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Why Simone Biles withdrew from the Olympic Gymnastic Women’s Team Finals

<p>The only way that an Olympic silver medal, a token signaling that you’re second best out of all of planet Earth’s 8 billion inhabitants, is considered a disappointing shock is if you’re on the United States Gymnastics Team. For nine years, the team and their American fans have grown accustomed to relentless dominance.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, the United States Gymnastics team did not succeed in its bid for a third consecutive gold medal in the <a href="https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/artistic-gymnastics/event-schedule-women-s-team.htm">Olympic Women’s Team Final</a>, losing to Russia by <a href="https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/artistic-gymnastics/results-women-s-team-fnl-000001-.htm">a score of 166.096 to 169.528</a>. As huge as this news is, the result, the mistakes the US couldn’t overcome, and the resurgent Russian team were all footnotes to a bigger story about the well-being of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/8/9/12411966/simone-biles-olympics-gymnastics">Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast</a> and arguably the greatest athlete of all time.</p>
<p>After shakily completing one vault, Biles briefly left the arena and then took herself out of the competition. Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Grace McCallum had to finish without her. The move was unusual, particularly because, in a sport riddled with unpredictability and risk, Biles’s greatness had taken on the force of inevitability. Since first competing at the senior level in 2013, Biles has never seemed to let anything — rivals, difficult moves, even harrowing <a href="https://www.vox.com/22585637/gymnastics-tokyo-olympics-2021-abuse-larry-nassar">abuse</a> — keep her from winning. This year’s delayed Olympics wasn’t going to be an exception.</p>
<p>And then it was.</p>
<p>Initial reports from the arena speculated it might be an injury, but Biles told reporters she didn’t feel right mentally going into the day’s competition. She said her health was more important than going through with the day’s events and more important than a possible gold medal.</p>
<p>“This Olympic Games, I wanted it to be for myself when I came in — and I felt like I was still doing it for other people,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/27/sports/gymnastics-olympics-results?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes">Biles told reporters after the team event</a>. “At the end of the day, we’re human too so we have to protect our mind and our body rather than just go out there and do what the world wants us to do.”</p>
<p>Biles’s withdrawal immediately impacted the American team, which heavily relies on her — but it also made a powerful statement about the importance of mental health.</p>
<p>At the start of the competition, which took place on July 27, the Americans and Russians, who were in the top two spots, were both on vault, one of the Americans’ signature events. Traditionally, going back to 2012 (<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/how-us-gymnastics-team-crushed-russians-gif-guide/325165/">see: Maroney, McKayla</a>), Americans have thrived on vault. Biles was set to go second and perform an Amanar — a vault that consists of a layout flip and 2.5 twists, which she’s hit over and over throughout her career, including at the 2016 Olympics. This time, Biles unexpectedly bailed out of the vault early, not completing the full skill, and barely saved the landing.</p>
<p>Biles scored a 13.766 for her vault. At the 2019 world championships, Biles scored a 15.233 on the apparatus. Gymnastics is a sport that’s usually scored to tenths and hundredths of a point — full points represent a big difference.</p>
<p>After her vault, <a href="https://twitter.com/nrarmour/status/1419978908145909761?s=20">Biles left the competition floor</a> and did not warm up on the uneven bars, the Americans’ next event. This was a surprise, and cause for concern. Biles eventually returned to the arena, and it was announced that she would not compete for the rest of the night. Later, <a href="https://twitter.com/ALaboutSports/status/1419987613755314179">it was clarified</a> that the issue was not physical but mental.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Sunisa Lee was one of the American gymnasts who continued on after Biles’s withdrawal.</span></figcaption>
<span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images</cite></span></figure>
<p>Obviously, losing the best gymnast of all time is going to adversely affect a team. It’s akin to a Bulls championship basketball team not having Michael Jordan suit up. The team just isn’t going to have the same firepower. But gymnastics’ scoring makes a withdrawal especially difficult.</p>
<p>In the Olympics team finals, teams have a pool of four gymnasts. From those four, teams pick three gymnasts to compete in each of the four apparatuses. Those three gymnasts’ scores — 12 in total across the four events — will count no matter what, but the wrinkle is that you don’t have to submit the same three gymnasts across all events. You can theoretically use the fourth gymnast as a substitute (again, see McKayla Maroney’s vault in 2012) to cover for a gymnast who might be weaker or to really play to your strengths.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/Gymnastics_Now/status/1419674011802423298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1419674011802423298%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=about%3Asrcdoc">Biles was slated</a> to compete in all four events for the team, and losing her meant that her teammates had to make up for Biles’s scoring, 33 percent of the team total. Logistically, it also meant that teammates Jordan Chiles and Suni Lee would have to compete across all four events. Initially, Chiles was going to skip the uneven bars and balance beam and Lee would skip the floor exercise.</p>
<p>Lee and Chiles having to adjust and prepare last minute is a huge blow. But they’re both extremely talented gymnasts.</p>
<p>Even without Biles and with an unusually slow start, the Americans were within striking distance after three rotations, having outscored the Russian team 41.232 to 39.532 on the balance beam. The problem came in the fourth rotation as the team suffered mistakes on the floor exercise, an event that’s traditionally been an American strong suit and one of Biles’s best events. It’s difficult to say whether mistakes were “unusual” as international competition was put on pause because of the pandemic and Biles’s withdrawal was an extraordinary circumstance, but the Americans’ final tally was some three points behind the Russian team.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Simone Biles and the US Gymnastics team accept their silver medals.</span></figcaption>
<span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Jean Catuffe/Getty Images</cite></span></figure>
