Germany Decriminalizes Child Porn, "Butcher of Tehran" Gets Moment of Silence at UN, Kennedy Jr. Pulls Equally from Disgruntled R, D Voters (The Five for 05/22/24)
Plus, Trump leads Biden in most swing states. These three European nations recognize Palestine as an official state.
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Quick bit of news..my new podcast drops on Friday. You’ll be able to access it from The Five.
With that being said, let’s dive into the news.
[one]
Well, the world stood up and clapped for “The Butcher of Tehran,” after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash after being stupid enough to fly a machine from the 1970’s into fog, in the mountains.
Before we get into the reactions, let’s take a look at Amnesty International’s review of Raisi’s record:
As Head of the Iranian Judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi has presided over a spiralling crackdown on human rights which has seen hundreds of peaceful dissidents, human rights defenders and members of persecuted minority groups arbitrarily detained. Under his watch, the judiciary has also granted blanket impunity to government officials and security forces responsible for unlawfully killing hundreds of men, women and children and subjecting thousands of protesters to mass arrests and at least hundreds to enforced disappearance, and torture and other ill-treatment during and in the aftermath of the nationwide protests of November 2019.
Of course China and Russia, and Hezbollah and Houthi terrorist groups said Raisi was a good guy, as he aligned with their own evil goals. But here’s a rundown of the nations who should know better.
United States:
The United States Stated Department has expressed its “official condolences” for the death of Raisi and other officials in a helicopter crash.
“As Iran selects a new president, we reaffirm our support for the Iranian people and their struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms,” department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that he had no insight into the cause of the helicopter crash.
Japan:
Japan’s government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi said the country expresses its deepest condolences to the government and people of Iran over the death of President Raisi and the foreign minister.
India:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “deeply saddened and shocked” by Raisi’s death.
Only Italy had the good sense not to praise the guy, and ask for stability in the region.
In an interview with Italian broadcaster Channel 5, Prime Minister Georgia Meloni said that she sees “in these hours that the Iranian authorities are crediting the thesis of the accident and not conspiracy theories.”
“I do not see any changes in the internal order in Iran, we are in constant contact with our European and G7 allies because we are talking about an incident that is part of a particularly complex regional framework,” she said.
“I hope that the future Iranian leadership wants to commit itself to the stabilisation and pacification of the region,” she added.
Slow. Clap. For. Italy.
Oh, and one more…the official stance of The Five, in regards to this crash:
Ebrahim Raisi is in hell.
My condolences to…the helicopter. Everybody else who died, including the Iranian Defense Minister, who was flying with the President (most countries are smart enough not to do that), made the world a better place by leaving it.
[two]
An independent law firm has concluded that Lawrence Technical University in Southfield, Michigan allowed a student to harass and physically abuse an Israeli foreign student, and then kicked the Israeli off the soccer team for bringing light to the situation.
Noam Nedivi moved to Michigan from Israel to play college soccer and study science. As a freshman, he wrote that it felt “unreal” to make it to this level of competitive soccer, given that “high-level adult soccer teams in Israel play in stadiums that are the same size” as the one he was playing in as a scholarship athlete at Lawrence Technological University.
His new life 6,000 miles away in Southfield, Michigan turned dark his sophomore year when he moved in with his teammate, Zavier Chimienti. Nedivi says Chimienti harassed him for four months beginning in September 2023, with anti-Jewish slurs, Nazi salutes, and full-on physical abuse.
But months after he reported the alleged abuse to both police and school officials, Nedivi is no longer on the soccer team. The school kicked both students off the team as it conducted its investigation, and, though court records show the police charged Chimienti, the investigation concluded that there was no discrimination.
An outside law firm, however, has concluded that the university mishandled its investigation. With a second external review of the evidence underway, records obtained by The Daily Wire appear to corroborate Nedivi’s allegations, including a teammate’s official witness statement to police, as well as text messages and pictures that document the claims.
This incident follows attacks on American and foreign born Jewish students at UC Berkley, Columbia, UCLA, Yale, Reed College, and Harvard…and that’s just the prestigious colleges…over a foreign war none of these students voted for or participated in. Which is to say, simply due to their ethnicity.
And the media remains largely silent.
[three]
This is disturbing.
Reduxx reports:
Germany’s Parliament (Bundestag) has received the votes necessary to remove a section of the Criminal Code which made the possession of child sexual abuse materials a felony crime. Once the bill, passed last Thursday, comes into effect, minimum sentences for the possession of child pornography will be reduced, and the offense will be downgraded to a misdemeanor.
