Best of the Web:


Gold Seal

Best of the Web: No to Christchurch Call: Put aside your hate of Trump for a day - he may have just saved free speech

Igor Ordonev
RT
Fri, 17 May 2019 16:31 UTC
jacinda arden and macron
© REUTERS/PHILIPPE WOJAZER
Even adversaries of the US president should admit that he is the only one who has stood up to the disturbing anti-free speech proposal concocted by illiberal globalist world leaders and compliant tech companies.

Ironically, by becoming the sole leader of a major Western power to reject the 'Christchurch Call' - the cross-border plan to restrict "terrorist and extremist" content online - Donald Trump has consolidated support for the document, sparing it deserved scrutiny.

After all, who doesn't want to stop violence being spread through social media, particularly in the wake of the double mosque shooting in New Zealand in March? Well - judging by the commentary in mainstream media outlets - only that exceptionalist US president, and that band of white supremacists on whom he is relying to win in 2020.

But I would urge those of all political persuasions to study the text of the document, presented by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macron in Paris this week, and endorsed by every major US online giant - Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter.

Are these really the powers you want to give away to officials and Silicon Valley execs? Or should we at least ask some clarifying questions first?
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Document

Best of the Web: OPCW confirms leak of covered-up report, suggesting Douma incident 'false-flag' is genuine

Kit Knightly
Off-Guardian
Fri, 17 May 2019 09:48 UTC
OPCW
The leaked OPCW report appears to have been confirmed genuine.

The report, titled "Engineering Assessment of Two Cylinders Observed at Douma Incident", came to public prominence a few days ago after The Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media released their analysis of the text.

Since then it has gotten a lot of play all across the alternate media (you can read our original report here, but there were many others too).

It has received virtually zero coverage in the mainstream media, of course. And that doesn't appear likely to change any time soon.

Comment: So there you have it. The security services for the US, UK and French governments - aka FUKUS - staged a 'chemical weapons attack' in Douma, killing 70 Syrian innocents, blamed the Syrians/Russians, then bombed Syria to 'punish' Syria.

Those are the facts. The rest is Fake News.

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Attention

Best of the Web: Gates Foundation funded "Fact-Checker" (POLITIFACT) censors GreenMedInfo on Facebook for reposting accurate vaccine meme

Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo
Wed, 15 May 2019 14:45 UTC
greenmedinfo censored facebook


Recently, Politifact.com, a website run by the Poynter Institute and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ran an article titled, "No, anti-vaccination meme is way off on vaccine testing," claiming that the meme below which we posted to our Facebook page on April 15th was false.

vaccine untested meme

Comment: Facebook and other social media platforms have a long history of censoring 'inconvenient truths' under the banner of 'fake news'. Labelling true claims as false is the epitome of censorship and the pushing of a preferred ideology over truth. Welcome to the dystopian future.

See also:

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Dollar Gold

Best of the Web: Pentagon Syndrome: How the invisible military-industrial virus starves the rest of the country

Andrew Cockburn
Harper's Magazine
Thu, 16 May 2019 17:15 UTC
capitol jets military budget
© Shonagh Rae
How bloated defense budgets gut our armed forces

For a country that spends such vast sums on its national security apparatus-many times more than the enemies that supposedly threaten it do - the United States has a strangely invisible military establishment. Military bases tend to be located far from major population centers. The Air Force's vast missile fields, for instance, are hidden away in the plains of the northern Midwest. It is rare to see service uniforms on the streets of major cities, even Washington. Donald Trump did dream of holding a "beautiful" military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, complete with "a lot of planes going over and a lot of military might," but the Pentagon nixed the scheme by putting out word that the extravaganza would cost $92 million. The estimate was surely inflated - ­it was four times greater, in real dollars, than the price tag for the 1991 Gulf War victory parade - suggesting that the military prefers a lower profile. It often takes an informed eye to appreciate signs of defense dollars at work, such as the office parks abutting Route 28 south of Dulles Airport, heavily populated with innocuously titled military and intelligence firms.