<p>As the dust settles on the results, one of the <a href="https://meaww.com/fire-tom-forster-says-internet-after-us-womens-gymnastic-team-comes-2nd-tokyo-olympics-simone-biles">growing criticisms</a> from commentators and fans of gymnastics is that US team coordinator Tom Forster failed to make the best, most strategic choices for the team. Instead of assembling the team by highest scoring potential, he went by team rank and results. And the gist of the criticism is simple: Forster did not bring the highest-scoring team he could have to the Olympics.</p>
<p>“We’re so, so fortunate that our athletes are so strong that I don’t think it’s going to come down to tenths of a point in Tokyo,” Forster told reporters after the Olympic Trials. “We didn’t feel like it was worth changing the integrity of the process simply for a couple of tenths.”</p>
<p>Forster was referring to selecting Grace McCallum over MyKayla Skinner. Though she was outscored by McCallum in the all-around competition at the trials, Skinner’s specialties, especially in vault, would have given the US a higher potential team score. With the way the current scoring system favors difficulty, the highest potential scores are something coaches have to seriously consider if they want to win.</p>
<p>Observers also say it’s curious that Forster used that language: the “integrity of the process.” Back in 1996, Forster coached a gymnast named Theresa Kulikowski who finished sixth at trials and would have made the team that would go on to be known as the Magnificent 7. But Kulikowski was bumped from the team for Shannon Miller and Dominique Moceanu, which <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-07-07-sp-21956-story.html">drew Forster’s ire</a>. Forster’s lack of flexibility and insistence on maintaining “fairness” and standings seems to be a reaction to his disappointment with the ’96 decision, even though critics believe that kind of thinking is outdated.</p>
<p>“All-around standings aren’t a process. They’re just results. What you do with those results, how you interpret them, that’s the process,” wrote <a href="https://defector.com/tenths-do-matter-even-when-youve-got-simone-biles/">Dvora Meyers at Defector</a>, explaining that scoring during trials is just one consideration rather than the end-all and be-all. Meyers’s article puts into words a lot of criticisms voiced against Forster: that he didn’t do his job to scout his athletes, assess who was peaking or slumping, figure out the competition with the thoroughness of someone determined to win gold.</p>
<p>Forster’s comments also, as <a href="https://twitter.com/PettyOkino/status/1417545726524116996">critics pointed out</a>, showed how much he was taking Biles for granted, unintentionally or not.</p>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">After trials, US national team coordinator said a few tenths wouldn't matter in finals, so he didn't need to pick the highest scoring team. The implicit idea was that Simone would carry the team to victory <a href="https://t.co/VVXQgENeOx">https://t.co/VVXQgENeOx</a></p>
— Elle Reeve (@elspethreeve) <a href="https://twitter.com/elspethreeve/status/1419985188994617345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
<p>That mentality puts a lot of pressure on Biles who, despite appearing superhuman, has talked openly about the toll of mental stress and injuries.</p>
<p>Forster didn’t seem to consider what would happen and what did in fact happen if Biles wasn’t herself or worse, if she was taken out of the equation. During the <a href="https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/artistic-gymnastics/results-women-qual-000001-.htm">qualifying portion of the competition</a>, in which all the US gymnasts compete, the best-performing US gymnasts who weren’t Biles or Lee were actually Jade Carey and Skinner — both of whom outscored McCallum and Chiles.</p>
<p>That said, with the way the competition played out and silver medal shock, it’s temptingly easy for Team USA fans to fantasize about all the “what if” possibilities. At the same time, though, there’s a group of young women who performed under extremely chaotic circumstances and still won silver.</p>
<p>And then there’s Simone Biles and how we appreciate her greatness.</p>
<p>“Today it’s like, you know what, no, I don’t want to do something stupid and get hurt,” Biles told reporters after the team event, alluding to a feeling of mental stress and fatigue. “And it’s just it’s not worth it, especially when you have three amazing athletes that can step up to the plate and do it, not worth it.”</p>
<p>Biles <a href="https://www.today.com/news/simone-biles-says-physically-she-feels-good-it-varies-emotionally-t226561">added</a>, “Coming here to the Olympics and being the head star isn’t an easy feat, so we’re just trying to take it one day at a time and we’ll see.”</p>
<p>Biles’s withdrawal is a wake-up moment for anyone who’s watched her become the greatest gymnast of all time. She’s achieved it so effortlessly and gracefully that it’s easy to forget the massive amount of pressure she faces day in and day out or the adversity and abuse she’s endured. Every time Biles steps into the arena, she’s expected to dominate. If she’s anything short of dominant, there are whispers about what went wrong.</p>
<p>Not participating in the team finals was a decision by Biles to step away, but also a moment for all of us to reflect on the importance of mental health. Similarly, in tennis, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22534957/naomi-osaka-french-open-wimbledon">Naomi Osaka</a> has also been having forthright conversations and addressing mental well-being. Despite spots of sour <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/piers-morgan-faces-backlash-over-comments-about-mental-health-issues-what-joke-1613605">backlash</a>, there’s been an outpouring of support for Biles from Olympic athletes like figure skater and Olympic medalist <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamRippon/status/1420011455152275457?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1420011455152275457%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fnews%2Folympics%2Fathletes-offer-support-after-simone-biles-withdraws-olympics-team-final-n1275186">Adam Rippon</a>, former teammates <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/olympics/athletes-offer-support-after-simone-biles-withdraws-olympics-team-final-n1275186">Aly Raisman and Laurie Hernandez</a>, and 1996 gold medal gymnast <a href="https://twitter.com/kerristrug96/status/1420063374721703939?s=20">Kerri Strug</a>.</p>
<p>It’s unclear whether Biles will participate in the all-around and event finals, which she’ll need <a href="https://www.upi.com/Sports_News/2021/07/27/japan-olympics-team-usa-simone-biles-gymnastics/3851627386020/?spt=su&or=btn_tw">medical clearance</a> for. But it’s not as though she needs to do anything more to prove her greatness.</p>
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22596910/simone-biles-withdrawal-olympic-gymnastics-team-finals-results">https://www.vox.com/22596910/simone-biles-withdrawal-olympic-gymnastics-team-finals-results</a>

