Indonesian state firms cutting ties with Visa and Mastercard – official

A domestic card will be used for budget spending free of charge, a banking executive has said

The Bank of Indonesia (BI) has launched a domestic card payment system as part of a greater strategy to reduce reliance on foreign systems and protect transactions from geopolitical disruptions, CNBC Indonesia reported on Monday.

Based on Indonesia’s interbank system, Gerbang Pembayaran Nasional (GPN) or the National Payment Gateway is designed for state companies and institutions and will replace Visa and Mastercard as the country seeks more autonomy over its payment infrastructure by minimizing the role of foreign payment providers, the outlet said.

According to Dicky Kartikoyono, the head of the Payment System Policy department at BI, domestic cards process users’ private data within the country and do not charge any fees.

The card also provides features needed for government institutions to conduct payments such as budget spending on inventories, rent, building maintenance and official travel, Kartikoyono said.

“We are launching a government payment card, which we are calling the Indonesian credit card. It will facilitate the use of the budget in an efficient manner and provides various opportunities that will encourage medium and small businesses,” he added.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo earlier urged regional authorities to wean themselves off of foreign payment systems and start using cards issued by local banks. He argued that Indonesia needed to shield itself from geopolitical fallout, citing the sanctions targeting Russia’s financial sector from the US, the EU, and their allies over the conflict in Ukraine.

In March, Dodit Proboyakti, a board member of the Indonesian Credit Cards Association (AKKI), told RIA Novosti that Indonesia would apply the working knowledge of Russia and its Mir payment system to promote the domestic financial network.

Moscow rolled out its own national card system, Mir, soon after the US first targeted the country with sanctions in 2014, and created the domestic National Payment Card System (NSPK) to smoothly take over all Visa and Mastercard transactions should the US-based companies pull the plug.

https://www.rt.com/business/576334-indonesia-visa-mastercard-domestic-card/

Biking Biden Laughs at Border Crisis After Migrant Child Dies in US Custody

Joe Biden took a leisurely bike ride in Rehoboth Beach on Sunday.

Biden on Saturday took off to his Rehoboth Beach compound after delivering a divisive commencement address at Howard University.

Biden has spent 331 days – or 40% of his presidency – on vacation with no visitor logs.

Title 42, a Trump-era policy that forced migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico while their immigration case worked its way through the system expired.

THOUSANDS of illegal aliens passed through the migrant processing center in El Paso, Texas on Friday.

Virtually all of the illegals were military age males.

A migrant child died in US custody last week.

Joe Biden thinks this is funny.

“How do you think things are going at the border?” a reporter asked Biden on Sunday.

Biden laughed at the border crisis.

“Much better than you all expected. Ha ha ha,” Biden said.

“Do you have any plans to visit the border?” the reporter asked.

“No,” Biden said.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/biking-biden-laughs-at-border-crisis-after-migrant-child-dies-in-us-custody-video/

Vice files for bankruptcy

The news giant was once valued at $5.7 billion, but will now be sold to its creditors for a fraction of that sum

Vice Media has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and will likely be acquired by Fortress Investment Group and billionaire financier George Soros’ hedge fund. Vice’s raunchy and irreverent content endeared it to millennial audiences, but critics have ridiculed the outlet for degenerating into a “woke” parody of itself in recent years.

Vice Media LLC submitted its filing on Monday, according to Motherboard, the company’s tech-focused news site.

Soros Fund Management and the New York-based Fortress Investment Group have already submitted a bid to buy the company out for $225 million, the New York Times reported. According to the bankruptcy filing published by Motherboard, Vice Media already owes Fortress nearly $476 million, meaning Vice will not see a penny from the acquisition, and the company will inherit significant debts after the sale.

These debts include $20 million to the founders of Pulse Films, which was acquired by Vice last year, $3.8 million to CNN, and more than $500,000 to ConEdison for utility bills.

