World Stand Silent as Syria Massacres Minorities, Argentina to Declassify Nazi Records, WI Supreme Court Race...Might Not Matter for Midterms (The Five for 04/01/25)
Hey, welcome to the Five, a publication about the stories that matter, but don’t always make the front page.
Let’s dive into the news.
The new Syrian government was sworn in this weekend…amidst ongoing slaughter of civilians and echoes of the Assad civil war.
CNN reports:
Syria’s new transitional government was sworn in Saturday nearly four months after the Assad family was removed from power and as the new authorities in Damascus work to bring back stability to the war-torn country.
The 23-member Cabinet, which is religiously and ethnically mixed, is the first in the country’s five-year transitional period and replaces the interim government that was formed shortly after Bashar Assad was removed from power in early December.
The Cabinet does not have a prime minister since according to the temporary constitution signed by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa earlier this month, the government will have a secretary general.
The government that was announced ahead of Eid el-Fitr, the feast that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that starts in Syria on Monday, includes new faces apart from the ministers of foreign affairs and defense. They kept the posts they held in the interim government. Syria’s new Interior Minister Anas Khattab was until recently the head of the intelligence department.
Per as usual when a secular dictator in the Middle East falls, it’s the relgious and ethnic minorities that get slaughtered. France 24 reports:
At least 1,383 civilians have been massacred in Syria in recent weeks after deadly clashes broke out between the security forces and supporters of ousted former president Bashar al-Assad, who is Alawite, according to the latest report from Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), published on March 12.
The SOHR said most of the victims are Alawite civilians, killed in reprisal attacks carried out by security forces or pro-government fighters.
At least 125 security personnel and 145 pro-Assad fighters also died in related clashes, according to the Observatory's figures.
The Syrian government has attributed the attacks on civilians to "individual actions". In a televised address, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said he would hold those responsible accountable.
Former French Prime Minister François Fillon wrote on X on March 9 that "massacres of Alawite and Christian civilians” were ongoing in Syria. He also called on current French President Emmanuel Macron to take action against what could become, according to him, "a systematic operation to eliminate Alawite and Christian populations”.
[two]
A federal program is allegedly responsible for a sickening number of adults raping minors.
The Department of Labor’s Job Corps operates 131 facilities where low-income people ages 16 to 24 can live while being paid to gain a high school diploma and certification in trades like plumbing. Created in the 1960s, it has transformed into something between a prison and a college, gathering people from the margins of society and housing them in cinderblock dormitories where they fight, rape, and sell drugs to each other, data exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire shows.
More than 500 sexual assaults have been reported at Job Corps facilities in the last three years, including a male student climbing through a female student’s window and raping her as she slept, according to a source with knowledge of the program.
Inner-city 24-year-olds are housed with vulnerable 16-year-old dropouts, who are exploited by predators. Last year, a 16-year-old girl who identified as a transgender boy, and whom the Job Corps apparently enabled to be separated from her parents, was assigned to room with a 23-year-old man at the Glenmont Job Corps near Albany, New York. Demetrius Fair allegedly intimidated his “roommate” into performing oral sex on him before pinning her to the bed and raping her.
Then there were 4,600 reported violent assaults and 8,000 drug-related incidents over the past three years, the source said. And those numbers likely significantly understate the reality, since a tolerance for criminal behavior is endemic to the culture and only the most severe incidents are recorded.
Eligibility requirements say that only people on welfare or living in poverty are eligible for the Job Corps, that refugees and non-citizen parolees are eligible, and that “no individual shall be denied enrollment in Job Corps solely on the basis of contact with the criminal justice system, except for the disqualifying felony convictions of murder…, child abuse, or a crime involving rape or sexual assault.”
The program requires that applicants not be able to read at higher than an eighth grade level, saying they must be “unable to compute or solve problems… at a level necessary to function on the job, in the individual’s family, or in society,” or he must be homeless, a runaway, a high school dropout, or a victim of sex trafficking.
Horrendous. There should be criminal prosecution of government officials who allowed this.
