Party is generating a divided and dysfunctional Conservative government. There is no reason at all to believe that this division can be overcome by any sudden outbreak of unity before 29 March 2019. The true lesson of the past tumultuous week in British politics is that no Conservative government is capable of adopting, much less implementing, a coherent alternative position to that of the United Kingdom’s leaving the EU by automatic operation of Article 50 on 29 March 2019. If in three months there is still a Conservative government, then “crashing out” of the EU without a negotiated withdrawal will have become inevitable. That important minority in the Conservative Parliamentary party favourable to this outcome need only persevere in their current obstructionist tactics to gain their goal through the asymmetric workings of Article 50.  Under Article 50 “no deal” emphatically means “no deal.”

There has been much talk in recent days of Parliament’s “taking back control of Brexit.” Amber Rudd has specified cross-party discussions to explore the possibility of a “soft Brexit” involving British membership of the EEA. This particular suggestion seems to rest on a number of questionable assumptions. The issue of British membership of the EEA is not one that in any circumstances can be resolved between now and 29 March  2019. If the EEA option is one the UK wishes to pursue after Brexit, it will need to be painstakingly negotiated with the EU during the “transition period.” The most that the EU might be willing to accept in this connection over the next three months would be changes to the wording of the non-binding Political Declaration, pointing towards future British membership of the EEA. It is more than doubtful however whether such marginal changes would be sufficient to guarantee or even make more likely a Parliamentary majority for the Prime Minister’s “deal.”  Some Labour MPs either favour or could accept an EEA-like arrangement, but the majority do not, including Jeremy Corbyn and Sir Keir Starmer, both of whom for different reasons would have difficulties in accepting the Freedom of Movement at the heart of the EEA. Most importantly, if the EU were to be persuaded at this late stage to make changes to the Political Declaration, it could only be at the pressing and well-grounded request of the sitting British government.  No present or future present Conservative government could ever accept favourable references in the Political Declaration to the EEA and Freedom of Movement. Most pressure on the government from the Conservative Party during the Brexit negotiations has come from precisely the opposite direction, seeking to reduce rather than maintain ties with the EU after Brexit. The EEA can provide no solution to the Conservative government’s present impasse.

Note EU-Digest: Re: Brexit: Britain and Britain's political establishment seem to be "up the creek without a paddle", and the so-called Brexiteers are not to be heard from or seen. A wise lesson for European citizens not to vote for Populist, Nationalist or Ultra Right parties in local or the upcoming May 2019 EU parliamentary elections. It's all empty rhetoric what these parties are producing. Just look at Britain (Brexit) and the USA (Donald Trump) to underscore that point.

Read more at: Brexit: A national government or “no deal” | The Federal Trust

POLAND: Nationalist. Marching With Government Officials

Via euronews: Polish leaders hold joint march with nationalists on 100th anniversary of Independence Day

Read more;
https://www.euronews.com/2018/11/11/polish-leaders-hold-joint-march-with-nationalists-on-100th-anniversary-of-independence-day

Britain: Ukip to team up in 'unholy alliance' with Steve Bannon's new far right European movement -

Ukip has pledged to work with Steve Bannon’s new European alt-right movement, forging what critics have branded an “unholy alliance” to bring down the EU and fuel populism across the continent.

Mr Bannon, a former investment banker who founded the website Breitbart, has pledged to bolster the continent’s far right with a new foundation called The Movement that would dole out resources to eurosceptics and anti-EU populists.

The former chief strategist of Donald Trump has rattled Brussels after stating his intention to create a “supergroup” in the European parliament after next’s year’s EU elections, with extreme right-wingers taking as many as a third of the legislature’s seats.

Though Ukip MEPs will not be able to participate directly in the parliament because of Brexit, a spokesperson pledged that the party would share experience with Mr Bannon’s project to give it a leg up, stating they expected the group to have a “large impact” on European politics and hoped for “a new army of eurosceptic MEPs”.

Mr Bannon’s move into Europe also appears set to have an impact on the dynamics of Brexit talks, with one source close to Brexit negotiations telling The Independent that Brussels has been spooked by the alt-right project.

As a result, EU officials are increasingly resistant to calls for the Article 50 negotiating period to be extended, so as to avoid eurosceptic Britain participating in the European parliament elections scheduled for next May.

The EU is said to fear that such an outcome would see Ukip, which won the 2014 European elections in the UK, return to the parliament and bolster the numbers of Mr Bannon’s new anti-EU group.