vox Why Simone Biles withdrew from the Olympic Gymnastic Women’s Team Finals

The only way that an Olympic silver medal, a token signaling that you’re second best out of all of planet Earth’s 8 billion inhabitants, is ...

The political crisis in Tunisia, explained by an expert

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<p>Tunisia’s president has pushed the country’s fledgling democracy into crisis.</p>
<p>Over the weekend, President Kais Saied fired the country’s prime minister and suspended Parliament in what his political opponents have called a <a href="https://www.trtworld.com/africa/political-parties-decry-tunisia-coup-as-crowds-celebrate-on-street-48661">coup</a>. But he says the move was justified after thousands of Tunisians took to the streets in recent days to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57958555">protest the government’s handling of the pandemic</a>, which has deepened the country’s economic woes.</p>
<p>Supporters of the president <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/supporters-tunisian-president-celebrate-government-ousting-with-cheers-fireworks-2021-07-26/">cheered</a> his ousting of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and other government ministers, but those celebrations turned to clashes when <a href="https://north-africa.com/2021/07/tunisians-say-they-are-witnessing-the-birth-of-a-dictator-clash-with-army-in-the-capital/">those who opposed Saied’s moves</a> also took to the streets to protest.</p>
<p>“One of the big question marks is: Is this a coup?” said <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/experts/1344">Sarah Yerkes</a>, a former State Department and Pentagon official and now a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Middle East Program who focuses on Tunisia. That’s a question a lot of people are asking right now, and it doesn’t actually have a straightforward answer, in part because democracy in Tunisia is still very new.</p>
<p>In 2010, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-tunisia-act-of-one-fruit-vendor-sparks-wave-of-revolution-through-arab-world/2011/03/16/AFjfsueB_story.html">Tunisian fruit seller</a> set himself on fire to protest corruption after police officers tried to confiscate his goods. That set off a broader revolution in Tunisia against the authoritarian regime of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. In 2011, those protests spread across the Arab world to Egypt, Libya, Syria, and beyond.</p>
<p>The uprisings of the Arab Spring, however, largely failed to bring democracy to those countries as powerful, entrenched regimes launched counterrevolutions and cracked down hard on their citizens — in some cases resulting in outright civil war.</p>
<p>Not so in Tunisia, though, where protests toppled the regime, and civil society helped usher in a democratic transition. That still-fresh democracy is now being tested by Saied’s recent moves — though the toll of the pandemic and increasing polarization had been straining the institutions up until the president’s orders this weekend.</p>
<p>Which is why the verdict is still out on whether Tunisia’s political crisis will turn into a full-blown coup. I spoke to Yerkes to understand why, and what this might mean for Tunisia’s Arab Spring legacy. “I don’t think,” she said, “we should write off the democratic transition yet.”</p>
<p>Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" />
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>So my understanding is that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/25/tunisia-saied-mechichi-parliament/">President Kais Saied fired the prime minister and suspended Parliament</a> over the weekend. So what is happening in Tunisia right now?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>The president has, I would say, extralegally, or outside of normal legal channels, fired the prime minister. He is allowed to do that, although he has to consult with Parliament — but he also suspended Parliament. And so that is certainly not something he’s allowed to do.</p>
<p>He has fired other ministers, too. So he declared himself kind of the chief executive. He normally functions as the head of state, and then the prime minister is the head of government. The president, in normal times, just has control over foreign affairs, defense, and national security. The prime minister oversees everything else. But now the president is overseeing everything.</p>
<p>Some of the other ministries are still functioning, some of the more technocratic ministries. But for the most part, the country is now in this suspended animation, where the president is the only real figure operating with any sort of power.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>And so what are the fired prime minister and suspended Parliament doing? Is Parliament still trying to operate?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>The prime minister hasn’t really been too active, but the Parliament is certainly not taking this sitting down.</p>
<p>When the president made the declaration, he said he was following Tunisia’s Constitution. There is this article, Article 80, that allows the president to take on emergency powers. But I’ve been following various Tunisian legal experts on social media and through other conversations, and it seems that Article 80 does not really apply to how the president carried things out.</p>
<p>So one of the big question marks is: Is this a coup? Especially sitting in Washington, a coup has really clear legal implications for the ability of the United States to provide assistance to Tunisia, and has implications for other countries, as well.</p>
<p>But back to the Parliament. The main party there that Saied is unhappy with is the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/protests-across-tunisia-covid-19-surges-economy-suffers-2021-07-25/">Ennahda</a> Party, the Islamist party, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-election-results/tunisias-moderate-islamist-party-ennahda-to-lead-fractured-new-parliament-idUSKBN1WO2PD">which has a plurality of seats in Parliament</a>. They only have about 25 percent of the seats, though. It’s a very fractured parliament.</p>
<p>But Saied’s really been in opposition to them from the get-go. And so a lot of people are also framing this as kind of an anti-Islamist move. That’s where there are a lot of comparisons to Egypt, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/middleeast/egypt.html">where the current leader ousted the Muslim Brotherhood in a coup.</a> It’s not an entirely accurate parallel, but there is certainly an element of that.</p>
<p>But Ennahda is not taking this sitting down; <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/26/sacking-of-tunisian-parliament-latest-step-along-bumpy-road-since">they are issuing statements, they are trying to rally international attention to say</a> this has been done illegally, this is a coup, and that people need to step in and remove [the president from] power, or at least put him back in his place as president and let the other institutions function as they’re supposed to be functioning.</p>
