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Attention

Best of the Web: Mayhem in Paris as police vastly outnumbered by massive joint Yellow Vest-May Day protest


RT
Wed, 01 May 2019 11:07 UTC

Comment: The French government claims just 164,000 people were out on the streets across France today, of which 28,000 protested in Paris. Based on video footage from just the Paris protest, the real figure is likely 20+ times higher.

Incidentally, the precise moment violence 'erupted' was when a phalanx of 'Black Bloc' - the ISIS of anti-globalism - charged through the actual protesters and attacked a line of riot police, who then charged and let fly with tear gas and 'flash-grenades'. It can be seen on Sputnik's live-feed of the protest, at 01:12:40


Injury Paris
© Reuters/Gonzalo FuentesAn injured protester is evacuated by street medics after clashes ahead of the start of the traditional May Day march in Paris, France on May 1, 2019.
Demonstrators marching in Paris to mark International Workers' Day have been met with tear gas, images from the French capital show, with reports of over 300 people detained.

The procession was scheduled to start at 2:30pm local time but clashes have already erupted between riot police and protesters who have turned out in their thousands. Huge plumes of smoke can be seen rising from tear gas canisters or smoke grenades along the protest route.


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Star of David

Best of the Web: Proscribed speech: Florida cites Poway synagogue shooting as it outlaws criticism of Israel


RT
Tue, 30 Apr 2019 23:40 UTC
synagog guy
© Reuters/John Gastaldo
Just days after the fatal shooting at a California synagogue, the Florida Senate passed an anti-Semitism bill that critics say will criminalize any criticism of Israel.

The bill prohibits anti-Semitism in Florida public schools and universities, and defines it broadly as any speech that makes stereotypical depictions of Jews, Holocaust denial, inciting of violence or explicit expressions of racial hatred - as well as "criticizing the collective power of the Jewish community."

Such a broad definition could be used to outlaw the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, critics have pointed out, arguing that the bill violates the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Comment: You must say these pronouns to these people.

You must not say these things about these people.

What could possibly go wrong with the proliferation of proscribed speech?

EVERYTHING.

See also:
Sequence complete? Now gunman opens fire at a San Diego synagogue, on Jewish Sabbath - 1 person dead, 3 injured

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Megaphone

Best of the Web: Balanced reporting? Zero percent of elite commentators oppose regime change in Venezuela

Teddy Ostrow
Off Guardian
Tue, 30 Apr 2019 00:01 UTC
NYT political cartoon
© The New York TimesNew York Times cartoon by Patrick Chappatte (1/31/19) featuring Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó.
A FAIR survey of US opinion journalism on Venezuela found no voices in elite corporate media that opposed regime change in that country. Over a three-month period (1/15/19-4/15/19), zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took an anti-regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position. Not a single commentator on the big three Sunday morning talkshows or PBS NewsHour came out against President Nicolás Maduro stepping down from the Venezuelan government.

Of the 76 total articles, opinion videos or TV commentator segments that centered on or gave more than passing attention to Venezuela, 54 (72 percent) expressed explicit support for the Maduro administration's ouster. Eleven (14 percent) were ambiguous, but were only classified as such for lack of explicit language. Reading between the lines, most of these were clearly also pro-regime change. Another 11 (14 percent) took no position, but many similarly offered ideological ammo for those in support.

The Times published 22 pro-regime change commentaries, three ambiguous and five without a position. The Post also spared no space for the pro-Chavista camp: 22 of its articles expressed support for the end to Maduro's administration, eight were ambiguous and four took no position. Of the 12 TV opinions surveyed, 10 were pro-regime change and two took no position.

Comment: And they wonder why they're called Fake News.

See also:

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Top Secret

Best of the Web: What The Hell Is Going On With UFOs And The Department Of Defense?

Tyler Rogaway
The Drive
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 17:57 UTC
UFO footage
© Defense DepartmentThis UFO footage released by the Defense Department shows a remarkable UFO captured on camera onboard the Navy F / A-18 Super Hornet chasing the unidentified flying object
Few stories have garnered more requests from our readers for commentary than the recent news that the Navy has decided to very publicly change its reporting rules and procedures for when its personnel observes an unexplained phenomenon like a UFO and a USO.

