Italian megabrand Gucci is celebrating the abortion movement in its latest runway collection in Rome, Italy.
During the showing of its Resort 2020 collection at the Musei Capitolini, Alessandro Michele showcased his pro-abortion designs for Gucci brandishing one jacket with the infamous slogan “My Body, My Choice.”
“‘My Body My Choice’ is a feminist slogan from the 70s which appears on the reverse of this jacket seen before the [Gucci Resort 2020] fashion show by Alessandro Michele,” Gucci’s Instagram post read of the purple jacket.
Another design invoking the abortion movement featured an embellished uterus branded on the front of a pale gold silk dress.
“This piece reflects the Creative Director’s continuing vision of freedom, equality, and self-expression,” the Gucci Instagram post read.
One model wore a top with the date that abortion became legal in Italy, which Michele referred to as the “protection of motherhood and the voluntary interruption of pregnancy.”
The fashion establishment has praised the Gucci Resort 2020 collection for its upfront support of the abortion movement while states like Alabama have nearly outlawed abortion to protect the life of unborn babies.
“Michele’s Gucci speaks to a large, diverse audience, but this collection will resonate loudest with those who understand just how much is at stake in the fight for women’s reproductive rights,” Vogue Runway’s fashion critic Nicole Phelps wrote in her review of the collection. “His sensitivity to the issue is bound to influence designers and brands, just as his eclectic magpie aesthetic and embrace of individual style has reverberated down through the seasons since his appointment at Gucci.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
University of Chicago student government member Brett Barbin says that he has received death threats over his pro-life bill which would have prohibited mandatory student fees from funding student abortions.
Student government member Brett Barbin said that he introduced the pro-life legislation as a means for ensuring that no student who finds abortion in violation of their conscience would be forced to fund it through the school’s mandatory “student life” fees.
The pro-life student told Fox News on Thursday that he has since received death threats for his legislation, which was voted down in a student government meeting by 15-1, Barbin being the only student government to have voted in favor of the bill.
“At the University of Chicago, we pay a student life fee every year as part of our tuition that’s supposed to go to recreational, educational, social, and cultural activities on campus,” said Barbin to Fox News on Thursday.
“A portion of those fees go to student government,” added Barbin, “Just a few weeks ago, the incoming president of our student government said on Facebook that abortions are a good thing and that her committee supports and funds abortions proudly.”
The student mentioned that several students had approached him, expressing their concerns over the possibility that their student fees might be allocated toward funding abortions. “So they asked me, as a member of student government, to draft some legislation in order to address this situation,” said Barbin.
The pro-life student added that while there had been a “relatively civil discussion” about his proposed legislation at the student government meeting, he was protested, and had received death threats online.
“I received death threats, people who were calling for people to track me down and beat me up, there was a student who was egged outside of the [student government meeting] room,” said Barbin, “and it really was unfortunate to see on a campus like University of Chicago, where we have such strong free speech and free expression principles.”
“I considered my legislation to be a compromise,” added the pro-life student, stating that just like the Hyde Amendment, his bill also gave room for three exceptions in order to use the student fees: if continuing the pregnancy would endanger the mother’s life, or if the pregnancy results from rape or incest.
“If we have people who are so passionate about the issue on both sides — those who believe it’s a violation of their conscience shouldn’t be financially coerced through their tax dollars to be funding abortions,” affirmed Barbin, “It’s the same thing on campus, where we’re just trying to go to school to get an education, we shouldn’t have to be violating our conscience in this way.”
An allegedly close former military aide to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez leveled scandalous accusations against Chávez’s Cuban ally Fidel Castro in a story carried by Argentine media on Wednesday, suggesting the Castro regime killed Chávez after seducing him with “women” and “witchcraft.”
The accuser, retired Lieutenant General Emiro Antonio Brito Valerio, reportedly made the allegations in audio relayed to the Argentine news outlet Infobae. Infobae published his extensive remarks, which detail his friendship with Chávez during their military training and his longtime concern that Fidel Castro was using his friend for political gain.
The Castro regime is deeply embedded in Venezuela, dependent on it for free oil and money generated from its oil industry. A former Maduro official once estimated that there may be nearly 100,000 Cuban government agents helping run the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Brito’s revelations are the latest in a series of attempts to revise the bloody legacy Chávez’s tenure: turning the wealthiest country in Latin America into the world’s most miserable economy; the largest exodus in the modern history of the Western Hemisphere; widespread hunger and disease; hundreds of political prisoners; and the collapse, in the country with the world’s largest known oil reserves, of its petroleum industry.
