MAGA Media Salivates Over Italy’s Most Far-Right Leader Since Mussolini

Justin Baragona
Tue, September 27, 2022 

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

Right-wing media rejoiced this week over news that Italy had elected its most far-right leader since fascist Benito Mussolini was deposed following World War II, describing the victory of Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party as “the rise of Christian nationalism.”

With Italy’s flirtation with fascism sending shockwaves throughout Europe and the Western world, MAGA pundits attempted to paint Meloni’s ideology as “middle of the road,” suggesting that she couldn’t be “hard-right” if she won the election.

In just a matter of a few short years, Meloni has helped take the Brothers of Italy from a fringe-right group to the most powerful party in her country. And besides leading the nation’s first far-right government since Mussolini, Meloni also makes history by becoming Italy’s first woman premier.

It isn’t just her hard-line populist positions against abortion, immigration, LGBTQ rights, the European Union, and other social issues that have resulted in her getting labeled with the dreaded f-word: Her party has literal origins in the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, which was founded by Mussolini’s supporters after his death, and still uses the group’s tri-color flame as its logo. And though she has denounced antisemitism and disavowed parts of Mussolini’s legacy, she also openly praised the fascist dictator in her youth. “Mussolini was a good politician, in that everything he did, he did for Italy,” a 19-year-old Meloni told French television.

Much of her meteoric rise can be attributed to former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, who began boosting her during the 2018 election and has spoken at her ultra-nationalist events. The MAGA influencer also pushed to make her a featured speaker at this year’s Conservative Political Action Convention (CPAC), where she made a similar splash as far-right Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, whom she views as a kindred spirit and close friend.

Meloni’s electoral victory was therefore greeted with much celebration on Bannon’s War Room: Pandemic show on Monday. Alongside CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp, the ex-Trump adviser excitedly exclaimed that her win was the “rise of Christian nationalism” while the mainstream establishment was “in full meltdown.” Schlapp, meanwhile, declared that she “skyrocketed” to victory, which was a “warning shot coming from Italy.”Bannon and Schlapp also laid down the groundwork for a talking point that quickly became prevalent in the pro-Trump media ecosphere. “She’s for God, her country, and family. That doesn't seem all that radical. That doesn’t seem all that radical to me,” Bannon stated.

“She is pro-life, she’s pro-Constitution, she’s pro-family, and she’s anti-globalist,” Schlapp noted. “And she fits right neatly in the term of what we call conservative here in America, so as people start reading this propaganda media saying that she’s some kind of fascist, just remember, they’ve called us all fascists.”

British tabloid host Piers Morgan, who recently joined Fox Nation and Murdoch-owned British network TalkTV, insisted Meloni “is not ‘far-right,’” claiming anyone labeling her that needs to “brush up on your Nazi/Fascist history” because she’s really “center-right.”

Charlie Kirk, founder of Trump-devoted student organization Turning Point USA, also asserted that Meloni’s politics were largely uncontroversial. “It’s not fascist. It’s common sense, it’s normal, it’s middle of the road,” he blared on his podcast.

Appearing on his network’s flagship news program Special Report on Monday evening, former GOP congressman-turned-Fox News host Trey Gowdy bemoaned the media calling Meloni “far-right” while suggesting her victory demonstrated her centrist bona fides.

“I guess what I'm wondering is if you are winning elections, if you are what the people want, at what point does that become the center?” Gowdy wondered. “Who gets to say what is far-right, or what is hard-right?”

Over on Fox News wannabe competitor Newsmax, the commentary incorporated outright cheerleading and revisionist history.

Italy’s Far-Right Victory Is a (Small) Win for Putin

Conservative author Sam Sorbo (wife of Hercules actor and right-wing activist Kevin Sorbo) gushed over Meloni, insisting that “we don’t see neo-fascism” with the incoming premier. Furthermore, according to Sorbo, fascism is actually a left-wing ideology.

“Fascism has everything to do with socialism,” she said to the credulous Newsmax anchors. “That’s why Mussolini joined with Hitler during WWII. And Hitler was not a fascist, Hitler was a socialist. Mussolini was a fascist.”

Newsmax host and serial plagiarist Benny Johnson, who spent Monday online raving about “Based” Meloni, also took to his channel’s airwaves to effusively praise the new premier. “Meloni doesn’t want globalist control, she doesn't want the Italians to essentially be melted into a pot of all Europeans and treated like a number instead of a unique, individual human being,” he proclaimed. “Populism is popular.”

In the end, though, it was up to the host of the most-watched primetime show on cable news to put his stamp of approval on Meloni. Tucker Carlson, who has relentlessly boosted Orban and Brazil’s authoritarian president Jair Bolsonaro, delivered a full-throated endorsement of the incoming Italian prime minister on Monday night. And he called for a similar candidate in the U.S.

“American families are facing the very same onslaught from the very same poisonous ideologies,” Carlson emphatically stated. “The difference is that in this country it's rarely acknowledged, except on the fringes. Meloni is not on the fringes. She's the new prime minister of Italy—she will be—and she's saying it out loud.”

