By Monica Showalter

Joe Biden’s transportation secretary nominee, Pete Buttigieg, was all over the map at his confirmation hearings.

According to MarketWatch, emphasis mine:

Speaking at his confirmation hearing with his husband sitting nearby, Buttigieg pointed to a “generational opportunity” to create new jobs, fight economic inequality and stem climate change. Often sidestepping specifics, Buttigieg hinted at a broad climate-centric role for the department that will require significant investments, on top of Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan.

“We need to build our economy back, better than ever, and the Department of Transportation can play a central role in this,” the 39-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told the Senate Commerce Committee.

He indicated he would reverse a Trump administration rollback in federal automotive fuel economy standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, work to stiffen oversight of aviation safety as the troubled Boeing 737 Max makes its return to the skies and encourage use of electric vehicles, such as by adding a half-million charging stations nationwide.

Buttigieg did not specify where money could come from for big investments in infrastructure, and wouldn’t rule out a tax increase. He floated the possibility of a major change in how highways are funded, such as by converting from the current Highway Trust Fund, which is paid for through the gas tax, to a “vehicle miles traveled” alternative that would tax drivers based on their road mileage.

According to the account of the same hearings by Roll Call, which seemed to be on damage control duty for the Biden administration, Buttigieg’s people walked the tax talk back, but not exactly.  The record of the hearing seems to be the reality.

Two things stand out: Buttigieg wants a tax hike for gasoline to fund his so-called infrastructure projects.  Who will pay those taxes?  Those who drive.  And if someone needs to drive a lot, such as an independent truck-driver or a low-wage service worker who can’t afford to live in the blue city center, but instead makes due with a commute on the outskirts of town, the tax becomes regressive.  The tax is the same for the rich or poor, and maybe the rich can afford it.  But the poor live on a low margin — the tax will likely cut to the bone for the poor, forcing them to go without, say, in food supplies or other necessities.  Tax hikes that are the same and unavoidably hit the poor the hardest.

The hearing also notes that Buttigieg likes the Big Brother solution, to tax people based on miles driven.  Besides being amazingly intrusive, hooking worker cars up like guinea pigs to the meters, it’s also another big regressive tax that will hit the poor hardest.  See, those wicked, wicked poor, out in places like Sun Valley and Lancaster, commuting to a job to downtown Los Angeles because they can’t afford the L.A. rents, really should be paying more for the privilege of driving several hours to work and living out in the sticks. And don’t imagine that buses are practical with those huge distances.  L.A. is spread out, quite unlike Manhattan.  And this isn’t just the poor, but the middle class, the people who are able to buy homes in West Covina, Cerritos, or Lake Elsinore, but not Midtown or Culver City.  Hollywood movie stars and hedge fund managers who live in Santa Monica or the Hollywood Hills won’t feel a thing, but too bad about the guys coming in to serve them from Ontario, San Dimas, and Pacoima.

And as a side note, these regressive tax hikes for so-called infrastructure projects will likely be the kind that never happen, because if experience is any indicator, the funds will get diverted to other leftist priorities, which don’t include quality of life for the general public.  That, in any case, is what happened in the tax-for-infrastructure deal over in the Biden administration’s model state of California.  The taxpayers got nothing in the way of promised infrastructure repairs for their tax hike.  The money just went to hobby-horse greenie projects.  I wrote about that here.

Note that Buttigieg says he intends to put out more (gas-fueled) electrical car charging stations for these regressive tax hikes on the poor.  How many poor people does he know who drive electric cars?  Call it energy privilege, see — too bad about the poor.

Meanwhile, another big regressive Biden tax on the poor is already occurring, with Biden’s already signed cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as prohibitions on drilling and fracking on federal lands.  Such a move likely made greenie billionaire Tom Steyer happy, but it was terrible news for the poor.

The Ute Indian Tribe of Uintah and Ouray reservations near Four Corners area has fought poverty through energy development, and blasted the prohibition on federal lands.  American Indians on reservations, after all, are among the very poorest Americans.  Energy development had been their lifeline, helping to support their culture, language, and way of life.  The pipeline’s shutdown is also a nasty muscle-in on the Indian nations’ sovereignty, the Ute leaders noted, noting that nobody consulted them.  For all of us, it’s Big Government against the little guy, in the same league as the Big Brother move on impoverished and middle-class commuters.

Indian nations in North Dakota and Michigan are also reportedly alarmed at the shutdowns, with some issuing condemnations.  Sound like a place full of rich people?  Don’t think so.

In New Mexico, a state with a lot of poverty, there’s this:

Officials in the state of New Mexico professed to be taken aback last week by President Joe Biden’s day-one decision to impose a 60-day moratorium on all oil and gas-related leasing and permitting actions on federal lands. It is a decision that will have major ramifications on the state budgets of New Mexico and other Western states, especially if it is extended beyond its initial term and backed up by Biden’s promised ban on hydraulic fracturing on federal lands.

