Monthly Archives: March 2021

A Potpourri of Cultural Enrichment

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The cultural enrichment news didn’t abate just because I went on vacation for two days. Below are translations of six recent German-language migration-related news articles.

First, from PolitikStube, a culture-enriching rape in Munich, translated by Hellequin GB:

Munich Luitpoldpark: Arab-looking man raped 57-year-old

On Sunday, March 14, 2021, around 7:40pm, a 57-year-old from Munich was walking in Luitpoldpark. In her testimony she said that she was jostled, grabbed and dragged to the ground by an unknown perpetrator. Although she tried to defend herself against the stranger’s actions, he pulled her pants and underpants down and performed sexual acts on her. The 57-year-old drew attention to herself with calls for help and so the unknown perpetrator abandoned further plans when a passerby approached. The unknown perpetrator was able to flee in an unknown direction. Search measures for the unknown perpetrator were negative. The 57-year-old was slightly injured on her hands and knees.

The unknown perpetrator can be described as follows: Male, 170cm-175cm [5’9”] tall, 20-30 years of age, Arab appearance, black-brown eyes, slim, black, strong, straight hair, parted on the sides, sideburns, big nose; dressed in a dark or black jacket, silver-colored zippers, dark or black jeans Has anyone witnessed anything in the Luitpoldpark during the specified period that could be related to this incident? People who can provide relevant information are asked to contact the Munich Police Headquarters, Kommissariat 15, Tel. 089 / 2910-0, or any other police station.

From unzensuriert.at, the celebration of the Persian New Year in Austria, followed by riots. Many thanks to Gary Fouse for the translation:

Insanity is becoming normal. Migrants celebrated with a campfire in the middle of Stephansplatz, directly in front of the Cathedral, and danced for hours without [Interior Minister Karl] Nehammer’s “Corona hunters” intervening.

“Persian New Year”: Migrants light bonfire undisturbed in the middle of Stephansplatz.

On Sunday, hundreds of migrants celebrated the Persian spring festival on the Stephansplatz of Vienna. At the end of the event, there were riots.

Immigrants provoke with a celebration in front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral

In the night between March 20 and 21, for more than 3,000 years in several Oriental lands, the day and night “Nouruz” marking the beginning of spring has been celebrated. In Austria, up until now, there has been no public Persian New Year’s celebration. That changed, however, last Sunday. The migrants are becoming more and more self-confident and drove from the urban districts into the center of the city, so that the rest of the local population could participate in their activities.

Police do not intervene in spite of Corona violations and campfire

On the same evening, numerous videos were spread on different social media platforms, in which loud shouts, music, and scenes of violence could be viewed. The migrants danced in close embrace and often without masks, and lit a fire in the middle of Stephansplatz. The police at no time intervened. Where were the strict distance-monitors and mask enforcers, where there were thousands of reports for exactly the same offense?

Omnipresent was the flag with the emblem of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and a portrait of its founder, Abdullah Öczalan, sentenced to life in prison. Once more, Vienna is a venue for foreign differences.

Turks against Kurds: Celebration escalates into fighting

No wonder that after a while passersby, presumably of Turkish origin, began to disturb the reported “demonstration”. According to witnesses, homophobic statements were made, as the “tweet” of an activist who was present shows below. The Revolution eats its own children.

Rise up 4 Rojava Wien tweet:

Toward the end of the Newroz celebration, there were attacks against LGBTQ comrades. They were carrying a rainbow flag and were thus subjected to homophobic insults and were physically attacked.

We stand against heterosexist attacks and express our solidarity to those affected.

Nehammer’s police, however, were satisfied with how the evening went.

Police statement:

“The demonstration was basically peaceful. At the end of the gathering, there was just a short disruption. This. however, could be rapidly pacified without further incident by the intervention of police. After the end of the demonstration, a man attacked a police officer in the course of his duties and was provisionally arrested on suspicion of attempted resisting of the police.”

This article from PolitikStube concerning the notorious Sea-Watch 3 was translated by Hellequin GB:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/27/2021

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In the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, publishers and writers of a school textbook were charged with insulting Islam for including a chapter on the connection of Islam with terrorism. Meanwhile, in Pakistan a Hindu journalist who reported on the involvement of Muslim imams with “love jihad” marriages was shot dead.

