Presidential Senility: An Italian Perspective

“The leader of the Free World” is obviously an advanced dementia case, leaving the Free World to coast along on autopilot. Fortunately for the West, the obscure oligarchs who rule us seem to be perfectly capable of handling the job without any input from mere elected leaders.

Below is an Italian take on President Biden’s performance at the G7 in Italy. Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Il Giornale:

“He gets distracted…”

The video at the G7 and those new doubts on Biden’s health

The latest alarm bell on the condition of the US president: Here is the curtain call at the Borgo Egnazia summit

by Massimo Balsamo
June 14, 2024

There is great worry among the Democrats of the Stars and Stripes and it could not be otherwise. The reference is obviously to the state of health of Joe Biden who reverted to an incredible series of gaffes and blunders a few months from the presidential election against Donald Trump. Yesterday, during the G7 summit at Borgo Egnazia in Puglia. he created a scene that was anything but edifying. The 81-year-old and the other leaders attended a ceremony of the flags of the 7 nations and that of the European Union, dropping from the sky with soldiers of Folgore from two planes. At a certain point during the parachutists’ jump, Biden became distracted and wandered away from the group.

The videos available don’t leave large margins of interpretation. Following the exhibition of the parachutists, Biden moved a few meters and began to direct his appreciation to the parachutists with the thumbs-up gesture. Realizing what was happening, Giorgia Meloni approached the US president and called him back by touching his shoulders. A moment of great embarrassment added to those recorded in the past weeks. And on social media, Trump supporters also went wild, considering the absence of the Democrat at the gala dinner with President Sergio Mattarella and the other world leaders.

The sequence of what happened at Borgo Egnazia went viral, but in the States, it is hard to hide a certain worry. The testimony has multiplied regarding Biden’s alleged cognitive decline to the point that it could compromise his institutional functions, especially during such a delicate phase at the international level. Dozens of Republican and Democrat legislators and collaborators have spoken to the Wall Street Journal about the president’s public blunders, but also about his strange behavior in private meetings.

Many have stressed the palpable slowness of the president or the increasingly marked tendency to follow the suggestions of assistants. “He is no longer the same person as before,” is the fear that winds its way around the White House. An extremely complex situation just less than five months before the elections…

Matteo Salvini: “Not in the Name of the Italian People”

The following video features remarks by Deputy Italian Prime Minister Matteo Salvini about the current wave of war fever among the governing classes of Europe, and the push to send NATO forces to fight in Ukraine.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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Not Quite the Götterdämmerung I Expected

Update: Thank you all for your kind words. That was not quite the response I expected!

Your comments have given me a lot to think about for future twentieth-anniversary posts.

We’ll be coming up on the twentieth anniversary of Gates of Vienna later this year, and the process of preparing for an anniversary post has induced a sort of reverie in me as I contemplate the events of the past two decades.

Things have changed a lot, both externally and internally. I often feel like I’m too old to be doing this sort of thing. I’m over seventy now, and should be relaxing somewhere pleasant, enjoying the time that remains to me before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

And I sometimes feel like I’m close to burning out — I’ve just seen too way much information, most of it horrible. I wish I could return to the naïve, idealistic state of mind that I had when I started this job, but, alas, that’s not an option. Once you walk through the door of greater awareness, there’s no turning back. And, worst of all, I don’t think I’ve reached the limit of ghastly understanding. It seems likely that the worst is yet to come.

I’ve been working with Vlad for more than fifteen years now, and he says he’s feeling the pressure of burnout, too. We talk on the phone fairly frequently about all this stuff, in an effort to keep each other sane. With mixed results.

Anyway… for the time being, I’ll continue trawling through the hideous news every day and presenting it here, for your delectation (or horror, as the case may be).

The worst part of the recollection process is the growing awareness that all my efforts at Counterjihad have for naught. It’s been coming on gradually, and has intensified over the past few years, as the incidence of jihad in Europe has increased to the point where I can’t cover it all. It used to be that I could post about every major incident when it occurred, but that’s no longer possible — most of the stories get relegated to the news feed, if I have any coverage of them at all. There are just too many of them.

