Austrian chancellor’s message to Juncker: Get used to me

Christian Kern says it’s him or the far right.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern, criticized as a “slim-fit Trump” over proposals to limit freedom of movement for EU citizens and prioritize local job-seekers over foreigners, said he has told European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to get used to the idea that he’s in power.

The alternative, said Kern, is a far-right government led by the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ).

Speaking at a World Economic Forum session on “Strengthening Democracy,” Kern said: “I say to Jean-Claude Juncker ‘you can discuss (the jobs issue) with me or in six months you will discuss it with someone different and it will be a completely different discussion.”

Kern at first denied that his idea to prioritize local workers was a concession to the FPÖ, but later admitted that right-wing parties were a “catalyst” for his labor market ideas. Kern accused Bulgarians and other East Europeans of coming to Austria because its welfare payments outstrip salaries elsewhere. He described the trend as “countries exporting their unemployment.”

Kern, a political novice drafted into the chancellor role in 2016 without facing the electorate, is getting a baptism of fire from the millions of supporters of the far-right FPÖ party.

“I wrote a political and economics essay in FAZ that was 25,000 characters” in length, Kern said, “but the replies I got were on Twitter — 140 characters.”

Beyond that Kern said he finds it difficult to debate with citizens angry at Austria’s mainstream parties. “People say they want change. I ask ‘what change?’ and they say ‘change!’” Kern said he pushes them to be more specific and the typical response is “I don’t care, I want you on your knees.”

The problem for centrists is that they offer neither answers nor solutions to the struggling middle classes, said Kern, and so find themselves on the political back foot.

“We need new answers and to become much more open-minded. The center parties have not been change-drivers. They need to deliver answers. The right-wing populists have answers — no solutions — but they have answers.”

Click Here: st kilda saints guernsey 2019

Despite Hollywood’s constant call for “inclusion” and “equality,” particularly for women, there were no nominations for female directors for the 2019 Golden Globes.

Not a single female director was honored Thursday with a nomination by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for its 76th Golden Globe nominations, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The Best director, motion picture nominations were Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born, Alfonso Cuaron, Roma, Peter Farrelly, Green Book, Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman, and Adam McKay, Vice

Indeed, during the 2018 show, actress Natalie Portman took the group to task for ignoring female directors pointedly saying from the dais, “And here are all the male nominees.”

But this is nothing new. In fact, only one woman has ever won the best director prize. Barbra Streisand won for her 1984 film, Yentl.

Additionally, only five women have ever earned a nomination. Streisand was also nominated on 1992 for The Prince of Tides. Others include Jane Campion, for The Piano, Sofia Coppola, for Lost in Translation, Kathryn Bigelow, for The Hurt Locker and also for Zero Dark Thirty, and Ava DuVernay, for Selma.

A recent survey of the popular and award-winning movies revealed that the entertainment industry is still the domain of white, straight men, both in front of and behind the camera.

According to an article by the Associated Press, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that females with speaking parts only make up around 30 percent of the top 100 films. Further, women of color still have had far fewer featured parts. For instance, 64 of the top 100 films had no Latino characters at all. Also, 43 had no black female characters, and 65 had no Asian female characters.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.

UK unveils Brexit plan to avoid hard border with Ireland

London says its customs proposals will avoid the need for physical border posts.

LONDON — The U.K. government will put forward proposals Wednesday for how to avoid a hard border with Ireland while at the same time leaving the EU’s customs union.

Neither side in the Brexit negotiations favors a return to a hard border because of the implications for security of recreating physical border posts, but the U.K. is insistent that it wants to leave the EU customs union so that it can pursue its own trade policy, meaning goods would be required to pass through some kind of check as they crossed between the Republic of Ireland and the North. Until now, the U.K. has not specified how it plans to square that circle.

In a position paper to be published Wednesday, Theresa May’s government lays out how its proposals on post-Brexit customs arrangements — which it released Tuesday — will apply to the Northern Irish border.

