News of the World

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USA

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House Speaker Johnson Represents the Uniparty Now?

Mike Johnson Surrenders: Democrats Seize Control of House Floor

Democrats are in the minority no longer. In a stunning historical development on Friday, Democrats seized upon a Republican surrender to take control of the agenda of the House floor.

An astonishing 165 Democrats voted for a rule from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to allow a $100 billion foreign aid supplemental package to the floor Saturday. The House will hold four votes on final passage for each of those packages, including a Ukraine funding bill with tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars.

Minority party members rarely vote for a procedural rule to allow the majority party’s agenda to proceed through the House. Doing so in such numbers is wildly unprecedented.

History was first made on Thursday, just before midnight, when, for the first time in recorded history — since the House began keeping records — the House Rules Committee relied on minority party votes to overcome objections from the majority and advance a rule bill to the House floor.

The powerful House Rules Committee, known for generations as “the Speaker’s Committee” for the control the speaker of the House possesses over the committee and its reputation as a rubber stamp for the speaker’s agenda, sets the floor agenda for the House through what are known as rules.

Johnson disregarded history and abandoned his own party despite its majority, however slim. With more Democrats voting to advance the House’s agenda than Republicans, the minority party has effectively taken control over the bills that will come before the House.

Rand Paul: Mike Johnson Officially No Longer Republican Speaker, but ‘Uniparty’ Speaker

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) no longer represents the Republican House majority after he betrayed conservative ideals and worked with the Democrats to pass the President Joe Biden-endorsed Ukraine aid agenda, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) declared Friday.

In an unprecedented move, Johnson worked with House Democrats this week to force Ukraine border defense funds toward a full House vote on Saturday:

Thursday: Johnson made history by relying on Democrats on the House Rules Committee to overcome objections from the majority and advance a rule bill to the House floor.
Friday: Democrats seized the House and helped Johnson clear a key procedural hurdle on the rule bill to set up Saturday’s floor vote. Voting “yes” were 165 Democrats and only 151 Republicans.
“Democrats are now voting en masse to pass the Republican-written rule,” PBS reporter Lisa Desjardins posted on X. “A show of support for Ukraine and Johnson. And incredibly rare. Cannot remember seeing this, like this, before.”

“It’s official: ⁦@SpeakerJohnson is no longer the GOP Speaker of the House, but Speaker for the Uniparty’s $1.5T deficit, warrantless spying on Americans, and a foreign aid bill with more deficit spending than Schumer’s budget buster,” Sen. Rand Paul posted on X, sharing an article by the New York Times.

The Times article underscored Johnson’s decision to essentially allow Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to take control of the Republican-controlled House.

Mike Johnson’s Spending Bill Includes $300M for Border Patrol — in Ukraine

A spending bill backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) includes hundreds of millions of dollars in American taxpayer money for border patrol agents in Ukraine as illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border remains at record levels.

The spending bill, which 151 House Republicans helped 165 House Democrats advance on Friday, would see more than $95 billion sent to foreign countries — including about $61 billion to Ukraine amid its ongoing war with Russia.

Slipped into the funding package’s Ukraine spending is $300 million for “the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine 20 and National Police of Ukraine, including units supporting 21 or under the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

The State Border Guard Service is the Ukrainian equivalent of the U.S. Border Patrol.

At the same time, while illegal immigration stays sky-high at the southern border, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is asking Congress to fund only 34,000 detention beds for migrants arriving at the border — 7,500 fewer beds than those currently funded by lawmakers.

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Patrick Lechleitner, though, told Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) this week that he would prefer Congress fund 50,000 detention beds, a figure still below the hundreds of thousands that are necessary but well above DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s request.

Will SS Ever Stop Protecting Trump? Democrat Thompson Has the Answer...

Democrat Bennie Thompson Proposes Bill to Strip Trump of Secret Service Protection if Convicted, Sentenced to Jail

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) introduced legislation on Friday that targets former President Donald Trump and would take away his Secret Service protection if he is convicted in his trial.

In a post on X, the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats revealed that Thompson, the top member of the committee and the former chairman of the now-defunct January 6 Select Committee, had introduced legislation that would ensure “convicted felons sentenced to prison” would have no Secret Service protection.

In a statement, Thompson said:

Unfortunately, current law doesn’t anticipate how Secret Service protection would impact the felony prison sentence of a protectee-even a former President. It is regrettable that it has come to this, but this previously unthought-of scenario could become our reality. Therefore, it is necessary for us to be prepared and update the law so the American people can be assured that protective status does not translate into special treatment-and that those who are sentenced to prison will indeed serve the time required of them.

The Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED) Former Protectees Act says that protection will “terminate for any person upon sentencing following conviction for a Federal or State offense that is punishable for a term of imprisonment of at least one year.”