[three]
Well, after reporting on alleged structures under the Egyptian pyramids and the CIA using psychics in attempts to locate the Ark of the Covenant…why not dive into Hitler surviving WWII and living out his days in Argentina.
Yahoo reports:
Argentina is set to declassify all government-held files relating to Nazi fugitives who fled and settled in Argentina after World War II, according to reports.
The documents will likely include Nazi-linked bank accounts and archival records detailing the use of Nazi "ratlines" which were monetary and logistic pathways Nazis used to escape justice and flee Argentina following the war.
Guillermo Alberto Francos, Argentina’s interior minister, made the announcement Tuesday, the Buenos Aires Times reported citing DNEWS.
It is estimated that up to 10,000 Nazis and other fascist war criminals escaped justice for Holocaust atrocities by fleeing to Argentina and other Latin American countries.
Notorious high-level Nazis, including Holocaust mastermind Adolph Eichmann and "angel of death" Josef Mengele, fled to the South American country, while rumors have swirled for years that former Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler also ended up there.
The pending release comes after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, requested their release last month in a letter to Argentinian President Javier Milei. Grassley is investigating Credit Suisse and its historic servicing of the Nazi-linked accounts and ratlines.
In the letter, Grassley wrote that the records would help shine a light on the Nazi planning of the covert escape routes. Grassley recently chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focused on stemming the tide of antisemitism in the U.S.
Milei promised officials of the Simon Wiesenthal Center his full cooperation in granting access to the documents. The center is famous for tracking down Nazis and is named after the famed Nazi hunter.
Before we wrap up this story…keep in mind that this story, the Eygpt story and the CIA/psychics story are all coming from extremely established, corporate press outlets.
Given all these conspiracy theories coming true, we’re pretty close to Indiana Jones and The X-Files being reclassified from fiction to documentaries…
[four]
There’s a fair bit of attention on the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice race being held in Wisconsin today, with both sides of the aisle claiming the electoral map in the state could be redrawn.
Except…maybe not.
Both sides have cited control of Wisconsin’s state and congressional maps as a cause for concern in this race.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2023, which had a 4-3 liberal-leaning majority, ordered changes to the state legislative map that made local races more competitive for Democrats.
However, the same court declined a request to redraw boundaries for the Wisconsin congressional map. Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he believes the issue is being “overblown” in this year’s race.
Even if the bench did end up hearing a case about the federal districts, Burden pointed out there are many steps between filing a lawsuit, the court making a decision and the maps changing. And whoever wins on Tuesday will not take office until August, less than a year before the state’s midterm election primaries.
“I think it’s possible, but I wouldn’t say that it’s likely,” Burden said of congressional redistricting. “And it’s not the most important thing determining what happens in those midterm elections.”
This may (or may not) be a case of “media needs something to cover other than Trump’s Tariff reveal, so here’s a thing.”
Still, if you care, it might be worth checking the results tonight.
[five]
Uhh…wut?
A toddler in Britain has been expelled for “transphobia.”
The Daily Mail reports:
A toddler has been kicked out of nursery after being accused of transphobia, new figures reveal.
The child, aged either three or four, was suspended for 'abuse against sexual orientation and gender identity', data from the Department for Education shows.
The offences took place in the 2022-23 academic year at a state school, according to The Telegraph.
Statistics indicate 94 pupils at similar primary institutions were suspended or permanently excluded for transphobia or homophobia in the same year.
This included ten pupils from Year 1 and three from Year 2, where the maximum age was seven, and one child was of nursery age.
Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at Sex Matters, said: 'Every once in a while, the extremes of gender ideology throw up a story that seems too crazy to believe, and a toddler being suspended from nursery for so-called "transphobia" or homophobia is one such example.
'Teachers and school leaders involved in this insanity should be ashamed of themselves for projecting adult concepts and beliefs on to such young children.'
As the parent of an almost-three-year-old, it’s worth noting that kids in that age group aren’t even speaking in complete sentences yet.
Until the next one,
-sth