Those who defend Chávez’s brutal socialist legacy blame his hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro, for sinking the country. Maduro loyalists blame sanctions on Maduro loyalists for the disaster.
Chávez referred to Brito as a “good soldier friend” in life and kept him in the highest levels of power as an adviser, including a position at the Venezuelan embassy in Cuba, Infobae noted.
The soldier claims Chávez’s brother, Adán – currently the governor of Barinas state – “contaminated” him with socialism. Brito also claims to have warned Chávez against at least one of Maduro’s closest henchmen: Diosdado Cabello, the drug trafficker and television host Maduro keeps by his side to control the military.
In the audio Infobae asserts it has confirmed is of Brito, the man saves his sternest condemnation for the Cubans, claiming that he repeatedly warned Chávez to keep Fidel Castro and his henchmen at the distance.
“Hit the brakes, hit the brakes,” Brito claims he told Chávez in their last conversation. “Fidel doesn’t want anything good for you.”
At the time, Chávez was suffering from the cancer that would ultimately kill him while undergoing treatment in Havana. Brito says he told Chávez, “look for a good doctor, in Germany or where the gringos are. It’s just you have some bullshit going on with the gringos.” Chávez was a virulently anti-American leader who regularly referred to President George W. Bush as the devil.
Despite the rift, Brito claims he told Chávez, “those people are more advanced. Don’t go over to Cuba.”
“We don’t know today if the Cubans killed Chávez. It is very probable,” Brito says in the audio. “There can’t be two bosses.”
Brito says Fidel Castro “enamored him and Chávez fell hopelessly in love with Fidel Castro. Fidel wanted Chávez to work for him, the man ensnared him with the promise of power, he tricked Chávez and swindled him and he was fucked.”
“Fidel blinded him with many things, with women, he got to him with witchcraft,” Brito claimed. The Infobae article does not add any more specifics on either claim, suggesting Brito did not detail them in the audio.
Practitioners of santería, a Cuban religion combining Nigerian Yoruba worship with Spanish Catholicism, have long believed that Fidel Castro practiced witchcraft and had been made a high priest of the religion. In 2016, when Castro died, santería priests warned Cubans to cover their heads to prevent Castro’s spirit from possessing them and returning to the living world.
Brito, if the audio is indeed of him, follows several members of Chávez’s regime in attempting to absolve Chávez of his role as the architect of modern Venezuela. Unlike in the case of Maduro, the Venezuelan people elected Chávez in a free and fair election despite the fact that he never hid his disdain of democracy, as exemplified by his failed coup against the democratically elected government in 1992. By absolving Chávez and blaming the Cubans, the Chávez defenders exonerate the Venezuelan people of their role in the situation.
Chávez’s former intelligence chief, Hugo Carvajal, recently came out against Maduro, accusing him of “murdering” hundreds of young Venezuelans and urging the military to turn on him. General Ramón Rangel, another Chávez loyalist, also floated the theory that the Cubans killed Chávez in a video published to social media this month.
Earlier in Maduro’s tenure, former Chávez ministers Héctor Navarro and Jorge Giordani accused Maduro government workers of stealing $300 billion in oil industry profits between 2006-2016.
Not all former Chávez officials who have turned against Maduro have exonerated the late dictator.
“This all started with Chavez!” Luisa Ortega Díaz, former attorney general under both Chávez and Maduro, said in a recent interview. “I think that Chávez’s proposals strayed. But with Maduro, boy Maduro did not deserve to be president. That guy is incapable. We all know it and I knew it.”
Business software maker Salesforce is telling gun retailers they must stop selling AR-15s if they want to continue using the company’s business applications.
The Washington Postreports that Salesforce is a $120 billion San Francisco-based company whose “skyscraper…towers over the city as the tallest building and a major landmark.”
They are now telling customers who sell firearms that they are barred from using Salesforce “technology to market products, manage customer service operations and fulfill orders” unless they cease selling AR-15s.
Salesforce’s “Acceptable Use Policy” goes beyond a ban on AR-15s, to include any semiautomatic firearms “that have the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and any of the following: thumbhole stock, folding or telescoping stock, grenade launcher or flare launcher, flash or sound suppressor, forward pistol grip, pistol grip (in the case of a rifle) or second pistol grip (in the case of a pistol), [and/or] barrel shroud.”
The policy also makes clear that gun retailers cannot sell “high capacity” magazines if they want to use Salesforce software.
Following the February 14, 2018, attack on the Parkland, Florida, high school, Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff tweeted, “The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. Ban it.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination who has often polled behind only former Vice President Joe Biden, has long had a soft spot for Communist nations.