Thompson argues in a fact sheet for the DISGRACED Former Protectees Act, that the bill “would remove the potential for conflicting lines of authority within prisons and allow judges to weigh the sentencing of individuals without having to factor in the logistical concerns of convicts with Secret Service protection.”

Although Trump’s name is not mentioned in the bill’s text, the fact sheet points out that “former President Donald J. Trump’s unprecedented 91 felony charges in Federal and State courts across the country have created a new exigency that Congress must address to ensure Secret Service protection does not interfere with the criminal judicial process and the administration of justice.”

The fact sheet also points out that the bill proposed by Thompson will “apply to former President Trump.”

Amazing to see how they propose laws to affect 1 PERSON as if the job of Congress and Senate were to prevent Trump from even becoming a full-fledged presidential candidate.

NYC Councilwoman Against Cops

NYC Councilwoman: Illegal Immigrant Said City Spends Too Much on Police

New York City spends too much on police, an illegal immigrant reportedly said during a contentious committee hearing, New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino — who spoke up at the event — told Breitbart News Daily.

“They were just outright demanding on Thursday,” the councilwoman said, detailing the controversial meeting which featured illegal immigrants complaining and making demands on New York City.

“When they really cut me off is when I said you are here illegally. You are here illegally. And they didn’t like that. And that’s when one of the chairwomen cut me off. And she said, ‘Councilmember, do you have a question? Councilmember, do you have a question?’ I said, ‘Yes, I asked it, and I do have more.’ It was about the vetting, which they lied, that she started to spew — one of the people who answered one of my questions on the panel there, but she started to spew cop-hating rhetoric. If we wouldn’t pay our police officers so much,” she said.

“Are you kidding me? Really, you are here illegally. You’re here illegally. And you’re telling us that you don’t like our police. Ok. They took away your mopeds, and your scooters. Seriously? Are they licensed? Are they insured? Ok, or [is this] just something that you’re going scooting around and doing Uber Eats or whatever it is you do illegally? Illegally? Let’s understand this. This is all done illegally. And as soon as you say that word illegal, bam, you get crushed,” she said.

“So you’re telling me an illegal alien from, in this case, from Africa was complaining to the New York City Council that the people of New York pay their police too much money?” host Mike Slater pushed back.

“That is correct. Yes. You waste your money when you could be taking care of us. You waste your money on funding the police and what is it that you have?” she said, recounting the conversation. “She said those little robots? I just quit. Oh my word. I really kept my cool. I was so proud of myself. Because you just could not believe the ridiculousness of this whole thing, but they were dead serious, and what was worse, everybody out there is that your city council, if you live in these five boroughs was sympathetic to this.”

Immigration & Crime

Joe Biden’s Migrant Mobile App Freed Haitian, Now Accused of Double Murder, into U.S.

A Haitian migrant, reportedly released into the United States via President Joe Biden’s parole pipeline, is now accused of double homicide in Orange County, New York.

Kenol Baptiste, a 30-year-old Haitian migrant, was indicted in Orange County on two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder.

On April 1, prosecutors allege that Baptiste stabbed his two roommates — who were also from Haiti — to death using a knife. Baptiste then allegedly sought to hide the knife he used and fled the scene.

A report reveals that Baptiste had been released into the U.S. interior less than a year before, after scheduling an appointment at the border via the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) “CBP One” mobile app.

Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw reports:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Fox News Digital that Baptiste had arrived in the United States in July 2023 when he presented himself at the Paso Del Norte port of entry in El Paso, Texas. [Emphasis added]

The spokesperson said he presented himself on July 25 at the port of entry after booking an appointment on the CBP One app. Baptiste was given a notice to appear (NTA) in immigration court, was processed and paroled into the U.S. for pending removal proceedings. ICE has since placed a detainer on him, which requests he be transferred to ICE custody on his eventual release from jail. [Emphasis added]

As Breitbart News recently reported, Biden’s parole pipeline has released more than 950,000 foreign nationals, including Baptiste, into the U.S. interior since January 2023. Nearly 550,000 of those foreign nationals have arrived via the CBP One app.

LATIN AMERICA

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Haiti Wants to Make France Pay a Hefty Sum

Haitian Groups Seek Billions in Reparations from France

A coalition of 20 Haitian civil society groups, visiting Geneva for the U.N. Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD), argued on Thursday that France should pay at least $150 billion in reparations to Haiti for slavery and its aftermath.

The Haitian groups arrived at this amount by taking reparations France collected from Haiti after it became the first Caribbean nation to revolt and win its independence in 1804 and adding 200 years of accrued interest.

“It’s $21 billion plus 200 years of interest that France has enjoyed, so we’re talking more like $150 billion, $200 billion or more,” University of British Columbia professor Jemima Pierre explained to Reuters on Thursday.