In other news, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg spoke favorably about a proposed mileage tax on American drivers.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to JD, Reader from Chicago, Upananda Brahmachari, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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A Potpourri of Coronamadness

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By taking a leave of absence from Schloss Bodissey for two days, I allowed a massive backup of translations to accumulate in my inbox. To expedite posting them, I’ll collect related items on each topic into several large posts.

The six articles below, all translated by Hellequin GB, concern various aspects of the ongoing Wuhan Coronavirus crisis.

First, in this op-ed from PolitikStube, Alice Weidel of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany) takes issue with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s edict banning commerce and social activities over the Easter holiday:

Alice Weidel: Merkel takes an entire country hostage!

Anyone who believed that the federal government had long since exhausted its repertoire of arbitrary measures will now be taught better: From April 1 to April 5, i.e. before Easter and over the holidays, a complete lockdown will be decreed.

Traveling to see relatives?

Prohibited.

Enjoy the sun in the beer garden?

Forbidden.

But the arbitrariness and nonsense of the measures can be seen above all in the fact that the food retail sector has to be closed on April 1st, i.e. before Good Friday. Above all this proves the heedlessness of the resolutions. Because the reduction to opening on only three days during Easter week means a significantly higher rush in retail. Customers will either be crowded in the shops or find long queues. The risk of infection is not reduced, but artificially increased.

Unfortunately, these and other resolutions are not an April Fool’s joke, but the bitter seriousness of the Chancellor. Although yesterday the Higher Administrative Court in North Rhine-Westphalia overturned the restrictions, especially for the retail trade, another breach of the law will be committed. The measure is now finally full; the complete restriction of freedom is no longer reasonable for the citizens. Yes to the protection of risk groups, no to ongoing hostage detention by the Corona cabinet!

Mrs. Merkel was forced by intense opposition to withdraw her edict about Easter. From PolitikStube:

Criticism even in the left mainstream: Merkel rescinds Corona resolutions on Easter break

After massive criticism, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) decided to stop the federal-state decision on the so-called Easter break. Merkel announced this on Wednesday in a hastily convened switch with the prime ministers of the federal states, as the German press agency learned from several participants.

After massive criticism of the Easter resolutions of the Federal States Roundtable at the beginning of the week, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) again briefly consulted with the Prime Ministers of the States.

The German Press Agency learned on Wednesday in Berlin that there will be a call between the Chancellor and the heads of government at 11.00 a.m. It is expected to be about dealing with the ongoing criticism. Above all, displeasure was sparked by the fact that after the hours of Corona consultations on Tuesday night, the implementation of central resolutions was still open.

The government survey with the Chancellor planned in the Bundestag for 1 p.m. will therefore reportedly take place as planned. From sources in the federal states it was said that the new deliberations might involve the template planned by the Federal Ministry of the Interior to implement the resolutions of the Minister-Presidents’ meeting with the Chancellor from early Tuesday morning. According to DPA [German Press Agency] information, the model ordinance is to be sent to the federal states in the afternoon after a vote within the federal government.

An editorial from PolitikStube:

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Inverting and Subverting the Woke Paradigm

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Most readers will remember the “It’s OK to be White” poster campaign that has popped up from time to time around the country over the last few years. It was (and is) a brilliant move by subversive guerillas in the information war. They troll the Social Justice Warriors with an innocuous slogan that causes consternation and outrage, provokes billions of bytes’ worth of angry posts on social media, and ties up law enforcement resources as police are ordered to investigate the posters as “hate crimes”.

And those racial theatrics produce a clarifying moment for the culture at large. All the outrage and vitriol and legal actions demonstrate in a most emphatic manner that it is not OK to be white. That my whiteness — an inherent characteristic that I am unable to change — makes me a doubleplus ungood creature who cannot redeem himself, no matter how much he apologizes and debases himself and grovels at the feet of the Brown Ascendancy.

Any white person who hasn’t already drunk the Critical Race Theory kool-aid must surely have noticed by now that there is nothing he can do to appease the Woke brigades. Extermination is the only solution to the problem of “whiteness”.

The technique employed in the “It’s OK to be White” posters might be termed an inversion. It takes a common trope from the dominant culture and turns it around to create an unexpected message. And the genius of this particular idea is that it makes the message as inoffensive as possible. It’s not “White is Beautiful” or anything of that nature, which would have been an exact inversion. Instead it is mild and reasonable, which means that the inevitable hysterical response highlights the deranged animosity motivating the shrill harpies who dominate public discourse.