From humble beginnings as a pop-culture and art magazine in Montreal in the early 1990s, Vice grew into a media empire. Vice’s documentaries – in which founder Shane Smith journeyed into North Korea and Liberia – became hits on YouTube, and in the 2010s, the company bet heavily on growing its predominantly millennial audience through social media engagement.

Vice’s readership exploded, and Vice Media launched its own TV channel, film company, ad agency, and more than a dozen online news sites. Vice wallowed in funding from the likes of Disney and 21st Century Fox during the 2010s, and was valued at $5.7 billion by private equity firm TPG in 2017.

However, Vice struggled to convert clicks and views into cash, and its left-wing politics and focus on gender and racial issues in recent years have made it the butt of jokes among conservatives and disaffected former liberals.

“Go woke, go [broke]” Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted when news of Vice’s impending bankruptcy surfaced earlier this month. “It’s been a while since they made quality content,” the billionaire added, sharing a link to a Vice documentary on bestiality in rural Colombia.

Vice Media closed down its Vice World News brand last month, stating that the move was dictated by “market realities.” Vice World News was not the only millennial-focused digital news site to shut its doors in April, with Buzzfeed closing its news division a week earlier.

https://www.rt.com/news/576323-vice-media-files-bankrupt/

Biden’s DHS Is Offering Concierge Service for Illegal Aliens – Government Employees will Pick Up Their Tagged Bags at the Border for Them

The Biden regime is offering concierge service for illegal border crossers.

Real America’s Voice correspondent Ben Bergquam reported from the Yuma, Arizona border on Monday on The War Room.

During his discussion Bergquam reported that last night the illegals he met were from Moldova, Egypt and Sudan. It is a global invasion! Hundreds were streaming into Arizona last night.

Ben Berqguam then reported on this amazing development. The border patrol is now picking up bags at the border owned by illegals and delivering them to their location. As Steve Bannon reported – It is an illegal alien concierge service!

Ben Bergquam: Hey, Steve. We got in here late last night, and just to kind of test the water, see what the pulse was down here, if it was continuing or not, if my orchestras, by some amazing feat, actually was telling the truth, that the illegal crossings were going to stop. And it not only didn’t stop, it was worse last night than I’ve ever seen it. We had hundreds coming over. And what’s interesting is where they’re coming from. Now, the majority of the people that I interviewed last night were coming from Moldova, from Sudan, and from Egypt. Now, that’s where they’re coming from, all over Africa and Egypt now. And I have a couple of IDs here. We have one from Ghana, one from Nigeria. But the thing that got me the most last night was this. This is a bag tag, but from the Department of Homeland Security, they’re so backed up, they just simply leave the tags out. They had a bag of them left down by the wall. So if you showed up here and there was no Border Patrol here, you could tag your own bag through the Homeland Security and just wait for your Uber Border Patrol pickup to come pick you up has changed here.

Steve Bannon: Stop! My beloved brother, who’s one of the smartest guys I know, actually gave me the concept. He said it’s concierge illegal. It’s a concierge invasion!… You got to give the audience this again. You got to give it again. Hold it. No. You put a tag on a bag, you’ve got snacks, and the phone waiting for you. You literally tag your bag, and they’ll come and pick it up. Please don’t tell me that!

This you must see to believe.

Your tax dollars at work – providing concierge service for illegal aliens.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/bidens-dhs-is-offering-concierge-service-for-illegal-aliens-government-employees-will-pick-up-their-tagged-bags-at-the-border-for-them-video/

California Reparations Task Force Calls for State Agency to Have Veto Power Over Local Real Estate Decisions

The California Reparations Task Force, formed in 2020, recently voted in favor of recommendations that could include payments of a minimum of $360,000 to each eligible black resident in the state.

According to the California Attorney General’s website, “The purpose of the committee is ‘(1) to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans; (2) to recommend appropriate ways to educate the California public of the task force’s findings; and (3) to recommend appropriate remedies in consideration of the Task Force’s findings.’”