As Islamization has increased, the persecution of those who criticize it — or even just point it out — has intensified concomitantly. A number of Europeans that I worked with have been prosecuted; once again, I can’t keep track of them all. Many of them have now ceased their Counterjihad activities — when the choice is between losing your livelihood and giving up your Islamophobia, it’s not surprising that people decide to quit this line of work. If I actually lived in Europe, I might well have been driven out of it myself.

I used to think that making more people aware of what’s happening would help turn the tide. If a critical mass of understanding could only be reached, especially among elected representatives, the process of Islamization might be reversible. Back in 2007 and 2008 I said I thought we had a window of ten or fifteen years in which to begin the process of reversal. Unfortunately, that window has now closed. The demographics of Western Europe have passed the point of no return. The white natives are having fewer children, while the Muslims are having more, and all the while additional “asylum seekers” are pouring in. Tomorrow belongs to them.

Central and Eastern Europe may well be able to avoid the worst, at least for a while, but Western European countries will metamorphose into Muslim societies. Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, and France will be the first to become Islamic republics, with Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy following close behind. It’s too late to stop the process; it’s only a matter of time.

No one in a position of political power will take action against the inevitable. Anyone who is inclined to oppose Islamization finds out as soon as he rises high enough in the hierarchy that opposition is not permitted. The order comes down from above, and you either give up your opposition (relevant example: Giorgia Meloni), or your career comes to an end. There are always multiple ways to make an independent-minded politician an offer he can’t refuse. I can’t say exactly who the shadowy unelected globalists are who give the orders, but they’re out there giving them. Their gravitational influence is large enough to shift the orbits of our elected leaders.

As we approach 2050, the Islamization process will intensify to the point where civil strife will break out in Western Europe. If nuclear war can somehow be avoided, it may be possible for white enclaves to form where the worst of the Islamic excesses are kept at bay. However, based on the current demographics, the Caliphate will have control of the major cities. If the welfare jizya ceases to flow to the urban ghettos, then the Muslims living there will have to resort to razzias, which is their traditional way of dealing with privation. We can expect well-armed masses of them to descend on the suburbs and rural areas, where they can rape and pillage to their hearts’ content.

They will have the arms, and, sad to say, they will have more military-age men than the white natives will. By that time most of the remaining whites will be geezers. Thus we can expect that their enclaves will gradually shrink, while the culturally enriched sharia banlieues will gradually expand.

And that’s just the Islamization aspect of the coming collapse. One of the ghastly realizations I’ve come to during the past two decades is that Islamization is just one tool in the demonic toolbox accessed by our globalist masters. The culture wars that are raging all across the West feature several other lytic agents designed to break down traditional societies and render them unable to resist the planned apocalypse — Build Back Better, the Great Reset, or whatever they choose to call it.

The most recent destructive fad is the “trans” craze, which is dissolving every social institution it touches so rapidly that it’s hard to take in what’s happening. And that’s certainly not the last such craze — it’s already clear that bestiality, polygamy, incest, and pedophilia are coming up soon. For all I know, necrophilia, necrophagia, and cannibalism may be next on the menu. Cannibals have rights, too!

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Gabriel Attal vs. Giorgia Meloni

On Monday Elisabeth Borne resigned as prime minister of France, and President Emmanuel Macron appointed Gabriel Attal as the country’s new prime minister. He is young, handsome, and widely touted as France’s first “openly gay” prime minister. So France now has two toy boys at the top of the political heap, one ostensibly heterosexual and the other a homo.

On becoming prime minister, Mr. Attal singled out Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for strong criticism, condemning her immigration policies in no uncertain terms.

The two videos below show Mr. Attal’s remarks, and Ms. Meloni’s subsequent response. Many thanks to Gary Fouse for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

Video #1:

Video #2:

Video transcript #1:

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Giorgia Meloni: “There is a Process of Islamization of Europe”

The following video is not current — these remarks made by (now) Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were uttered at a press conference during the Italian general election campaign in 2018.

I would be remiss if I failed to note that Ms. Meloni has been disappointing, to say the least, in her actions as Prime Minister concerning mass immigration into Italy. Nevertheless, it’s still good to hear her say these things.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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Giorgia Meloni: “We Want to Fight the Mafia in All Its Forms”

In the following video, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni addresses the United Nations on the need to combat human trafficking, especially for sexual slavery.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni on the Lampedusa Crisis

The following two videos feature remarks made by Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni on the crisis in Lampedusa, which is currently being overwhelmed with an unprecedented flood of culture-enrichers from Africa.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

Video 1: Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini

Video 2: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni

Video transcript #1 (Matteo Salvini):

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Lampedusa is Full Up

The migrant invasion into Lampedusa continues at an unprecedented rate, and the inhabitants of the island are being overwhelmed. The Italian government is thus far unable to deal with the problem in any meaningful way.