Largely out of sight, our gargantuan military machine is also increasingly out of mind, especially when it comes to the ways in which it spends, and misspends, our money. Three decades ago, revelations that the military was paying $435 for a hammer and $640 for an aircraft toilet seat ignited widespread media coverage and public outrage. But when it emerged in 2018 that the Air Force was now paying $10,000 for a toilet-seat cover alone, the story generated little more than a few scattered news reports and some derisive commentary on blogs and social media. (This was despite a senior Air Force official's unblushing explanation that the ridiculous price was required to save the manufacturer from "losing revenue and profit.") The Air Force now claims to have the covers 3-D-printed for $300 apiece, still an extravagant sum.
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Light Sabers

Best of the Web: Iran is high-hanging fruit, which is why US is unlikely to attack

Neil Clark
RT
Thu, 16 May 2019 19:17 UTC
Nour missile is test fired
© REUTERS/Ebrahim Noroozi/IIPAA Nour missile is test fired off Iran's first domestically made destroyer, Jamaran
There's been lots of talk about an imminent war with Iran. The US is engaging in a military build-up in the Persian Gulf and the rhetoric from Washington is increasingly bellicose.

However, a full-scale conflict is still unlikely, because Iran, unlike other countries the US has attacked, is no soft target.

The US already deployed the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East earlier in the month. The Pentagon also announced that a battery of Patriot missiles and transport ship, the USS Arlington, were on their way to the Gulf.

Taken together with the fiercely anti-Iranian rhetoric of foaming-at-the-mouth neo-con figures in the Trump administration, such as National Security Advisor John Bolton, and unsubstantiated claims that Iran had sabotaged four tankers in the Persian Gulf, does this mean we are heading for a conflict?

While we shouldn't dismiss the risks of something very big kicking off soon, as a betting man, my money is on the US NOT attacking the Islamic Republic.
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Red Flag

Best of the Web: Chris Hedges on America's cultural schizophrenia: 'Media shift to feelings over facts is tearing US apart'


RT
Thu, 16 May 2019 19:04 UTC
magazine stand
© Reuters / Carlo Allegri
Over the past several decades, US news media have shifted towards advocacy and emotional appeals, according to a RAND Corporation study. This is sowing discord in American society, award-winning journalist Chris Hedges tells RT.

The study, released by RAND earlier this week, cautiously argues that between 1987 and 2017, news content has shifted from event- and context-based reporting to coverage that is "more subjective, relies more heavily on argumentation and advocacy, and includes more emotional appeals."


Comment: See: You don't say! US journalism has become 'more subjective' according to RAND study


While prime-time cable news shows and online journalism lead the way in this shift, it has been noticed in print journalism as well, the government-funded think tank concluded. This is contributing to what RAND termed "Truth Decay," described as a shift away from facts and analysis in public discourse.

"Cable news networks - CNN, MSNBC, Fox - have given up on journalism," Hedges told RT, commenting on the RAND report. "They replaced it with reality-show news programs centered around [US President] Donald Trump and his tweets and the Russiagate. There has been a complete walking away from journalism."
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Target

Best of the Web: Inside look at the secret plot to turn senior Venezuelan officials against Maduro

Anthony Faiola
ctpost.com
Mon, 13 May 2019 07:24 UTC
Maikel Moreno
© AFP/Getty ImagesMaikel Moreno, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Venezuela
Late one night in April, a week before Venezuela's opposition launched its abortive uprising, four men sat on the terrace of the hillside compound in Caracas belonging to the chief justice of the country's Supreme Court. The dim lights of the capital twinkling below them, they sipped Fiji bottled water as they plotted the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro's spy chief, Gen. Christopher Figuera, and Cesar Omaña, a 39-year-old Venezuelan businessman based in Miami, were trying to seal a deal hashed out over weeks with Maikel Moreno, the chief justice, according to one of the participants in the meeting. Figuera and Omaña were part of the plan to force Maduro out, but they needed Moreno's help.

Moreno, sitting before an ashtray laden with the stubs of Cuban cigars, appeared to be having doubts. The 53-year-old jurist voiced concerns about Juan Guaidó, the U.S.-backed opposition leader who would become the nation's interim president if the plot succeeded.

