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Belgrade Gay Pride Banned By Serbian Government To Avoid “Major Chaos”

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The Serbian government bans the Belgrade Pride Parade for “security reasons,” but in the final analysis, President Boris Tadic is the biggest loser. By making this decision, Tadic limits his domestic political options at home while distancing himself from European supporters.

The Serbian government’s National Security Council announced Friday that it could not effectively protect LGBTI participants and their allies for Sunday’s planned Belgrade Gay Pride march and declared the march effectively banned.

Ivica Dacic, Serbia’s Minister of the Interior said that its crack police force was not capable of maintaining public order and that the Gay Pride march had been banned to avoid “major chaos” including property destruction and disturbance of public order and peace.”

 

“Serbia stood up to the Nazis, but they can’t stand up to the Neo-Nazis?”

 

The Ministry also prohibited planned protests opposing Belgrade Pride by Serbian ultra nationalist groups, including Obraz, Nasi 1389 and the Movement of 1389, all supported by the Serbian Orthodox Church and  all played a major role in last year’s violence that marred 2010 Belgrade Pride.

Obraz is committed to a struggle against those groups which it views as enemies of the Serbian people, which includes homosexuals.

President Boris Tadic said that the Pride parade was being prohibited to protect LGBT persons. The Belgrade Pride Committee reluctantly announced it would comply with the directive.

“We will not invite people to the streets because of the ban on holding the parade,” said Goran Miletić, an Organizing Committee member for Belgrade Pride, according to a B-92 News report.

Miletić responded to The New Civil Rights Movement request for an updated statement, offering, “We are still in shock and doing actions with our guests, but will try to give a new statement shortly.”

Dacic issued an official decision on Friday disallowing the Belgrade parade and rally permit that was posted to the official Pride Parade website without comment under the title of “Official Ban.”  The police directorate stated, “it was determined that conflicting circumstances from Article 11, Paragraph 1 of the Law on Gathering of citizens of RS [Republic of Serbia] i.e. that during the meeting [Pride] there may appear obstruction of public transport, endangering health, public moral or safety of individuals and properties.”

The decision was not posted to the Government of Serbia’s websites which are maintained in the Cyrillic Serbian and Latinic alphabets and an English language website.

The Serbian government’s decision to ban Belgrade Gay Pride was not welcomed by European Union (EU) officials in Brussels, especially EU officials who have been supporting Serbia’s application to become an EU accession candidate. In fact, Ambassador Vincent Degert, Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, was reported to have urged the government to respect freedom of speech and assembly and to hold the march and rally, despite announced intentions by ultra nationalists, who marred last year’s Pride event with violence that resulted in nearly 200 police injured on Belgrade’s streets and more than 150 protesters were arrested.

READ:  Belgrade Gay Pride Marchers Attacked By Violent Anti-Gay Demonstrators In Historic Parade

Ulrike Lunacek, an Austrian MEP and  co-president of the European Parliament’s all-party LGBT ‘Intergroup’ and substitute member of the South Eastern Europe delegation, said the cancellation was “profoundly disturbing that Serbian citizens will not be able to  march for tolerance, acceptance and equality on Sunday.”

In a press statement Lunacek said, “I deeply regret that Serbian citizens will not be able to march for tolerance, acceptance and equality on Sunday. The Serbian authorities have a duty to care for everyone’s safety, but it is profoundly disturbing that the leadership of a country seeking EU candidate status and membership – supported by a majority in the European Parliament – feel incapable of providing such safety for all citizens.”

“The government has to be much, much stricter towards extremists whipping up violence in the country. A society that cannot express itself for fear of violence is not a free, democratic society,” she added.

Serbia dramatically advanced its potential candidacy for EU accession in May when it arrested Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb Army general, an indicted war criminal and 16-year fugitive, who had been wanted since July 1995 for the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

READ:  Bosnian Serb General Mladic To Stand Trial for  Crimes Against Humanity

But Serbia’s latest move in canceling Belgrade Gay Pride, follows consistently unhelpful actions in Bosnia and Kosovo and calls into question its political will and actual competence to carry through on EU requirements for accession, including protecting the lives of all its citizens, especially its national minorities and LGBTI persons.

