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Brussels NatCon conference will continue freely after court overturns police barricade

Published

2 years ago

7 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Michael Haynes

Condemnation of Mayor Kir’s crackdown on NatCon was wide-ranging, and not merely from the dignitaries speaking at it. The British prime minister’s deputy spokesman called the scenes “extremely disturbing.”

Thanks to a successful challenge from pro-freedom legal organization ADF International, a Belgian court has struck down an order from the local authorities which saw an “international incident” created after police blockaded the National Conservatism conference in Brussels, Belgium yesterday. 

In an early morning announcement April 17, ADF International announced that a Belgian court “has struck down state censorship,” thus allowing the National Conservatism (or NatCon) conference to proceed undeterred into its second day today.

Via a press statement, ADF International wrote: 

In the decision, considered a victory for free speech, the court decided that ‘Article 26 of the Constitution [of Belgium] grants everyone the right to assemble peacefully,’ and although the mayor has the authority to make police ordinances in case of ‘serious disturbance of the public peace or other unforeseen events,’ in this case there was no sufficient threat of violence to justify this. 

The Court reasoned that ‘it does not seem possible to infer from the contested decision that a peace-disrupting effect is attributed to the congress itself.’ Rather, as the decision notes, ‘the threat to public order seems to be derived purely from the reactions that its organization might provoke among opponents.’

READ: Socialist Belgian mayor orders police to shut down event featuring Cardinal Müller, Orbán, Farage

The Brussels NatCon conference currently taking place was catapulted to the fore of international headlines on Tuesday, when local police moved to shut the event down, under orders of the local mayor. 

As LifeSiteNews reported, the Socialist mayor of the Saint-Josse-ten-Noode municipality – Emir Kir – ordered the police to shut down the two-day conference to “guarantee public safety.”

Footage and images flooded social media around midday, showing lines of police barricading the conference venue, prohibiting anyone from entering. Those already inside were not allowed back in if they left. 

The conference is hardly a fringe event. High-profile guests and speakers include Vatican prelate Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orbán, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, former French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, former U.K. politician and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, and previous U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

The police clampdown was initiated as Braverman was arriving and Zemmour was refused entry by the police.

NatCon organizers also stated that the catering had been canceled, and participants only had limited access to water and food as the police were preventing the delivery of supplies. Those still effectively locked inside the conference venue by nightfall were able to partake of a gala dinner, and then left the building. 

Paul Coleman, ADF International’s executive director, shared an English translation of the police order on X yesterday afternoon. The mayor’s order cited the “ethically conservative” position espoused by speakers at NatCon, “e.g., hostility to legalized abortion, same-sex unions, etc.,” along with a “Eurosceptic” mindset among his reasons for deploying the police.

The conference, being held on premises operated by Claridge Events, had already been forced to find new venues on two occasions in the preceding days, as pressure was placed on them to cancel the conference due to its promotion of “conservative” talking points. 

The Claridge venue was the third home for the event. NatCon’s hastily found backup venue broke “its written contract” to host the event on Monday night, according to NatCon organizer Yoram Hazony, hours before the conference was scheduled to begin Tuesday morning. 

Welcoming the court ruling to allow NatCon to proceed unimpeded, Coleman stated:

While common sense and justice have prevailed, what happened yesterday is a dark mark on European democracy. No official should have the power to shut down free and peaceful assembly merely because he disagrees with what is being said. How can Brussels claim to be the heart of Europe if its officials only allow one side of the European conversation to be heard?

Coleman attested that Tuesday’s “kind of authoritarian censorship we have just witnessed belongs in the worst chapters of Europe’s history. Thankfully, the Court has acted swiftly to prevent the repression of our fundamental freedoms to both assembly and speech, thus protecting these essential characteristics of democracy for another day.”

Condemnation of Mayor Kir’s crackdown on NatCon was wide-ranging, and not merely from the dignitaries speaking at it. The British prime minister’s deputy spokesman called the scenes “extremely disturbing.”

“The Prime Minister is a strong supporter and advocate of free speech and believes it is fundamental to any democracy,” the spokesman added.

According to author and NatCon speaker Rod Dreher, Cardinal Müller went so far as to say the Belgian police action was “like Nazi Germany.” 

Belgium’s pro-EU Prime Minister Alexander De Croo also condemned the actions taken by local police, in a signal move made against the local mayor. Writing on X yesterday evening he stated that “[w]hat happened at the Claridge today is unacceptable. Municipal autonomy is a cornerstone of our democracy but can never overrule the Belgian constitution guaranteeing the freedom of speech and peaceful assembly since 1830. Banning political meetings is unconstitutional. Full stop.”

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Trump Raises US Tariffs on Canadian Products by 10% after Doug Ford’s $75,000,000 Ad Campaign

Published on October 26, 2025

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Anthony Iafrate

President Donald Trump announced Saturday he is increasing U.S. tariffs on Canada by 10%, after the leader of the country’s largest province said he would be pulling an anti-tariff ad — but not until after it could air during Game 2 of the World Series.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford stated Friday his government plans to pull the ad in question after Trump said he was ending trade negotiations with Canada the night before. The spot featured the voice of President Ronald Reagan appearing to sharply criticize “high tariffs” and “protectionist” policy, and used an edited form of remarks the then-president made in an 1987 radio address.