An additional recommendation centers around taking away local decision making in real estate ordinances in the state. According to Fox News,”California’s reparations task force is calling for the state legislature to require all cities and counties with allegedly segregated neighborhoods to submit all their real estate ordinances to a state agency for approval based on whether they maintain or lessen ‘residential racial segregation.'”

The recommendations would “Require state review and approval of all residential land use ordinances enacted by historically and currently segregated cities and counties.”

From the report:

Residential zoning ordinances have been used for decades in California to prevent African Americans from moving into neighborhoods, thereby maintaining residential segregation. Various laws were also used to prevent additional housing from being built, effectively shutting out African Americans.

To address local zoning laws that reinforce and recreate this systemic housing segregation, the Task Force recommends that the Legislature: (1) identify California cities and counties that have historically redlined neighborhoods and whose current levels of residential racial segregation are statistically similar to the degree of segregation in that city or county when it was redlined; (2) require identified cities and counties to submit all residential land use ordinances for review and approval by a state agency, with the agency rejecting (or requiring modification of) the ordinance if the agency finds that the proposed ordinance will maintain or exacerbate levels of residential racial segregation; and (3) remove this process of additional review and approval for identified cities or counties if the city or county eliminates a certain degree of housing segregation in its geographic territory.

Scholars have found that similar efforts by California to influence localities’ residential zoning decisions—through state supervisory authority—has had some beneficial effects. In the early 1990s, about a quarter of California jurisdictions had a Housing and Community Development- approved housing element in place, whereas today, about 77 percent of California jurisdictions have a Housing and Community Development-approved housing element.

As an alternative to state review and approval of ordinances in the localities described above, the state could adopt a post-hoc approach by creating an administrative appeal board to review challenges to developmental permitting decisions or zoning laws and reversing the denial of a development permit if the underlying zoning requirement is deemed to maintain or reinforce residential racial segregation.

The fate of the task force recommendations is unclear. The Gateway Pundit reported that California Governor Gavin Newsom, in a statement to Fox News, applauded the task force’s work though he sidestepped endorsing any specific recommendations.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/california-reparations-task-force-calls-for-state-agency-to-have-veto-power-over-local-real-estate-decisions/

France wants to sanction football players for rejecting LGBTQ jerseys

Several athletes chose not to play over the weekend rather than wear a shirt with a rainbow-colored number

A number of professional football players in France have drawn the ire of the nation’s sports ministry for refusing to take part in an annual league-wide anti-homophobia campaign, French media have reported.

Over the weekend, all teams in France’s Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 divisions were required to wear uniforms featuring rainbow-colored numbers on the back as part of the initiative. However, players from several clubs, including Toulouse FC’s Zakaria Aboukhlal and Nantes’ Mostafa Mohamed, were omitted from the roster after they refused to wear the jerseys.

Aboukhlal, who is Moroccan, wrote on social media that he “made the decision not to take part in the match” over the weekend and noted that he had “the highest regard for each individual, without judging their personal preferences, gender, religion, or background. It is a principle.”

“Respect is a value that I hold in high regard. This applies to others, but also to my own beliefs. I do not think I am the right person to participate in this campaign,” he wrote, asking for his decision to be respected.

In response, French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera called for the players who refused to participate in the anti-homophobia campaign to be sanctioned by their respective clubs.

“I deeply regret that we don’t have 100% of the players in France who find themselves in this message of non-discrimination,” Oudea-Castera said on Sunday. She added that it is the “responsibility of the clubs” to take measures against the athletes for refusing to participate in an anti-discrimination campaign involving all clubs.

Government spokesman Olivier Veran also blasted the decision of the players, calling their refusal to put on the LGBTQ jerseys “anachronistic.”

“I was reading an article earlier where someone, a coach I believe, said that homophobia was an opinion: no, it’s a crime”, he told the television channel France 2.

