Macron's second presidency was as calculatingly managed by France's liberal elite as his first. As the country's economic and geographic schisms widen further, yesterday's Yellow Vest protests will seem like a tea party by comparison.
In the end, it happened exactly like the French establishment designed it. I called it last December in a column here at The Cradle.

These are the essentials: Certified Arabophobe Eric Zemmour, who is of Algerian origin, was manufactured by key establishment players of the Institut Montaigne variety to cut off the populist right-wing candidacy of Marine Le Pen. In the end, Zemmour's electoral performance was dismal, as expected. Yet another candidate pulled off a miracle intervention and was even more useful: ambitious egomaniac opportunist and so-called progressive Jean-Luc Melenchon.

'Le Petit Roi' Emmanuel Macron generates less than zero empathy across France. That explains the huge voter abstention of 28 percent in the second round of votes.

The numbers tell the story: There are 48,803,175 French citizens registered to vote. Macron got 18,779,809 votes. Marine Le Pen got 13,297,728 votes. Yet the most eyebrow-raising performance was by the Abstention/Nullified/Blank candidate: 16,674,963 votes.

So the president of France was re-elected by 38.5 percent of voters while the real second place, Absention/Nullified/Blank got 34.2 percent.

That implies that roughly 42 percent of registered French voters bothered to hit the polls basically to bar Le Pen: a brand that remains toxic in vast swathes of urban France - yet hardly as much as before - and even with the whole weight of oligarchic mainstream media engaged in Two Minute Hate campaign mode. The five oligarchies who run the so-called 'audiovisual landscape' (PAF, according to the French acronym) of campaign messaging are all Macronists.

Beijing won't listen to US accusations while Washington commits war crimes and coerces the world, foreign ministry spokesman says.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin has lashed out at the EU and US for criticizing its domestic and foreign policies. Wang singled out the US, accusing Washington of war crimes in the Middle East, economic coercion, betraying its allies and spreading disinformation.

"The US purports to maintain the centrality of the UN Charter, but it is clear to anyone that the US is doing quite the opposite," Wang told reporters at a press conference on Monday. Citing the US' military interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, Wang stated that Washington "brushed the UN aside and waged wars on sovereign states in wanton interference."

"The US claims to respect human rights, but the wars of aggression launched by the US and its allies ... killed over 300,000 civilians and made over 26 million people refugees," he continued. "Yet, no one is held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The US even announced sanctions on the International Criminal Court who would investigate the war crimes of the US military."

In addition to sanctioning a number of top International Criminal Court officials in 2020, the US maintains the 'Hague Invasion Act', giving its military permission to invade the Netherlands to free any American held at the court.

Let's hope the self-proclaimed 'free speech absolutist' lives up to the title

Elon Musk was successful in his bid to take over Twitter. The world's richest man struck a deal with the company's board of directors to acquire the platform in its entirety for a cool $44 billion.

Musk first expressed his intent to bring about change to the social media platform after asking his audience what they felt about Twitter's adherence to free speech principles. With the ongoing censorship of conservative viewpoints, and amid calls from the Biden administration to crack down on so-called 'Russian disinformation', the consensus was that Twitter had strayed from its original mission.

Once dubbing itself the "free speech wing of the free speech party," Twitter had become no better than Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, and any number of other platforms when it came to protecting political speech.

Warsaw will not agree to Moscow's demand to pay for gas in rubles, Piotr Naimski, representative of the Polish government on strategic energy infrastructure, said on Tuesday, according to media reports.

"We will not pay," he said, answering a question from journalists about whether Poland would agree to Russia's new payment terms.

"All the opportunities and risks are being considered. We are ready for them," he said, adding, "If necessary, and if an appropriate decision is made, we are in a position to refuse gas supplies at any time. We are ready for the actions of the Russian side, which provide for the possibility of stopping supplies."

Poland has been calling for "crushing sanctions" against Moscow, "much stronger than those that have been imposed."

Washington and Brussels are reportedly discussing sanctions designed to hit Russia's energy sector. So far, Western nations have mostly targeted Russian finances and banking. While the EU has banned Russian coal imports, it failed to reach agreement on an oil and gas embargo.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt's office obtained a temporary restraining order Monday that blocks the Biden administration from lifting Title 42, a public health order that has expedited the expulsion of immigrants since March 2020.

In a lawsuit first filed by the states of Missouri, Louisiana, and Arizona, the court order will keep Title 42 in place. "This is a huge victory for border security, but the fight continues on," Schmitt said in Monday's social media annoucement.

Former President Donald Trump says Prince Harry is "an embarrassment" for turning his back on Buckingham Palace — and predicted the runaway royal's controversial marriage to Meghan Markle will have a "bad" ending.

Trump, speaking on "Piers Morgan Uncensored" in an interview airing Monday night, maintained that Harry "is being led around by his nose" by his ex-actress wife.

"Harry is whipped. Do you know the expression?" Trump asked Morgan during the sit-down.

An employee of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), detained in the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), confessed to passing classified information in the military sphere to foreign intelligence services' officials, the LPR's Ministry of State Security said on Friday.

"As part of the investigation of a criminal case initiated ... against an LPR resident from the OSCE staff, the Ministry of State Security obtained a confession from the detainee," the ministry said in a statement.

The OSCE employee, Petrov Mikhail Yurievich, acting to the detriment of the LPR's security, transmitted confidential information in the military sphere to the representatives of foreign intelligence services, the statement read.

Hunter Biden's closest business partner made at least 19 visits to the White House and other official locations between 2009 and 2015, including a sitdown with then-Vice President Joe Biden in the West Wing.

Visitor logs from the White House of former President Barack Obama reviewed by The Post cast further doubt over Joe Biden's claims that he knew nothing of his son's dealings.

Eric Schwerin met with Vice President Biden on November 17, 2010 in the West Wing, when he was the president of the since-dissolved investment fund Rosemont Seneca Partners.

The food wars have gone hot -- and even the mainstream is noticing. Even as the fires and explosions destroying our food supply are broadly reported, the FBI warns of cyberattacks on farming infrastructure. As this awareness grows, one farm has stood up to NY state, refusing to comply with Bird Flu orders. Christian breaks it down in this Ice Age Farmer broadcast.


FULL SHOW NOTES

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen gathered her party's troops on Monday, not to mourn her loss a day earlier in the French presidential election but to plot how to orchestrate a victory in June's parliamentary vote and capture a majority of seats in the National Assembly.

Centrist President Emmanuel Macron beat her 58.5% to 41.5% to win reelection Sunday but Le Pen produced her highest-ever level of support in her three attempts to become France's leader. That gave the 53-year-old nationalist momentum as she charged into what is called the "third round" of voting, hoping to turn the tables on Macron's majority in parliament.

Le Pen called a national meeting of her far-right National Rally party on Monday. French media reports that Le Pen told party officials she would seek to renew representing her working-class stronghold in northern France could not be immediately confirmed.

Le Pen's high support Sunday laid bare a European Union nation that is fractured between those she refers to as the "France of the forgotten" — the vulnerable working class that has been hard hit by rising inflation and the fallout from sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine — and what she calls the "elitists" of Macron's staunchly pro-EU voters.