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The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

europeancorrespondent.com

271–280 of 377 posts

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#271
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> part of accepting a pardon is accepting guilt Is that not a commonly misunderstood myth? You do not have to sign anything admitting guilt.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3... different courts have said different things. the more recent courts have said it only removes the punishment you were still found guilty, so the guilt is still there

There's also a weird play with the prosecution.

Like if a pardon is issued before trial, under normal circumstances the prosecutor will drop charges and the pardonee does not need to accept it. Further, a prosecutor won't go after charges when someone is pardoned.

These are the cases where a pardon wouldn't imply guilt.

But generally speaking, pardons happen after a conviction and not before. Accepting a pardon ends appeals.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#272
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.) The journalists were invited. 2.) The ambassador told the cops the journalists are an active threat. That was straightforwardly a lie. This was not "trespassing" event at all.

I don't particularly want to argue, but even if they were invited, if they were asked to leave it would still be trespassing. We also only have their word for it that that's what they told the cops. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, there's no way of telling from what they've have chosen to present us. Personally, I think it's suspicious that the interviewer was clearly recording their conversation on his phone that's…

You misunderstand how trespassing works here. Civil law, as used in Belgium and most of the world, is completely different from Common law used in English-speaking countries.

Trespassing (lokaalvredebreuk or huisvredebreuk) has a much narrower definition focused on squatting for the former, or entering a home for the latter. A fenced-off party area in a public space is neither. Even if it were trespassing, police can't just force people to leave on the spot because someone asked them to.

The whole issue is that the lawful basis for ejecting the journalists is very unclear, and the initial complaint (active threat) certainly wouldn't play in Freedom 250's favor if it reached a court.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#273
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context: he's accused Belgium of being anti-semitic because a couple of Orthodox Jewish mohels are being prosecuted for practicing illicit medicine (i.e. performing ritual circumcision without a medical license). The investigation started after a complaint was filed by a rabbi, so it's hard to chalk this up to anti-semitisim, but that's modern day US diplomacy for you.

It's considered very anti-semitic in America to be against male genital mutilation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League#Circumc... When Iceland tried to ban it, the ADL had some very choice words about the potential consequences. > Greenblatt sent Iceland's Parliament a letter regarding a proposed infant circumcision ban in that country, arguing that the ban should be rejected due to circumcision's r…

The ADL is a rather discredited pro-Israel organization. It reports protests of Israel and of Zionism as "anti-semitism". Here's a link to a documentary about it from 2009:

http://www.defamation-thefilm.com/

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#274
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context: he's accused Belgium of being anti-semitic because a couple of Orthodox Jewish mohels are being prosecuted for practicing illicit medicine (i.e. performing ritual circumcision without a medical license). The investigation started after a complaint was filed by a rabbi, so it's hard to chalk this up to anti-semitisim, but that's modern day US diplomacy for you.

[flagged]

Well it's also bad when it's done by highly trained medical experts in a modern hospital as part of gender affirming care.

It's only when performed as part of a pre-medieval ritual in unhygienic conditions by non-professionals in front of a crowd of gawking onlookers that it is totally fine.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#275

It's interesting to see a European perspective on this incident. They seem a lot more intent on avoiding political agendas than Americans are. Usually incidents like this (in the US) come from activists who are very bad at "picking their battles wisely." In this case, I don't think a battle was picked going in, as there was an assumption of a fair dialog, and the way the police acted implies that they (police) were h…

> A bigger question is, what is the expected outcome from this reporting? Is it that Brussels shouldn't welcome events like this? Is it that the US needs to elect different leaders?

Definitely the latter. The primary goal of all journalists is to brainwash people into voting against their own interests.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The former Trump US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, claimed there were “no go zones” in the Netherlands where politicians and cars were being set on fire. He called it “fake news” of course, then denied having ever called it fake news, and then eventually claimed it was a mix-up of countries. Only the best people!

I found out I lived in a "no go zone" from an American I thank him since I didn't realize. All of the rioting hordes have become really good at staying under the radar, they are able to destroy everything then hide all of the evidence so it looks like absolutely nothing happened.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#277
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's considered very anti-semitic in America to be against male genital mutilation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League#Circumc... When Iceland tried to ban it, the ADL had some very choice words about the potential consequences. > Greenblatt sent Iceland's Parliament a letter regarding a proposed infant circumcision ban in that country, arguing that the ban should be rejected due to circumcision's r…

[flagged]

We should not change body parts of persons that are not capable of consenting to that. Why not wait until someone is capable of taking those decisions by themself instead of imposing them and on top of that risking their health while doing so?

At some point we need to accept that in a relfrespecting society health and free will must prevail over any practice that infringes on them.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#278
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* AIPAC is one of the biggest donors to US political campaigns. * Entanglement of tech industries * Israel serves as an outpost of US imperialism in the Middle East. * Shared understanding with fellow Settler-Colonialist state * On a related note, it's a country with a big white-reading population in a mostly brown neighborhood. * Evangelicals believe Israel is where the battle that rings in the Second Coming will ha…

People think AIPAC is some all powerful unique lobbying group, in fact they're not even in the top 10 major lobbyists. Did you know SpaceX gave 5x as much as AIPAC in 2024? AIPAC was also outspent by Coinbase, by Ripple, and several other companies[0]. And this "18th largest lobbyist" position is after a post-october-7 surge in spending. Pre-october-7 (2022) they were ranked forty sixth in terms of spending. Can you…

The butwhatabout-ism is strong with this one...

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#279
post #11

free speech, I fear, is in retreat

Which is quite ironic, given all the chuds running around and screeching about _free speech absolutism_.

Maybe frozen fruit will finally die the death it deserves and we can get back to making the world a better place.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#280
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's considered very anti-semitic in America to be against male genital mutilation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League#Circumc... When Iceland tried to ban it, the ADL had some very choice words about the potential consequences. > Greenblatt sent Iceland's Parliament a letter regarding a proposed infant circumcision ban in that country, arguing that the ban should be rejected due to circumcision's r…

[flagged]

> Circumcision is an absolutely fundamental rite of Judaism.

Offering animal sacrifices in the temple was once an absolutely fundamental rite of Judaism. And that changed. At times, halachic scholarship/philosophy/politics reaches decisions that some commandments (mitzvot) can be followed/maintained symbolically, or semi-symbolically rather than literally. It is conceivable this may happen with circumcision. I mean, the point of circumcision is to signify the covenant of Jehovah with Jews (or with Abraham); it is not the lack-of-foreskin that is the point.

> Every Jewish male is circumcised, as far as I know

You know wrong. Some - not many, but some - Israeli Jewish parents eschew circumcision.

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