It’s worth noting that voting makes no difference. Anybody who thought that voting for the Lega and Fratelli d’Italia in the last election would solve the immigration problem was sadly mistaken. It doesn’t matter who Italians vote for — the boats just keep coming.

Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Il Giornale:

From the shadow of the mother ship to the rapid debarkation: Lampedusa is under siege

by Valentina Raffa
September 12, 2023

Never so many debarkations in a single day. Sources tell Il Giornale that for now it is difficult to quantify the number of arrivals. And now the system is at risk of collapse. “We are exhausted.”

There are always a lot of them, but today it is an invasion. Ten, fifteen, even more. The boats off the coast of Lampedusa overloaded with migrants are impossible to count. The amazement is great even for the islanders, who are accustomed to continuous debarkation.

It is a tsunami of migrants that poured into Lampedusa. Small boats and iron boats, one next to the other, a short distance away, and others behind in the waters in front of the principal pier. And still other boats further off in the distance. “They continue to arrive,” says a source in Lampedusa. “We cannot count them. Many are stopped by the police.” And several groups managed to land on the beach independently.

The very brief respite due to bad weather is over. The hotspot, which yesterday morning counted only 19 migrants, is again at the point of collapse. In 24 hours almost 2,500 people have arrived, counting the migrants landing independently and stopped when they tried to disperse on land, and those rescued by the motorboats of the Guardia di Finanza, but another dozen landings have to be counted.

“The island can no longer support these numbers,” says the mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino. “The defense forces need to intervene. I am appealing to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the entire Italian government to adopt emergency measures. The territory is not able to withstand this shock wave, the scale of which surpasses even the resident population. It is impossible to guarantee adequate actions of assistance to migrants, notwithstanding the immense logistical force, which events show is insufficient. Citizens, businesses, economic operators, workers, police, and reception associations,” he concludes, “are already in a state of unsustainable physical and psychological suffering.”

Meanwhile, the transfers have begun. Some 600 will leave the island today on scheduled ferries and Diciotti boats of the Coast Guard to reach a new destination. In Italy, obviously, But it is only a palliative. It’s like a boat with an open leak You try to throw out the water, but it keeps coming in. Lampedusa is sinking and, at this rate, so will Italy if it cannot redistribute the migrants in an obligatory manner within the countries of the EU, and without distinguishing between the “placeable” and the “undesirable”, which instead happens for those few migrants who are relocated outside the borders.

Former mayor Toto Martello, now president of the Fisherman’s Consortium, who knows the territory well, and, over the years, has seen the changes caused by the phenomenon that affects everyone, not just the island, is convinced. What is needed is a 360-degree agreement to resolve the problem of illegal immigration, which has reached an exceptional number of almost 118,000 arrivals since the beginning of the year. “Up to now, there has been too much demagoguery and so many slogans,” he says, “but we need to think about the only possible solution, as indicated by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella: The creation of legal corridors which envisage agreements among all the nations bordering the Mediterranean and those of Africa. Immigration,” continues Martello, “will not be solved with the 114 million promised by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to empty Lampedusa, because it is not an economic phenomenon.”

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What About Viktor Orbán?

Long-time readers will remember our Hungarian correspondent CrossWare, who has translated large numbers of Hungarian-language videos and articles, including many speeches by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Long-time readers will also remember the dismay experienced by many people — including our Hungarian correspondents — when Mr. Orbán jumped aboard the COVID bandwagon, and then pushed vax mandates on Hungarian citizens.

The following reassessment of Viktor Orbán was written by CrossWare and published earlier today at Vlad Tepes in a slightly different form.

What about Viktor Orbán?

Thoughts by CrossWare

First of all, what is the connection between the Prime Minister of Hungary and myself?

We were both born and raised in the very same country town, both went to high school there (different ones) and Orbán is one year older than me. But we both grew up in the last period of socialism, so we are both a product of the same era. He went to law school after high school; I went for a BA in Engineering. So even though we ended up in very different places, our beginnings were pretty close to each other.