As for the Keystone XL shutdown, the flyover states with few rich hedge fund managers, movie stars, or Beltway barons are hardest hit.

From Montana, it was a bipartisan rain of hellfire after Joe Biden with a stroke of the pen canceled the Keystone XL pipeline:

Montana Senator Steve Daines issued this statement: “It’s only day one, and with the stroke of a pen, Biden has already taken steps to kill American energy projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline which is critical to energy producing states like Montana,” Daines said. “This project will create thousands of jobs, generate tax revenue for local communities, promote North American energy security and independence, and it is the safest and most environmentally friendly way to transport oil. We must do all that we can to ensure construction moves forward.”

Congressman Matt Rosendale had this statement: “I sent a letter to the President-Elect before he was even inaugurated asking him to please reconsider this job killing action and his actions yesterday are going to have horrible consequences for Montana’s economy and our nation’s security,” said Rosendale. “I mean, we’re going to lose jobs. We’re going to lose an incredible amount of tax revenue through some of the most rural counties that are located within the state.”

Governor Greg Gianforte asked Biden to ‘cut through the malarkey and reconsider his decision’.

“A symbolic gesture for your fledgling, hours-old administration, this decision has real and devastating consequences in Montana. With your executive order, gone are the thousands of good-paying American jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to support our local communities and schools, the opportunity to advance America’s green energy infrastructure, and America’s energy security,” Governor Gianforte wrote.

From Nebraska, this:

“Keystone XL is a critical part of putting together an all-of-the-above strategy for North American energy independence,” said Gov. [Pete] Ricketts. “Failure to construct the pipeline would mean more dependence on overseas energy sources as well as fewer jobs and less property tax relief for Nebraskans. This is a project that would greatly benefit not just Nebraska but also our whole country, and it is our hope that TC Energy presses forward.”

And South Dakota, this:

“I’m very disappointed,” [Gov. Kristi] Noem said on Thursday. “I think it’s the wrong policy on energy, it’s the wrong policy on the environment, and it’s the wrong policy on safety. Over the years we’ve debated this pipeline and vetted it on all of those elements.”

This is just Biden getting started out the gate on energy, and as Sen. Ted Cruz noted, he expected there would be a cascade of such energy shutdown maneuvers.  Most Americans can tolerate some greenie energy development so long as normal energy can continue apace.  The shutdown, though, leaves no safety net for the poor and the workers as the greenie infrastructure and rich-man’s-plaything projects supposedly get off the ground.  That leaves a lot of poor hit hard.  The Biden energy policies are less than a week old, and the only message they send is that Biden means to make war on the poor. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/bidens_regressive_energy_policy_is_one_big_war_on_the_poor.html

It is already a marathon trial. Initially, the verdict against five teenagers and young adults (refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran) was supposed to have been passed last November. They are accused of raping a 14-year-old girl several times on Halloween 2019 in an asylum shelter in Illerkirchberg. But the proceedings continue to drag on. An understanding between the parties seems to have failed. The victim is suffering.

As a lawyer for the victim and representative of the accessory prosecution, Wolfram Schädler has first and foremost the well-being of his client, the injured youth, in mind. That is why he would have agreed to the “deal” already made, albeit only with “grave reservations”, as he told the newspaper “Schwäbische Zeitung” on Friday. But the “deal” between the parties involved in the proceedings seems to be out of the question for the time being; it is unclear whether it has finally failed.

Schädler, like the district court, is now preparing for several more days of trial, of which there have already been 17. As a precautionary measure, the court has already scheduled ten more dates; the next day of the trial is scheduled for next Monday, in the hall of the Donauhalle. Actually, the victim was supposed to testify as well, but an illness probably does not allow this.

Even if an agreement between the parties had been successful, the trial would not have ended in one fell swoop. Even then, there would still have been further discussions, and a verdict would only have been reached after the pleas of the prosecution and the defence.

However: In this case, one or the other questioning of the victim as well as one or the other day of the trial could probably be dispensed with. The girl and her family suffered greatly from not being able to close the dark chapter, says Wolfram Schädler. The renowned lawyer for the victim even speaks of the fact that it cannot be ruled out that “suicidal behaviour” could occur. That is how severely the trial affects the victim.

The girl suffered her first horrific experience on Halloween night last year, when she went with the five accused to a refugee shelter in Illerkirchberg (southern Alb-Donau district). There, she was allegedly drugged and raped several times, according to the prosecution.

Since the trial began last summer, she has relived the night in question – as she has to describe the course of events in court over and over again – as a kind of horror without a discernible end.