Before playing a clip of a Meloni, speech, the Fox star added, “As you watch this, ask yourself if you would vote for a candidate like this if you had the chance in our country.”

Top Republican urged murder charges for women who defied abortion ban

Martin Pengelly in New York
Wed, September 28, 2022 

Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Asked in 2019 if he was saying women should be charged with murder for violating an abortion ban he proposed, Doug Mastriano, now the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, said: “Yes, I am.”

Related: University of Idaho says staff can offer condoms for STDs – not birth control

Mastriano was talking to WITF, a radio station, about a bill he sponsored as a state senator.

The bill would have barred most abortions when a fetal heartbeat could be detected, which is usually about six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.

Mastriano was asked: “You can give me a yes or no on this. Would that woman who decided to have an abortion which would be considered an illegal abortion be charged with murder?”

Mastriano said: “OK, let’s go back to the basic question there. Is [a fetus] a human being? Is that a little boy or girl? If it is, it deserves equal protection under the law.”

He was asked: “So you’re saying yes?”

Mastriano said: “Yes, I am. If it’s a human being, if it’s an American citizen there, a little baby, I don’t care what nationality it is, it deserves equal rights before the law.”

NBC News reported the remark on Tuesday. Mastriano did not immediately comment.



On Monday, he told the conservative Real America’s Voice network: “My views are kind of irrelevant because I cannot rule by fiat or edict or executive order on the issue of life.

“It’s up to the people of Pennsylvania. So if Pennsylvanians want exceptions, if they want to limit the number of weeks, it’s going to have to come from your legislative body and then to my desk.”

Mastriano has been dogged by controversy, including over his links to the January 6 insurrection.

According to the polling website fivethirtyeight.com, the Republican trails Josh Shapiro, his Democratic opponent for the governor’s mansion, by more than 10 points.

In June, the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling which guaranteed the right to abortion.

Since then, Democrats have enjoyed a number of striking electoral successes fueled by the issue of abortion rights, including in Republican areas such as Kansas.

Amid reports of rising voter registration among women, Democrats are seeking to make abortion rights central to midterm elections in November, when they will seek to retain control of Congress.

Republicans including Mastriano have attempted to downplay the issue and focus on economic messaging instead.

On Tuesday, Shapiro seized on Mastriano’s 2019 remarks.

The Democrat tweeted: “We knew Doug Mastriano would ban abortion in Pennsylvania with no exceptions – even for rape, incest, or life of the mother. We knew he’d throw doctors in jail for performing them.

“Now, we know he’d charge women who receive an abortion with murder.”

REAL LIBERTARIANS

Satanic Temple suing Indiana over state’s near-total abortion ban



Matt Christy
Mon, September 26, 2022 

INDIANAPOLIS (WXIN) — The Satanic Temple is challenging Indiana’s near-total abortion ban with a lawsuit that takes aim at Senate Enrolled Act 1 and claims the ban infringes on their followers’ religious rights and violates the U.S. Constitution.

GOP Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and state Attorney General Todd Rokita are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

The Satanic Temple — based out of Salem, Mass. — boasts 1.5 million members worldwide, including 11,300 members in Indiana.

Despite often being confused with the Church of Satan or Satan worship, the Satanic Temple doesn’t believe in or worship the Biblical Satan. Instead, it venerates “the allegorical Satan described in the epic poem Paradise Lost — the defender of personal sovereignty against the dictates of religious authority.”

The Satanic Temple lists its mission as encouraging benevolence and empathy, rejecting tyrannical authority, advocating practical common sense, opposing injustice and undertaking noble pursuits. The temple is well-known for fighting for equal access to religious rights and challenging institutions that install laws or practices that only adhere to a singular religious belief — most notably Christianity.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Sept. 21, states that a female member of the Satanic Temple who resides in Indiana is being denied the right to exercise her religious beliefs by being denied access to an abortion under the new Indiana abortion ban. The woman became pregnant “without her consent,” according to the lawsuit, and gave the reason for this involuntary pregnancy as the legal inability of the woman to consent to sex (other than rape or incest) along with the failure of birth control.

Tenet III of the Satanic Temple states, “one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” Under this tenet, the temple said the fetal tissue carried in the woman’s uterus is not seen as an “unborn child,” as Indiana Code states. Instead, from conception to viability, the fetal tissue is not believed to be imbued with any humanity or existence separate and apart from that of the pregnant woman herself.

The lawsuit also notes Tenet V, which states that “beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world.” Under this tenet, the lawsuit points out that early stages of fertilization, such as the creation of the zygote, are referred to as being an “unborn child” in the Indiana abortion ban. But through Tenet V, or through a scientific understanding, members of the Satanic Temple do not see a zygote, blastocyst, embryo, or nonviable fetus as an “unborn child.” These cells are seen as part of a woman’s body and not imbued with existence, humanity, or spiritual life; the lawsuit explains.

Under the two tenets previously explained, the lawsuit states that members of the Satanic Temple have the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy as an exercise of their religious beliefs. By Indiana criminalizing abortion, these members are being denied their religious rights which violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the lawsuit argues.