When socialism ended in 1989, I did not really care much about politics. However I followed his media presence, because he came from the same town as me. Fidesz was an insignificant liberal party at the time, with exactly the same type of message as all the other liberal parties in the world. That was the time when Gorge Soros (a.k.a. Schwartz) “helped” all these liberal parties against the dying socialist/communist powers. In 1998 the Fidesz party won the election (that was the year when I left Hungary and emigrated to Canada) and after just a single term, they were defeated by the communists and their latest liberal party partner the SZDSZ (Federation of Free Democrats). The voting process was suspiciously similar to the later 2020 USA election; the voting papers were destroyed before recount could be requested (against the rules), and Hungary faced eight years of the same type of system that the USA now lives under with Joe Biden.

Viktor Orbán and Fidesz regained power in 2010, and now he is the Prime Minister of Hungary for the fourth time with a two-thirds super-majority. (There are no term limits in Hungary.)

I started focusing on politics again and OV’s role in it when the great migration started in 2015 and he had such a remarkable staunch view on it. That is when I started to translate videos of his speeches for both Gates of Vienna and VladTepesBlog. In 2017, I had to move back to Hungary to help my aging parents and my sister, who suffered some losses and chronic diseases in her life.

That was the point when I started to face reality, which was not always in sync with what Orbán spoke about in his speeches.

In his early years, Viktor Orbán was confronted by a journalist about some difference between what he said and what he did, his answer was eye-opening (at least for me):

“Never listen to what I am saying, only what I am doing” — Viktor Orbán

Well, herein lies the problem…

Living in Hungary opened up for me various sources of information, which contradicted the rosy picture suggested by Orbán’s speeches. Also, I watch all politicians with suspicion, looking for alternate motives for their behaviour. (This could be my personal issue with this “profession”.)

Let’s review all the issues based on some groupings of mine:

His personality, leadership:

I think Viktor Orbán is a highly intelligent, talented politician. Without his knowledge and diligence, Fidesz as a party could have never become so organized and ready to lead. He has a typical type A personality, which makes him a strong, charismatic leader. But it comes with all the negative side of such personality: controlling, aggressive and looking at team members as potential risk to his own power. Orbán successfully eliminated most of the potential talent for leadership in his environment, which means that when he is no longer able to lead Fidesz, the party will face a crisis finding a similar talent to continue to lead.

Economy:

In 2010 the new Orbán government announced a new “movement”, which they called the NER (National Cooperation System). The idea behind it was to strengthen Hungarian-owned companies in all sectors of the economy and with that decrease our dependence on foreign companies, which many times followed their owners’ economic and political agendas. The point was to try to recreate layers of Hungarian owners, rich people who can support national causes. This societal layer was completely eliminated in the communist era. This idea worked completely in theory, but only partially in practice. As with any successful political movement, the hyenas showed up and slowly they built into the system. I have heard multiple rumours about occasions when a successful small business owner receives a visit from a representative from a large NER company, who has “excellent political connections” and makes an offer to buy the business. This is the type of offer which nobody can refuse, because the next day the tax office people arrive, and because of the overcomplicated tax system (which Fidesz, after twelve years of rule, could not fix or never wanted to fix), everyone may be found guilty of breaking some of the rules. So, mafia behaviour is rampantly present in the system, and it does not seem like there is any political will to fix the issues.

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Clandestine Mosques in Nîmes

The following report from the city of Nîmes in the south of France describes the problem of clandestine mosques that lurk in the city’s basements.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

The problem described in the above video is not confined to France. On multiple occasions Vlad and I have highlighted clandestine mosques in various Italian cities, as decried by Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni:

Video transcript:

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Giorgia Meloni on the EU’s Deal With Tunisia

In the following video Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni answers journalists’ questions about the agreement on immigration between the European Commission and Tunisia, and other North African matters. Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

Note: Giulio Regeni, who is mentioned by the journalist asking the question, was an Italian university graduate who was abducted and tortured to death in Egypt in early 2016. Patrick George Zaki is a Coptic Egyptian postgraduate student who was recently sentenced to prison in Egypt, and then pardoned by President al-Sisi.

