Latest news with #Soros-linked
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Louisiana governor blames progressives for jailbreak
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) doubled down Tuesday on blaming progressive politics for the escape of 10 inmates from a New Orleans jail. Half of the escapees remained at large as of Wednesday morning, after a fifth was captured Tuesday evening. 'The system as a whole is broken in that city, and we intend to fix it,' Landry told NewsNation's Chris Cuomo. Landry, a staunch conservative and ally of President Trump, has repeatedly pointed to billionaire Democratic donor George Soros's influence in Democrat-led New Orleans for creating the circumstances that that allowed 10 inmates to break out of the jail at about 1 a.m. EDT Friday. 'George Soros came over the last decade or so and spent a ton of money in the city of New Orleans, electing these progressive people,' Landry told Cuomo. 'It's like he came [as] Santa Claus, and inside his sack, he put out a DA [district attorney], a sheriff, and I think about six judges, and we have been having problems in the city ever since now.' Landry, who took office last year, has routinely pointed to Hungarian-born Democratic megadonor Soros, 94, as having influence over his state. Soros-linked groups contributed $220,000 to Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams's (D) 2020 election, according to campaign finance records. Landry said the slow criminal justice system in New Orleans left dangerous criminals in a parish-run prison with lower security. 'The problem that I have is the fact that that system and jail has people that have been sitting in those jail cells waiting for sentences,' he told Cuomo. 'If they were sentenced, then they become my problem. I get to take them and put them in a state facility.' William defended his job performances during a news conference Monday. 'If we don't have a complete police report, we can't go forward. If we do go forward, we get tossed out of court by the judge,' he told reporters. Landry previously has blamed Soros's influence for voters' rejection of a constitutional amendment the governor backed in March that sought to overhaul the state's juvenile justice system. Authorities say the group of New Orleans escapees busted into a cell with a broken slider door and escaped through a hole behind a toilet fixture. They were discovered missing during a routine headcount check hours later. Maintenance worker Sterling Williams, 33, has been charged with assisting the jailbreak after he allegedly admitted to law enforcement that he turned off the plumbing connected to the stall at the prisoners' request. Landry similarly blamed progressives for the jailbreak during a news conference Sunday. 'The irony of the progressive promises that have been made to this city is clear. New Orleans handed the jail keys to those who vowed to keep criminals out of jail, and sadly, today we see that it worked,' he said at a news conference Sunday. 'I hope everyone understands that the video of those prisoners escaping epitomizes a progressive criminal justice system.' New Orleans is in the middle of a municipal election cycle, including for the offices of Orleans Parish sheriff, New Orleans mayor and all seven City Council positions. The city's voters will cast primary ballots Oct. 11, and runoffs will take place Nov. 15 for any races where no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round. Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson (D), who announced Tuesday that she is suspending her reelection campaign, blasted the political rhetoric Sunday while escapees remain at large. 'Political people are making this a political issue,' she told reporters. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
21-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Louisiana governor blames progressives for jail break
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) doubled down Tuesday on blaming progressive politics for the escape of 10 New Orleans jail inmates. Half of the escapees remained at large as of Wednesday morning after a fifth was captured Tuesday evening. 'The system as a whole is broken in that city, and we intend to fix it,' Landry told NewsNation's Chris Cuomo. Landry, a staunch conservative and ally of President Trump, has repeatedly pointed to billionaire Democratic donor George Soros's influence in Democrat-led New Orleans for creating the circumstances that that allowed 10 inmates to break out of the jail at about 1 a.m. on Friday. 'George Soros came over the last decade or so and spent a ton of money in the city of New Orleans, electing these progressive people,' Landry told Cuomo. 'It's like he came (as) Santa Claus, and inside his sack, he put out a (district attorney), a sheriff, and I think about six judges, and we have been having problems in the city ever since now.' Landry, who took office last year, has routinely pointed to Hungarian-born Democratic megadonor Soros, 94, as having influence over issues in his state. Soros-linked groups contributed $220,000 to Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams's 2020 election, according to campaign finance records. Landry said the slow criminal justice system in New Orleans left dangerous criminals in a parish-run prison with lower security. 'The problem that I have is the fact that that system and jail has people that have been sitting in those jail cells waiting for sentences,' he told Cuomo. 'If they were sentenced, then they become my problem. I get to take them and put them in a state facility.' William defended his job performances, during a news conference Monday. 