The lawsuit in total lists five counts against the near-total abortion ban in Indiana including calling it a violation of the Thirteen Amendment, which prohibits involuntary servitude. By forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, the suit argues women are being put “into a condition of involuntary servitude.”

Read the full lawsuit below.
SatanicTempleLawsuitDownload

The Satanic Temple members are not the first to challenge Indiana’s near-total abortion ban. A Monroe County special judge recently blocked the ban from being enforced after a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Indiana and a group of abortion providers challenged the new law, which went into effect on Sept. 15.

The judge’s injunction means the state reverts to the previous abortion law, which allows up to 20 weeks.

In her ruling, Judge Kelsey B. Hanlon indicated that there are several issues that still must be decided before the law can be enforced. Hanlon found some arguments from the plaintiffs strong in their merits and conceded that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs case shook the “analytical landscape” of federal questions surrounding abortion.

Indiana courts are not, however, bound by that interpretation of the law when it comes to the state’s constitution, which has at times been interpreted to “give greater protection to the individual liberties of Hoosiers.”

Hanlon acknowledged that the state had an interest in regulating abortion “so long as that regulation is not in violation of the Indiana Constitution.”

Most women think US leaders are

'out of touch' when it comes to abortion:

 poll

Madison Hall

Mon, September 26, 2022 

Klaus Vedfelt /Getty; Marianne Ayala/Insider

• Most women think that US leaders are "out of touch" regarding abortion, a new poll found.

• Liberals and conservatives were both overwhelmingly unsatisfied with how the government addresses abortion.

• The Supreme Court in June overturned Roe v. Wade's federally protected access to an abortion.

Women from across the political spectrum said they think American leaders are "out of touch" on the issue of abortion access, according to an Insider/Morning Consult poll.

This includes both liberal women wishing fewer restrictions be placed on abortion and conservative women who don't think government has done enough to curb the procedure.

Nearly seven in 10 women polled said the Supreme Court was either "very" or "somewhat out of touch" regarding their needs for abortion access including 55% of Republican women, 64% of independent women, and 72% of Democratic women.

And a solid majority of women surveyed as a part of Insider's "Red, White, and Gray" project noted that also Congress, specifically, doesn't represent their interests on abortion.

Abortion rights have risen to the forefront of American politics after the Supreme Court in June overturned federal abortion rights enshrined in the high court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Individual states may now pass laws that significantly restrict or effectively outlaw abortion, meaning one state's rules for abortion may be markedly different than another's rules.

Prior to the Supreme Court's decision, Democrats in both the House and Senate attempted to codify national access to an abortion. But Democrats in the Senate failed to gain the support of enough Republicans — and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin —  to overcome a Republican-led filibuster, which requires 60 affirmative votes to advance a bill.

Separately, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham unveiled a bill in September banning abortions at 15 weeks of gestation to lukewarm support from his Republican colleagues. The bill appears to be headed for defeat.

The survey, which polled participants before Graham announced his bill, indicated that women on both the right and left thought that Congress failed to represent their needs on abortion access. Seven in 10 women surveyed said that Congress was either "very" or "somewhat" out of touch on abortion, with nearly three-fourths of independent women, and two-thirds of Republican women, saying the same.

 

Following the Supreme Court's ruling in June, President Joe Biden issued several executive orders protecting access to abortion drugs and other reproductive health-related matters, chastising the nation's highest court in the process.

"We cannot allow an out-of-control Supreme Court working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican Party to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy," Biden said in July.

In spite of Biden and the rest of the executive branch's push for greater access to abortion, 56% of women polled said the executive branch — which includes the White House and federal government agencies — was still "out of touch" on abortion.

Independent and Republican-leaning women were much likelier to say the executive branch was out of touch regarding abortion, with 65% of Republican women and 64% of independent women saying it didn't represent their needs.

That number dropped to 44% among Democratic-identified women.

The Insider/Morning Consult survey was conducted from September 8 through September 10, and had 2,210 respondents and a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points.

 

Read the original article on Business Insider

U$A

Majority of home buyers and sellers want to live in a state with legal abortion, Redfin survey shows


Weston Blasi - 

THE MARGIN

According to a new survey from Redfin, 52% of the Americans they talked with said they would either “only” live in such a state, or “prefer” to live in such a state. The remaining percentage said they didn’t value the issue or wouldn’t want to live in a state where abortion is fully legal.

That survey was conducted in August 2022, after the United States Supreme Court released an opinion in June that overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling from 1973.

The number of American home buyers and sellers who say they want to live in a state where abortion is fully legal has increased significantly since the Supreme Court decision. According to a similar Redfin survey from 2021, 40% of Americans said they would either “only” live in such a state, or “prefer” to live in a state where abortion is legal, indicating a 12% increase from 2021 to 2022.

In both 2021 and 2021 Redfin surveyed 1,000 Americans who had moved within the past 18 months.

See also: Home buyers are backing out of contracts in the Sun Belt, especially in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tampa and Texas

When the 2021 survey was conducted, abortion rights in the U.S. were under less pressure than they are in 2022, likely leading to the higher percentage of people wishing to live in a state where abortion is legal.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, states now have legislative power to ban or restrict abortions, and at least 23 states have laws or policies that regulate abortion providers.