The papers are part of a push by the U.K. to reject what it sees as the EU’s rigid sequencing of talks, in which Brussels insists “sufficient progress” must be made made on Britain’s so-called divorce bill, the Northern Irish border and citizens’ rights before talks can progress to the U.K.’s future relationship with the bloc. London argues that the Irish border and future customs arrangements are inextricably interlinked.

The paper on the Irish border will argue that both customs options the U.K. has put forward — a “streamlined” arrangement with technological solutions to negate the need for border checks or an unprecedented customs “partnership” in which the U.K. imposes EU rules and tariffs on most third-country goods — will retain an invisible, frictionless border.

Key to the proposals is exempting small and medium traders from customs checks.

“These arrangements would also need facilitations reflecting the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland, such as new trusted-trader arrangements to deliver highly streamlined processes for larger traders and cross-border trade exemption meaning no new customs processes at all for smaller traders. Over 80 percent of cross-border trade is by [small and medium sized enterprises],” the U.K. Brexit department briefing note said.

The position paper will also call for a swift agreement with the EU to protect the pre-existing Common Travel Area (CTA), which allows both U.K. and Irish nationals to travel freely without being subject to passport controls.

The paper, which will dismiss the idea of a customs border in the Irish Sea as “not constitutionally or economically viable,” will be closely watched in Dublin. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said earlier this month that May should abandon her policy of leaving the EU customs union.

In 2015, Northern Ireland sold £10.7 billion worth of goods to Britain and a further £2.7 billion worth to Ireland, while last year Britain exported £13.6 billion worth of goods to Ireland, and imported £9.1 billion, the Brexit department statement said.

Labour MP Conor McGinn, a supporter of the Open Britain cross-party campaign group, said:  “These proposals on a light touch border are lighter still on detail. They don’t outline how a frictionless or seamless border can be achieved when the U.K. leaves the EU and won’t reassure anybody about the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland.”

“On customs, the government are admitting that a hard Brexit that takes us out of the customs union will lead to more form-filling and red tape for firms on both sides of the border,” he said. “That would damage the economy and put jobs at risk.”

The Liberal Democrats accused the government of breaking promises made by the Leave campaign that Brexit would not leave the border any less open after Brexit.

Tom Brake, the party’s Brexit spokesperson, said: “It’s clear the government can’t deliver on the Leave campaign’s promise that the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland will stay as open as it is now. Even if they only lead to checks on larger traders, these plans could still severely disrupt trade and have a destabilizing impact on the region as a whole. The only sure way to deliver a truly seamless border is to keep the U.K. in the customs union and the single market.”

Josh Hardie, CBI deputy director general, said businesses need more detail. “Business has been clear that maintaining an open, frictionless border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and between Great Britain and the island of Ireland is essential to supporting jobs and the economy.”

“Companies will be examining these latest proposals closely to ensure they deliver on commitments to ensuring there are no new barriers and that the Common Travel Area is protected,” he said.

This article has been corrected to clarify provisions under the Common Travel Area.

At 88-years of age, Clint Eastwood has another major box office success on his hands. As of this weekend, The Mule, which Eastwood both stars in and directs, has cleared an incredible $81 million.

Outside of Eastwood’s unprecedented staying power as a major star, director, and composer, what makes this success so surprising is that his little movie was released without much fanfare or advanced publicity. Many believe this was due to the studio’s fears about some of the movie’s content.

The Mule (you can read my review here) is based on the true story of 90-year-old Leo Sharp, who worked for a decade as a drug mule for a Mexican drug cartel. Eastwood does not shy away from presenting people, including his own character, as they really are, and this resulted in a number of moments that offended the Woke Fascists who currently rule the entertainment industry, and do so like a gang of low-rent Joe McCarthys.

Warner Bros. might have been concerned that if the movie go too much early attention, today’s modern-day witch hunters would push for a theatrical boycott. A legitimate fear now that the left has resurrected political blacklists with a vengeance.