There have been wildly varying takes on this sudden change, but the truth is that it is very hard to know what to make of it considering how absurd it sounds-the Navy now wants to know about unidentified craft that can penetrate airspace over its installations and around its most capable naval vessels with impunity? Shouldn't that be a default position for a service tasked with defending American interests and controlling vast swathes of area above, below, and on the surface of the Earth?
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Pyramid

Best of the Web: Managing Russia's dissolution: How disinformation works to divide and conquer


South Front
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 15:33 UTC

Comment: This is a longer-form video report from South Front. And an exceptionally good one at that. Though focusing on the Western elites' hare-brained schemes to break up Russia to 'save it', the methods it describes are at work globally as part of the One World Government's desire to control 'manage' all life on Earth...



Transcript

At the start of the year, on January 9, The Hill, a leading US political newspaper, as if setting the year's agenda put out an article entitled "Managing Russia's dissolution". The article reviews the measures needed to dismantle Russia and instigate civil conflicts on the territory of Eurasia. The author, Bugajski, describes Russia as "a declining state that disguises its internal infirmities with external offensives". He further claims that "Russia is heading toward fragmentation" under "rising social, ethnic and regional pressures" and simultaneously blamed the federal government both for failing "to develop into a nation state with a strong ethnic or civic identity" and for working to centralize control over the regions.

The article continues with speculations that "regions such as Sakha and Magadan in the far east, with their substantial mineral wealth, could be successful states without Moscow's exploitation" and that "emerging states will benefit from forging closer economic and political contacts with neighboring countries rather than depending on Moscow". Siberia and Russia's far east are also named among the regions that "will become" separated from the center "thus encouraging demands for secession and sovereignty".
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Tornado1

Best of the Web: Flash-flooding, dust-storms, hailstorms, and even snow: Entire Mid-East & North Africa regions pummeled all month long with extreme weather

Oli Smith
Daily Express, UK
Sun, 21 Apr 2019 14:59 UTC

Comment: The Express story on this concerns one set of events that took place in the MENA regions last week. But as you'll see in the videos below, there have actually been successive waves of extreme weather from Tunisia to Iran, all month long...


saudi hailstorm
Hail carpets the desert in Saudi Arabia, April 3rd 2019
A bizarre freak weather phenomenon has struck the Middle East, unleashing heavy snowfall, extreme floods and "apocalyptic" dust storms.

The mysterious and extreme weather has caused bizarre 'ice floods' to sweep across deserts in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. The freezing plunge in temperatures has perplexed meteorologists in a region that is typically basking in scorching sunshine at this time of year. Last week, several parts of Tunisia were hit by snow and torrential rainfall, causing fatalities.

Floods and colder temperatures were felt throughout the Levant, as rain led to severe flooding in Riyadh, and hail, thunderstorms, and flash floods struck the UAE.


At the same time, nearly one hundred villages have been evacuated in Iran due to an extreme rainfall deluge and subsequent flash floods.

Large parts of Saudi Arabia have been submerged in snowfall, sparking wonder amaze local residents and concern among scientists.

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Hardhat

Best of the Web: Muslims and the working class: France's marginalized and natural Yellow Vest allies

Ramin Mazaheri
The Saker
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 14:06 UTC
gilets jaunes pairs protest
© Kamil Zihnioglu | APYellow Vests protesters march on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, March 2, 2019.
Yellow Vests and Muslims are the two largest groups in France which suffer from socioeconomic marginalization - and there is no doubt that they will be open political allies, eventually.

Even though the Yellow Vest anti-government movement is historic in scope, duration and intensity, and even though Muslims comprise 5-10% of France's population, there has been almost zero media coverage of the interplay between these two forces.

Check Google in French or English and you truly find almost nothing. I have been waiting and waiting to do a story on this angle for Iran's PressTV - I am their Paris correspondent - but there is simply no "news peg" from which we can start any report.

The reasons for this silence are due to four key reasons but, mostly, it's because the plight of Muslims and Yellow Vests are so obviously similar: just as French media ignores the Muslim community to promote violent misrepresentations instead, so they ignore the true substance of the Yellow Vests in favor of tabloid coverage.

Comment: The author may wish for more, but just the fact that this protest movement is taking place in France - the Western country with the largest Muslim majority - tells us a lot about its overall resilience against the decades of 'clash of civilization' brainwashing, and the utter failure of the 'Global War on Terror' to atomize this particular population into total submission...

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Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: Yellow Vests reject Macron's 'rubbish' tax cuts, protest across France for 24th straight week


RT
Sat, 27 Apr 2019 13:46 UTC
yellow vests Strasbourg April 27 2019
© AFP / Patrick HertzogProtesters take part in an anti-government demonstration called by the "Yellow Vest" (gilets jaunes) movement in Strasbourg, eastern France, on April 27, 2019.
Unrelenting Yellow Vest activists have marched in Paris and other French cities for the 24th straight weekend, just days after Emmanuel Macron tried to placate the protest movement with promises of lower taxes.