I was thinking about all this while I was travelling last week, and it occurred to me that we need more inversions of the Woke paradigm. Mild, harmless images and words guaranteed to make the SJWs apoplectic. The billboard at the top of this post is an example of what I mean — a kind, friendly, attractive black person who has white people as friends. What could be more racist and hateful than that?

If we were to put up a real billboard with the message, we obviously couldn’t use that particular photo of Tyler Perry, who is apparently a famous and very rich actor. I seriously doubt he would allow himself to be featured in any “white supremacist” propaganda. But surely there must be some non-Woke black people who would get the point and enjoy the joke. Walter Williams comes to mind, but he is, alas, no longer with us.

Just think what the reaction would be if billboards like that began popping up here and there in American cities. Mind you, it might be difficult to actually get any of them up. Even if a billboard company were inattentive enough to allow the message to appear, the local franchise of Woke Central would immediately call down the wrath of the police, the mayor, the city council, state legislators, and possibly the U.S. Congress against the WAYCIST who bought and paid for the space.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/26/2021

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Police in North Wales issued more than 950 fines for breach of COVID regulations during the most recent lockdown. Meanwhile, according to the latest polls, one out of three Danes will refuse to take any vaccination against the Wuhan Coronavirus.

In other news, murder rates across the USA rose by 30% last year in comparison with 2019.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Fjordman, JD, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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To Jab or Not to Jab, That is the Question

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Despite the blitz of pro-“vaccine” state propaganda, large numbers of Berliners have so far declined to take the jab. It’s not clear how many have made an active decision not to receive the injection, as opposed to those who have not yet been notified, have procrastinated, or for other reasons have not showed up at the vaccination centers.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from PolitikStube:

I wonder why? Berlin: Hundreds of thousands ignore their invitation to vaccinate

After the numerous horror reports (deaths, blood clots) and the brief suspension of the vaccine, does vaccine frustration and a negative attitude towards AstraZeneca seem to be rampant in Berlin? The vaccine is supposedly safe, but apparently so unpopular that hundreds of thousands do not respond to their vaccination invitation.

Of course one tries to blame ignoring the vaccination invitation on the sluggish appointment scheduling and the overloaded hotline, but there are numerous people who have a skeptical view, not only about the AstraZeneca vaccine, worry about side effects and long-term effects, and do not want to make themselves available as guinea pigs.

Daily mirror: 100,000 doses of the British-Swedish preparation AstraZeneca are currently in stock — and further deliveries are expected. Doctors and Senate officials fear that the AstraZeneca skepticism will hardly be able to be dispelled in the foreseeable future.

Recently, masses of teachers, police officers and daycare staff should have come to the vaccination centers where AstraZeneca is injected. But there were thousands fewer than expected by the Senate and vaccinators.

A million so-called vaccination codes have been sent since December 2020. This means the right to be vaccinated. But by March 23, only 362,711 Berliners had an initial vaccination, which means that around 630,000 Berliners are currently entitled to get vaccinated, but have not done so.

What is certain is that many of those currently eligible for vaccination have not yet been able to make an appointment, for example because the Senate hotline was overloaded, because they only received the code in the last few days or because they did not react immediately.

Covid and the Great Reset — Together Creating Fear… and Resistance

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The UK, like most of the Western world, is still under lockdown. Our English correspondent Seneca III sends his observations on the current COVID dystopia in his homeland.

Covid and the Great Reset — Together Creating Fear… and Resistance

by Seneca III

A global anti-lockdown and anti-mask resistance movement is evolving. On Saturday 20/3/2021 in the UK, Australia, Holland, Belgium, France, Austria, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Canada, Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine and many other locations[1] people were marching and peacefully demonstrating that they have had enough of the misguided, inept and draconian government responses to the SARS-CoV-2 viral epidemic.

Unfortunately, on Sunday the 21st another protest in no way connected with the marchers took place in Bristol, UK, (and again on Monday). They bore no resemblance to those on Saturday. It was the usual Rent-a-Mob event and when the police attempted to close it down riot, property destruction and the torching of police vehicles was the mob’s Pavlovian response. On Sunday twenty police officers were injured in the process, some seriously… it reminded me more of Portland, Oregon, than the pleasant English mercantile city I had known before its transition into a Marxist-Socialist satrapy and subsequent destabilising enrichment.