The Haitian Revolution began in 1791 and lasted until 1804, featuring a series of battles between the local population — which, by that point, included a large number of imported African slaves — and French colonial forces, mixed with scuffles between various groups within Haiti’s fractious society. Spanish colonial forces on the far side of the island of Hispaniola — who would eventually establish the Dominican Republic — and British forces from Jamaica further stirred the pot.

Eager to rally enough manpower to defeat all other parties and retain control of Haiti, the French began offering citizenship to faithful supporters and effectively abolished slavery in 1794, but Haitian militias kept fighting the French until they gave up the struggle for control, in part because France’s Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte needed his troops elsewhere. Haitian independence was declared on January 1, 1804.

France did not formally recognize Haiti’s independence until 1825, and it exacted a steep price for recognition: a payment of about 150 million francs, known as the “indemnity.” The payment was supposed to compensate French colonists for their losses when the slaves revolted and won Haitian independence.

France’s king at the time, Charles X, was considering invading and re-conquering Haiti. He sent an impressive war fleet to collect Haitian leader Jean-Pierre Boyer’s signature on the indemnity contract, and Boyer decided he had little choice but to sign it even though no one, including Charles X, believed Haiti could come up with the indicated sum. One hundred and fifty million francs was ten times Haiti’s annual government budget at the time and ten times what the United States paid for the Louisiana Purchase.

Colombian Water Crisis

Colombia’s Socialists Declare Holiday to Get People to Use Less Water

Far-left Colombian President Gustavo Petro declared Friday, April 19, the first day of a yearly “Civic Day of Peace with Nature” in a bid to reduce water and power consumption in the country’s largest cities.

The decree mandates that Petro’s made-up holiday be celebrated on the third Friday of April every year, starting with Friday, April 19, 2024.

“Tomorrow, we want to decree a civic day in Colombia so that people do not use electricity as much as possible, so that we can save energy that we need in the coming days,” Petro, a former guerrilla member and hardline socialist, said during an event on Thursday — “and especially for people to reduce, as much as possible, the consumption of drinking water in big cities.”

“This April 19 is a civic day in Colombia, with the objective of taking care of water, to be able to do it for millions, and to achieve that at this moment, when rains in Colombia are possible, we do not have to deepen any type of rationing in services,” he continued.

A “civic holiday,” as the decree defines it, requires the shutdown of public government offices, schools, and universities for that day. The decree also invites citizens to “rationalize” the use of water while in their households and reuse water if possible.

The far-left Colombian president urged private companies, schools, and institutions to join the civic holiday in a social media post.

“This April 19 is a day of rebellion, of reading, of conversation with family and friends about the danger of climate change, about who produces it, about what should be done,” Petro’s message read.

“Tomorrow is a day of national rebellion; tomorrow, we combine the forces of life, we drive away the summons of death; tomorrow is the day of life on earth, my day and your day,” the message concluded.

I guess April 19th has now become Colombia's April Fools' Day.

Argentina Wants to Join NATO

Javier Milei’s Argentina Seeks NATO Partnership, U.S. Military Support

Argentine Defense Minister Luis Petri delivered a formal request on Thursday to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to have Argentina join as a global partner.

If successfully approved by all 32 member states, Argentina would become NATO’s second global partner in South America after Colombia.

Global partner status would allow Argentina to have access to NATO’s cooperation programs, but would not confer it full member status, as Article 10 of NATO’s chart restricts full member status eligibility to European nations only. Global partners do not have to abide by the provisions of Article 5 – which states that an attack on one NATO country must be treated as an attack against all – as such provisions are limited only to full members of the alliance.

Petri presented the request on behalf of the Argentine government during his official visit to Brussels, Belgium, where he met with NATO’s Deputy General Secretary Mircea Geoană. Geoană welcomed Argentina’s bid to join the organization as a partner.

“Argentina plays an important role in Latin America, and I welcome today’s request to explore becoming a NATO partner,” Geoană said. “NATO works with a range of countries around the world to promote peace and stability. Closer political and practical cooperation could benefit us both”:

Petri, after the meeting with Geoană, stated in a social media post, “At the instruction of President Javier Milei, at NATO headquarters, we reaffirmed our commitment to countries that embrace freedom and the values of democracy, in the face of authoritarianism and autocracies worldwide.”

The Argentine defense minister continued by explaining that NATO global partner status would provide Argentina with benefits such as optimal training for its armed forces, access to equipment and information, support in cyber defense, and “cooperation for a high-level strategic dialogue on world events and the priorities of an Argentina integrated to the liberal democracies of the world.”

Upon taking office, libertarian President Javier Milei vowed to realign Argentina’s foreign policy, making the United States and Israel its top allies. Milei’s foreign policy marks a dramatic shift after nearly two decades of socialist governments pushed the South American nation towards China, Iran, and Russia.