<p>There’s also been a ton of protests throughout the country. We’ve seen the supporters of the president take to the streets, cheering and singing the national anthem, excited that he’s ousted the prime minister, who a lot of people were very unhappy with over his handling of the pandemic and his inefficiency. But then you’ve also seen supporters of Ennahda and others who are opposed to the president take to the streets as well. You’re seeing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/africa/100000007886158/tunisia-president-kais-saied-suspends-parliament-fires-prime-minister-democracy-arab-spring.html">these violent clashes</a> of the two sides who are trying to protest what’s going on.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>Is the president affiliated with a particular political party?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>He is independent. He does not have a political party that he’s affiliated with, and that was a part of his appeal <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/14/tunisia-election-exit-polls-point-to-landslide-win-for-robocop-kais-saied">when he won election in October 2019</a>. He really didn’t campaign a lot.</p>
<p>He was part of this populist wave that took over the whole world. And Tunisia got to populism a little later than some other countries. But Saied came in as an outsider, and that’s a lot of his appeal to people.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>And so is the president right-wing or left-wing, or do those terms not really apply here?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>It’s hard to separate into right and left. The Islamist/non-Islamist divide is certainly one of the pieces that’s at play. The president, he’s not secular by any means. He’s a religious man. He’s very conservative. But he’s not a fan of the Islamist party.</p>
<p>The other important political player right now is a party that’s hard to classify on a US or Western spectrum, but they are promoting the return to authoritarianism, the return to the [Zine El Abidine] <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/01/where-does-tunisias-transition-stand-10-years-after-ben-ali">Ben Ali regime</a>. It’s the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/tunisia-politics-reaction-idUSL1N2P21D9">Free Destourian Party</a> — destour means “constitution” in Arabic — led by <a href="https://pomed.org/snapshot-the-counterrevolution-gains-momentum-in-tunisia-the-rise-of-abir-moussi/">Abir Moussi</a>, who’s a really outspoken member of Parliament — <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57835759">other people have tried to beat her up in Parliament</a>. She’s the third wing of the different factions that are operating right now.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>Interesting. So for that third faction, are they supportive of what the president has done?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>They are definitely not a fan of him. But they’re also being interestingly silent. They’re very anti-Islamist; they’re probably the most anti-Islamist faction that’s out there. So you would expect them to be really happy about the fact that the president kicked the Islamists to the curb. But I think they’re trying to wait to see what happens.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>Why is there this tension between the Islamist parties and the other factions?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>It goes really to the debate over the role of religion and change in Tunisian society. Tunisia, before the revolution, really prided itself on being one of the more secular states in the region, and valuing religious freedom, and being this kind of safe space for people who didn’t really want to practice Islam.</p>
<p>If you ask any Tunisian, they’ll say they’re Muslim; so it’s not that they’re not Muslim, it’s more like the American conception that people are Christian, but they don’t necessarily go to church every week.</p>
<p>So it goes to this history of Tunisia as a more secular state, where religion and politics were very much separated. The Islamist party had been thrown in jail and banned and Islamists were tortured under Ben Ali. But after the revolution, when they were welcomed back, that led to a lot of tension with people who really wanted Tunisia to continue to be a country that was more secular in nature and not become an Islamist country.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>Is there a reason the tension seems to be heightening now, or has it constantly been brewing below the surface?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>It’s always been there. The difference is the polarization — before, there was kind of a consensus government and all the parties put aside their differences. And now, people are literally beating each other up in the Parliament. And you also have the more extreme parties, including the one I mentioned before, Abir Moussa’s party, but also you have the <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/salafism-meets-populism-al-karama-coalition-and-malleability-political-salafism">Al-Karama coalition</a>, which is a much more conservative Islamist party that is trying to fill in the gap; they don’t think Ennahda is religious enough or promoting religion in the state enough, so you have them entering the fray.</p>
<p>Before, you’ve had more centrist parties. Now, with this more fractured government, you have more of the extremists in power.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>That’s helpful background. But back to this overarching question that you brought up: Is this a coup? What were the justifications that the Tunisian president used to take these actions?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>The most direct precipitating event was a series of protests over the weekend that were over the government’s response to the pandemic. Tunisia is currently facing <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/8/catastrophic-tunisia-covid">its worst wave of the pandemic.</a> They’re having their highest number of cases that they had the entire pandemic right now.</p>
<p>So people are, understandably, incredibly frustrated, and are in the streets protesting. The president, for several months, has been foreshadowing this sort of power grab. There was a <a href="https://thearabweekly.com/doubts-surround-leak-about-tunisian-presidency-s-discussion-coup">leaked memo that may have been real, or might have not been real</a>, a couple of months ago that outlined basically exactly what’s happened, how the president would throw away the Constitution and take power and dissolve Parliament and all that.</p>
<p>So it’s not a surprise that he’s doing this. But he probably saw these protests and thought, “This is a way I can get goodwill — by coming in right now and saying, ‘Okay, we have to stop this.’ People are so angry, I’m going to take over.”</p>
<p>A few days ago, the president decided to have the military take over the operation of dealing with the pandemic. So he’d already been playing into this. And then I think, again, saw this opportunity of, “Well, people are really angry at the government, I’m going to come in and be the savior now and get rid of them and step in and take charge.”</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>And so it sounds like his supporters are happy with this move? But is there a divide between them and people who were understandably frustrated with the government but see this potential power grab as a step too far?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>There was a lot of euphoria, frankly, over him acting and doing something. There’s really been this stalemate, where there’s been no action and no activity. So I think the supporters are a combination of people who like this idea of a strongman leader, or just someone taking charge, but also people who are glad to see Prime Minister Mechichi kicked out of government. And there is really a big opposition camp as well, who’s very unhappy with what the president is doing.