Video recordings of the worldwide events on Saturday, including in London, show no signs of aggression or vandalism and the police who accompanied them were simply controlling traffic and escorting the marchers safely. My greatest fear is that more events such as that in Bristol will be misinterpreted and conflated with those genuine, peaceful marchers, thus diluting the support of otherwise sympathetic non-participants and encouraging governments to continue their oppression.

It must be widely understood that the Bristol rabble were a different animal. Some of them appeared to be yet more criminal thugs from the BLM and XR stable. No doubt the anarchists of ANTIFA were out in force as well in pursuit of their objective, which is to create a state of chaos which they can then exploit at their leisure. It also appears that this scabrous crew were reinforced by contingents drawn from the underbelly of our society, a collection of cretinous lowlifes addicted to the adrenaline rush of free-range gratuitous violence, arson and momentary fame in some social media sinkhole.

Indeed, many of these moral and intellectual dwarfs should rightly be categorized as ‘Enemies of the State’ and closed down completely by the Powers That Be, not as a species with protected characteristics to be kneeled before and indulged in whatever mayhem they choose to inflict upon us.

By comparison, those who marched on Saturday constituted the genuine, law-abiding core of the resistance. They were perfectly normal people who are tired of the hysterical antics of their respective governments and just want to get on with their lives. They are seeking respite from the debilitating psychological byproducts of enforced lockdowns and the progressive physical and mental carnage affecting all age groups, particularly this current generation of young people who are still in the process of maturing and who could suffer long-term damage from prolonged low-level hypoxic oxygen deprivation caused by masking.

The desire of these people to live their lives free from the draconian edicts of their inept and often corrupted ruling classes, who appear attracted by the thought of some lucrative position in a ‘New World Order’, is purely intuitive in many cases, because the participants either don’t know of or fail to fully comprehend the horrors awaiting them in the Great Reset/New World Order project now being quietly implemented around them with the fortuitous assistance of an escaped bio-warfare agent.

Meanwhile, as the pressure mounts the British government seems not to understand that the power of an oppressed people can be a terrible thing when a significant percentage of the polis unites, breaks out of the trap with a single purpose and seeks relief from the excessive legislative and executive actions levelled by privileged power groups and their beneficiaries who are intent upon destroying the fundamental health, freedoms and futures of the citizenry. Those who marched on Saturday understand that their children are the ones who will have to pay the bills for this debacle and probably will have to fight for their ethnic survival as well if things are not corrected soon. That is a terrible burden to lay on future generations.

Political power addicts always tend to become over-endowed with false images of their own exceptionalism and privilege, and these misconceptions must be reined in from time to time by force if necessary. The reality is that hidden behind their faux public personas, their earnest entreaties whereby they demand of us and impose upon us things that we are told we must accept for our own good are a means to their ends, not ours.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/25/2021

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Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, the Syrian culture-enricher who allegedly slaughtered ten people at a supermarket in Colorado, was known to the FBI prior to the attack, according to leaked information. The store where the massacre occurred is a prominent kosher market with a large Jewish clientele.

In other news, a theater production of Cinderella in Minnesota was cancelled because 98% of the cast was white.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to AA, Dean, JD, MC, Reader from Chicago, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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The Coming Climate Lockdowns

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A reduction in hydrocarbon emissions has been one of the side effects of the COVID lockdowns. This fact has not gone unnoticed by “climate change” activists, who would like the pandemic lockdowns to morph into climate lockdowns — permanently.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from JournalistenWatch:

Air instead of quality of life: The Admonishers Club DUH is happy about the lockdown standstill

What began with viruses and aerosols is eagerly taken up by environmental activists and climate-protection enthusiasts who are keen on regulation, in order to make everything that is natural and livable in the future too lousy, to give us a guilty conscience and make us understand the sheer existence of humans as a malfunction: The Admonishers Club “German Environmental Aid Association” (DUH) would like to continue the lockdown forever — because after its end air pollution will increase again.