See also: Joe Manchin reacts to Roe v. Wade ruling: ‘I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh’

The move by the Supreme Court led to many U.S. companies offering to compensate their employees for travel costs related to getting an abortion if they can’t get one in their home state. Some of those companies include Tesla Inc. Target Corp. and Bank of America

Prior the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, polling showed a majority of Americans wanted Roe to remain intact. A January poll from CNN showed 69% of Americans wanted to keep Roe as law, while 30% wanted the ruling overturned.

Related: He ‘house hacked’ his way to wealth, and now plans to build a mansion

Polling on abortion has remained fairly consistent for over 20 years. Since 1989, between 52% and 66% of U.S. adults have stated they want Roe to remain in place, according to polling conducted and compiled by Gallup.

Vietnam Suffers Floods and Blackouts After Typhoon Noru Makes Landfall



Mai Ngoc Chau and Low De Wei
Wed, September 28, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Typhoon Noru made landfall in Vietnam early Wednesday morning, knocking out power for more than 500,000 households and causing flooding and property damage along the country’s central region

Noru’s eye struck the coast between Danang and Quang Nam at about 4 a.m. local time Wednesday, with gusts as strong as 117 kilometers (73 miles) per hour, according to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting. In the historic town of Hoi An, some streets were flooded and strong winds downed trees.

Local news website VnExpress reported that at least 550,000 households have lost power, citing the deputy general director of Vietnam Electricity Group’s Central Power Corporation, Le Hoang Anh Dung. No deaths had been reported, although four people were injured in Quang Tri province. Three houses collapsed and more than 150 lost roofs, and more than 500 trees were toppled.

Authorities had earlier warned that Noru would be the strongest typhoon to hit the country in two decades, bringing heavy rain, wind, flash floods and landslides to Danang and at least eight of the country’s central provinces. Two of those, Gia Lai and Kon Tum, are in the coffee-planting belt. It also threatens to delay harvests in the world’s second-biggest coffee producer and top supplier of Robusta beans.

Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical JSC said its Dung Quat oil refinery, which was in Noru’s path, operated at 107% of its capacity through the storm, although it has temporarily suspended crude oil imports and fuel exports, according to a statement on its website. Its par Ten airports were asked to shut while curfews were imposed in Da Nang and at least three other localities. The military mobilized more than 260,000 soldiers and 3,380 vehicles to help locals prepare for the storm’s arrival.

The typhoon, also known as Karding, slammed the Philippines earlier in the week, shutting schools, workplaces and the country’s stock exchange. At least eight were killed, while over 52,000 people were displaced, according to national authorities Wednesday. Farm damage rose to 1.97 billion pesos ($33 million), the Agriculture Department said Wednesday, with rice accounting for 92% of the 114,446 metric tons of lost agricultural production.

LGBTQ-friendly church OK with getting Southern Baptist boot

PETER SMITH
Tue, September 27, 2022 

When her teenage daughter came out as a lesbian several years ago, one of the first things Caroline Joyce did was to Google, “Can you be gay and be a Christian?”

The family was attending a conservative Southern Baptist church in the Greensboro, North Carolina, area that considered homosexual activity to be sinful.

“We had been taught one thing, but we knew our daughter loved Jesus,” Joyce said. “She was very open with us during her struggle to figure out what was going on with her.”

And Caroline and her husband, Chuck, began their own struggle.

Their daughter and a younger sibling found a gay-friendly church, College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro. They "started attending with our blessing because we knew if she continued attending our church, she’d be totally turned off to God,” Caroline Joyce said.

The College Park church found itself in the news last week when the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee voted to remove it from its rolls because of its “open affirmation, approval and endorsement of homosexual behavior." That action came 23 years after the congregation itself voted to leave the SBC, but according to the Executive Committee, it had remained on its rolls until now.

But the very thing that prompted the Southern Baptists' disapproval is what attracted the Joyces themselves to College Park. The parents eventually followed their children's path and joined the congregation. They even moved from the suburbs to the city of Greensboro to be closer to the College Park church, its activities and the friends they made there.

“It really makes a difference when you hear from the pulpit and hear in the hallway that God loves everybody,” Caroline Joyce said. She said their daughter eventually grew up to become a minister, as is her wife.



Pastor Mike Usey poses for a portrait sitting in the pews of College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C., Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022.

(AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

The Rev. Michael Usey, the lead pastor, said that Southern Baptist officials actually identified the church's ethos correctly.

"It’s good when people reject you because they understand clearly who you are," he said. “The irony is, they're excluding us for not excluding people.”

The Executive Committee vote didn't take leaders of the congregation completely by surprise.

They'd been receiving registered letters from Southern Baptist officials in recent months, explaining that the church was still listed on its rolls and seeking more information, Usey said.

“At first they were kind of demanding we clarify our position on homosexuality,” Usey said. The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, the Southern Baptists’ state affiliate, sent similar inquiries, he said.