Note EU-Digest: Democratic EU member states and the EU Commission better wake-up to this threat, which certainly is no laughing matter and must be taken very seriously. 

Read more: Ukip to team up in 'unholy alliance' with Steve Bannon's new far right European movement | The Independent

Poland: We are not anti-EU says Polish Senate Speaker, as Polish Citizen massively demonstrate against anti-Democratic measures Government

Polish Senate speaker: We are not anti-Europe

Read more at:
https://p.dw.com/p/31xD8

EU Politics: Europe Far Right and Populists hails Trump, slams EU, Islam, migrants - Philip Heijmans

ar right leaders promised to build a new Europe without the EU, as they rallied against Islam and praised US President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policy at a meeting in Prague over the weekend.

Populist politicians from France, the UK, Poland, Austria and the Netherlands wrapped up their gathering on Sunday, held under the banner: "For a Europe of sovereign nations".

The conference was hosted by the Czech Republic's anti-Islam Freedom and Direct Democracy party, which won nearly 11 percent of the vote in October and is chaired by Tomio Okamura, a Czech-Japanese politician.

The meeting closed a year of far-right gains across Europe, as demonstrated most recently in Austria.

Members of the Freedom Party of Austria, who were present at the Prague conference, were lauded for having just entered the country's new coalition government.

The National Front's Marine Le Pen, who lost out on the French presidency earlier this year after reaching the final round of voting, said the development was "excellent news for Europe.

"These successes show that the nation states are the future, that the Europe of tomorrow is a Europe of the people," she said.

Along with Dutch Geert Wilders, who leads the Party for Freedom, Le Pen upped a call to unify opposition to the EU under the Europe of Nations and Freedom coalition (ENF) - the smallest group, launched in 2015, in the European Parliament.

Closing Europe's borders to asylum-seekers is one of the group's key ambitions.

Read More: Europe far right hails Trump, slams EU, Islam, migrants | Czech Republic News | Al Jazeera

EU: Nationalism Raising Its Ugly Head in Europe at Populists TRUMP Disciples Meeting in Germany, praising Fuhrer Trump - by Simon Shuster

European Nationalist TRUMP Disciples  Wilders, Petry, and LePen

Across the European Union, politicians on the right-wing fringe have been invigorated by Trump’s victory, which has given them a chance to attract new supporters, build coalitions and argue that, despite the often glaring differences between them, they are all part of a (very dangerous) movement with seemingly unstoppable momentum.diciples

The most striking proof yet of that movement came on Saturday in the cross-section of far-right populists who met for the first time, at the AfD's invitation, at a convention in the German city of Koblenz. A day after Trump’s inauguration, the stars of the European right drew a direct line between Trump’s success at the ballot box and their own looming electoral battles.

“In 2016, the Anglo-Saxon world woke up,” said Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader currently favorite to become France's next President, referring to Trump’s victory and the British vote to leave the European Union in June. “In 2017, I am sure that it will be the year of the Continental peoples rising up,” she said to raucous applause.

The speech was the first Le Pen has ever delivered to an audience in Germany, whose right-wing leaders had previously avoided associating themselves with her more radical and xenophobic positions. But on Saturday she shared a stage with AfD leader Frauke Petry, signaling to the world they are now on the same team.

Taking the podium by turns, leading political upstarts from France, Germany, Italy, Austria and other European nations stuck to a strikingly similar message for their audience of roughly a thousand delegates. They raged against the globalist elites, the European Union, the media and, in particular, the millions of Arab and African immigrants whom they accuse of threatening European culture.

After a few weeks of reading online about Donald Trump’s transition to the presidency, Marco Kopping, a 36-year-old apprentice at a car-parts supplier near Frankfurt, decided to get involved in German politics. He had never sympathized with a political party before, let alone joined one. But in December he received his glossy membership card from Alternative for Germany (AfD), one of the far-right movements now riding the updraft from Trump’s ascent. What drove him, Kopping says, “was the feeling of a revolution.” He didn’t want to be left behind.

Across the European Union, politicians on the right-wing fringe have been invigorated by Trump’s victory, which has given them a chance to attract new supporters, build coalitions and argue that, despite the often glaring differences between them, they are all part of a movement with seemingly unstoppable momentum.