Jürgen Resch, managing director of the dubious lobbying organization with a clearly anti-auto industry and therefore anti-key economy agenda, complained on Saturday in the Rheinische Post that nitrogen dioxide pollution especially in the cities will rise again after the lockdown: “ We fear that pollution with nitrogen dioxide, the diesel exhaust poison, will increase significantly again when people are once again more mobile at the end of the lockdown, but try to avoid buses and trains and get into the car instead.” That is why the cities now have to “set the framework conditions right” and, within a few weeks, significantly expand and improve the cycling infrastructure so that people “at the beginning of spring use the bicycle instead of the car.”

These are definitely the problems that are currently bothering Germany and its municipalities. Unused, crumbling inner cities, hundreds of thousands of imminent bankruptcies, business closings, millions of people who already no longer know how to make ends meet in the future — but so-called “environmental officials” take possible air pollution, in a country that already has strictest exhaust and pollutant emission standards in the world, as a pretext to abuse people with new rules of conduct and nuisance.

More cycle paths and driving bans in dead city centers

And just as the pandemic-obsessed argue vis-à-vis Corona, who reduce our entire existence and the responsibility of politics exclusively to a selective protection of life from certain viruses (and hide all collateral damage caused by it), for Resch every end justifies the means even in lockdown: what always helps “air quality” has to be good. Looking at a pollutant report presented on Friday by the North Rhine-Westphalian Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser (CDU), Resch cheered the “quality increase”: “However, the effect of the Corona pandemic was much stronger than assumed by the state government.” At the same time, Resch sees the improved air quality as a success of his DUH lawsuits, which gave Germans a series of driving bans: “It is gratifying to see that our complaints about clean air are finally having an effect.”

Somebody like the DUH functionary would probably prefer eternal standstill in the cities, a return to the emission values of the Roman Empire. Clean air, but no more life? In some skulls, ideological obstinacy has already gone that far. Another case of “Operation successful, patient dead”… this once again parallels the lockdown. (DM)

Massacre in Tillia

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Last week I reported on a massacre by Islamic zealots in Niger. The country is 90% Muslim, so the ongoing attacks are directed at the small minority of non-Muslims who live in the westernmost part of Niger.

This past weekend saw more atrocities against civilians in Niger. Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this French-language article from ActuNiger:

Massacre in Tillia: At least 80 civilians killed according to a provisional count

March 22, 2021

The toll of the massacre reported yesterday (Sunday) in the villages of Intazayene and Bakorat, in the department of Tillia, continues to grow. According to local sources, more than 80 civilians were executed in cold blood by armed individuals during a deadly raid they carried out in this zone of the region north of Tahoua, located not far from the border with Mali. Investigators continue to search for other victims beneath the rubble of tents and charred homes.

The toll remains provisional awaiting the official statement from the government, but according to local officials, less than 24 hours after the tragedy at least 80 bodies have already been found, among which are women and children. Some of the bodies were found beneath the rubble of tents housing women and children, which were set on fire by the attackers.

The attackers are believed to have come on motorcycles and fired blindly at everything that moved in the villages of Intazayene and Bakorat as well as the wells of Wirstane and encampments at Akifakif. According to the same sources, the villages and encampments that were targeted mostly housed Touareg people.

Hundreds of animals were also carried off by the attackers, who were reportedly, according to local sources, local members of the terror group Islamic State of the Grand Sahara (EIGS), who are very active in this zone situated not far from the border with Mali.

Black sequence

This latest massacre of civilians comes after that perpetrated just a week ago near Banbangou, also near the border with Mali, when approximately 60 civilians were executed in cold blood by unidentified armed individuals. A few weeks ago, about 100 civilians were executed under almost the same conditions, also in the area of the three borders where the attackers targeted military camps in the recent past.

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Dutch Elections 2021: Not Good — Not (Too) Bad

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Our Dutch correspondent H. Numan sends this report on last week’s elections in The Netherlands.

Dutch elections 2021: not good — not (too) bad

by H. Numan

Last week the Dutch national elections were held. As I expected, the conservative VVD won. What I didn’t expect, and what came to most as a surprise, is the big win for the progressive D66 party. Dutch politics follows the trend in Western nations: the electorate wants a stable more conservative government, politics (being the Powers That Be) wants a politically correct 100% halal government. Let’s have a look at the electoral results:

  • VVD: 35 (now) — 33 (last elections in 2017)
  • D66: 23 — 19
  • CDA (Christian Democrats): 15 — 19
  • CU (Calvinist Communists): 5 — 5

The above parties formed the government. Given the results, they can continue governing, with more D66 and less CDA input. I expect a very brief formation period.