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>And so what about the civil society, particularly some of these groups <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tunisian-National-Dialogue-Quartet">that helped bring about democracy in Tunisia</a>? Where do they stand on this situation?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>They are also divided. I would say a lot of the democracy activists are really, really worried — and rightfully so. A lot of people have been really concerned about the president for some time. He is someone that they see as anti-democratic and who really just doesn’t abide by democratic norms and procedures.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of nuance, but if I can generally categorize the view of civil society, I would say it’s that they are really concerned with what they see as these really anti-democratic moves.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>So it seems like there are two threads going on here. One is that many people were really unhappy with the inaction of the government, especially around Covid-19. And the Tunisian president took action. But I guess when it comes to whether this was a coup or not, that really depends on what happens next.</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>I think that’s true. If we give the president the benefit the doubt — if he were to come in and put in a new prime minister, someone who’s independent, who’s respected by all sides, and either say Parliament’s reinstated or call for elections in a couple of weeks, that would point to this scenario that maybe he really was just trying to reset things.</p>
<p>I don’t think that’s likely to happen, because he has been pretty vocal about his disdain for Parliament as an institution — not just this particular Parliament — even when he was campaigning. He had weird ideas of wanting to have direct democracy instead of representative democracy, which meant the Parliament wouldn’t exist.</p>
<p>So again, I don’t know. I hate to speculate too much. But we need to see how things unfold over the next few days. It will be really crucial to see which way things move.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>What are you looking for as something that might give you a clue as to how this might play out?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>A couple of things. One is just what the president does — what he does and what he says. If he slow-rolls this, then I’d be quite concerned.</p>
<p>The other piece of it is the role of the security services. Tunisia, not directly related to this, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/17/rally-against-police-brutality-spreads-across-tunis">has seen a rise in police brutality</a> over the past six months or so. And that, I think, is something to really pay attention to — the prime minister’s out, President Saied is the only guy in charge, and it’s up to him to rein in the police and the security forces. Is he going to try to use them to be his personal, self-serving security forces? Or is he going to let them do their job? Is he going to try to get the military into the streets? Is he going to try to use the military as national symbols as we see authoritarians do?</p>
<p>You know, what are we talking about here? Is he trying to really, fully consolidate all the power into his own hands? Or is he taking a couple of emergency measures that he’ll then release?</p>
<p>One of the things that’s been a little frightening is we saw that they shuttered <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/26/tunisia-police-storm-al-jazeera-office-in-tunis">the Al Jazeera offices in the capital, Tunis</a>. Obviously they’re closer to Ennahda, to the Islamists, but shuttering a media organization is right out of the authoritarian playbook.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>Of course, the background for all this is that Arab Spring began in Tunisia in 2011, and it was the one place that successfully transitioned to democracy after uprisings and protests. How does the relative newness of the government factor into what we’re seeing right now?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>I think that’s a big factor; and part is the newness of the Constitution, which is even younger — <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=tunisia+constitution+2014&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS769US769&oq=tunisia+constitution+2014&aqs=chrome.0.0j0i22i30j69i61.3274j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">it was only officially written in 2014.</a></p>
<p>A lot of things are being tested, directly related to the Constitution. And the Constitutional Court, which is Tunisia’s Supreme Court equivalent, doesn’t exist yet. They are the ones who right now would be coming out to say “this is a coup” or “it’s not a coup” or “he’s operating extralegally” or “he’s not.”</p>
<p>The president himself is to blame for it not being in existence. Parliament chose the final members — it had been a years-long process — but Saied recently refused to sign off on the members that Parliament had chosen.</p>
<p>I think that’s a lot of foreshadowing, too — okay, he doesn’t want there to be a Constitutional Court because he’s going to do stuff that’s extraconstitutional. I do think a lot of it is related to just how young the democracy is.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>You mentioned that there is a strain within Tunisia that wants to see the return of authoritarianism. Is this sense of disillusionment with the democratic transition something that’s broadly felt in Tunisia?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>There’s been some nostalgia for the old regime that’s been there the whole time, but that’s really resurfaced. This woman I mentioned before — Abir Moussi, who wants to return to the Ben Ali era — she’s really fed on that and tried to nurture that.</p>
<p>In part, the pandemic really decimated the economy. So a lot of people are much worse off than they were 10 years ago. And so what has democracy brought you? You can criticize the government, yes, but you can’t feed yourself — is that worth it? Do you want that trade-off? And for a lot of people, the answer is, “No, I’d much rather prefer to eat and be silent than vice versa.”</p>
<p>Obviously, it’s a false equivalency. Had the pandemic not occurred, the economy was starting to improve, and there were a lot of positive signs related to the [democratic] transition. But I do think people are willing to put up with more repression because the economy is so bad, and because the situation with the pandemic is so bad that [some political actors are] trying to take advantage of some of that nostalgia.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>That’s true for a lot of places, of course. And it’s probably a bit too early to say, but I’m curious what you think all of this means for Tunisia’s Arab Spring legacy?</p>
<h4>Sarah Yerkes</h4>
<p>I still think we should consider it a major success. I don’t think we should write off the democratic transition yet. I do think that these actions in the past few days have been — and will continue to be — a major threat to the democratic transition.</p>
<p>But I still think the fact that you have protesters, you have people questioning what’s going on, you have members of Parliament trying to hold steady, speaks to the strength of Tunisia’s democracy. And I hope that the democracy prevails. I think it’s possible that the Tunisian people are strong, civil society is strong, and I really, really hope that this does not break down or become the end of the democratic transition.</p>
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22594759/tunisia-coup-president-arab-spring">https://www.vox.com/22594759/tunisia-coup-president-arab-spring</a>