So far, the girl has always made her statements in camera. The defendants have so far mainly remained silent. However, the court has already given a first impression of how it assesses the accusation based on the testimonies and evidence: quite credible. The majority of the offences seem to be verifiable.

One of the accused, the youngest, is said to have confessed to rape during police questioning. It is possible, however, that this statement cannot be taken into account, as the 15-year-old at the time of the crime was possibly instructed too late that he did not have to incriminate himself. The oldest accused was 27 years old at the time of the crime.

Why the defence lawyers have so far not agreed to the present “deal” – in which only the range of sentences may be determined, but not the actual level of penalties, and the verdict also remains appealable – is not entirely clear. But apparently some of them consider the possible range of sentences to be too high. According to the “Deal”, this should be between two and three and a half years imprisonment for the defendants, who are all in pre-trial detention.
“Still very lenient for such a crime, says Wolfram Schädler, the victim’s lawyer.

https://archive.vn/SnHxp#selection-1539.0-1543.81

A 14-year-old Ukrainian teenager, known only as Yuriy, was the victim of a vicious gang assault on Jan. 15, 2021, in the 15th district of Paris that has shocked the country, local news portal actu.fr reports.

According to his relatives, the 14-year-old was rushed to hospital in serious condition and then plunged into a coma. The viral video, which was leaked by police, has been seen millions of times in France, and has reignited calls to tackle spiraling violence in France. 

The assault occurred on Friday, Jan. 15, around 6:30 p.m. on de la Dalle Beaugrenelle road. Law enforcement officials have been alerted to a “fight between around 20 individuals armed with improvised weapons”, according to a police source in Paris.

Upon arrival, the police observed “the presence of an injured minor, immediately taken by firefighters to hospital”. These facts correspond to those recounted by Yuriy’s family. His mother, Nataliya Kruchenyk, arrived when her son was in the fire truck, she explained on Wednesday, Jan. 20 to actu.fr:

“When I saw him in the fire engine, his skull was split in several places, it was really horrible. They assaulted him with iron bars and crutches. He told me he did not know the individuals, that he was in pain, that he was cold and that he did not want to die.”

Residents of the area say that in the last two years, gangs of young boys from neighboring areas have been assaulting teenagers and causing problems.

“For the past two years, there has been a fairly new phenomenon which involves the settling of scores between groups of very, very young kids. I have already seen a gang with crutches and batons. They are kids who I do not recognize and who can fight very violently, sometimes in the middle of the afternoon with mothers and their strollers next door,” said a resident of the area who wished to remain anonymous. Police are currently pursuing the lead that the teenagers are from the Vanves suburb, but no arrests have been made yet. 

As of now, it is unclear why Yuriy was targeted, but there is no evidence that he may have been mistakenly singled out for a revenge attack by the youths. Accoring to the Guillaume-Apollinaire school that Yuriy attended, he was a good students and had no problems with aggression or other issues. 

“He is very cultivated, well brought up, it was unthinkable that all this could happen to him,” said his mother, Nataliya Kruchenyk.

Yuriy’s family is now looking for witnesses to the brutal assault

Since his assault, the 15-year-old has been hospitalized in Necker. Due to head trauma, Yuriy was operated on and then placed in intensive care “in a coma”, says his mother.

“The doctors have told me it is going in the right direction, but it is too early to tell,”

The victim’s mother hopes she can help the police, finding that “the investigation is not going fast enough”:

“I don’t know if they have any leads. As a mom, it’s very hard. I manage my emotions but two days ago I was unable to speak. I hope those who did this will be found soon, it could happen to someone else’s child, and more serious. They are still walking in the street, it is dangerous. We will not let this be closed without follow-up.”

National Rally’s Marine Le Pen slammed what she said were leftist policies of the Paris government that have led to an increase in violence. She referenced “barbaric lynchings”, saying on Twitter that” The government can no longer close its eyes to this daily ultra-violence and respond to it only through the culture of excuse”. 

VIDEO: Vicious Paris gang attack leaves Ukrainian teen Yuriy in coma fighting for his life

He allegedly murdered his wife (40 years old) out of hatred and revenge. He deliberately killed her with an SUV and at least at a speed of 70 km/h! The murder trial against Jamel L. (49 years old) started on Thursday.

When his wife Kristin L. was on her way home by bike on the street Elxlebener Weg in Arnstadt in July, L. allegedly deliberately sped towards her at between 70 and 80 km/h. The speed limit on this road was just 30 km/h.The 40-year-old was hit by the SUV and thrown several metres in the crash before hitting the ground. Her injuries were so severe that she died only an hour later in hospital.For the prosecution, the motive is obvious: revenge!

For the prosecution, the motive is obvious: revenge! “She was already living together with the children and a new partner. Their children already accepted this man as their stepfather,” the prosecutor said in court on Thursday. In addition, disputes over money from the sale of their shared house are said to have played a role. The couple had separated two years ago.

