International
The UN and EU are targeting Bulgaria for moving to protect children
From LifeSiteNews
Bulgaria overwhelmingly passed a ban on LGBT propaganda in schools, and the country appears determined to resist pressure from LGBT activists and their globalist allies.
In 2021, the Hungarian government passed legislation that introduced stricter laws protecting children from pedophilia and also making it illegal to promote homosexuality or “sex changes” (“gender transition”) in schools and in the press to minors. The Hungarian government made clear that the law did not impact content aimed at adults or entertainment but propaganda targeted at children. Hungary promptly became a target for the full fury of the international elites.
The attitude of the European Union was perhaps best summarized by then-Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who warned ominously of the EU’s intention of “bringing Hungary to its knees” over Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s opposition to the LGBT agenda, and billions of EU funds (including COVID recovery funds) were initially withheld from Hungary to that end. Within the EU, there are many countries with socially conservative majorities – but those countries have learned the hard way that the LGBT flag flies alongside the EU flag in Brussels.
In fact, the European Commission at the European Union Court of Justice went so far as to launch a legal case against Hungary in 2022, with the intent of forcing Hungary’s parliament to repeal the bill – and 15 countries signed on, including the Benelux countries, Ireland, Denmark, France, Germany, and Sweden. The message was clear: being part of the EU club comes with specific social obligations, the most important of which is submission to the LGBT movement and the national implementation of its agenda.
Earlier this month, Bulgaria passed a bill banning LGBT propaganda in schools, with a supermajority of parliamentarians – 159 to 22 – voting in favor. In response, the LGBT movement has already swung into action. First, UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Liz Throssell “expressed deep concern” over the law, urging Bulgarian authorities to “reconsider the law in light of the country’s international human rights obligations.” Throssell further remarked that “addressing stigma and misinformation is vital for fostering acceptance, tolerance, and the creation of inclusive societies.”
Translated, of course, this is a United Nations spokesperson insinuating that the Bulgarian law targeting gender ideology and other aspects of the LGBT agenda may actually be a violation of international human rights and stating, in no uncertain terms, that Bulgaria must instead work towards the normalization of LGBT ideology and recreate its society to conform to the LGBT movement’s standards. An unelected progressive bureaucrat, in short, is telling a sovereign country to change its values and change its laws.
LGBT activists are urging the European Union to step in, as well – especially when President Ruman Rudev declined to veto the bill on August 15. “This law is not just a Bulgarian issue — this is a Russian law that has found its way into the heart of Europe,” Rémy Bonny, executive director of the LGBT activist group “Forbidden Colours,” told Politico’s Brussels Playbook. “The European Commission must step in and hold Bulgaria accountable.” He did not mention the fact that the bill was passed with support from every major party, including those supportive of the EU. “Senior figures” from the EU’s LGBTI Intergroup also called on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden and Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli to “urgently condemn” the law.
In response, the European Commission sent a letter to Bulgarian Education and Science Minister Galin Tsokov on August 13 “to request further information on the legislation,” with a spokesperson stating that: “The Commission remains steadfast in its commitment to tackling discrimination, inequalities and challenges faced by LGBTIQ individuals — including in education, as outlined in our LGBTIQ Equality Strategy of November 2020.” Other activist groups, including Action, Buditelkite, LevFem, and Feminist Mobilizations, have also urged action, and called on the Bulgarian president to veto the bill.
Thus far, the Bulgarian government appears determined to ignore these predictable criticisms. Kostadin Kostadinov, chairman of the Revival Party that introduced the law, called it “a historic breakthrough” and stated that “LGBT propaganda is anti-human and won’t be accepted in Bulgaria.” The vast majority of Bulgarian parliamentarians agree with him – but that won’t stop the UN, the EU, and the LGBT activists who drive the international agenda from doing their best to force their agenda on Bulgaria through threats, soft power coercion tactics, and public condemnation.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
I’ve written frequently here in recent years about the financial fiasco that has hit Ford Motor Company and other big U.S. carmakers who made the fateful decision to go in whole hog in 2021 to feed at the federal subsidy trough wrought on the U.S. economy by the Joe Biden autopen presidency. It was crony capitalism writ large, federal rent seeking on the grandest scale in U.S. history, and only now are the chickens coming home to roost.
Ford announced on Monday that it will be forced to take $19.5 billion in special charges as its management team embarks on a corporate reorganization in a desperate attempt to unwind the financial carnage caused by its failed strategies and investments in the electric vehicles space since 2022.