Ivo Skoric, a Balkan expert and correspondent for H-Alter.com (Croatia Alternative) said that the banning of Belgrade Gay Pride was a “sign of weakness–not strength, by the Serbian government.”

“Either they [the police] are weak and incapable of doing their jobs, or they themselves are members or sympathetic to Obraz and 1389 Nasi,” he said.

Given Serbia’s storied historical past in fighting the  fascists and the Third Reich during World War II, Skoric sees the contemporary Serbian government’s inability to battle and control the ultra Neo-Nazi leaning nationalists as a curious failing.

“What happened to them since the 1940s?” Skoric asked. “They stood up to the Nazis, but they can’t stand up to the Neo-Nazis, who are a mere shadow of the past.”

Serbia’s “foreign policy” dalliances with Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb entity and its overt support for guerilla type insurgencies by Kosovar Serbs in Kosovo, a recently declared independent country, underscores Serbia’s absurd first rail of contemporary Serbian politics–that it will never give up Kosovo , illustrated by a special graphic on the Serbian government website that states “Kosovo is Serbia”.  (Kosovo is a former autonomous province of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, dominated by a majority of Kosovar Albanians and is the geographical capital of Serbian Orthodox churches, monasteries and the location of Kosovo Polje, where Serbs were massacred by the Ottoman Turks in June 1389).

During the past year, violence has riddled Gay Pride events in Moscow and also in Split, Croatia. But in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, Gay Pride was held without incident in June and its organizers had a historical first face-t0-face supportive  meeting with President Ivo Josipovic.

 READ: Croatia President, Prime Minister Condemn Violence At Gay Pride Parade

On the eve of Belgrade’s Pride weekend, EU members of Parliament expressed their deep regret in Serbia’s actions prohibiting the march and rally.

In Belgrade, Slovene Jelko Kacin MEP and the European Parliament Rapporteur for Serbia’s accession and member of the LGBT Human Rights Intergroup, said, “The decision to ban Pride Parade is a sovereign decision of the Serbian Government and the National Security Council. I receive such a decision with deep regret; as a matter of fact, it deprives citizens of the constitutional and legal right to free expression and peaceful assembly. A state seeking to access the EU must guarantee the human rights of its citizens. I have come to Belgrade to give my full support the pride’s organisers.”

A press release indicated that the parliamentary members will take note of this weekend’s events in its upcoming accession report for Serbia, planned for early 2012. Those final words are an ominous ones for Tadic. In refusing to confront domestic radicals and subsequently embracing ultra nationalists, he has alienated his pro-Western Serbian voters at home and sent confusing, if not enraging signals to Europeans, who have been cheering him on from Brussels. Now, Tadic’s once thought to be golden halo has been exposed to sizzling hot air, producing a tarnished outcome.

 

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

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News

Biden Joins Experts Roasting Rubio: ‘Anything MAGA Republicans Don’t Like They Call Fake’

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October 4, 2024

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The September jobs report released Friday was so stunningly great one economist literally exclaimed “wowza.” Fox News was forced to praise the numbers, with one guest lamenting he had expected “more red flags than a communist parade in this report, and there’s not a single one,” then having to admit, “There’s not one data point in here that I can point to that is not good.”

But not according to U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who falsely declared Friday afternoon the report is “fake,” before also falsely claiming updates to the monthly reports across almost a year-and-a-half have all been revised down.

“Another fake jobs report out from Biden-Harris government today,” the Florida Republican wrote on social media. “16 of the last 17 reports have been significantly revised downwards after media helps them with their fake headlines.”