The FBI did not warn the Trump campaign that two members of its campaign were under FBI investigation when agents met with the campaign in August 2016 to warn it about national security threats.
According to Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge, the FBI did not tell then-candidate Donald Trump that the ‘Russians’ were trying to infiltrate his campaign during a defensive intel briefing in mid-August of 2016.
Counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok was a coordinator for the FBI briefing, which included multiple agencies in August of 2016, just 18 days after Strzok opened “Crossfire Hurricane,” the CI investigation into ‘Trump-Russia.’
Herridge says the FBI never warned Trump about the so-called ‘Russian outreach,’ nor did they warn Trump that two of his aides, General Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos were under FBI investigation, even though the defensive briefing is designed to warned candidates about national security threats.
Isn’t the FBI supposed to protect American citizens?
A mid-August 2016 counterintelligence briefing for the Trump campaign did not specifically warn officials about Russian outreach to the Trump team, nor did it warn that two campaign aides, Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos, were already under FBI investigation, Fox News has learned.
The new details about the so-called “defensive briefing” have emerged from congressional letters, text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page, and sources familiar with the matter. Such briefings are designed to warn the candidate and his team about national security threats.
“There was a defensive briefing of candidate Trump on Aug. 17 of 2016,” Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said Thursday on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” “And I can tell you what he wasn’t told: He wasn’t warned about a Russia investigation that Peter Strzok had opened 18 days earlier.”
Just days before Strzok’s August 2016 “defensive briefing,” text messages indicate Strzok set up times to rehearse. Strzok text his paramour Lisa Page on August 13: “Im going to have (redacted) do his CI (counterintelligence) brief presentation for me and Jon and (redacted) on Mon afternoon.”
Strzok also texted of another planned rehearsal: “I want to do another one Tues AM for at least Bill,” he said in reference to his FBI boss Bill Priestap. “You think add you, [FBI lawyer] Jim Baker? I want both (f)rank and thoughtfulness for feedback. Plus repetitions for him.”
Two days later Strzok sent Lisa Page his infamous “insurance policy” text.
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office – that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” he texted at the time. “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
Congressman Ratcliffe (R-TX) slammed Peter Strzok on Thursday.
“Why would Peter Strzok, who would participate at Jim Comey’s direction in a defensive briefing designed to protect and warn a candidate, be the same person who is in fact at that time already investigating the candidate’s campaign? That shouldn’t happen. There should be answers to those questions,” he said.
Congressman Ratcliffe said this issue is of special interest to Attorney General Bill Barr who is currently investigating the origins of the Russia investigation.
Watch more from Catherine Herridge:
Anti-Trump FBI special agent Peter Strzok never told the Trump campaign that Flynn and Papadopoulos were under investigation during an FBI briefing for the campaign in August 2016 that was supposed to warn the campaign of “national security threats”
Joe Biden wants you to believe he is a good friend of the black community.
In 2014 Joe Biden famously accused Republicans of wanting to put black Americans back in chains.
But in 1986 Jet Magazine had a different view of the Delaware Democrat.
According to Jet, a popular magazine marketed to African-American readers, Joe Biden once lived in a house that, per contract, prohibited ownership by “any Negro or person of Negro extraction” …unless they were a “domestic servant.”
Here is page 32 of Jet Magazine, September 1986:
Here is a close up of the article from Jet magazine.
President Donald Trump praised Brexit warrior Nigel Farage on Thursday for the results of the European Union vote.
“Nigel just had a big victory, got 32 percent of the vote, starting from nothing,” Trump said.
The president commented on the E.U. Parliament elections as he left the White House for a commencement speech at the Air Force Academy.
Farage’s Brexit Party won 32 percent of the vote, seating 28 members of the European Parliament if the United Kingdom is still in the E.U. in October.
Trump did not say whether he would visit with Farage or Boris Johnson during his trip to the United Kingdom next week but praised them both.
“Nigel Farage is a friend of mine, Boris is a friend of mine, they’re two very good guys, very interesting people,” Trump said, adding that, “I think they’re big powers over there, I think they’ve done a good job.”
Trump will visit the United Kingdom from June 3-5.
Colombia’s Supreme Court ordered the release of “Jesús Santrich,” a senior member of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorist group, on Thursday, after his arrest on charges of trafficking cocaine because of a jurisdictional issue.
The court ruled that because the 2016 “peace” deal between the FARC and the government of Colombia allowed the terrorist group to establish a political party and granted it unelected seats in Congress, and Santrich received one, Santrich enjoys special immunity status that prevents regular courts from charging him with crimes. Only the Supreme Court can try a sitting legislator, the court noted.