Usey said church leaders decided not to respond, and to let the SBC expel it if that was the decision.

“I just don’t really want to engage in that,” Usey said. “There’s hungry people in Greensboro. This is what God calls us to, to do something for the children who are half a mile from our building who are hungry.”

Southern Baptist churches are self-governing, so the convention can't tell them what to do or believe. But the convention deems churches to be affiliates — in “friendly cooperation" — if they share its beliefs and support its ministries.

The convention “had no record of a request from the (College Park) church to disaffiliate from the SBC,” said a statement Thursday from Linda Cooper, who chairs the SBC’s Credentials Committee. “This church was brought to the attention of the committee. The committee inquired of the church about their desire to disaffiliate and received no response.”

The Credentials Committee then recommended the Executive Committee cut ties with the congregation, which it did.

The convention has in recent years declared a small number of congregations to be not in friendly cooperation if they are LGBTQ-affirming. The denomination's statement of belief, the Baptist Faith and Message, says Christians should oppose “all forms of sexual immorality, including ... homosexuality.” The denomination has similarly cut ties with a small number of churches for failing adequately to address sexual abuse, and last week it also broke with a New Jersey church over “alleged discriminatory behavior.”

College Park Baptist Church voted in 1999 to leave the SBC, shortly after the convention's annual meeting approved a doctrinal statement that a wife should “submit herself graciously” to her husband's authority.

The congregation's website makes clear that College Park is an "LGBTQIA Affirming Baptist Church” that “fully welcomes and affirms all persons without distinction regarding race, ethnicity, national origin, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other human category.”

Usey said the church, with about 400 members, has a progressive legacy. Founded by Southern Baptists in 1906, it supported the civil rights sit-in at the Greensboro Woolworth's in 1960, began ordaining women in the 1980s and became openly LGBTQ-affirming about two decades ago, he said.

While church members were surprised the SBC hadn't removed the church from its roster years ago, the recent action “gives us an opportunity to say we’re not that kind of Baptist,” he said.

Cubans approve gay marriage by large margin in referendum

Tue, September 27, 2022 



in a referendum backed by the government

Source: National Election Commission

More than 3.9 million voters (66.9%) voted to ratify the code

(Alina Balseiro Gutierrez, President of National Election Commission)

“These results were validated by the National Electoral Council and they show an irreversible tendency in the result because it has been confirmed and validated by the National Electoral Council. Therefore, we can announce the 'family code' has been approved by the people.”

The 100-page 'family code' legalizes same-sex marriage and civil unions

allows same-sex couples to adopt children

and promotes equal sharing of domestic rights between men and women

The landmark vote is a resounding victory for LGBTQ rights activists

in a country that once sent homosexual people to labor camps and into exile

Cubans said yes to same-sex marriage, but referendum results sent a message to the government


Alejandro Ernesto/el Nuevo Herald

Nora Gámez Torres
Mon, September 26, 2022 

Six decades after Fidel Castro imprisoned gay men in forced labor camps and later sent them to Florida during the Mariel boatlift, Cuban same-sex couples will be able to marry and adopt children, after voters on the island ratified a new family code with 67 percent of the vote in a controversial referendum Sunday.

The new code was ratified with only 47 percent of eligible voters casting a Yes vote, or 3,936,790 ballots out of the 8,447,467 eligible voters. Total participation, the government said, was 74 percent, an unusually high abstention rate for Cuba, where the government traditionally pressures citizens to vote.

While widely perceived as a victory by LGBTQI activists, the results also carry a stark message of disapproval for the current government headed by Miguel Díaz-Canel, who repeatedly said a Yes vote was a show of support for the revolution and socialism.

The new family code expands the rights of same-sex couples, who can now marry and adopt children. It includes several other measures, such as recognizing children and teenagers’ “progressive autonomy” and the possibility of expanding a family through a surrogate mother.

“I’m thrilled,” said Maykel González Vivero, an LGBTQI activist and editor of the independent magazine Tremenda Nota. “I think that a new, important phase began in which we are going to have the chance to not only live in equal conditions with the rest of the citizens but also to access practical benefits that we have demanded for so long, that people in the past didn’t have and died without them.”

González Vivero said activists would continue working to ensure the new family code is enacted and to promote a much needed gender violence law as well as obtain protections for the transgender.

Ahead of the referendum, Díaz-Canel acknowledged the new family code clashed with the machismo still alive in Cuban society and said he didn’t expect it to be approved “in a unanimous vote.”

Religious groups and the Catholic Church actively opposed the referendum. And some of the proposals unnerved parents worried about the substitution in the new code of the patria potestad principle (legal parental custody) for “parental responsibility,” a more vaguely defined term that some say could be used by the government to retaliate against dissidents and take away their children.

But the political use of the family code vote by government officials and state media, all trying to present the referendum as a democratic exercise — and a Yes vote as a sign that the public supports the government — put off many other Cubans who either voted No or just stayed home.

Almost two million people voted against it, 33 percent of the 5,892,705 valid ballots cast, the National Electorate Council said on Monday.