vox The political crisis in Tunisia, explained by an expert

Tunisia’s president has pushed the country’s fledgling democracy into crisis. Over the weekend, President Kais Saied fired the country’s p...

The first January 6 hearing was a harrowing indictment of the GOP

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/du_o8IPHBLmm6pud5Q4t5vl-7a0=/0x0:4925x2579/fit-in/1200x630/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22744045/1234242981.jpg" /></div>
<p>The first hearing of the January 6 Select Committee contained harrowing accounts from four law enforcement officers about the physical, emotional, and racial abuse they suffered that day — and served as an indictment of Republicans who have spent recent months trying to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-riot-january-6-hearing-lawmakers-clash/">downplay</a> the insurrection and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/6/23/22544084/tucker-carlson-january-6-insurrection-fbi">deflect</a> criticism.</p>
<p>One of the main themes of Tuesday’s hearing was that the January 6 attack on the Capitol was a really big deal — one that imperils the future of American democracy. DC police officer Michael Fanone drove that point home during perhaps the most memorable moment of the proceedings, pounding on a table as he alluded to the disinterest of GOP leadership like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is <a href="https://www.vox.com/22588475/kevin-mccarthy-january-6-committee-banks-jordan">boycotting the committee</a>: “The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful,” he said.</p>
<p>“Nothing has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day and in doing so betray their oath of office,” Fanone added.</p>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">Fanone pounds the table as he says, "the indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful!"</p>
<p>"Nothing has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day and in doing so betray their oath of office," he adds <a href="https://t.co/LrJOxT0ueh">pic.twitter.com/LrJOxT0ueh</a></p>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420028541090074643?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
<p>Fanone, who like the other officers was appearing in his personal capacity, later detailed how he was beaten unconscious by rioters and pleaded for his life by telling them, “I’ve got kids!”</p>
<p>The two Republicans on the committee, Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL), also sounded off on members of their party for not treating the January 6 attack on the Capitol with the gravity it deserves.</p>
<p>“On January 6th and in the days thereafter, almost all members of my party recognized the events of that day for what they actually were,” Cheney said during her opening statement, contrasting that with more recent efforts to downplay January 6. “No member of Congress should attempt to defend the indefensible, obstruct this investigation, or whitewash what happened that day.”</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">"If those responsible are not held accountable, and if Congress does not act responsibly, this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic, undermining the peaceful transfer of power at the heart of our democracy system." -- Liz Cheney <a href="https://t.co/D8LBl64yn3">pic.twitter.com/D8LBl64yn3</a></p>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420019421452673028?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
<p>Whitewashing is exactly what most Republican members of Congress are trying to do. Take the structure of the commission itself: For two of his five spots, McCarthy chose to nominate House Republicans who voted in January against certifying the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat each of them, McCarthy decided to dissociate from the committee altogether.</p>
<p>One of those House Republicans, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), went on Fox News as soon as Tuesday’s hearing ended and shrugged it off as “scripted by Nancy Pelosi.”</p>
<p>Another Republican who voted against certifying the election results, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), took to Twitter earlier Tuesday and called for Cheney and Kinzinger’s expulsion from the House Republican conference.</p>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">.<a href="https://twitter.com/RepLizCheney?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepLizCheney</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/RepKinzinger?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepKinzinger</a> have effectively removed themselves from the Republican Conference.</p>
<p>We should help them out the door by formalizing their departure.</p>
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepAndyBiggsAZ/status/1420019209879314434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
<p>Kinzinger, for his part, repeatedly became emotional while questioning the officers. Choking up, he concluded by telling them, “we thank you for holding that line.”</p>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">"I never expected today to be quite as emotional for me as it has been" — Adam Kinzinger breaks down as he commends the officers for the jobs they did on January 6 <a href="https://t.co/JrgPEK0h8P">pic.twitter.com/JrgPEK0h8P</a></p>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420047206816616455?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
<p>“Like most Americans, I’m frustrated that six months after a deadly insurrection breached the United States Capitol for several hours on live television, we still don’t know exactly what happened,” Kinzinger said at another point. “Why? Because many in my party have treated this as just another partisan fight. It’s toxic.”</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t appear as though the first January 6 select committee hearing persuaded Republican leaders to take the insurrection more seriously. McCarthy said he was stuck in meetings and didn’t see any of it, while McConnell told reporters he was too “<a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420105810265444364">busy doing work</a>.” But both of them <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/5/16/22438835/gop-whitewash-capitol-attack-january-6-commission-mccarthy">made clear months ago</a> that with the 2022 midterms looming and January 6 being a political loser for Republicans, they wanted to move on as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>The four officers who took part in Tuesday’s hearing humanized some of the statistics from that day — 150 officers injured, and five deaths, including four Trump supporters and Officer Brian Sicknick (there’s some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/brian-sicknick-death-strokes/2021/04/19/36d2d310-617e-11eb-afbe-9a11a127d146_story.html">controversy</a> over his cause of death). Each of their respective body cam videos from that day was played.</p>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">My God. The January 6 footage from Officer Fanone's body camera is harrowing and at one point shows him yelling to the insurrectionists assaulting him, "I've got kids!" <a href="https://t.co/7QfVPKIVrc">pic.twitter.com/7QfVPKIVrc</a></p>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420044005736333316?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
<p>While Republicans like McCarthy and Banks have sought to shift the focus from how Trump and his supporters encouraged the insurrection to law enforcement failures that contributed to the Capitol being overrun, the officers who testified on Tuesday linked Trump’s rhetoric to the unrest. They urged the select committee to focus on the bigger picture.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that <a href="https://twitter.com/AthertonKD/status/1346998543504969733?s=20">security</a> <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/security-intelligence-failures-led-jan-insurrection-bipartisan-senate/story?id=78131627">planning failures</a> helped enable the insurrectionists to overrun law enforcement officers and come perilously close to laying hands on members of Congress — the Senate last month released a bipartisan <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20801778-report-examining-the-jan-6-us-capitol-attack">report</a> outlining some of those failures. But that report didn’t tackle the root causes of the riot.</p>
<p>“The rioters that attempted to reach the Capitol were shouting, ‘Trump sent us,’” said US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell: “I recall thinking to myself, ‘This is how I’m gonna die.’”</p>
<p>Gonell later said he views Trump’s comments about how the insurrectionists were actually a “loving crowd” on a “normal tourist visit” who were “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-rioters-hugging-kissing-officers-fox-news-1147647/">hugging and kissing</a>” officers as “a pathetic excuse for his behavior,” adding, “I’m still recovering from those ‘hugs and kisses’ that day.” (Gonell testified that he’ll have to undergo multiple surgeries to address injuries he suffered that day.)</p>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">Cheney asks Sgt. Gonell how he feels when he hears Trump describe the mob as a "loving crowd." He says it's "upsetting" and that "it's a pathetic excuse for his behavior, for something that he himself helped create ... I'm still recovering from those 'hugs and kisses' that day" <a href="https://t.co/cnK1s826CE">pic.twitter.com/cnK1s826CE</a></p>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420041402638032905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
<p>In one of the hearing’s few lighter moments, DC officer Daniel Hodges — who in one of the most <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420037720877977602">indelible images</a> from January 6 was filmed being crushed in a Capitol doorway during a struggle with rioters — highlighted the absurdity of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/18/clyde-tourist-capitol-riot-photos/">Republicans comparing the insurrection to a tourist outing</a>.</p>
<p>“Well, if that’s what American tourists are like, I can see why foreign countries don’t like American tourists,” he said.</p>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">Officer Hodges on Republicans describing insurrectionists as "tourists": "Well, if that's what American tourists are like, I can see why foreign countries don't like American tourists." <a href="https://t.co/fmV6I7QEJz">pic.twitter.com/fmV6I7QEJz</a></p>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420060877991124997?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
<p>Capitol officer Harry Dunn — a Black man who testified about being showered with racial slurs at the Capitol that day — commended Cheney and Kinzinger for serving on the committee, but suggested the involvement of Republicans in an effort to get to the bottom of an attack on the Capitol shouldn’t be remarkable.</p>
<p>“Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes. And while I agree with that notion, why? Because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard? I guess in this America, it is,” Dunn said.</p>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">Officer Dunn: "Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes. And while I agree with that notion, why? Because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard? I guess in this America, it is." <a href="https://t.co/CeBD6kHl7P">pic.twitter.com/CeBD6kHl7P</a></p>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1420066398735327232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
<p>Tuesday’s hearing was meant to get the January 6 committee off to an <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/27/democrats-jan-6-committee-hearing-500798">emotional and headline-grabbing start</a>, and on that front, it succeeded. It’s unclear when their next public hearing will be held, but panel chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jan-6-committee-cheney/2021/07/26/2380e54e-ee1a-11eb-ab6f-b41a066381df_story.html">told</a> the Washington Post that he’s prepared to subpoena Republican members of Congress and perhaps even Trump himself.</p>
<p>“We’ll follow the facts,” Thompson told the Post. “I would say we need to have as much factual data from any and all individuals implicated. And so that goes from the top down — it could be leadership in the House, it could be members of Congress, it could be financiers of the people who came to Washington on that day. It could be people who paid for the printing of material, people who paid for robocalls to go out, inviting people to come to Washington to help ‘stop the steal.’ All of that is a part of the review.”</p>
<p>Dunn closed the hearing by indicating that he and his fellow officers are supportive of that plan to take a big-picture view.</p>
<p>“There was an attack carried out on January 6, and a hitman sent them,” Dunn said. “I want you to get to the bottom of that.”</p>
<br />
<br />
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/27/22596347/january-6-committee-hearing-gonell-fanone-hodges-dull">https://www.vox.com/2021/7/27/22596347/january-6-committee-hearing-gonell-fanone-hodges-dull</a>

vox The first January 6 hearing was a harrowing indictment of the GOP

The first hearing of the January 6 Select Committee contained harrowing accounts from four law enforcement officers about the physical, emo...

Major Virus Expert Sends Out This Warning To All Americans: ‘Covid Is Not Going Away Anytime Soon. Get Ready For Another Outbreak.’