AFRICA

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Biden Abandons Troops Stationed in Niger

Nightmare in Niger — Exclusive: Biden Administration Leaves Hundreds of U.S. Troops ‘Hostage’ in Niger

More than 1,000 U.S. troops are effectively being held “hostage” in Niger with medical supplies running low — stuck between the military junta-controlled government’s demands for them to leave and the Biden administration’s refusal to let them go home after the end of their deployments, according to a report prepared by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and obtained exclusively by Breitbart News.

In addition, the report accuses Biden administration officials of trying to cover up the situation to lawmakers, as well as to troops deployed there and their families anxiously awaiting their return.

“Our troops are currently sitting on a powder keg caused by political indecision at the top of the Department of State and Department of Defense. With a military junta in charge — who detests our presence and considers us unserious and predatory — the situation seems to be setting the groundwork for catastrophic diplomatic collapse like we saw during the 2012 Benghazi attack. Additionally, these troops are already running short on necessary, life-saving supplies, such as blood and medications,” the report by Gaetz’s office said.

“They are, in effect, hostages of an indecisive Commander-in-Chief,” the report said.

The report is based on interviews by Gaetz’s office with troops currently stationed in Niger, who reached out to Gaetz’s office after they did not receive assistance from the Departments of Defense and State.

The service members are currently deployed to Airbase 101 (AB101) in the capital of Niger, Niamey, as part of the 768th Expeditionary Airbase Squadron (768 EABS), which is comprised of active duty and reserve forces, Air National Guard airmen, Army Special Forces and contract support. There are about 450 personnel at Air Base 101. Until the takeover by the junta, the base was a major hub for U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) against terrorist groups Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State in West Africa, Boko Haram, and Ansaru. It was also a hub for U.S. military advisers supporting Niger’s forces.

The U.S. troop presence became threatened after the military junta, known as the Conseil National pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (CNSP), or the National Council for the Safeguard of the Fatherland, declared it had taken over the country on July 26, 2023. Just a few months before, Secretary of State Antony Blinken had praised Niger as “a model of resilience, a model of democracy, a model of cooperation.”

The junta declared in March 2024 a cancellation of the military accords with the U.S., after a series of meetings with Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) Commander Marine Gen. Michael Langley, according to the report.

“This deterioration of diplomatic arrangements has led to our service members being caught in the middle of a standoff between an inept Department of State and a U.S.-trained Nigerian coup-force. This breakdown has led to total cessation of diplomatic clearance overflights, preventing the delivery of mail, necessary medical supplies, blood to replenish the blood bank (which requires constant turnover due to expiration windows), equipment and repair supplies; and other routine materiel from the United States,” the report said.

China Buys Into Niger Junta

China Buys into Niger Junta to Secure Oil Supply

China’s state-owned oil company CNPC, the China National Petroleum Corporation, has signed a $400 million deal with the military junta that controls Niger, providing a much-needed infusion of cash after the coup damaged relations with Niger’s previous big oil customers, the United States and France.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on Saturday appears to involve China loaning the junta a huge amount of money to improve its oil infrastructure, although the exact details of the agreement have not been made public.

CNPC is already working on a pipeline project in Niger through one of its subsidiaries, PetroChina. The pipeline is designed to link Niger’s Agadem oil field, which also features prominently in Saturday’s deal, with the port city of Cotonou in Benin.

Niger has considerable oil resources, but limited ability to exploit them. It currently has only a single small oil refinery that can process about 20,000 barrels per day, most of which is consumed in Niger or neighboring Nigeria.

Analysts say Niger has reserves of at least 957 million barrels, and if exploration into the largely untapped eastern basis of the country proves fruitful, it could soon offer more than triple that amount.

Niger’s civilian government was overthrown by military strongman Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani in July 2023, replacing the Western-friendly administration of ousted President Mohamed Bazoum with a much more hostile “National Council for the Safeguard of the Fatherland.”

The junta sought to expel Western forces and developed difficult relations with various multinational organizations, such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which at one point threatened to invade Niger to restore civilian government. Niger formed a bloc with the juntas in Burkina Faso and Mali to resist external efforts to restore their elected governments.

The Niger junta announced the end of counterterrorism cooperation with the United States in March, putting the security of the vast and unstable Sahel region in serious doubt. Most troops from former colonial power France had been expelled by the end of 2023.

China, of course, does not care about democracy, political freedom, or human rights, so it is happy to do business with the Niger junta. The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Wednesday quoted analysts who suspected China worked out a deal with Niger similar to its arrangement with Angola, which took billions of dollars in loans from Chinese banks to finance reconstruction after its long civil war ended in 2000, and has been repaying those loans with oil assets ever since.

These financial arrangements have been criticized as debt traps, as China lets Third World political elites rack up gigantic debts their countries can never repay and slowly takes over valuable assets like ports and oil wells as collateral.