READ MORE: Greene Mocked for Weather Control Claim as NC Lawmaker Pleads for Conspiracy ‘Junk’ to End

“But all the fake numbers in the world aren’t going to fool people dealing with the Biden-Harris economic disaster every day,” he declared.

Many experts on social media were stunned by a sitting U.S. Senator taking such a drastic and negative stand on an independent, nonpartisan government agency — one, most do not realize, for which he sits on a Senate subcommittee overseeing its work and is responsible for its funding.

“The data truthers are back. Conspiracy-mongering about federal statistics is bad and harmful. Measuring national stats is inherently difficult & subject to error. But the BLS is an independent statistical agency that produces accurate, high-quality data,” observed The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell.

Journalist Kai Ryssdal, host of public radio’s business program “Marketplace,” commented: “I honestly don’t know what to do with this except to point out that it’s a feeble lie and deeply corrosive.”

Media critic and former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob wrote: “Marco Rubio, a sitting U.S. senator, accuses nonpartisan government statisticians of fraud simply because good economic news is inconvenient to his fascist political party.”

“Rubio dishonestly claims that revisions in past months’ job numbers is a nefarious plot,” Jacob continued. “In fact, it’s normal and happened under Trump too. The revisions aren’t always downward. Today the feds revised July and August numbers *upward* – which blows up Rubio’s conspiracy theory.”

“The Dept. of Labor stats are the same for all presidents, including Trump. Rubio’s sleazy attack undermines public faith for the benefit of a criminal liar,” remarked journalist Chris Bury.

Glassdoor’s lead economist Daniel Zhao remarked: “Deeply disappointing to see Sen. Rubio joining the ranks of those endorsing a baseless conspiracy theory questioning the integrity of nonpartisan BLS employees.”

READ MORE: JD Vance Says ‘Yes’ Trump Won in 2020 Then Walks Away When Asked ‘Will You Concede?’

Jonathan Levin, who writes about markets for Bloomberg Opinion, observed, “America’s high-quality, nonpartisan economic statistics are the envy of world. Yes, the data is subject to revisions, and that’s why @BLS_gov publishes these confidence intervals. But I don’t see ‘economic disaster’ anywhere in this range of values, Senator @marcorubio.”

Professor of Economics, Public health, and Management Howard Forman commented: “Criticizing non-partisan federal workers/economists because they don’t tell you what you want to hear is Orwellian. You were once a man with huge promise. How low you have sunk. Truly ‘liddl Marco.'”

Professor of Law Darren Hutchinson, rebuking Senator Rubio, wrote: “The old southern church ladies would say ‘The Devil is a liar.'”

Former chief economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Ernie Tedeschi added: “Of course, this is a bald-faced lie. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is an independent agency priding itself on many layers of insulation from political interference.
Truly depraved of a sitting US senator to sow baseless doubt in data collected for the benefit of all Americans.”

In a press briefing Friday afternoon President Joe Biden was asked about Rubio’s false claims. It appears he had the last laugh.

“Anything the MAGA Republicans don’t like they call fake,” Biden said. “The job numbers are what the job numbers are. They’re real. They’re sincere.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Judicially Executed Cover Up’: Experts Say Jack Smith Filing ‘Major Indictment’ of SCOTUS

 

This article has been updated to include remarks from Ernie Tedeschi

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Greene Mocked for Weather Control Claim as NC Lawmaker Pleads for Conspiracy ‘Junk’ to End

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October 4, 2024

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“Friends can I ask a small favor?” North Carolina Republican state Senator Kevin Corbin’s Facebook post began Thursday afternoon. “Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods in WNC,” he wrote, referring to Hurricane Helene-hit western North Carolina.

Senator Corbin listed some examples of the conspiracy theories he and his fellow lawmakers are battling as they try to bring help to the people they represent: “FEMA is stealing money from donations, body bags ordered but government has denied, bodies not being buried, government is controlling the weather from Antarctica, government is trying to get lithium from WNC, stacks of bodies left at hospitals, and on and on and on.”