<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" readability="32"><a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/07/27/major-virus-expert-sends-out-this-warning-to-all-americans-covid-is-not-going-away-anytime-soon-get-ready-for-another-outbreak/michael-osterholm/" rel="attachment wp-att-144240"><img alt="" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-144240" class="size-large wp-image-144240" height="583" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" src="https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Michael-Osterholm-1024x583.jpg" srcset="https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Michael-Osterholm-1024x583.jpg 1024w, https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Michael-Osterholm-300x171.jpg 300w, https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Michael-Osterholm-768x437.jpg 768w, https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Michael-Osterholm.jpg 1454w" width="1024" /></a>
<p class="wp-caption-text">Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm (left) is warning about another outbreak</p>
</div>
<p><strong>By Theodore Shoebat</strong></p>
<p>One of America’s most prominent and reputable epidemiologist, Dr. Michael Osterholm, just warned Americans that covid is not going anywhere and that we should prepare for another outbreak. As we read in his <a href="https://www.eatthis.com/news-osterholm-chilling-delta-warning/">statement</a>:</p>
<blockquote readability="30">
<p>“We are right now in a reality check with this virus … And what I mean by that is that this new variant, the Delta variant, which was much, much more infectious is surely going to cause another surge of cases in the United States. This is a virus that is much more infectious than any of the variants we’ve seen today.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>And I think most of America right now is done with the pandemic. They don’t believe that it relates to them anymore. They’ve put in their time. And of course, the challenge we have is, the virus is not done with us yet. And so, as you’re seeing right now in areas like Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida—you’re seeing these major challenges in the healthcare system. There were because of the fact that we have vaccinated, the number of people we have over age 65, we’re not seeing that population nearly as much entering into the hospitals and the ICU intensive care units. But we’re seeing much younger individuals. They don’t get as sick as often, but because of the sheer number of them, they are literally causing severe challenges in our healthcare systems.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>This is going to continue to spread throughout the United States… As this Delta variant becomes more common and more locations, this won’t be a situation isolated to just the South.</p>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
source <a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/07/27/major-virus-expert-sends-out-this-warning-to-all-americans-covid-is-not-going-away-anytime-soon-get-ready-for-another-outbreak/">https://shoebat.com/2021/07/27/major-virus-expert-sends-out-this-warning-to-all-americans-covid-is-not-going-away-anytime-soon-get-ready-for-another-outbreak/</a>

armageddon Major Virus Expert Sends Out This Warning To All Americans: ‘Covid Is Not Going Away Anytime Soon. Get Ready For Another Outbreak.’

Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm (left) is warning about another outbreak By Theodore Shoebat One of America’s most prominent and reputa...

The Government Of France Declares That Citizens Need A Vaccine Certificate To Enter Shopping Centers, Restaurants, Theaters And Most Public Places, An...

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/health-pass.jpg" /></div>
<p><strong>By Theodore Shoebat</strong></p>
<p>The government of France just decreed that citizens must have a vaccine certificate to access shopping centers, restaurants, theaters and most public places. The law also decrees that the certificate will be needed to go on long distance train and bus rides. Al-Jazeera put put a video on this:</p>
<p><span class="embed-youtube">[embedded content]</span></p>
<p>As we read in <a href="https://archive.is/WJttj#selection-485.0-488.0">the New York Times</a>:</p>
<blockquote readability="43.335958005249">
<div readability="10.194267515924">France passed a new Covid-19 law late on Sunday that makes <a title="" href="https://archive.is/o/WJttj/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/22/world/eu-health-pass-vaccine-covid.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">health passes mandatory</a> for a number of indoor venues as the country faces a fourth wave of infections. The vote came after days of heated parliamentary debates that lasted long into the night and protests against the measure in dozens of French cities.</div>
<p>President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, “With the Delta variant, the epidemic is picking up again,” adding, “My message is simple: to get vaccinated.”</p>
<p>About 40 million people, or nearly 60 percent of France’s population, have received a first shot, but the number of new daily cases has risen steeply over the past week, to over 15,000 on average, from fewer than 2,000 at the end of June.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>The health pass — paper or digital proof of being fully vaccinated, of a recent negative test or of a recent Covid-19 recovery — was already mandatory to attend large events in stadiums and concert halls, and to enter cultural venues like cinemas, museums and theaters.</p>
<p>The new law, which will be implemented in early August and can apply until Nov. 15, extends that obligation to bars, restaurants, gyms and certain malls. Establishments that fail to enforce the rules will face penalties, and their employees could face pay suspensions — but not firings — if they fail to get vaccinated as well.</p>
<p>A valid health pass will also be required for nonurgent visits to medical facilities and long-distance train and bus rides. Young people ages 12 to 17 are exempted from the rules until Sept. 3.</p>
<p>…</p>
</blockquote>
<div readability="9.92">
<blockquote readability="13">
<p>The new law also obligates health employees and other essential workers, such as firefighters, to get vaccinated by the fall, and it makes a 10-day isolation period mandatory after an infection. Before it can be enforced, the law must still be reviewed next week by the Constitutional Council, which verifies that legislation complies with the Constitution.</p>
</blockquote>
<div>According to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/07/26/1020669579/france-new-law-coronavirus-health-pass">NPR</a>:</div>
</div>
<div readability="20">
<blockquote readability="19">
<p> France’s parliament approved a law early Monday requiring special virus passes for all restaurants and domestic travel and mandating vaccinations for all health workers.</p>
<p>Both measures have prompted protests and political tensions. President Emmanuel Macron and his government say they are needed to protect vulnerable populations and hospitals as infections rebound and to avoid new lockdowns.</p>
<p>The law requires all workers in the health care sector to start getting vaccinated by Sept. 15, or risk suspension. It also requires a “health pass” to enter all restaurants, trains, planes and some other public venues. It initially applies to all adults, but will apply to everyone 12 and older starting Sept. 30.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Last year I watched a film called <em>Children of Men. </em>It takes place after Europe has just gone through a devastating war and none of the earth’s men can reproduce and thus nobody is being born and humanity is quickly dying. Britain has utterly cut itself off from the world and banned all immigration. In dystopian England people need passes to travel within the country, and this is where the film shares a parallel with what we are seeing here in France where a vaccination pass could be needed in order to go on long distance train and bus rides. This phenomena of vaccine passes could be used in the future to restrict travel within the borders of nations, and in the future such passes may not be based on heath but religion and ideology.</p>
</div>
<br />
<br />
source <a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/07/27/the-government-of-france-declares-that-citizens-need-a-vaccine-certificate-to-enter-shopping-centers-restaurants-theaters-and-most-public-places-and-to-go-on-long-distance-train-and-bus-rides/">https://shoebat.com/2021/07/27/the-government-of-france-declares-that-citizens-need-a-vaccine-certificate-to-enter-shopping-centers-restaurants-theaters-and-most-public-places-and-to-go-on-long-distance-train-and-bus-rides/</a>

armageddon The Government Of France Declares That Citizens Need A Vaccine Certificate To Enter Shopping Centers, Restaurants, Theaters And Most Public Places, An...