Cancelled is the Ford F-150 Lightning, the full-size electric pickup that few could afford and fewer wanted to buy, along with planned introductions of a second pricey pickup and fully electric vans and commercial vehicles. Ford will apparently keep making its costly Mustang Mach-E EV while adjusting the car’s features and price to try to make it more competitive. There will be a shift to making more hybrid models and introducing new lines of cheaper EVs and what the company calls “extended range electric vehicles,” or EREVs, which attach a gas-fueled generator to recharge the EV batteries while the car is being driven.
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“The $50k, $60k, $70k EVs just weren’t selling; We’re following customers to where the market is,” Farley said. “We’re going to build up our whole lineup of hybrids. It’s gonna be better for the company’s profitability, shareholders and a lot of new American jobs. These really expensive $70k electric trucks, as much as I love the product, they didn’t make sense. But an EREV that goes 700 miles on a tank of gas, for 90% of the time is all-electric, that EREV is a better solution for a Lightning than the current all-electric Lightning.”
It all makes sense to Mr. Farley, but one wonders how much longer the company’s investors will tolerate his presence atop the corporate management pyramid if the company’s financial fortunes don’t turn around fast.
To Ford’s and Farley’s credit, the company has, unlike some of its competitors (GM, for example), been quite transparent in publicly revealing the massive losses it has accumulated in its EV projects since 2022. The company has reported its EV enterprise as a separate business unit called Model-E on its financial filings, enabling everyone to witness its somewhat amazing escalating EV-related losses since 2022:
• 2022 – Net loss of $2.2 billion
• 2023 – Net loss of $4.7 billion
• 2024 – Net loss of $5.1 billion
Add in the company’s $3.6 billion in losses recorded across the first three quarters of 2025, and you arrive at a total of $15.6 billion net losses on EV-related projects and processes in less than four calendar years. Add to that the financial carnage detailed in Monday’s announcement and the damage from the company’s financial electric boogaloo escalates to well above $30 billion with Q4 2025’s damage still to be added to the total.
Ford and Farley have benefited from the fact that the company’s lineup of gas-and-diesel powered cars have remained strongly profitable, resulting in overall corporate profits each year despite the huge EV-related losses. It is also fair to point out that all car companies were under heavy pressure from the Biden government to either produce battery electric vehicles or be penalized by onerous federal regulations.
Now, with the Trump administration rescinding Biden’s harsh mandates and canceling the absurdly unattainable fleet mileage requirements, Ford and other companies will be free to make cars Americans actually want to buy. Better late than never, as they say, but the financial fallout from it all is likely just beginning to be made public.
- David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
International
House Rejects Bipartisan Attempt To Block Trump From Using Military Force Against Venezuela
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Adam Pack
The House of Representatives rejected a bipartisan attempt Wednesday evening to reign in President Donald Trump’s authority to use force against Venezuela.
Lawmakers voted 211 to 213 against a war powers resolution that would have blocked Trump from using military force against Venezuela absent congressional authorization. The failed vote comes a day after Trump designated the Maduro regime as a foreign-terrorist organization and ordered a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting Venezuela.
Under U.S. law, Congress can restrict the president from using military force against a country or entity without the legislative branch’s explicit approval.
The resolution, sponsored by Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, attracted the support of two leading anti-foreign intervention voices in the Republican Party, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Republican Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, a retiring, moderate Republican who has frequently criticized Trump, also sponsored the war powers resolution.
Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar was the lone Democratic lawmaker to oppose the resolution checking Trump’s powers. On Dec. 3, Trump pardoned the embattled congressman, who was set to face trial in 2026 on federal bribery charges.
“When war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves,” Massie wrote on X. “Congress needs to vote before the President attempts regime change.”
Republican Florida Rep. Brian Mast, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, countered that Trump does not need permission from Congress to execute “precise, limited strikes.”
Trump has ordered the military to rapidly build up its presence in the waters around Venezuela, amounting to more than 15,000 troops. The administration has also been engaged in a months-long campaign against alleged Venezuelan drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing nearly 100 reputed traffickers in more than two dozen strikes.
The president told Politico that socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s “days are numbered” and has suggested that land strikes on the country could commence soon.
The House also rejected a resolution Wednesday from Democratic New York Rep. Gregory Meeks that would block the president from using force on any “presidentially designated foreign terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere” unless authorized by Congress. The measure failed 210 to 216.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune voiced approval Wednesday of the escalating pressure campaign against Maduro.
When asked by reporters whether the Trump administration is pursuing regime change in Venezuela, the majority leader said “I don’t know if that’s a publicly stated policy position, but I don’t — I would certainly not have a problem if that was their position. I mean, I think Maduro is a cancer on that continent.”
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles clarified Trump’s strategy toward Venezuela in an explosive set of interviews with Vanity Fair published Tuesday.
“He [Trump] wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,” Wiles told the outlet. She also conceded that Trump would need approval from Congress for a land war with Venezuela.
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