Video transcript:

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The EU Pays Protection Money to Tunisia

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from eXXpress. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

EU buys help against asylum mafia — for €900 million in tax money

Illegal migration to Italy is increasing massively. Now Tunisia should help out. Even before the vessels set off for Europe, they are supposed to be stopped by Tunis. The EU Commission is making a proud €900 million available for this.

Italy is currently experiencing an explosive increase in illegal migration. More than 75,000 migrants have arrived on Italy’s shores since the beginning of the year. That is more than twice as many as in the same period last year, when there were around 31,900. One of the most important transit countries is Tunisia. A new deal between Brussels and Tunis is now intended to slow down the influx.

The deal: the EU is helping the economically ailing country with massive financial aid; in return Tunisia is doing more against the trafficking mafia.

€100 million for rescue operations and repatriations

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the heads of government of the Netherlands and Italy and Tunisia’s President Kais Saied announced the signing of the relevant declaration of intent in Tunis. The EU Commission will make a proud €900 million available for the North African country.

Tunisia, on the other hand, is supposed to reduce departures to Europe and therefore do more than before to combat people-smugglers and illegal crossings. The EU Commission wants to make a good €100 million available for search and rescue operations and the repatriation of migrants. This corresponds to three times the amount with which Brussels recently supported the country on average each year. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in particular had pushed for an agreement. Rome wants the boats leaving Tunisia to be stopped earlier on their way to southern Italy.

Von der Leyen: “Have a good package” [And how much is her commission from that “package”?]

A good month ago, EU politicians were already in Tunisia for talks to initiate the deal. “We have a good package. Now it’s time to implement it,” von der Leyen said. Tunisia’s President Saied declared: “We are determined to implement them as quickly as possible.” When it came to migration, he spoke of an “inhuman situation” that had to be solved collectively.

Afterword from the translator:

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Giorgia Meloni: Fast-Track Ukraine Into the EU

In the following video recorded at a conference in Rome on Wednesday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni promotes the rapid assimilation of Ukraine into the European Union.

Ms. Meloni’s position puts her at odds with a substantial portion of her fellow Italians, among them Silvio Berlusconi and other members of her government. Italian public opinion is, generally speaking, pro-Russian.

One may speculate about the prime minister’s reasons for pushing Ukrainian membership in the EU and lionizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. She’s an intelligent woman, and must surely realize that Mr. Zelensky is an American puppet. Perhaps she wants to curry favor with the USA. Or maybe there are Italian commercial interests lobbying for Ukraine — who knows?

The resistance to the globalist Left isn’t monolithic. To take another example, Donald Trump is still promoting the vax. And Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán imposed a strict lockdown during the “pandemic”. I don’t often encounter fellow dissidents whose positions are in exact alignment with mine.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Below are excerpts from an English-language article in Remix News (hat tip Reader from Chicago) about Ms. Meloni’s remarks:

Meloni Urges EU to Speed Up Accession Talks With Ukraine

Speaking at a conference in Rome on Wednesday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called on European allies to start accession negotiations with Ukraine as soon as possible.

In a joint statement with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmihal, the Italian prime minister underlined that Ukraine’s future must be shaped in such a way that it can increasingly adapt to European dynamics and institutions.

“The smartest way to thank the Ukrainians for what they are doing is to accelerate their chances to participate in European institutions,” the Italian leader said. “We must acknowledge the enormous efforts made by Kyiv to reform its system and bring it more in line with the European Commission’s requirements.”

She added that Italy wants to play a leading role in the reconstruction of Ukraine.

Video transcript:

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The Great Replacement: French and Italian Perspectives

The videos below, one from France and one from Italy, approach the issue of the Great Replacement from two very different angles.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

The first video is a report from Champigny-sur-Marne, an extremely culturally enriched suburb to the southeast of Paris. Two ethnic French visitors talked to local residents, and were rebuked by a Muslim for videotaping near a mosque without permission:

Francesco Lollobrigida is a member of Fratelli d’Italia, and serves as Minister of Agriculture in the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Mr. Lollobrigida got himself into a heap o’ trouble at a conference yesterday when he made remarks about the Great Replacement. Discussion of such matters was already a no-no, and became doubleplus ungood after the Christchurch massacre in 2019.

Needless to say, the global media snoids came down on Mr. Lollobrigida like a ton of bricks (see, for example, this BBC article). Here’s what got him into so much trouble:

Video transcript #1:

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