Crime
Ireland vows to crack down on ‘hate speech’ after knife attack by Algerian immigrant
Senator Pauline O’Reilly
From LifeSiteNews
By Paul Bennett
‘We are restricting freedom for the common good,’ Ireland’s Green Party Senator Pauline O’Reilly told the Irish Senate
The Irish government have blamed recent unrest on the “far-right” and vowed to fast track freedom-curbing “hate speech” legislation before Christmas.
The November 23 riots were in response to a barbaric knife attack on innocent children and a daycare employee in central Dublin by a 50-year-old Algerian immigrant earlier that day. Leanne Flynn and three children were wounded.
Addressing the nation at Dublin Castle after the stabbings, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar crudely prioritized legislating hate speech laws to tackle the growing public unrest in Ireland over key issues such as mass immigration.
“It’s now obvious to anyone who might have doubted it that our incitement to hatred legislation is just not up to date for the social media age and we need that legislation through,” Varadkar said.
“And we need it through in a matter of weeks because it’s not just the platforms that have responsibility here, and they do, it’s also the individuals who past messages and images online that stir hatred and violence. We need to be able to use laws to go after them individually.”
As a result of a coordinated government response to tackle ‘hate speech’, the Republic of Ireland’s new Online Safety Media Commission have urged the Irish public to report any “hate speech” to the Gardai (Irish police) in the aftermath of last week’s unforeseen stabbings and riot in Dublin.
The newly established Irish online media regulator approved by the European Commission, Coimisiún na Meán, is currently overseeing what is being billed as online safety in Europe in a move to tackle hate speech and disinformation.
Immediately after the November 23 riot, the online regulators made Ireland the first EU member state to activate an alert under new Digital Services Act (DSA) rules. The activation alerted the European Commission to contact large social media companies within hours of the riot in Dublin, to remind them of their legal obligations regarding dissemination of illegal online content, threats, hate speech, and “disinformation.”
On November 28, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Catherine Martin told the Irish parliament that online regulators are “calling for those who see hate speech or other illegal content online to report it to platforms or to the Gardai.”
Following last week's Dublin riots, which started after multiple young children were stabbed at school, Ireland's new Media Commission is calling on the public to report any "hate speech" they see online to the police.
Comments by Irish Media Minister Catherine Martin. pic.twitter.com/TeF4wDjqCH
— gript (@griptmedia) November 29, 2023
In the midst of growing tension and concern about mass immigration, housing, and crime in communities across the country, the Irish government are instead planning to pass legislation to curb freedom of speech. The new Hate Speech Bill is considered one of the strictest draconian hate speech legislations in the world.
The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 (the Hate Speech Bill) will criminalize any speech that is “likely to incite hatred, or violence” against so-called “protected groups.”
The legislation vaguely defines “hatred” as “hatred against a person or a group of persons in the [Irish] State or elsewhere on account of their protected characteristics.” The protected characteristics includes race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.
The radical bill outlines how merely possessing “hateful” content on your devices or having signs, posters and banners that could incite “hatred” could lead to criminal charges and upwards to five years of imprisonment.
Authorities will be allowed to seize all electronic devices, including phones, laptops, and tablets, and force individuals to hand over passwords, even if no crime has been committed.
Independent Irish Senator Sharon Keogan believes the main objective of the hate speech bill is “partly designed to keep political dissenters quiet.”
In a viral video that got international attention, a Green Party Senator called Pauline O’Reilly revealed the true nature of the radical hate speech laws during a discussion about the proposed legislation in the Irish Senate.
"We are restricting freedom for the common good": Irish Green Party Senator Pauline O'Reilly says that her government's hate speech bill is about "restricting freedom," and censoring views on gender identity if those views create "discomfort."#gript pic.twitter.com/H7QIT0QHmf
— gript (@griptmedia) June 15, 2023
“When you think about it, all law, all legislation is about the restriction of freedom. That’s exactly what we are doing here,” she said. “We are restricting freedom, but we are doing it for the common good.”