Many activists and critics of the government had called on social media for voters to abstain, using the hashtag #endictaduranosevota (You don’t vote in a dictatorship), arguing the referendum was a sham. But other critics of the government questioned that strategy.

Daniel Triana, an LGBTQI activist and artist, lamented on Twitter that the political opposition in Cuba “has no viable proposal,” yet wanted “to block the code just to go against the government.”

He said he had been campaigning for the Yes vote precisely to break free from the experiences of the past, like the forced confinement of gays in labor camps known as UMAP in the 1960s by Castro.

“The Yes campaign has been lying, and it has been excessive; there are more than a thousand political prisoners; the country is broken,” he wrote. “Still we have to snatch that Yes.”



Cuba Legalizes Marriage Equality in Historic Referendum

Patrick Oppmann
Mon, September 26, 2022 


Yennys Hernandez Molina (left) and Annery Rivera Velasco got married in September

(CNN) — Cuba has legalized same-sex marriage after Cubans voted in favor of a family code that increased protections for minorities on the island, the country's National Electoral Council announced on Monday.

The Electoral Council said 74.1 percent of those eligible to vote in Sunday's national referendum had turned out to cast their ballot.

With 94 percent of the votes counted as of 9 a.m. ET on Monday morning, 3,936,790 had voted in favor and 1,950,090 against — signaling an overwhelming support for the new law.

The new family code extends greater protection to women, children, and the elderly, as well as allowing LGBTQ+ couples to marry and adopt children.

For decades, LGBTQ people in Cuba faced official discrimination on the communist-run island. In the early 1960s, after Fidel Castro took power, many gay people were sent to government work camps alongside political dissidents. Though homosexuality was legalized in Cuba in 1979, many gay men and women said they still faced open discrimination.

Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban president Raul Castro, has openly advocated through a government-funded center for improved rights for gays, lesbians, and transgender people. But the push for greater equality faced stiff opposition from both outside and from within the Cuban government.

In 2018, Cuban legislators abandoned provisions that would have legalized same-sex marriage amid fears that a homophobic backlash would have lowered turnout for a referendum to approve a new constitution. The following year, Cuban police broke up a peaceful LGBTQ rights parade saying the marchers did not have permission to hold the rally.

Cuba's growing evangelical community in particular had openly advocated against approving the family code. But in the weeks before the referendum, the Cuban government made a full court press in favor of the new family code across state-run media, arguing the new code is proof the island's now more than six-decades-old-revolution is capable of adapting to the times.

Russia prepares to annex occupied Ukraine despite outcry






Russians, mostly men, lineup to get a Kazakh registration after crossing the border into Kazakhstan from the Mariinsky border crossing, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Chelyabinsk, in Russia, to Kazakhstan's town Uralsk, 1400 km east of Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. Russians have crossed into Kazakhstan in the week since President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of reservists to fight in Ukraine, Kazakh officials said Tuesday, as men seeking to avoid the call-up continued to flee by land and air into neighboring countries. 

(AP Photo/Denis Spiridonov)More

JON GAMBRELL and ADAM SCHRECK
Wed, September 28, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia stood poised Wednesday to formally annex parts of Ukraine after claiming that voters in areas where it has military control had overwhelmingly endorsed living under Moscow’s rule.

Armed troops went door-to-door to collect ballots during five days of voting in Kremlin-organized referendums that asked if the occupied areas should become part of Russia. Western observers characterized the votes as a land grab by an increasingly cornered Russian leadership following a string of embarrassing military losses in Ukraine.

Moscow-installed administrations in the four regions of southern and eastern Ukraine claimed Tuesday night that their residents voted to join Russia in the so-called referendums.

“Forcing people in these territories to fill out some papers at the barrel of a gun is yet another Russian crime in the course of its aggression against Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry blasted the ballots as “a propaganda show” and “null and worthless.”

Pro-Russia officials in Ukraine's Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions moved quickly Wednesday, saying they would ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to incorporate the provinces into Russia. It wasn’t immediately clear how the administrative process would unfold.

Western countries, however, dismissed the ballots as a meaningless pretense staged by Moscow in an attempt to legitimize its invasion of Ukraine launched on Feb. 24.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said late Tuesday that Washington would propose a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn Russia’s “sham” vote.

The resolution would also urge member states not to recognize any altered status of Ukraine and demand that Russia withdraws its troops from its neighbor, she tweeted.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, also weighed in on the ballots, on Wednesday calling them “illegal” and describing the results as “falsified.”

“This is another violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty (and) territorial integrity, (amid) systematic abuses of human rights,” Borrell tweeted.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry statement asked the EU, NATO and the Group of Seven major industrial nations to “immediately and significantly” step up pressure on Russia through new sanctions, and significantly increase their military aid to Ukraine.

According to Russia-installed election officials, 93% of the ballots cast in the Zaporizhzhia region supported annexation, as did 87% in the Kherson region, 98% in the Luhansk region and 99% in Donetsk.

The Kremlin remained unmoved amid the hail of criticism, however. Its spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that at the very least Russia intended to drive Ukrainian forces out of the eastern Donetsk region, where Moscow’s troops and separatist forces currently control about 60% of the territory.