Sporting organizations around the world have in recent years been encouraging their athletes to participate in similar pro-LGBTQ campaigns. However, some athletes have refused to participate, citing their personal beliefs.

Earlier this year, 26-year-old Ivan Provorov, a Russian defender for the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers, drew backlash after he opted out of a pre-game warmup where he would have been required to wear a rainbow-colored warmup jersey in support of the Pride movement.

Provorov explained that while he respected “everybody’s choices,” he chose to “stay true to myself and my religion.” Nevertheless, his decision caused outrage in NHL circles, with a number of pundits calling for the Russian’s removal from the club and even that he be deported from the US.

https://www.rt.com/news/576314-france-football-lgbtq-campaign/

RFK Jr. Calls Out Tom Cotton, Neo-Con ‘Madness’ in Anti-War Tweet

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made his opposition to escalating the war in Ukraine a centerpiece of his 2024 presidential run.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called out Senator Tom Cotton and the rest of the neo-con “foreign policy establishment” in an anti-war tweet saying that pro-war posturing against Russia is “madness.”

“Senator Tom Cotton insists that Russia is weakened and that we ‘should adjust our planning for war with Russia accordingly’,” anti-war presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in a tweet.

“That’s the kind of madness that passes for serious opinion within the foreign policy establishment,” RFK Jr.’s tweet continued, above a video clip of Arkansas GOP Senator Tom Cotton calling for ramping up American war plans in Eastern Europe during a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

https://nationalfile.com/rfk-jr-calls-out-tom-cotton-neo-con-madness-in-anti-war-tweet/

New York Democrats Move to Seize Control of Children’s Health, Create Vaccine Database

New York Democrats are pushing even more legislation to rip children out of the arms of their parents.

New York Democrats have renewed their assault on medical freedom, as they prepare to vote on bills that would hide childhood STDs from parents and create a vaccine database.

Democrats in Albany plan on voting on two new pieces of vaccine legislation this week, one of which allows children to hide sexually transmitted disease diagnoses from parents, as well as allowing kids to take vaccines without parental knowledge, while the other creates a vaccine database.

The first bill the Democrat-controlled New York State Assembly’s Health Committee is planning to vote on is Assembly Bill 276 – a monstrous piece of legislation that will allow minors to get treatment for STDs as well as vaccines without parental consent.

AB276 was concocted by Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale), who has represented her district for over 20 years with little to show for her time in Albany. Her bill would allow minors to hide sexually transmitted diseases from parents, potentially allowing for sexual abuse to go unknown, making it easier to abuse a child in New York.

Paulin’s bill, which is expected to pass the committee, obliterates a parent’s right to choose what vaccines a child receives – a dangerous precedent that in a post-Covid world could be a very slippery slope.

The most sinister part of Paulin’s bill is that it guts New York’s Mandated reporter law, which mandates the reporting of any suspected sexual abuse to proper authorities.

By allowing kids to hide STDs, the bill effectively re-writes the mandated reporter law and protects pedophiles.

Another bill coming up this week is A7154, the assembly version of S1531. Both of these bills would create a mandatory vaccine database, giving the state ultimate knowledge of who is vaccinated and who is not.

The assembly bill was introduced by John McDonald (D-Cohoes) who represents much of Rensselaer County and the capital region. McDonald is a pharmacist by trade and has deep ties to the Big Pharma industry in New York.

The Senate version of the Bill was introduced by Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who represents Manhattan’s West Side in the State Senate. Hoylman-Sigal has received the title of the most progressive senator in Albany. Other bills he has written include mandating flu shots on all students, mandatory Covid jabs to attend college, and calling for students to receive sex education that includes LGBT indoctrination starting in Kindergarten.

Both of these calamitous bills are expected to be passed by the Health Committee this week and be voted on in the broader State Assembly, where they are expected to pass in yet another attack against the freedom of New Yorkers.

https://nationalfile.com/new-york-democrats-move-to-seize-control-of-childrens-health-create-vaccine-database/