The most striking proof yet of that movement came on Saturday in the cross-section of far-right populists who met for the first time, at the AfD's invitation, at a convention in the German city of Koblenz. A day after Trump’s inauguration, the stars of the European right drew a direct line between Trump’s success at the ballot box and their own looming electoral battles.“In 2016, the Anglo-Saxon world woke up,” said Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader currently favorite to become France's next President, referring to Trump’s victory and the British vote to leave the European Union in June. “In 2017, I am sure that it will be the year of the Continental peoples rising up,” she said to raucous applause.

The speech was the first Le Pen has ever delivered to an audience in Germany, whose right-wing leaders had previously avoided associating themselves with her more radical and xenophobic positions. But on Saturday she shared a stage with AfD leader Frauke Petry, signaling to the world they are now on the same team.

Taking the podium by turns, leading political upstarts from France, Germany, Italy, Austria and other European nations stuck to a strikingly similar message for their audience of roughly a thousand delegates. They raged against the globalist elites, the European Union, the media and, in particular, the millions of Arab and African immigrants whom they accuse of threatening European culture.

Just a few years ago, such rhetoric would have confined these voices to the margins of European politics, especially in Germany, whose history with fascism has long provided a level of resistance to the allure of nationalism and identity politics. But today, buoyed by Trumpism, their message has entered the mainstream.

Two of the party leaders at Saturday’s event — Le Pen of the National Front and Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom — are leading in the polls ahead of elections scheduled for this spring. The Austrian Freedom Party, whose two top leaders skipped the event in Koblenz in order to attend Trump’s Inauguration, narrowly lost a presidential race last month, even though the party’s founders in the 1950s were former officers of the Nazi SS.

“We all stand for the same things,” the party’s representative at the event, Harald Vilimsky, said from the stage on Saturday. “And if Trump is the winner, we are also winners.”

The new U.S. President has gone out of his way to encourage his admirers in Europe. The first foreign politician he met with after winning the election in November was Nigel Farage, the populist leader of the U.K. Independence Party, which drove the British vote to leave the European Union. In an interview last week with two European newspapers, Trump echoed the attacks that European nationalists have leveled against their favorite bugbear, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling her immigration policy "catastrophic." He also predicted that other E.U. members would follow Britain's lead in breaking away from the bloc.

“They’ve managed to create a public discourse that I thought was impossible here,” says Sylke Tempel, the editor of the Berlin Policy Journal, referring to the AfD. “You feel it in the little things, the use of language, the way people have started to talk.”One case in point took place about 10 minutes into the summit on Saturday, when the crowd turned on the attending journalists and began chanting "Lügenpresse!" — “lying press” — a term first popularized by the Nazis and, in the past couple of years, revived by European nationalists as a means of vilifying the media. Some of Trump’s supporters also adopted the term during his campaign rallies.

What matters to them now is maintaining a sense of unity behind the idea that their time has come, and Trump’s victory has made that a lot easier. “Yesterday you got a new America,” said Kopping, the AfD member, at Saturday’s event. "Now we want a new Europe."

Note EU-Digest: Given the track record of the new US President Donald Trump so far, European voters should at least be forewarned that Trump's European disciples of the far right Nationalist Camp are not the answer to a better, stable and economically strong Europe.

   

Read more: Europe's Populists Meet at Koblenz, Germany, in Awe of Trump | Time.com

Ukrainian Nationalist Leader Calls For Concentration Camps, Bombing Pro-Russian Rebels - by Morgan Winsor

Ukrainian nationalist leader Dmytro Korchynsky called on the government to bomb residential areas in war-torn Donbass and create concentration camps for residents living in the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Korchynsky, who heads the Ukrainian Bratstvao (Brotherhood) party, said the United States successfully used this method during the Second World War, and Ukrainians should act as the Americans did in the occupied territories, Sputnik News reported.

“During World War II, the U.S. preserved all the democratic institutions – elections and so on. Nevertheless, several million American citizens were deported to special concentration camps,” Korchynsky said in a live broadcast on a Ukrainian TV channel Thursday, according to Sputnik News. “U.S. citizens of Japanese origin, because they were potentially dangerous.”

Note EU-Digest: how crazy can you get - just ask Dmytro Korchynsky.


Read more: Ukrainian Nationalist Leader Calls For Concentration Camps, Bombing Pro-Russian Rebels

Switzerland votes a narrow 'yes' to cap EU immigration - and shoot themselves in the foot

Switzerland has voted 50.3 percent in favor of limiting annual migration from the EU, thus ending the policy of free movement within the bloc that was established in 2002.