“PLEASE help stop this junk. It is just a distraction to people trying to do their job.”

In the middle of Corbin’s post, one conspiracy theory stood out: “government is controlling the weather.”

READ MORE: ‘Wowza’: Economists Thrilled With ‘Huge’ Jobs Report and Wages Outpacing Prices

That echoes a claim U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) made just hours later, Thursday night on social media:

“Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

Exactly 12 hours after she posted that falsehood, it’s been been viewed 4.6 million times—not including all the screenshots that are flying around social media.

Congresswoman Greene is being widely derided and mocked.

National security expert, NSA contractor, and former Republican U.S. Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia blasted Greene.

“This person is in Congress,” he wrote on social media. “This ignorance, this lunacy, is why we have a government teetering and lurching. Her stupidity is a disease. She’s not alone either. Who do we blame? Well, folks.. we blame disinfo ecosystems— like here on X and we blame… voters. Mass idiocy. Stupid votes count.”

He added: “It’s dangerous how dumb she is.”

Some suggested Greene was merely referring to cloud seeding, attempts to increase rainfall, which date back to the 1940’s.

Riggleman disputed those suggestions: “She’s not thinking of cloud seeding— she is a QAnon adherent who also believes in direct prophecy and 9/11 conspiracies.”

Indeed, in 2021, just weeks after she was sworn in, Media Matters reported on Greene’s conspiracy theory-fueled history: “Marjorie Taylor Greene penned conspiracy theory that a laser beam from space started deadly 2018 California wildfire.”

“In November 2018, California was hit with the worst wildfire in the state’s history. At the time, future Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote a bizarre Facebook post that echoed QAnon conspiracy theorists and falsely claimed that the real and hidden culprit behind the disaster was a laser from space triggered by some nefarious group of people,” the report reads.

READ MORE: JD Vance Says ‘Yes’ Trump Won in 2020 Then Walks Away When Asked ‘Will You Concede?’

“Greene’s post, which hasn’t previously been reported, is just the latest example to be unearthed of her embracing conspiracy theories about tragedies during her time as a right-wing commentator. In addition to being a QAnon supporter, Greene has pushed conspiracy theories about 9/11, the Parkland and Sandy Hook school shootings, the Las Vegas shooting, and the murder of Democratic staffer Seth Rich, among others.”

“Greene also has a history of pushing anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic remarks,” Media Matters wrote before noting, “CNN’s Em Steck and Andrew Kaczynski recently reported that on her Facebook page, ‘Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress.'”

Some, including Newsweek on Friday, suggested Greene was referring to Democrats when she ambiguously wrote, “they can control the weather,” but others insisted she was referring to Jews.

U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) served up this response:

Gun violence prevention activist Shannon Watts added, “Reminder: This is a conspiracy theory based in anti-Semitism alleging that Jewish people have the technology to manipulate the weather and cause freak storms that wreak havoc on the world.”

Regardless of who Congresswoman Greene was referring to, her promotion of yet another dangerous conspiracy theory at a time when people in the area of the country she claims to be fighting for are calling for level heads stands out.

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), appearing to respond to Greene’s tweet (which he had just retweeted) wrote: “Spreading lies during natural disasters is a special kind of evil. Don’t do it, don’t indulge it, don’t excuse it.”

Overnight, NBC News reported: “At least 215 people are known to have died as a result of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene since it made landfall in Florida a week ago.”

“More than half of the deaths were in North Carolina, where several feet of fast-moving water destroyed entire communities,” the report adds. “Hundreds are still missing, and officials have reported difficulties in identifying some of the dead.”

Senator Corbin, in his Facebook post, also stressed the need for an end to what he described as “intentional distractions.”

“Folks, this is a catastrophic event of which this country has never known. It is the largest crisis event in the history of N.C. The state is working non-stop,” he wrote. “DOT has deployed workers from all over the state. Duke power has 10,000 workers on this. FEMA is here. The National Guard is here in large numbers.”

