Sunday, March 16, 2025

Claude Malhuret, French Senate: "Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally"

Claude Malhuret Member of the French Senate
March 2025
Transcript below of an incredibly powerful and accurate speech in the French Senate two days ago by Mr. Claude Malhuret.
“President, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers, My dear colleagues,
Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.
Washington has become the court of Nero, a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fueled jester in charge of purging the civil service.
This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.
The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is all about. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down before Putin, but Xi Jinping, faced with such a shipwreck, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.
Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media.
This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution.
I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor.
Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign.
Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised. What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it.
And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.
The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it.
What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.
Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada, you are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe, he is Taiwan and the China Sea.
At the parties of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, this is called “diplomatic realism.”
So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated.
Interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse show that it is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war.
The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands and that they have three imperatives.
Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that it holds, and of course to impose its presence and that of Europe in any negotiation.
This will be expensive. It will be necessary to end the taboo of the use of frozen Russian assets. It will be necessary to circumvent Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself by a coalition of only the willing countries, with of course the United Kingdom.
Second, demand that any agreement be accompanied by the return of kidnapped children, prisoners and absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia and Minsk, we know what agreements with Putin are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion.
Finally, and this is the most urgent, because it is what will take the most time, we must build the neglected European defence, to the benefit of the American umbrella since 1945 and scuttled since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books.
Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is to recognize that France has been right for decades in arguing for strategic autonomy.
It remains to be built. It will be necessary to invest massively, to strengthen the European Defence Fund outside the Maastricht debt criteria, to harmonize weapons and munitions systems, to accelerate the entry into the Union of Ukraine, which is today the leading European army, to rethink the place and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, to relaunch the anti-missile shield and satellite programs.
The plan announced yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen is a very good starting point. And much more will be needed.
Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. In a word, the Draghi report will have to be implemented. For good.
But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament.
We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left.
They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly, Mr Prime Minister, before you, against European unity, against European defence.
They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin.
Peace for the collaborators who have refused any aid to the Ukrainians for three years.
Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react.
Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.
The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and social networks.
But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads.
The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for their common defense, and to make Europe the power that it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again.
Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost.
The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century.
Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.”
-Claude Malhuret speaking to the French Senate Tuesday March 4 2025. You have just read the transcript of a speech that will live forever in the history books.

Friday, March 14, 2025

BC Woman held in a concrete cell at US border for 11 days, with 30 other women

 B.C. woman headed home after visa rejection led to 11 days in U.S. custody:

Jasmine Mooney held for 11 days and counting, moved to Arizona after detention by ICE at California/Mexico border

BY: Talar Stockton, Local Journalism Initiative about 17 hours ago

Jasmine Mooney, born and raised in Whitehorse is being held in a U.S. facility following detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

UPDATE (3:51 p.m. March 13, 2025): Stephen Mooney has told the News that Jasmine will be released tomorrow from San Diego and fly back to Canada

ORIGINAL STORY:

A B.C. woman is being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a private detention centre in Arizona, according to her father.

Stephen Mooney told the News on March 13 that his daughter, Jasmine Mooney, was detained at the Tijuana border crossing in Mexico. She had been trying to renew her U.S. visa at that border crossing as she had done previously, Stephen said.

Stephen said the family have not been able to get in contact with Jasmine. He said that it took three days to find her location when she was moved from the San Diego facility.

Connections in the U.S. have been able to speak to her, however, he said.

A friend of Jasmine’s in Vancouver has a connection in the U.S., who is able to reach Jasmine through an app only available in the U.S. designed to communicate with those detained in these facilities.

Austin Grabish, a reporter for a news station in San Diego, has also been able to contact Jasmine, said Stephen.

At the privately-run San Luis Detention Centre in Arizona, Jasmine’s conditions are terrible, said Stephen.

Jasmine, who was born in and grew up in Whitehorse, had been living in California recently while she worked on her company, Holy Water.

Her visa was denied, said Stephen, and ICE detained her.

“It's a common practice to be pulled aside,” he said. “Sometimes they want to check some credentials out, and they pulled her aside. But then this extended into hours in a facility right at the border, and then being held for two days in Tijuana, then moved up to San Diego for another three days, and then now moved to Arizona, and she is on day 11 today.”

She’s being held in a concrete cell with around 30 other women, with no windows, and fluorescent lights on 24 hours a day, he said. There are no beds, and guards are frequently yelling at them, he said.

The Mooney family’s lawyers have not been able to talk with Jasmine, said Stephen.

“She's in cell with 30 other women, she was — they were shackled when they were transported from San Diego, five-hour drive across the California border into Arizona to San Luis, Arizona,” said Stephen.

“None of these women are, they're all from different countries, and she is — they're asking her to pass messages back to her family when she gets out because she's the only one that they think has the best chance of getting out and sharing to the families, that these other 30 people, that they're okay.”

These detainees are told that they have a case manager when they enter the system, but Stephen said none of the women have been able to speak with any case managers for the duration of the time that Jasmine has been there.

Global Affairs Canada spokesperson John Babcock told the News on March 12 that they are aware of the situation. However, they said that the government cannot intervene on behalf of Canadian citizens with regard to the entry and exit requirements of another country.

Stephen told the News he had not wanted the issue to become a political point in U.S.-Canada relations. But now, he said, they’re trying everything they can.

“We, through the lawyers, we asked her to sign this waiver that said she's pleading guilty of some sort, and they should automatically deport her, and that's what we're hoping, but she gives the paperwork — and this happened days ago — to the guards, and she has no idea what they do with it.”

He said that the centre she is in is operated by a private corporation.

“There is a game they play because they make money off it. The federal government pays for this, and it's a private company, so they do the moving game, and our lawyers can't even talk to her. And so if they think that a lawyer is on her and they want to move her, they move her, and then they go, oh, sorry, we don’t have her file anymore, you have to wait 'til the ICE system shows up where she shows up, and then you contact that facility.”

“We're trying to just get her out, and pay the consequences of her being banned from the United States. And it can vary at that point, at that detention centre, and that person can say, either it's five, ten, or life, and we don't care. We get her out, and then we battle that remotely with the courts, but anyone who wants to challenge that in the system while they're in detention, could be up to 12 weeks staying in that facility before they see a judge.”

He said they have contacts in Washington who are trying to get her released.

The News has also reached out to ICE and to the Canadian consulate in Los Angeles, California. 

ICE responded to the News via email on March 13, saying that Jasmine was detained on March 3 for not having legal documentation to be in the United States. 

"Mooney was processed in accordance with the "Securing Our Borders" Executive Order dated January 21," said Sandra Grisolia of ICE in a statement. 

"All aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the U.S., regardless of nationality."

Stephen said his family is hoping for good news regarding Jasmine's situation on March 13, as he said both Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Ontario Premier Doug Ford — who is visiting the U.S. capital that day — are aware of the situation.

Stephen said the family hopes Jasmine isn't moved again and that she can be returned to Tijuana so they can arrange her travel home to Canada as soon as possible.

Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com

 

Claude Malhuret, French Senate: "Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally"

Claude Malhuret Member of the French Senate March 2025 Transcript below of an incredibly powerful and accurate speech in the French Senate t...