By Theodore Shoebat The government of France just decreed that citizens must have a vaccine certificate to access shopping centers, restau...

Man Who Was Known To Set Fires Gets Released From Psychiatric Ward, He Then Beheads Young Boy And Cannibalizes Him, Police Officers Arrive And Shoot T...

<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" readability="32"><a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/07/27/man-who-was-known-to-set-fires-gets-released-from-psychiatric-ward-he-then-beheads-young-boy-and-cannibalizes-him-police-officers-arrive-and-shoot-the-cannibal-to-death/cannibal-france/" rel="attachment wp-att-144231"><img alt="" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-144231" class="size-large wp-image-144231" height="700" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" src="https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cannibal-france-1024x700.jpg" srcset="https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cannibal-france-1024x700.jpg 1024w, https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cannibal-france-300x205.jpg 300w, https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cannibal-france-768x525.jpg 768w, https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cannibal-france.jpg 1112w" width="1024" /></a>
<p class="wp-caption-text">Officer at the crime scene in Tarascon where the murder and cannibalism took place</p>
</div>
<p><strong>By Theodore Shoebat</strong></p>
<p>A man in France who is only being identified as “Arthur A.”, beheaded a young boy and cannibalized him. This demonic cannibal was eventually shot and killed by police officers. As we read in <a href="https://www.reduno.com.bo/tendencias/canibal-decapita-y-se-come-los-restos-de-un-nino-de-13-anos-202172010110">Reduno</a>:</p>
<blockquote readability="40">
<p><span>The mother of a 13-year-old schoolboy who was killed by a satanic and cannibal screamed disconsolate upon finding him: “he has killed my baby” after the boy’s headless body was found. The body of the teenager was found dismembered and eaten inside a bag in a house, located in a French village in Tarascon, near Marseille.</span></p>
<p><span>The murdered teenager, who has been identified by his first name Romain, was shown today for the first time by French media.</span></p>
<p><span>It was revealed that the teenager was killed on Friday, but neighbors called police on Sunday after complaining of “a terrible smell.” When a cleaner finally visited the home, she found parts of Romain’s body, including his partially eaten head inside a bag.</span></p>
<p><span>”He killed my son, he killed my baby, ” Romain’s mother said</span></p>
<p><span>The killer, a 32-year-old man, identified as Arthur A., was later located, before being </span><strong><span>shot and killed after threatening officers</span></strong><span> .</span></p>
<p><span>Laurent Gumbau, the Tarascon prosecutor, said Romain’s body was so mutilated that it could only be identified by DNA.</span></p>
<p><span>He confirmed that Arthur A. had been released from a psychiatric hospital earlier this month.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/07/20/french-police-fatally-shoot-man-suspected-of-beheading-teen/">New York Posts</a> reads:</p>
<blockquote readability="34.310344827586">
<p>French police shot dead a 32-year-old man suspected of decapitating and partially eating a 13-year-old boy — whose head was found in a bucket, a prosecutor said Monday.</p>
<p>Authorities made the grisly discovery Sunday in an apartment in the southern France town of Tarascon that was rented by the man, who had a psychiatric disorder, public prosecutor Laurent Gumbau told Agence France-Presse.</p>
<p>An investigation into the disappearance of a boy from a foster home in Marseille, about 60 miles away, led police to the address in Tarascon, Gumbau told AFP.</p>
<p>“The body found may be that of the minor,” he said, adding that strips of flesh had been ripped from a shoulder, sparking suspicions of cannibalism.</p>
<p>However, it was “impossible at the current time to confirm the hypothesis of anthropophagy (cannibalism),” he added.</p>
<p>The boy — identified by local media as Romain — had reportedly been on his way from his foster home to visit his mom, who lived in the same street as the killer, <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15641808/mum-boy-chopped-eaten-satanic-killer-screamed-my-baby/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to The Sun</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was reported in the publication, <a href="https://meaww.com/who-arthur-a-french-marseilles-cannibal-lured-and-killed-teenage-boy-romain-ate-body-parts-dead"><em>Meaww,</em></a> that Arthur A. was released from the crazy house not long before the murder:</p>
<blockquote readability="14.802284710018">
<p>Gumbau confirmed that Arthur A was released from a psych ward earlier this month. He was known for setting fires in the area surrounding his house and he was admitted to the mental hospital after he was found guilty of hanging local dogs till they died. He then ate the animals. Police also described the perpetrator as violent and lonely. Neighbors knew Arthur A to be unstable and he had lived in the Tarascon house since the death of his father from cancer and his mother’s demise 15 years ago.</p>
<p>Arthur A had lured Romain who was reportedly on his way from his foster home in Marseille to visit his mother who lived on the same street as the killer. The teen who had spent the majority of his life in and out of foster homes was killed on July 16, two days before his body was discovered. The cleaner who found Romain’s body was shocked at the discovery and speaking to a <a href="https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/ils-ont-relache-un-psychopathe-arthur-suspecte-davoir-decapite-romain-etait-craint-dans-tout-le-quartier-19-07-2021-VTT65SMUINGDRCCKQDDWWWQG3Y.php" rel="nofollow">local newspaper</a> she said, ”Romain was beheaded and his upper body wrapped in plastic. I don’t know how you can do that to a child. It’s inhuman. Arthur seemed totally normal.” She is blaming authorities for letting a dangerous killer be on the loose.</p>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
source <a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/07/27/man-who-was-known-to-set-fires-gets-released-from-psychiatric-ward-he-then-beheads-young-boy-and-cannibalizes-him-police-officers-arrive-and-shoot-the-cannibal-to-death/">https://shoebat.com/2021/07/27/man-who-was-known-to-set-fires-gets-released-from-psychiatric-ward-he-then-beheads-young-boy-and-cannibalizes-him-police-officers-arrive-and-shoot-the-cannibal-to-death/</a>

armageddon Man Who Was Known To Set Fires Gets Released From Psychiatric Ward, He Then Beheads Young Boy And Cannibalizes Him, Police Officers Arrive And Shoot T...

Officer at the crime scene in Tarascon where the murder and cannibalism took place By Theodore Shoebat A man in France who is only being...