On social media platform, X, Ohio Senator James David Vance reacted to the viral video of the Irish Senator by saying if this was in “Russia, or China or many other nations we would call it totalitarian and threaten economic sanctions.”
Elon Musk, owner of X has called the planned legislation a “massive attack against freedom of speech.”
The Hate Speech Bill was passed in the Irish Parliament in April 2023 and is currently now at a committee stage in the Senate.
Crime
Soros-Backed DA Poised To Lose To Challenger In Ultra-Liberal County
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Portland District Attorney Mike Schmidt is likely to be replaced by prosecutor Nathan Vasquez after only serving one term.
Schmidt, the Soros-linked incumbent, won in 2020 in a landslide in which he received over 75% of the vote in heavily-Democratic Portland. Election results show Vasquez leading Schmidt with 56% of the in the nonpartisan primary as of this writing.
As of April 2024, Multnomah County is nearly 50% blue, with 282,152 of 568,681 voters registered Democrat according to the Oregon Secretary of State. Only 56,653, roughly 10% were registered Republicans.
The incumbent received a generous cash influx of $213,000 from Soros linked donors in April 2024. Despite this, Schmidt and many other progressive and Soros backed DAs are on a losing streak.
Former Portland District Attorney Mike Schmidt linked to Soros lost
How unpopular was Mike Schmidt?
Portland just voted for a long-time Republican (now registered Independent), gun-owner to represent them as District Attorney.
Wild times in PDX. https://t.co/cptlbZTu1E
— Michael Pruser (@MichaelPruser) May 22, 2024
Portland faced increasing insecurity and surges of violent crime in recent years, prompting many to flee the county. Portland homicide rates peaked in 2021 with 92 murders and again the following year with a record of 101 murders, according to OregonLiveData. Violent crime rose 17% in Portland following Schmidt’s election, according to a report from the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission.
In 2020, Oregon decriminalized hard drugs via referendum Measure 110, but was promptly re-criminalized by Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek after Oregon declared a state of emergency citing a dramatic increase in overdose cases. Vasquez plans to prioritize enforcement of drug trafficking and open air drug use, according to his campaign website.
Portland @DAMikeSchmidt is asking voters to reelect him on May 21. Soros is pouring big bucks into the campaign to gaslight voters about the record killings, riots & drug ODs under Schmidt's leadership. Read my piece about the man who destroyed Portland: https://t.co/usCZJXfNXx pic.twitter.com/bTsz0YLFY1
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) May 17, 2024
Following Schmidt’s 2020 election, Portland became a hotspot for riots following the police killing of George Floyd. Schmidt later announced that they would not be prosecuting low- level riot related crimes. BLM rioters and violent Antifa protestors led destructive demonstrations for over 120 days, billing the Portland Police Department over $12 million by the end of the year.
Schmidt also accepted a $30,000 campaign donation in February from the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supported hard drug decriminalization through referendum Measure 110.
“Experience matters,” Vasquez said on his campaign website. “Until you’ve held the hand of a child who is about to face her abuser, or a mother who must listen to the details of her son’s murder, or helped someone access rehab for the first time, only then can you know what it takes to rebuild our public safety system.”
Both Vasquez and Schmidt’s campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
COVID-19
The Vials and the Damage Done: Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory Scandal, Part II
From the C2C Journal
By Peter Shawn Taylor
In China, minor security infractions are routinely punished with lengthy jail terms in dreadful conditions. In Canada, it’s just the opposite. Clear evidence of espionage is rewarded with a free pass back home after the mission is complete. Neglecting our national security in this way may suit the Justin Trudeau government, but it is doing great harm to Canada’s relationship with its most important allies. In the concluding instalment of his two-part series, Peter Shawn Taylor examines the many ways in which the spy scandal at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg has damaged Canada’s international standing and contributed to the growing perception that Canada is a foreign agent’s happy place. (Part I is here.)
The Scientists Who Came in From the Cold: Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory Scandal, Part I
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