Nevertheless, after being quietly released into 2800 theaters over the holidays and opening to $17 million, The Mule’s staying power is a marvel. As of this last weekend, Eastwood’s quiet little movie has expanded into an additional 700 theaters and in its fourth weekend grossed another $9 million.

Usually a movie, even successful ones, lose 50 percent of their opening box office on the second weekend. On its fourth weekend, The Mule grossed $9.1 million, which is more than 50 percent of its opening weekend, which almost never happens.

With $81 million in the bank, at this rate, The Mule is almost certain to cross the magic $100 million mark before the end of its theatrical run. Already it is crushing a number of movies produced to appease the Woke fascists, including Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 ($6 million), Spike Lee’s BlackkKlansman ($48 million), and Adam McKay’s Vice, a dishonest, poorly made and researched screed against former Vice President Dick Cheney, which has grossed just $29 million.

No CGI, no action scenes, no festival hype, no Oscar campaign… A simple, touching little story about an old man living in Middle America with a lifetime of regret is cleaning up at the box office…

If Hollywood tells a story that touches us without insulting us, we will come.

Juncker to Trump: You can’t leave Paris climate deal ‘overnight’

Leaving the climate deal would take three to four years, says the Commission chief.

BERLIN – Ahead of President Donald Trump’s announcement on whether the U.S. will pull out of the Paris climate deal, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned that leaving the agreement would be a slow process, taking up to three or four years.

“It’s not possible that one leaves this climate agreement overnight, as some people in the United States think,” Juncker told a conference at the German foreign ministry on Thursday. “This takes three, four years — which is laid down in the agreement itself.”

Trump tweeted overnight that he would announce a final decision on whether the U.S. will withdraw from the agreement Thursday at 3 p.m. Washington time (9 p.m. in  Brussels).

“The vacuum that would be created [by the U.S. dropping out of the Paris agreement] has to be filled, and Europe has aspirations for a natural leadership in this whole process,” said Juncker.

“I’m meeting tonight and tomorrow the Chinese prime minister in Brussels and we need to talk about this with the Chinese. We have explained to [President] Trump in Taormina it wouldn’t be good for the world and the U.S. if the U.S. took a step back from the world stage because vacuum will be replaced and the Chinese are pushing to take over the lead,” he said. “I’m in favor of concluding tasks together with our American partners instead of changing the setup.”

On Wednesday evening, Juncker said that the deal, which is backed by nearly 200 other countries, is “not only about the future of Europeans but, above all, the future of people elsewhere. Eighty-three countries run into the danger of disappearing from the surface of the earth if we don’t resolutely start the fight against climate change.”

Click Here: collingwood magpies 2019 training guernsey

A group of more than 500 musicians and bands is threatening to boycott Amazon unless the online retailer cuts business ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a letter published online Thursday, the musicians demanded that Amazon sever its contracts with ICE, or they will refuse to participate in the upcoming Intersect Music Festival, which is scheduled to take place Dec. 6 to 7 in Las Vegas and is being presented by Amazon Web Services.

Their protest is being organized by the left-wing, anti-Trump Fight For the Future, which bills itself as a digital rights advocacy group.

“We the undersigned artists are outraged that Amazon continues to provide the technical backbone for ICE’s human rights abuses,” said the letter, which was titled “No Music for ICE! Open letter from musicians to Amazon.”

Click Here: collingwood magpies 2019 training guernsey

The artists said they are pledging to not participate in Amazon-sponsored events, or engage in exclusive partnerships with Amazon in the future, until Amazon publicly commits to terminating existing contracts with military, law enforcement, and government agencies like ICE that “commit human rights abuses.”

Their demands to Amazon include the cessation of Cloud services and other digital tools to private sector groups such as Palantir Technologies that “power the U.S. government’s deportation machine.”

Palantir, co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, is a data analytics firm that has provided services to the federal government’s counterterrorism efforts as well as ICE.