  • PVV: 17— 20
  • FvD (Thierry Baudet’s party): 8 — 2
  • PvdA (Labor): 9 — 9
  • SP (Maoists) 9 — 14
  • GL (Communists) 8 — 14
  • PvdD (Animal party) 6 — 5
  • SGP (Calvinists) 3 — 3
  • DENK (Turkish AK Party) 3 — 3
  • 50 Plus (Elderly Party) 4 — 1
  • JA21 (splinter from FvD) 3 — 0
  • Volt (Euro communists) 3 — 0
  • Bij1 (black racist anarchists) 1 — 0
  • BBB (farmers’ party) 1 — 0

The Left is the big loser. All left-wing parties did pretty badly. Labor remained tiny; GL and SP both lost massively. The VVD remains the strongest party, and won slightly. Which is pretty weird, if you think about it. The main reason the cabinet resigned was a massive tax scandal, for which the VVD was responsible. On top of that, other possibly even bigger tax scandals emerged just before the elections. The resignation of the cabinet, as I wrote in a previous essay, was a form of controlled demolition. Rutte expected that scandal not to influence his re-election, and he was right.

The really big winner was Forum for Democracy. The party almost collapsed weeks before the elections due to internal dissent. The splitters formed JA21, and gained 3 seats. FvD got 8 seats, which means that the electorate doesn’t believe a word of Thierry Baudet’s being an open or closet Nazi.

The PVV didn’t do well. They lost 3 seats. Which is just as surprising as the big win for D66. I’m not going to call this voter fraud, but both are really surprising. The PVV polled consistently at 25-30 seats. All of a sudden they’re stuck at 17 seats? Weird. Likewise, D66 gained 4 seats. Again, nobody expected that. They were polled roughly equal to what they had or less. Certainly not a lot more.

The results are a mixed bag. We’ll get Rutte 4, no doubt. And pretty fast, as the election gave the green light for a continuation of the Rutte Saga. Dear Mark shouldn’t be overly happy, though. It’s rare a PM who rules 12 years. So far we haven’t had one that ruled for 16 years. He wasn’t elected because people like him so much, rather for the want of anything better.

Who is really worrisome? Sigrid Kaag, the chairwoman of D66. She wanted to become the first female PM of The Netherlands. “Because we haven’t had one, and it’s about time.” People didn’t buy that slogan, but she did pretty well anyway. However, what few people know or realized is that Sigrid Kaag is married to Anis al-Qaq. He is a high-ranking officer in the PLO government of Yasser Arafat.

Kaag kept that marriage a secret for as long as possible, as she considers that ‘something personal’. I beg to differ. That marriage is something that will affect The Netherlands profoundly. After all, she is married to a strict sharia mohammedan. Such a marriage has consequences.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/24/2021

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The big news from while I was away concerns a Syrian culture-enricher named Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, who shot up a supermarket in Colorado, killing ten people. President Biden and other political leaders called for strict new gun control measures in response to the Colorado shooting.

In other news, the city council of Evanston, Illinois voted to make Evanston the first city in the nation to pay reparations to black people.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Dean, JD, Reader from Chicago, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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Mask Report From the Hinterland

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I had to travel a long way through the Virginia countryside to get to the city where I went to visit with friends and relatives. The area between here and there is not as rural as my home patch, but it’s still in the heart of Good Ol’ Boy Land.

I stopped for gas in a little hamlet about two-thirds of the way to my destination. When I went inside the country store to visit the restroom, I immediately noticed that I needn’t have been anxious about masks — at least half the people in the place weren’t wearing them. Dr. Fauci must be losing his mojo, at least in the hinterland.

The medium-sized city where I spent two nights was another matter. It didn’t seem to have passed a city ordinance mandating masks, the way Charlottesville has. Nevertheless, every business had posted a sign on the door saying that they were following the ukase of Governor Coonman, and would not admit any maskless customers.

As a result I stayed out of most of the businesses. A lot of people on the sidewalks (including me) weren’t wearing their muzzles, so it’s not as bad as Charlottesville, where everybody dons the corona hijab, indoors or out. And where you can get screamed at for not wearing one in some areas.

From time to time I think maybe the mask mania is finally starting to wane. But that’s probably just wishful thinking on my part. COVID is here to stay.