The demonstrators who assembled in Paris, Toulouse and Strasbourg on Saturday appear to signal that despite the French president's recent concessions to the group, the Yellow Vest movement is alive and well.



Oh Thursday, Macron held the first major press conference of his two-year presidency, in which he announced that he wanted to implement "significant" income tax cuts.


Comment: Just think about that; it's the first time in TWO YEARS he has deigned to have a press conference.


Comment: Interesting sidenote about this week's protest in Paris; the police, while still numbering in the thousands, did not violently suppress it (though they did in Strasbourg).

This is likely because the trade unions and Melenchon and his liberal-lefty friends decided to join the Yellow Vest Paris protest this week...

See also: Macron offers Yellow Vests €5bn in tax cuts, asks French to 'work more' in return

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MIB

Best of the Web: Suspicious timing: Sunday Times interviews 'New IRA' terrorists

John Mooney
Sunday Times
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 11:49 UTC
New IRA Sunday Times
Original Sunday Times headline
The New IRA has said the political fallout from Britain's decision to leave the European Union has presented it with an opportunity to recruit young supporters as Brexit has underlined the presence of the border and partition.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, which took place after the murder of Lyra McKee in Derry on April 18, representatives from the group's army council acknowledged there was no public support for their campaign of violence but said they would continue to mount attacks in Northern Ireland for propaganda reasons.


Comment: So, this newly constituted terrorist group kills someone, then has a free pass to be interviewed by the British security services' favourite newspaper? Hmmm...


"Our armed actions serve one purpose. They are symbolic. They are propaganda. They let the world know there is an ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland," said one of the dissident leaders.

"Condemning the IRA is nothing new. We are not interested in being popular. Republicanism has always been a small core of people."

The dissident added: "Brexit has forced the IRA to refocus and has underlined how Ireland remains partitioned. It would be remiss of us not to capitalise on the opportunity."

Comment: The return of Irish 'nationalist' terrorism in Northern Ireland (and in Britain) in recent years has only one real winner: the British security state. (Well, two winners: the pro-Anglo-American ultra-liberal Dublin government gets to rag on again about the evils of nationalism).

A fundamental reason why Sinn Fein/the Provisional IRA gave up terrorism in the 1990s was because their organization was by then thoroughly riddled with British (and even some American) spies. For decades, their man in charge of deciding who was or was not a British spy (and executing them)... was a British spy.

With the game rigged at that level, Sinn Fein/IRA settled for playing politics and the long game. It took a little longer than they anticipated, but indeed an opportunity for Irish reunification has opened up: Brexit. But they have to play it right. And, as any actual Irish nationalist will have obviously by now figured out, playing it violently is the surest way for reunification to NOT happen.

What better way to thwart the leverage the EU currently has over London, whereby it risks 'losing' Northern Ireland to Dublin/the EU in the event of a hard Brexit, than by reigniting a spiral of terror which justifies the re-imposition of a hard border?

"Sorry, we would have allowed you to govern yourselves, whole and free, but you're clearly not civilized enough for that yet..."

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Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: China hawks grieve in their era of discontent, see Belt & Road as culmination of 'decades-long war' against the U.S.

Christopher Scott
Asia Times
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 12:00 UTC
committee present danger
"China, China, China, China, China...!!!"
As world leaders descended on Beijing to consult on building out much-needed infrastructure around the globe, a group of Trump administration allies and some of the United States' biggest China critics gathered at the St Regis Hotel in New York to air their grievances on the current state of affairs.

The meeting of the revived Committee on the Present Danger, an effort borrowing its name from a Cold War-era organization, saw a curious mixture - at times from the same speaker - of alarmist rhetoric and confidence that China was doomed to fail of its own flaws.

Largely absent from the event was a call for the US to form a grand strategy to compete with China's Belt and Road Initiative. The global infrastructure investment push is being showcased in Beijing during three days of events, contrasting the atmosphere of rivalry on display in New York with one of cooperation.

Comment: That lack of insight/honesty among all-too-many of its intellectuals is America's core problem. Statistically, the most murderous regime of the 21st century is, by a mile... the USA.

If it's not Russia, it's China, because the US could never admit that it's collapsing under the weight of its own corruption:

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