The musicians are also demanding that the company halts all projects “that encourage racial profiling and discrimination, such as Amazon’s facial recognition product.”

Fight For the Future launched a new Twitter account, @NoMusicForICE, which is encouraging more musicians to “stand in solidarity against ICE and tech companies like Amazon that power it.”

Earlier this year, a group of current and former Whole Foods employees demanded that parent company Amazon cut ties with ICE and Palantir.

The upscale grocery chain workers called on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to “cease all business with Palantir and any other company involved in the continued oppression of marginalized groups.”

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at [email protected]

Volkswagen rejects Commission compensation request

‘EU consumers deserve a fair treatment,’ Commissioner Věra Jourová said.

Volkswagen today refused a request from the European Commission that it compensate European customers whose cars were fitted with defeat devices to cheat on emissions tests, an EU source told POLITICO.

The request came during a meeting between Volkswagen CEO Matthias Müller and Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová.

“I insisted again that Volkswagen should offer a kind of bonus or compensation to its European customers,” said Jourová, adding “EU consumers deserve a fair treatment and Volkswagen should move on that point soon.”

Müller said that the two sides would again discuss the issue of compensation next month, the source said.

Although VW has agreed to pay compensation to car owners in the U.S., it has refused to do so in the EU, saying that just a quick fix is needed to bring its cars into compliance with EU emissions standards, which are laxer than those in the U.S.

“Volkswagen has delivered on some first steps to better inform customers and to make sure that affected cars are repaired in time,” Jourová said, adding Müller committed to informing the Commission regularly on the progress of car repairs.

Volkswagen installed defeat devices in 11 million diesel cars, 8.5 million of which were sold in Europe.

Liam Fox wary of transitional Brexit deal

Trade secretary says he does not recognize Michel Barnier’s Brexit bill figures.

Britain needs continuity in its trading arrangements with the EU, Liam Fox said Sunday, but warned of striking a transitional Brexit deal that was too similar to membership in the bloc.

The international trade secretary told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show he wanted the EU without the U.K. to be successful and trade deals that “minimize trade barriers” but refused to be drawn on whether Britain should remain a part of the EU’s customs union.

Describing himself as “instinctively a free trader,” Fox did not answer when asked if he was in favor of a transitional arrangement with the EU to tide Britain over between a formal exit in 2019 and any new trade deal with Brussels, as backed by his cabinet colleague Philip Hammond, the chancellor.

“That depends” on the kind of transitional deal that can be struck, Fox said, warning that an arrangement that was too close to the status quo would go against the wishes of those who voted to leave the EU.

Fox also said he “did not recognize” the figures quoted by Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s Brexit negotiator, who said the U.K. would have to pay “tens of billions” into the EU budget to cover Britain’s share of outstanding pensions liabilities, loan guarantees and spending on U.K-based projects.

Asked about the charge made Sunday morning by Nigel Farage, who said cabinet ministers had been banned from talking to him, Fox said he’d had “no such instructions.” He repeated the government’s line that there is “no vacancy” for a new British ambassador to the United States, a job that Donald Trump has said Farage would be well suited for.

He also dismissed suggestions that Prime Minister Theresa May should call early elections in 2017, saying there would be “enough political instability” in Europe next year with elections due in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Osborne’s ‘wrong campaign’

Speaking just before Fox on the BBC show was former chancellor George Osborne, who said the British government fought “the wrong campaign” on Brexit and many of its arguments “fell on deaf ears.”

Osborne, relegated to the backbenches by May after she took over at 10 Downing Street, said the Remain campaign “lacked some of the authenticity of the Leave campaign.”

He said many of the topics that he, ex-PM David Cameron and other Remainers wanted to talk about did not make headway with voters, which left then focusing too much on the economic woes they said would befall Britain after a Brexit vote.

Osborne said he hoped the economic predictions he made before the referendum — including a so-called punishment budget — “turn out not to be true” but “let’s wait and see what happens.”