It did not weigh in on the charges brought against Santrich – the nom de guerre of Seuxis Paucias Hernández Solarte – for allegedly attempting to smuggle 10,000 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to the United States for profit, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The charges claimed that Santrich had conspired to smuggle the cocaine beginning in 2017, after the FARC agreed to dismantle their guerrilla apparatus and give up the drug trade.
Santrich was arrested in April, shortly before taking one of the ten congressional seats the FARC peace deal grants the terrorist organization without having to compete in an election for them. Authorities temporarily released Santrich, citing that the FARC peace deal does not allow the extradition of terrorists to face justice for their crimes abroad and the case against Santrich was filed by the American Department of Justice. Police since arrested him on May 17, however, and he has remained in custody since.
“The dignity of the office that the person carries would go disregarded by allowing authorities other than the Supreme Court of Justice to investigate them, judge them, or restrict their liberties” in the event that the defendant legally held a seat in Congress, the Supreme Court determined. A lawmaker takes office when the National Electoral Council ratifies their status, not on their first day of work, the court decided. The council had done so with Santrich, but he has not spent a single day working as a Congressman. The latter was not enough to invalidate the former, the court concluded.
The Supreme Court also ruled that police should release Santrich immediately on Thursday as the Supreme Court prepares a trial for him on the charges presented. At press time, Santrich remains behind bars and FARC defense attorneys are preparing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, citing the Supreme Court ruling.
Following the decision, Colombia’s Attorney General’s office sent their case file on Santrich to the Supreme Court for the latter to begin criminal proceedings, according to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo. Should the Supreme Court deem the file to contain enough evidence against Santrich, police will once again arrest him.
Colombian President Iván Duque lambasted the ruling for benefitting a “mafioso,” though he added that he respects the separation of powers and will not interfere in the execution of the Supreme Court’s will.
“I can say it with my head held high,” he told reporters. “The decision that the Constitutional Court took, I accept it as a Colombian and defender of the law, but I will never stop defending the principles that have motivated the Colombian people so that we could have peace with justice.”
Santrich, he said, “is a mafioso and the evidence that the nation knows about [shows] he is a mafioso that was negotiating a cocaine shipment, and for this reason, also with new evidence, he was once again captured for events that clearly occurred after the signing of the agreements [the FARC peace deal].”
Other members of Congress have expressed disgust at potentially serving alongside Santrich.
“It would set a very bad example for Colombian to have seated in Congress, like in the old days of Pablo Escobar, a person with such a crminal condition,” senator Juan Diego Gómez said to Colombia’s RCN network.
Another senator, Paloma Valencia, told the network, “I lament very much that the institutions that represent justice have decided to take on the role of defenders of criminals, because that doesn’t just hurt institutions, but the country itself.”
Duque won the Colombian presidency last year largely as a result of national outrage at the FARC peace deal, which the Colombian people voted down in a national referendum, but Duque’s predecessor Juan Manuel Santos jammed through Congress, anyway. Santos received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
The peace deal allows the FARC to establish a political party, which they rebranded as the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force (still FARC), and grants them ten uncontested seats in Congress until 2026. The deal requires the FARC to provide a financial inventory to ensure they are not profiting from drug trafficking – as they have for over half a century – but the group has so far provided sloppy, clearly incomplete budgets that officials have called “a joke.” They have suffered no repercussions for violating the deal.
Santrich’s fate now remains uncertain. The peace deal would not allow Colombia to extradite him on the U.S. charges unless he is convicted of a crime in Colombia that occurred after the signing of the deal.
The Department of Justice accused Santrich and two other FARC associates – Marlon Marín (“El Doctor”) and Fabio Simón Younes Arboleda – of working “together to produce and distribute approximately 10,000 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to the United States and elsewhere.”
“As alleged, these defendants conspired to ship thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to the streets of the U.S. Thanks to the investigative work of the DEA, they are now under arrest and face significant criminal charges,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in April.
The DEA produced video evidence of Santrich negotiating the deal.
Colombia’s attorney general at the time, Nestor Martínez, estimated that the cocaine would have brought in a $320 million profit. Santos, who was still president at the time, said his officials had “resounding and conclusive proof” against Santrich.
FARC leaders claimed the charges were a nefarious capitalist plot against them.
“Santrich’s detention is part of a plan orchestrated by the government of the United States with the cooperation of the Colombian prosecutors,” Iván Márquez, a senior FARC leader, said at a press conference following the charges. “It is clear that we are facing another fabrication by the twisted American justice system.”