Then, according to the participant, Moreno offered another candidate to "temporarily" lead the broken country - himself.

"In the end, he was trying to safeguard his own power play," one senior opposition figure said.
Christopher Figurea, Maduro
© whatsnew2day.comSpy Chief Christopher Figuera • President Nicolas Maduro

Comment: See also:

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War Whore

Best of the Web: Venezuela isn't Syria... but America's war tactics are the same

Eva Bartlett
RT
Wed, 15 May 2019 17:36 UTC
protests
© Getty Images/Anadolu Agency/Carlos Becerra; Global Look Press/ZUMAPRESS.com/Erik Mcgregor
Since Juan Guaido declared himself Venezuela's interim president, rhetoric emanating from Washington has grown increasingly familiar.

It echoes the bombastic & hollow humanitarian-crisis type of war propaganda which has been used repeatedly in resource-rich nations, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria. And now we're seeing it in Venezuela.

The regime-change recipe is straightforward: demonize the leadership and those who defend the country; support an opposition that is inevitably violent and whitewash their crimes; sanction the country & attack the infrastructure to create unbearable conditions; create fake news about humanitarian issues; possibly wage false flag incidents to incriminate the government; control the narrative; and insist that intervention is necessary for the well-being of the people.
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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Iran squeezed between imperial psychos and European cowards

Pepe Escobar
Consortium News
Wed, 15 May 2019 12:00 UTC
iran protest us
© Hossein Mersadi via Wikimedia CommonsProtests in front of former U.S. embassy in Tehran after U.S. decision to withdraw from JCPOA, May 8, 2018.
The Trump administration unilaterally cheated on the 2015 multinational, UN-endorsed JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal. It has imposed an illegal, worldwide financial and energy blockade on all forms of trade with Iran - from oil and gas to exports of iron, steel, aluminum and copper. For all practical purposes, and in any geopolitical scenario, this is a declaration of war.

Successive U.S. governments have ripped international law to shreds; ditching the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is only the latest instance. It doesn't matter that Tehran has fulfilled all its commitments to the deal - according to UN inspectors. Once the leadership in Tehran concluded that the U.S. sanctions tsunami is fiercer than ever, it decided to begin partially withdrawing from the deal.

President Hassan Rouhani was adamant: Iran has not left the JCPOA - yet. Tehran's measures are legal under the framework of articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA - and European officials were informed in advance. But it's clear the EU3 (Germany, France, Britain), who have always insisted on their vocal support for the JCPOA, must work seriously to alleviate the U.S.-provoked economic disaster to Iran if Tehran has any incentive to continue to abide by the agreement.

Comment: See also:

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Light Sabers

Best of the Web: China-US trade war: Hiatus or busted deal?

Jack Rasmus
jackrasmus.com
Mon, 13 May 2019 09:09 UTC
us china trade war
This past week the US and China failed to reach agreement on a new trade deal, despite high level China representative Lie He meeting in Washington on Thursday-Friday, May 9-10.

In the wake of the meeting, Trump and his administration mouthpieces attempt to put a positive spin on the collapsed talks, while placing blame on China for the break up. The 'spin' at first was that China had reneged on a prior agreement and changed its terms when they arrived in Washington. China had caused the breakdown, not the US. The stock markets swooned. Trump quickly jumped in and said he got a nice letter from China president, Xi, and that it wasn't all that bad.

But make no mistake, a trade negotiations 'rubicon' has been reached. The real trade war may be starting. Or, it may all be theater to make it look like both sides are acting tough and that an agreement will be reached this summer. But that scenario may now be fading. Trade wars-like hot wars-have their own dynamic. Once launched, they drive their adversaries in directions they may not have initially sought.

So who's actually responsible for last week's trade breakdown?

To listen to Trump and his neocons running the US foreign (and trade) policy show now, it was the Chinese. They changed the agreement at the last minute. But who really did the changes? Who set off the process? And how?

Comment: See also:

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