Swiss voters narrowly decided that immigration quotas would be reintroduced, thereby overturning the free movement policy introduced in the European Union 12 years ago. Early results showed the country to be very divided in opinion over the 'Stop mass immigration’ initiative.

‘Stop mass immigration’ was introduced by the nationalist Swiss People's Party (SVP). Its goal is to introduce annual quotas on the number of foreign workers entering the country. The SVP currently has 54 seats in the Federal Assembly, and its vote share of 29% in the 2007 Federal Council election was the highest vote ever recorded for a single party in Switzerland. The SVP opposes governmental measures for environmental protection.. The Chaired by Toni Brunner, but spearheaded by Christoph Blocher. 

The SVP adheres to national conservatism, aiming at the preservation of Switzerland's political sovereignty and a conservative society. Furthermore, the party promotes the principle of individual responsibility and is skeptical toward any expansion of governmental services. This stance is most evident in the rejection of an accession of Switzerland to the European Union, the rejection of military involvement abroad, and the rejection of increases in government spending on social welfare and education.

The emphasis of the party's policies lie in foreign policy, immigration and homeland security policy as well as tax and social welfare policy. Among political opponents, the SVP has gained a reputation as a party that maintains a hard-line stance. Most memorable negative of the party is that it denied to condemn Fascism.

Final count: Yes 50.3%(1,463,954 votes) No 49.7%(1,444,438) Turnout: 56.5% 

The result will likely vex multinational companies based there; Roche, Novartis, UBS, and other industry giants frequently utilize foreign labor.

According to the latest data, 23 percent of the country’s eight million inhabitants are foreigners – the second largest proportion in Europe after Luxembourg.

Many fear the initiative would have a negative impact on the economy, which relies on foreign workers for progress and a competitive edge.

Italians and Germans reportedly comprise the largest contingent of immigrants to Switzerland, most of whom seek work in IT, healthcare, and financial sectors.

Severin Schwan, Austrian CEO of Roche Pharmaceuticals, said about half of the employees at the research and development site in Basel, Switzerland are foreigners.

EU-Digest

Terrorism - "Made in Poland Terrorism" - Poland’s Wannabe Guy Fawkes

The spectre of violent political extremism intruded into Krakow’s quiet, academic world in November when Polish security services announced they had arrested a chemistry lecturer who had been planning to detonate a massive bomb outside the country’s parliament building, intended to kill as many senior government figures as possible.

Brunon K., a 45-year-old researcher at the Agricultural University of Krakow (Uniwersytet Rolniczy w Krakowie), was arrested on November 11, although news of his detention was not announced until November 20.

As a member of staff at the university, Brunon K. had ready access to chemicals and other materials used in bomb making. He had studied explosives extensively during his academic career.

At a press conference in Warsaw, the Polish public prosecutor Mariusz Krasoń said that the suspect, who resides on the Albertyńskie estate in Nowa Huta, had been under surveillance for several months. During this time, Brunon K. had been observed studying the parliament buildings in Warsaw.

The prosecutor added that the suspect’s access to university laboratories had allowed him to acquire explosive materials, including fuses and detonators, sufficient for the construction of a four tonne bomb. When Police raided the suspect’s apartment, they found bomb-making materials, handguns, ammunition, body armour and a video of explosives tests apparently carried out by Brunon K.

Polish News channel TVN 24 reported that Brunon K. had openly admitted to being an admirer of Anders Breivik, but that he thought the Norwegian killer had “made some mistakes” in his car-bomb attack that killed eight people in 2011. The prosecutor described Brunon K. as a nationalist whose actions had been motivated by xenophobia and anti-Semitism

Read more: Poland’s Wannabe Guy Fawkes » Krakow Post

Russian Nationalists Unite to Form New Party - Marc Bennetts

A number of prominent Russian nationalists united on Thursday to announce the creation of a potential new political force – the National Democratic Party.

“We intend to file for party registration in the near future and then take part in elections, at which we are counting on doing well,” party leader Konstantin Krylov told journalists at a downtown Moscow news conference.

Russia has seen a dramatic rise in nationalist sentiments since the break-up of the Soviet Union, with far-right movements prominent at this winter’s mass protests against the policies of President-elect Vladimir Putin and his ruling United Russia party.

For more: Russian Nationalists Unite to Form New Party | Features, Opinion & Analysis | RIA Novosti