According to the Bundestag, the bill stipulates that “possession and acquisition should be punishable with a minimum penalty of three months’ imprisonment, and distribution with a minimum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, and distribution with a minimum penalty of six months’ imprisonment. The offenses regulated in Section 184b of the Criminal Code are therefore classified as misdemeanors and not as crimes.”
The Germans are making an argument that “correlation doesn’t equal causation” in lowering the penalties. Not only does that completely disregard the victims here (who are CHILDREN and can’t consent), but it’s also not true, according to research Psychologist Scott Johnson:
There has been a lot of research suggesting that the child porn user presents with low risk for engaging in actual sexual contact with children. However, to date, there is no empirical evidence to support that claim. Most of the research based the “low risk” status on offender self-report of having no contact victims and/or on the offender having no criminal conviction for engaging in sexual contact with children. Professionals are making a significant public safety decision based on faulty evidence and without utilizing scientific procedures such as polygraph. Research on child porn users demonstrates that 50-85% admit to having undetected child victims, and the average number of undetected victims per offender was 8. So again, why are professionals relying on self-report and lack of criminal conviction to determine that the child porn offender poses minimal if any risk for sexually abusing minors? In addition, the use of child porn/child porn related erotica victimizes children involved in the child porn industry. The increased demand for more child porn and ways to collect and engage in the use of child related erotica results in the need for more and more material, which further sexually abuses children.
In two different episodes of my upcoming podcast, The Idea, which releases on Friday, I have questioned whether or not European immigrants should be allowed in the U.S.
For one, East Germans, who lived under Soviet occupation, are more likely to have Nazi sympathies, which have resulted in 4,000 physical attacks in East Germany since 2015, due to the Communists telling them everything was the fault of the Capitalist west.
America was founded around the ideas of freedom and rugged nationalism, not a nationality. All we have to do is look at the data to see which groups embrace that freedom and rugged pioneer spirit to build lives that make this country better. Here’s the whole chart:
Although Jamaicans and Nigerians didn’t quite make the list, immigrants from both nations out-earn the median American income, many through starting or buying businesses and creating jobs.
Europeans increasingly love child porn, Nazism and socialism…values that do not align with growing jobs or communities. Unfortunately, our immigration system doesn’t really screen people for talent, work ethic or values. If we did, I seriously question how many Europeans could past the test.
[four]
Currently, former President Trump leads in most swing states, as young and non-white voters are increasingly abandoning Biden. Which is not to say they are becoming Trump voters, but more likely to stay home or vote third party.
Donald J. Trump leads President Biden in five crucial battleground states, a new set of polls shows, as a yearning for change and discontent over the economy and the war in Gaza among young, Black and Hispanic voters threaten to unravel the president’s Democratic coalition.
The surveys by The New York Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer found that Mr. Trump was ahead among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup against Mr. Biden in five of six key states: Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden led among registered voters in only one battleground state, Wisconsin.
The race was closer among likely voters. Mr. Trump led in five states as well, but Mr. Biden edged ahead in Michigan while trailing only narrowly in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. While Mr. Biden won all six of those states in 2020, victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin would be enough for him to win re-election, provided he won everywhere else he did four years ago.
The results were similar in a hypothetical matchup that included minor-party candidates and the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who won an average of 10 percent of the vote across the six states and drew roughly equally from the two major-party candidates.
It’s interesting that if Kennedy draws equally…he’s actually a NON spoiler candidate. It’s also worth keeping in mind that polls this early should be taken with a grain of salt, as voter temperaments do swing closer to the election.
With that being said, Trump was never this far up in 2016 or 2020, so the data is notable and novel.
[five]
Three European nations have officially recognized Palestine as a state.
Europe has struggled over the Middle East for a very long time.
The decision by Ireland, Spain and Norway to recognize a Palestinian state tells us more about the domestic politics of those countries than anything else.
Obviously, the decision of three European nations to take this step is newsworthy and will have repercussions diplomatically, perhaps putting pressure on their allies to take a firmer stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
However, it is also reasonable to say that thus far, no amount of pressure from even the US has had a major impact on the thinking of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel responded by recalling the ambassadors of the three countries, accusing them of rewarding terror with the decision.
Conversations about what recognition of statehood practically means and how helpful it is to the Palestinian cause in the long run are all entirely valid. But the reality is that the stakes are quite low for the majority of European countries when it comes to issues relating to Israel and the Palestinians.
This is completely new, as Palestine has never existed as a nation, being a part of the British Mandate, Ottoman Empire, Byzentine Empire, Greek Empire, Syria, Rome and Persia over the last 2,500 years.
Until the next one,
-sth