The former chancellor said it was vitally important to keep London a financial center after Brexit, adding that the failure to do so would benefit New York rather than European rivals such as Dublin or Frankfurt.

Osborne said the U.K. should not lose the “massive contribution” that immigration has made to the country but admitted that the Cameron government’s pledge to reduce the numbers of people coming in and then failing to hit its own targets “obviously hurt us in the referendum.”

Asked if he would like to see a second referendum, on the Brexit deal that May strikes with the bloc, Osborne said No — “the first referendum was enough for me.”

Click Here: Cardiff Blues Store

Disney chief Bob Iger has been reduced to pulling the race card on Martin Scorsese in defense of Marvel movies.

On Tuesday, I wrote at length about the growing backlash against Marvel movies and comic book movies in general. Legendary filmmaker Scorsese launched the whole thing when he criticized the genre as something closer to an theme park ride than cinema.

“Theaters have become amusement parks. That is all fine and good but don’t invade everything else in that sense,” he said. “That is fine and good for those who enjoy that type of film and, by the way, knowing what goes into them now, I admire what they do. It’s not my kind of thing, it simply is not. It’s creating another kind of audience that thinks cinema is that.”

Oscar-winner Francis Ford Coppola quickly piled on by wondering how “anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again.”

“Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is,” Coppola added.

Indie director Ken Loach did not hold back: “It’s about making a commodity which will make a profit for a big corporation – they’re a cynical exercise. They’re a market exercise, and it has nothing to do with the art of cinema.”

While speaking to the Wall Street Journal in California on Tuesday, Iger (Disney owns Marvel) responded by name-checking Scorsese and Coppola and thumping them over the head with the ole’ race card:

“There I said it,” he added.

How sad is that?

Bob Iger had to know the question was coming, which means he had all kinds of time to prepare a legitimate answer, but all he could come up with was to basically accuse Scorsese and Coppola of racism for not being all that impressed with Black Panther…?

What’s especially outrageous and unfair is that Coppola and Scorsese were criticizing a franchise and genre that is predominantly white — a genre filled with almost all white stars, all white producers, and all white directors.

This is not just a disgusting movie on Iger’s part, it reveals his own inability to make a case honestly, to use the language of film and cinema to defend Marvel as film and cinema, as something other than a formulaic amusement park ride you forget about as soon as you hit the parking lot.

Disney has made exactly one — one! — Marvel movie with a black lead, I am talking about one some two dozen titles…. But it’s Scorsese and Coppola who are the bigots.

If I worked for Marvel, if I were producer Kevin Feige or Robert Downey Jr., or James Gunn, or Joss Whedon,  Iger’s pathetic and inane defense would humiliate me: Seriously, Bob, you’re playing the race card instead of supporting the actual work?

How about making an actual case, Mr. Iger…???

How about explaining to us why we will still be watching Marvel movies in a hundred years. We know we will still be watching Coppola and Scorsese movies in a hundred years, movies that feel just as necessary and vital today as they did a half-century ago, so make your own case for Iron Man and Thor and Endgame and Captain Marvel.

Or,  is RACIST! all you got — which is an abhorrent way to respond to a couple of guys guilty of nothing more than sharing a personal opinion.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

Clock ticking in Romanian corruption showdown

Government, protesters face off over measure to water down punishments for graft.

BUCHAREST — By passing a decree that would let corrupt politicians off the hook, the Romanian government also set the clock ticking on efforts to thwart it.

The measure was passed late Tuesday night, to become effective 10 days later. That deadline has helped galvanize hundreds of thousands of protesters who have flooded the streets to demand the decree be revoked.

With the European Commission and the embassies of Western nations also criticizing the move, the government must decide whether to defy both mainstream European opinion and the biggest demonstrations in Romania since the fall of communism.

Curiously, the fall of the government would not actually aid the protesters’ cause, as a temporary administration would not have the power to cancel the decree, according to political experts.