In case of a conviction for murder, Jamel L. faces a life sentence.

https://m.bild.de/regional/thueringen/thueringen-aktuell/prozess-in-erfurt-er-soll-sein-frau-aus-rache-mit-suv-ueberfahren-haben-74996132,view=amp.bildMobile.html

Some 240 people were arrested, mostly in Amsterdam, after riots broke out in at least 10 cities across the Netherlands on Sunday evening. On Saturday night was the first curfew in the Netherlands since the end of World War II, and police arrested scores of young foreign men and handed out 3 600 fines for curfew violations. 

In Amsterdam and Eindhoven, protesters ignored anti-Coronavirus measures and turned up to demonstrate even though all gatherings had been banned. Gangs of youths began attacking police in several other cities, including Tilburg and Enschede as the 9pm curfew approached.

Youths even threw rocks at the local hospital in Enschede. When the mob arrived at the hospital, an attempt was made to break the windows. They pelted the building and kicked the doors. Authorities were forced to call in extra security. “It is terrible that we are now targeted. The very people who have worked so hard during this Corona crisis,” said a spokesman for MST.

In Tilburg there were at least 19 arrests and it took until around midnight to restore order. Tilburg mayor Theo Weterings said the rioting was “absolutely reprehensible”. He said struggling businesses were targeted. “Shops which are already struggling were vandalised. Throwing stones and fireworks is outrageous.”

Although the protests were ostensibly to protest about the curfew and other Coronavirus measures, commentators said many of those who showed up appeared to be young immigrant men causing trouble. Tilburg, Breda and Venlo issued emergency decrees, giving police more power to restore public order.

Around 8:40 pm, the rioters moved into the residential area of Tilburg, but angry local residents chased them away, after which they moved on to the Westermarkt. According to a witness, the atmosphere around the area where the group is protesting was “grim”. A group of about sixty young men had gone on a rampage. They destroyed everything in their way, pulling road signs out of the ground, setting off heavy illegal fireworks and throwing rocks through windows and at bystanders. They littered the streets of surrounding access roads with traffic signs, wheelie bicycles, bicycles, and everything else that was available.

A reporter of the Brabants Dagblad filming this destruction had to flee for his life after being pelted with rocks and then surrounded and trapped by the mob. While trying to flee, he ducked into a firebreak, where he was surrounded by a group of about 15 men. He was able to bring himself to safety through a garden of an adjacent house.

Georgette van Loon, daughter of the owner of the store New Vulto, was watching a livestream about the riots at home when she received a message from the glass exchange about their store being attacked. “This is awful. It’s no longer about Corona, but about sensation and destructiveness.

“This is not demonstrating, I would call these people Corona hooligans,” Hubert Bruls, chairman of the regional safety board association told television chat show Op1.

Riot police were also called in to The Hague’s Schilderswijk district – a Muslim area of some 5 000 people around the El Islam mosque– after fires were started. It is known locally as “the Sharia triangle”, because it is being run by unofficial Sharia police. Locals complain that is has become “orthodox Muslim territory”.

Despite this, Jesse Klaver from the far-left environmental party GroenLinksblamed Geert Wilders for the curfew riots. Wilders had previously distanced himself from riots. According to Klaver, the PVV and Thierry Baudet’s FvD “wrote the playbook for these Donald Trump-like riots”.

In Helmond around 50 youngsters who spoke with a foreign accent, gathered together after a call to demonstrate on Snapchat. ‘There were around 50 youngsters, who threw stones and fireworks at police,” a police spokesman told broadcaster NOS. In Venlo too, a group of mainly young foreigners threw rocks at police and broke shop windows, and there were also serious disturbances in Roermond.

Police were also called in to deal with rioters in Oosterhout, Almelo, Venlo, Helmond, Breda, Arnhem and Apeldoorn, broadcasters RTL and NOS said.

Around 190 people were arrested in Amsterdam and at least 30 in Eindhoven after riot police were called in to break up illegal demonstrations. In Eindhoven, police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse a crowd of several hundred people on the 18 Septemberplein. Train services to and from Eindhoven were also disrupted and station shops plundered as mobs went on the rampage.

In Amsterdam several hundred people went to the Museumplein to protest about the curfew despite warnings to stay away. Police had to use water cannon and dogs to break up the crowd and the skirmished continued well into the night. Riot police were also called out to deal with anti-curfew protests in Urk and in Stein in Limburg.

The Netherlands has been in lockdown since mid December, when schools and non-essential shops were closed. Bars and restaurants were closed in October when the second wave of Coronavirus infections began.

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/01/25/social-unrest-explodes-in-the-netherlands-after-corona-curfew-is-called/