'If we don't have a complete police report, we can't go forward. If we do go forward, we get tossed out of court by the judge,' he told reporters. Landry previously has blamed Soros's influence for voters' rejection of a constitutional amendment the governor backed in March that sought to overhaul the state's juvenile justice system. Authorities say the group of New Orleans escapees on Friday busted into a cell with a broken slider door and escaped through a hole behind a toilet fixture. They were discovered missing during a routine headcount check hours later. Maintenance worker Sterling Williams, 33, has been charged with assisting the jailbreak after he allegedly admitted to law enforcement that he turned off the plumbing connected to the stall at the prisoners' request. Landry similarly blamed progressives for the jailbreak during a news conference on Sunday. 'The irony of the progressive promises that have been made to this city is clear. New Orleans handed the jail keys to those who vowed to keep criminals out of jail, and sadly, today we see that it worked,' he said at a news conference Sunday. 'I hope everyone understands that the video of those prisoners escaping epitomizes a progressive criminal justice system.' New Orleans is in the middle of a municipal election cycle, including for the offices of Orleans Parish sheriff, New Orleans mayor and all seven city council positions. The city's voters will cast primary ballots Oct. 11, and runoffs will take place Nov. 15 for any races where no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round. Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson, who announced Tuesday that she is suspending her reelection campaign, blasted the political rhetoric on Sunday while escapees remain at large. 'Political people are making this a political issue,' she told reporters.
Budapest Times
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Budapest Times
MEP: EC send rejection response to NGO funding requests
European Parliament's Patriots for Europe group has submitted 86 requests for access to data of public interest to the European Commission over the funding of NGOs, "but the response was rejection". Csaba Dömötör, an MEP of ruling Fidesz, said the European Parliament's Patriots for Europe group has submitted 86 requests for access to data of public interest to the European Commission over the funding of NGOs, 'but the response was rejection'. Dömötör told a conference on the transparency of the financing of NGOs in Brussels on Wednesday, organized by the party group and the Brussels branch of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, that European taxpayers' money had been used to support politically active groups 'but there is no transparent, unified database on how they are financed'. He said the EC had rejected the requests, citing various absurd reasons: first, they said the request targeted general information rather than concrete agreements, then that the requests were too wide-ranging, and then that all necessary information was available on their website. They are simply not true,' Dömötör said. The party family will submit further requests and also turn to the European ombudsman, and proceed to go to court should the lists not be forthcoming, he said. 'Hungarian ministries are obliged to regularly publish information on the nature of the contracts they conclude, on the contracting parties and on the sums involved … Further, if someone submits a request for data of public interest, they must allow access to the contracts and their performance within the deadline enshrined in law,' he said. At the same time, the EC 'is utterly unwilling to answer to requests for data on Brussels institutions, even as it continues to push for stricter Hungarian laws on the freedom of information,' he said. The issue is with 'a network of political activists', not 'traditional' civil society, he added. 'When Guy Verhofstadt, an earlier figurehead of the Liberals, receives the equivalent of 6 billion forints [EUR 15m] in funding for his own so-called NGO, that is not nonprofit work, that's building a political network,' he said. Other organizations are suing Hungary at the Court of Justice of the European Union for issues such as border protection. 'That is political interference,' he said. 'They are shirking the democratic principles they are expecting everyone else to comply with. That is what we want to change,' he said. Domotor said EU institutions regularly supported various organisations 'with millions of euros', and insisted that the funding flowed almost exclusively to serve leftist-liberal political agendas. 'They are weakening the states in migration regulations, organise political attacks against legitimate governments, and use censorship under the name of fact-checking.' Those organisations, he insisted, 'have no local roots or social legitimacy as 90 percent of their funding comes from outside sources, the European Commission or Soros-linked circles.' Fidesz MEP Andras Laszlo told the conference that many NGOs operated as 'the extensions of governments'. He also said that recent corruption scandals had highlighted the importance of transparency: 'We must know where the money comes from, what it is spent on, and who are actually behind those organisations…' He said that 7 central European EU or NATO member states had been 'targeted by political interference through USAID projects', Laszlo said. 'The support was disbursed without consultation with local government, which also amounts to interference.'