The EU also expressed outrage over the suspected sabotage Tuesday of two underwater natural gas pipelines from Russia to Germany and warned of retaliation for any attack on Europe’s energy networks.

Borrell said Wednesday that “all available information indicates those leaks are the result of a deliberate act,” even though the perpetrators haven’t so far been identified.

“Any deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response,” Borrell said in a statement on behalf of the EU’s 27 member countries.

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said allegations that Russia could be behind the incidents were “predictable and stupid.” He told reporters in a conference call that the damage has caused Russia huge economic losses.

The war in Ukraine has brought an energy standoff between the EU, many of whose members have for years relied heavily on Russian natural gas supplies, and Moscow.

The damage makes it unlikely the pipelines will be able to supply any gas to Europe this winter, according to analysts.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military and a Washington-based think tank said Wednesday that Russia is sending troops without any training to the front line.

Moscow has struggled to hold the line against Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive and has ordered a partial mobilization to replenish its ranks. The effort is causing unrest, however, amid a reluctant public.

In a daily briefing, the Ukraine military’s general staff said 1st Tank Regiment of the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division of Russia’s 1st Tank Army has received untrained new troops.

The Ukrainian military also said prison convicts are arriving in Ukraine to reinforce the Russian lines. It offered no evidence to support the claim, though the Ukrainian security services have released audio of allegedly monitored Russian phone conversations on the issue.

The Institute for the Study of War think tank cited one online video by a man who identified himself as a member of the 1st Tank Regiment, visibly upset, saying that he and his colleagues wouldn’t receive training before shipping out to the Russian-occupied region of Kherson in Ukraine.

“Mobilized men with a day or two of training are unlikely to meaningfully reinforce Russian positions affected by Ukrainian counteroffensives in the south and east,” the institute said.

The U.K. ministry of defense said Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which has inflicted some humiliating defeats on Moscow’s forces, is advancing slowly.

It said Russia is currently putting up a stouter defense.

In the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, which is partially occupied by Moscow, Russian fire killed five people and wounded 10 others over the last 24 hours, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the local military authority.

Authorities in the southern Ukrainian city of Nikopol said Russian rockets and artillery pounded the city overnight.

The city, across the Dnipro River from Russian-occupied territory, saw 10 high-rises and private buildings hit, as well as a school, power lines and other areas, said Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the local military administration, said.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Just how unpopular is Liz Truss's government?

James Hockaday

Wed, September 28, 2022 

Much of the public are yet to make up their minds about the new prime minister (PA Images)

Less than a month into her job as prime minister, Liz Truss is facing a crash in the value of the pound, soaring inflation, rising interest rates and a looming recession.

Just two days after entering Number 10, Truss revealed her £60 billion plan to help keep energy bills down amid a cost of living crisis, but her long awaited proposal was overshadowed by the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Now the government is facing criticism from the International Monetary Fund over its raft of tax cuts revealed by chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, which disproportionately benefit the rich.

The Treasury said this would be paid for by a ramping up of public borrowing, which left investors spooked and prompted a crash in the pound, which is expected to add to the UK's crippling inflation.

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's tax and borrowing plans have fuelled a crash in the pound. (Getty Images)

On top of that, on Wednesday the Bank of England launched an emergency government bond-buying programme to prevent borrowing costs from spiralling out of control and stave off a “material risk to UK financial stability”.

Truss certainly has a lot on her plate since becoming the UK's fourth prime minister in a little over six years, but what do the British public think of her and her government so far?

According to polling by Ipsos conducted from 7 to 15 September 2022, 70% of the public are dissatisfied with how the new government is preforming, while just 20% think it is doing a good job.

As for Truss herself, many voters are yet to make their minds up.

Some 44% of the survey's participants said they couldn't decide if she was doing well, compared to 29% who are dissatisfied with how she is doing and 27% who are satisfied.

Read more: Close friend of Liz Truss says: 'You won't like this budget if you care about the poor'

The outlook for Liz Truss is uncertain, as much of the public are undecided on her performance. (Yahoo News)

How does this compare to other prime ministers?

Truss has the lowest approval ratings of the UK's most recent PMs who have taken office mid-parliament.

According to pollsters, 31% of the public were satisfied with Boris Johnson as he started as prime minister, compared with 27% for his successor.

Theresa May enjoyed a 54% approval rating in her early days, compared to 36% for Gordon Brown and 37% for John Major.

Ms Truss is less popular than her prefecessors when they first entered No 10. (Yahoo News)

Read more: Liz Truss dismisses Vladimir Putin's nuclear warning as 'bogus threat'

What about a general election?

The latest Westminster polling figures make for grim reading for Truss.

According to the latest data from YouGov, 45% of voters would back Labour in a general election, compared to 28% who would back the Tories. This represents a severe hit to the Conservatives’ numbers since Kwarteng revealed his mini budget.

On specific issues, Ipsos polling foundvoters had more trust in Labour to manage Brexit, tackle the cost of living, set the right level of taxation and improve the NHS, reduce inequality between regions and protect the environment.