“Government will play a role in this cleanup,” he promised. “We are going to make sure the state chips in some massive money. But Government is not the total solution. YES, there are a lot of neighbors helping neighbors and that’s good and the way it should be. Please don’t let these crazy stories consume you or have you continually contact your elected officials to see if they are true. I just talked to one Senator that has had 15 calls TODAY about why we don’t stop …….. ‘fill in the blank.’ 98% chance it’s not true and if it is a problem, somebody is aware and on it and not waiting for a post to go thru 10,000 people to be addressed. Thanks for listening but I’ve been working on this 12 hours a day since it started and I’m growing a bit weary of intentional distractions from the main job …. which is to help our citizens in need.”

READ MORE: ‘Judicially Executed Cover Up’: Experts Say Jack Smith Filing ‘Major Indictment’ of SCOTUS

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‘Wowza’: Economists Thrilled With ‘Huge’ Jobs Report and Wages Outpacing Prices

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2 days ago

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October 4, 2024

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The September jobs report is a stunning confirmation of just how “strong” and “resilient” the U.S economy is, according to economic experts who are celebrating Friday morning.

“US economy smashes expectations with 254,000 jobs added in September,” The Financial Times reports, “far outstripping expectations.”

“Wowza: HUGE jobs report,” exclaimed Professor of economics Justin Wolfers, a senior fellow at Brookings and a frequent guest on cable news. “This economic expansion that is motoring along.”

“This is a great September jobs report,” declared The Washington Post’s Heather Long. “The ‘soft landing’ is still on track.”

The New York Times’ economic reporter, Talmon Joseph Smith, summed up the news:

Economists had expected 140,000 to 159,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, continuing the Biden administration’s historic record of producing and maintaining unemployment at five-decade lows.

READ MORE: JD Vance Says ‘Yes’ Trump Won in 2020 Then Walks Away When Asked ‘Will You Concede?’

“Average hourly earnings grew 0.4% last month, and are now up 4.0% over the year. There’s no question that wages are running ahead of prices, and people are seeing meaningful real wage gains,” he added. Wolfers says he’s “been relentlessly optimistic about the economy for the past couple of years, and it’s felt lonely at times during the drumbeat of ‘recession’ talk, but it’s also been a pretty great place to be. If you were looking for what a soft landing looks like, this is it.”

Bloomberg News adds, “Unemployment for major ethnic groups — Black, White, Hispanic — fell, while the Asian unemployment rate held steady.”

President Biden, who worked with the dockworkers union to bring an extraordinarily fast end to their strike that ended after just three days this week, took a victory lap.

READ MORE: ‘Judicially Executed Cover Up’: Experts Say Jack Smith Filing ‘Major Indictment’ of SCOTUS

“Today, we received good news for American workers and families with more than 250,000 new jobs in September and unemployment back down at 4.1%,” President Biden said in a statement. “With today’s report, we’ve created 16 million jobs, unemployment remains low, and wages are growing faster than prices. Under my Administration, unemployment has been the lowest in 50 years, a record 19 million new businesses have been created, and inflation and interest rates are falling. And we’re seeing the power of collective bargaining to lift up workers’ wages—including the progress made by dockworkers on record wages with carriers, and port operators and the reopening of East Coast and Gulf ports.”

Biden also took a swipe at Republicans.

“Congress should pass our plan to build millions of new homes, expand prescription drug price caps, empower workers and protect the right to organize, and cut taxes for hardworking families. Congressional Republicans have a different plan—more giant tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations, ending the Affordable Care Act, undermining workers by cutting overtime and making it harder to organize, and imposing a national sales tax that would raise costs by nearly $4,000 per year. While they put billionaires first, we’ll keep fighting to grow the middle class.”

See the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Biggest Whopper of the Night’: Vance’s ‘Heap of Lies’ on Abortion Was ‘Jaw-Dropping’

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