In announcing his intention to pull the ad — which was intentionally broadcast on major networks in American markets — Ford noted he “directed” his team to keep it live until after the second game of baseball’s Fall Classic on Saturday night, a move Trump initially called a “dirty play.” The ad also ran Friday night during Game 1.

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As he was about to depart Friday night on Air Force One for his three-country Asia trip, Trump told reporters at the White House the Ontario government “could have pulled it [the ad] tonight,” adding, “I can play dirtier than they can, you know.”

Trump then declared Saturday he was going forward with a 10% tariff increase on Canada.

“Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD,” Trump wrote in a Saturday afternoon Truth Social post. “Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now.”

“Canada was caught, red handed, putting up a fraudulent advertisement on Ronald Reagan’s Speech on Tariffs. The Reagan Foundation said that they, ‘created an ad campaign using selective audio and video of President Ronald Reagan. The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address,’ and ‘did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute is reviewing its legal options in this matter,’” Trump added in his post, citing an organization dedicated to continuing the late 40th president’s legacy.

“The sole purpose of this FRAUD was Canada’s hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to their ‘rescue’ on Tariffs that they have used for years to hurt the United States,” Trump’s post continues. “Now the United States is able to defend itself against high and overbearing Canadian Tariffs (and those from the rest of the World as well!). Ronald Reagan LOVED Tariffs for purposes of National Security and the Economy, but Canada said he didn’t!”

The ad campaign carried a price tag of $75 million CAD (Canadian), roughly equivalent to $54 million, according to The Associated Press (AP). The taxpayer-funded ad was paid for by Ontario’s provincial government, which the premier leads.

 

“We’ve achieved our goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels,” Ford said in a Friday statement reported by AP announcing his plan to pull the ad after Game 2. “Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses.”

“I’ve directed my team to keep putting our message in front of Americans over the weekend so that we can air our commercial during the first two World Series games,” the Ontario premier added.

Trump announced Thursday night on Truth Social he was ending trade negotiations with Canada due to the ad.

“Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED,” the president wrote in the post.

“TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A.,” he added [sic].

“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse,” Reagan’s edited radio message can be heard in the ad, which included a backdrop of mellow music and a video montage of people and landscapes. “Businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs. Throughout the world, there’s a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition.”

“America’s job and growth are at stake,” Reagan can be seen delivering the ad’s final line on a TV screen before the words “Ontario” and “Canada” flash on the screen.

The 2025 World Series features the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers. The Blue Jays are the only Major League Baseball (MLB) team based in Canada despite having only one Canadian-born player on its 26-man World Series roster.

Ford, a member of the center-right Progressive Conservative Party has led Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, since 2018. His late younger brother, Rob Ford, served as Toronto’s mayor from 2010 to 2014. The younger Ford made national headlines in 2013 after admitting to having smoked crack cocaine “in a drunken stupor.”

Premier Ford’s office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s (DCNF) request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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Economy

Top Scientists Deliberately Misrepresented Sea Level Rise For Years

Published on October 25, 2025

By

From Michael Shellenberger

Image

Accelerated sea level is one of the main justifications for predicting very high costs for adapting to climate change. And while good scientists have debunked acceleration claims in the past, they did not clearly show how IPCC scientists engaged in their manipulations.

For years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, has claimed that human-caused climate change has accelerated sea level rise. But that claim is false. There is no scientific evidence of accelerated sea level rise since the mid-19th Century, and thus none showing human-created emissions caused an acceleration in recent decades.
This does not mean that climate change isn’t happening. It is. It simply means that it has not caused the sea level to rise at a rate any higher than one would expect without human-caused climate change.
Not only that, but the top scientists know this fact and have deliberately misrepresented it for years, deceiving the public.
In September, I reported on one of the first global studies of sea level rise that used tide-gauge data, which is the only real-world data that goes back long enough, to the mid-19th Century, that would allow one to detect whether sea level rise had accelerated, decelerated, or remained steady. Since then, I exchanged over 50 emails with one of the world’s leading sea level rise scientists, Robert Kopp from Rutgers University, and heard back from IPCC, NASA, and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. What I learned shocked me.
For years, the world’s top scientists have known that they cannot prove there has been an acceleration of sea level rise, and yet they have told the public that they can. Not only that, in the process of this exchange, I gained a glimpse into how the scientists have been able to mislead journalists, policymakers, and the wider public for so long.
You might think this is either old news or unimportant. Some climate scientists in years past have pointed out that the real-world data do not support claims of acceleration. And in recent years, a supposed increase in natural disasters from climate change has eclipsed sea level rise in terms of attention-grabbing headlines. But sea level rise has, since the 1990s, been the main justification for apocalyptic climate claims, and past efforts to debunk sea level rise have failed to show that scientists were deliberately misleading.
The media and others have published terrifying maps of the future showing cities underwater. Accelerated sea level is one of the main justifications for predicting very high costs for adapting to climate change. And while good scientists have debunked acceleration claims in the past, they did not clearly show how IPCC scientists engaged in their manipulations.
Not only can I prove that the real-world data do not support the claims that there has been an acceleration, I can show that the scientists deliberately misrepresented their research, and how they did it, thanks to my on-the-record email conversation with Kopp of Rutgers….
Please subscribe now to support Public’s award-winning investigative reporting, to read the whole article, and watch the full video!
Full version: x.com/shellenberger/

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