Events were set in train when Justice Minister Florin Iordache announced that the government would update the penal code by decriminalizing the offense of official misconduct for cases involving damage to the public purse of less than €44,000.

The move was widely interpreted as a way for politicians to avoid jail time if they have been convicted of — or are under investigation for — such offenses. Among those assumed to benefit from the decree is the leader of the ruling Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea.

The government argues that the measure is a necessary response to a call from the Constitutional Court for a clearer definition of abuse of power. But activists say the decree is really all about politicians’ own interests.

“What they are trying to do is eliminate the corruption charges against their party members and where there are final convictions to eliminate those final convictions,” said Laura Stefan, an anti-corruption specialist at Expert Forum, a think tank focused on public administration.

Within half an hour of the decree being announced, angry protesters swarmed into Piata Victoriei, the square in front of the government’s headquarters.

Andrei Fântână, a 40-year-old musician, was one of those who took to the streets on Tuesday night. He said he had always stayed away from politics — until now.

“My dad was a political prisoner for six years and he couldn’t change anything. So I preferred to do my job, to pay taxes, to tell myself that this is the way to serve my country and, if more people will be like me, it will turn out fine,” he said.

But when the government passed the decree, he said, “the game changed.”

‘Like thieves in the night’

Mobilized by Facebook, thousands of people were in the square soon after midnight — even with the temperature at minus 7 Celsius. Some were trying to spot cars carrying members of the government but the ministers had already left the building.

“[You did it] at night, like thieves!” the protesters yelled. Major cities like Cluj, Timisoara and Iasi also erupted in protest.

In the past decade, Romania’s Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) has secured the convictions of hundreds of public officials, including former prime minister Adrian Năstase as well as ministers, MPs, mayors, judges and police chiefs.

In 2015 alone, the DNA prosecuted 1,250 defendants, including another former prime minister, Victor Ponta, and five members of the government.

After the new decree was published, the European Commission released a statement, saying it was following developments in Romania “with great concern” and warning that the progress in the fight against crime had to be irreversible.

Meanwhile, the protests escalated. On Wednesday evening, following a peaceful demonstration that attracted more than 120,000 people, violence broke out.

A group of hooligans set off flares and hurled them at the cordon of armed riot police. The troublemakers — men aged between 20 and 40 — then began to pull out metal barriers and throw them around. The police responded with pepper spray and tear gas.

Clashes followed between protestors demanding peaceful demonstrations and those bent on inciting violence.

Police made a few arrests and some protesters suffered minor injuries. An advertising kiosk was also set ablaze.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, a former leader of the main opposition National Liberals, who opposes the decree, suggested the Interior Ministry had a hand in triggering the violence.

“The Ministry of the Interior knew exactly when and where groups would prepare to break up the demonstration,” he said, accusing the ministry of putting lives in danger. Interior Minister Carmen Dan denied the allegations.

Social Democrat split

The crisis has now caused cracks to appear among the Social Democrats. Minister of Business Affairs Florin Jianu resigned Thursday morning. “This is what my conscience tells me to do,” said Jianu.

The controversial measure could be stopped in two ways. The Constitutional Court could intervene or the government itself could decide to withdraw it. But the government insisted Thursday it would hold firm despite all the internal and external pressure.

“It all depends on Liviu Dragnea and some of the key stakeholders in the PSD-ALDE (Social Democrat/Liberal) parliamentary majority, and some of the local leaders,” said political analyst Radu Magdin.

“They may be willing to go all the way, despite the protests. If they blink, and give up, they will be both defeated politically and under pressure from political opponents and civil society.”

Experts believe it is unlikely the government itself will resign. The Social Democrats won a landslide election victory as recently as December.

“It would be a sign of political weakness for the PSD-ALDE alliance and it would disappoint their electorate,” said Magdin. “It would also not help the fight against the new law, as an interim government cannot annul a full government’s ordinance.”

“Resignation might appease some of the critics,” he added. “But it would not prevent the entry into force of the ordinance.”