Labour was also in the lead on managing immigration and reducing crime - issues often seen as natural territory of the Conservative Party.

The only two issues the Tories were leading on was managing inflation and growing the economy.

Labour is leading on many issues and are also currently ahead in Westminster voting intention polls. (Yahoo News)

Keiran Pedley, Director of Politics at Ipsos UK, said: “With the Conservatives ahead on growing the economy and managing inflation and Labour ahead on the cost of living, NHS and levelling-up, we can see the contours of a potential future general election campaign in these numbers.

"Meanwhile, whilst there is no obvious sign of a significant polling bounce for Liz Truss in the numbers here, they are an improvement on her predecessor’s final numbers.

"The new Prime Minister will hope that recent events mean that her political honeymoon is delayed rather than denied; as we head into what is likely to be a challenging winter."

Liz Truss learns the hard way that Britain is not the US

Janan Ganesh: Reaganism is a good idea, but Reaganism without the dollar isn’t



British prime minister Liz Truss and chancellor of the exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng during a visit to Berkeley Modular in Northfleet Kent on Friday to coincide with the announcement of the government's new growth plan. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/PA Wire

Janan Ganesh
Tue Sep 27 2022 - 

Into Brideshead Revisited, near the middle, Evelyn Waugh crowbars a scene on a cruise ship for the express purpose of mocking Americans. There is a character named “Senator Stuyvesant-Oglander”. Each and every drink has ice in it. No one is able to tell friendship from desperate bonhomie. The crustiest of England’s great novelists wrote better stuff, no doubt, but the passage is an illuminating fragment of a time when anti-Americanism was a Tory thing.

And one that had its uses. If nothing else, Britain’s establishment was clear back then that America was a different country. A midsized archipelago couldn’t look to a resource-rich market of continental magnitude for governmental ideas.

If anti-Americanism was bad, look what its opposite has done. Britain is in trouble because its elite is so engrossed with the US as to confuse it for their own nation. The UK does not issue the world’s reserve currency. It does not have near-limitless demand for its sovereign debt. It can’t, as US Republicans sometimes do, cut taxes on the hunch that lawmakers of the future will trim public spending. Reaganism was a good idea. Reaganism without the dollar isn’t. If UK premier Liz Truss has a programme, though, that is its four-word expression.

So much of what Britain has done and thought in recent years makes sense if you assume it is a country of 330 million people with $20 trillion annual output. The idea that it could ever look the EU in the eye as an adversarial negotiator, for instance. Or the decision to grow picky about Chinese inward investment at the same time as forfeiting the European market. Or the bet that Washington was going to entertain a meaningful bilateral trade deal. Superpowers get to behave with such presumption.


Why does Britain think that it can, too? Don’t blame imperial nostalgia. (If it were that, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal would show the same hubris.) Blame the distorting effect of language. Because the UK’s governing class can follow US politics as easily as their own, they get lost in it. They elide the two countries. What doesn’t help is the freakish fact that Britain’s capital, where its elites live, is as big as any US city, despite the national population being a fifth of America’s. You can see why, from a London angle, the two nations seem comparable.

Reaganism without the dollar: this isn’t one woman’s arbitrary whim. It is the culmination of decades of (unreciprocated) US focus in a Robert Caro-hooked Westminster. You would think from British public discourse that Earth has two sovereign nations. If the NHS is fairer than the US healthcare model, it is the world’s best. If Elizabeth II was better than Donald Trump, monarchy beats republicanism tout court. People who can’t name a cabinet member in Paris or Berlin (where so much that affects Britain, from migrant flows to energy, is settled) will follow the US midterms in November. The EU is a, perhaps the, regulatory superpower in the world. UK politicos find Iowa more diverting.

The left is as culpable as Truss. From 2010 to 2015, critics of “austerity” urged the Tories to take the softer US approach. The cross-Atlantic comparison implied that then prime minister David Cameron had King Dollar behind him. Soon after came the importation of identity politics from a republic with a wholly different racial history.

The anti-Americanism of the Waugh generation was petulant. It was sourness at the imperial usurper dressed up as high taste. But at least it had no illusions. The snobs understood that America was alien, and inimitable. Tories who patronised the US – Harold Macmillan, Ted Heath – were quicker than much of the Labour Party to see that Britain belonged with Europe.

Truss and her cohort of Tories have none of that snide but ultimately healthy distance from the US. Take her vaunted supply-side revolution. Like all armchair free-marketeers (she has never set up a business) she believes her nation is a blast of deregulation away from American levels of entrepreneurial vim. It isn’t. The creator of a successful product in Dallas can expand to LA and Boston with little friction. The UK doesn’t have a market of hundreds of millions of people. (It did, once, but the present chancellor of the exchequer voted to leave it.) Someone who glides over that point is also liable to miss the contrasting appeal to investors of gilts and Treasuries.

Some readers balked last month when I wrote that Truss might not last until the next election. Even I didn’t think she would trip so soon. It is a kind of patriotism, I suppose, to mistake your nation for a superpower. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022

Janan Ganesh is chief US political commentator for the Financial Times