The US-supported opposition in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is taking its cue from the anti-government protests taking place across the Atlantic Ocean in Ukraine. Failing to win any of Venezuela's elections by earning a popular mandate from the majority of the population in the last few years, the leaders of the mainstream opposition are now resorting to colour revolution tactics and a Ukraine-style disruption strategy. The aim of these opposition leaders in Venezuela is to manipulate the galvanized anti-government protesters into creating a political crisis in Caracas. Mainstream opposition leaders are doing this by instigating the protesters into taking steps that are geared at toppling the Venezuelan government.

The same opposition leaders and their foreign supporters are using the cover of the undeniable misgivings about rising crime rates, political corruption, and economic turmoil in Venezuela as a disguise for what is essentially looking like an attempted coup. The socio-economic misgivings of a segment of the population are being used as a pretext to legitimize street action and violence aimed at toppling the government

At least 16 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli gunfire during two protests in the besieged Gaza Strip.

In one of the incidents, 14 protesters were injured during a protest against the Israeli-designated buffer zone near Jabalia in the northeast of Gaza City on Friday.

Medical sources said one of the injured, a 12-year-old boy, was in critical condition after being shot in the head.

An Israeli military spokeswoman claimed the forces opened live fire at the protesters after they threw stones at the soldiers. She also said that "hundreds of Palestinians" took part in the protest.

Meanwhile, a Hamas security officer and a Palestinian boy were also injured by Israeli soldiers during a different protest in southern Gaza.

The Israeli military frequently targets Palestinians along the border with the besieged enclave.

Move over, Peter O' Toole. It's Charles of Arabia time. Prince Charles switched to Lawrence mode when he went schmoozing and dancing in Riyadh this past Tuesday with the natives. And just like clockwork, the next day BAE Systems - Europe's number one weapons peddler - announced that the UK and the House of Saud had agreed on "new pricing" for an extremely juicy deal; 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets.

The Eurofighter is a direct competitor of the spectacularly unsalable French Rafale and the very expensive American F-35s and F-16s. The Associated Press duly included in its dispatch - reproduced by virtually every newspaper around the world - the Washington-enforced meme "Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are fortifying their military capabilities to counter a perceived threat from regional rivals, particularly Iran." As if Tehran was going to bomb the House of Saud tomorrow.

As ExxonMobil's CEO, it's Rex Tillerson's job to promote the hydraulic fracturing enabling the recent oil and gas boom, and fight regulatory oversight. The oil company is the biggest natural gas producer in the U.S., relying on the controversial drilling technology to extract it.

The exception is when Tillerson's $5 million property value might be harmed. Tillerson has joined a lawsuit that cites fracking's consequences in order to block the construction of a 160-foot water tower next to his and his wife's Texas home.

The Wall Street Journal reports the tower would supply water to a nearby fracking site, and the plaintiffs argue the project would cause too much noise and traffic from hauling the water from the tower to the drilling site. The water tower, owned by Cross Timbers Water Supply Corporation, "will sell water to oil and gas explorers for fracing [sic] shale formations leading to traffic with heavy trucks on FM 407, creating a noise nuisance and traffic hazards," the suit says.

Though Tillerson's name is on the lawsuit, a lawyer representing him said his concern is about the devaluation of his property, not fracking specifically.

It was exactly one month ago that President Obama warned the Republican-controlled Congress, "I've got a pen and I've got a phone." That simple declaration was Obama's indication that he was going to use executive orders to push his agenda forward without the approval of Congress.

However, a recently unearthed video from then-Sen. Barack Obama's first presidential campaign in 2008 appears to show the candidate making a promise that he has been unable to keep. The statement was made during a town hall event in Lancaster, Pa.

First, he reminded the audience that he was a constitutional scholar.

"Ya know, I taught constitutional law for 10 years. I take the constitution very seriously," he said.

Then, candidate Obama pledged to be very different from the man he hoped to replace: "The biggest problems we're facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm president of the United States of America."

Militant group says it targeted people who used the 'quenelle' gesture conceived by a Holocaust denier.

French police have arrested six Jews they believe staged vigilante attacks against suspected anti-Semites.

The attacks occurred on December 21 in Lyon and December 22 in nearby Villeurbanne and are believed to have been perpetrated by members of France's Jewish Defense League, or Ligue de Defense Juive (LDJ), the local branch of the militant group associated with the late Rabbi Meir Kahane.

The victims were targeted on social networks and tracked down for performing the "quenelle," a gesture conceived by the anti-Semitic comedian and Holocaust denier Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, the Le Progres daily reported.

On Tuesday, LDJ wrote on its Twitter account: "Two major punitive actions were carried out Saturday and Sunday in Lyon against people who performed the quenelle. The little Nazis are no longer at ease!"

Leading Ukraine Opposition figure, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, risks disappointing liberal supporters of his All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" party, having publicly rejected gay marriage at a recent rally.

Yatsenyuk was confronted by a representative of the Western-Ukrainian Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender community who said to him: "Many people live in love, but not in law. Promise me that if you become president, you will legalize same-sex relationships, and I promise that all gays and lesbians will vote for you."

But Yatsenyuk, who leads "Fatherland" in the absence of jailed leader Yulia Tymoshenko, revealed that he rejects gay marriage because his personal beliefs stand in the way of any political position.

"I can tell you about this separately as a Christian and a Greek Catholic," he said. "I do not support gay marriage."

His reply has disappointed the LGBT community in Ukraine, which has looked to the Opposition for accommodation on social issues.

A right-wing nationalist Ukrainian party nominated its leader, who has made public anti-Semitic and xenophobic statements, to run for president.

Some 500 delegates of the Svoboda, or Freedom, political party unanimously endorsed Oleg Tiagnybok at the party's 20th congress on Sunday.

National elections in Ukraine are slated for January.

Support for the party has swelled since recent regional elections, worrying Jewish community and human rights activists. In a March 15 Ternopol regional western Ukrainian legislature election, Svoboda won 35 percent of the vote - more than double the second-place Single Center party and four times more than the parties that make up the Ukrainian ruling coalition.

Svoboda's influence spurred the Lvov regional commission recently to ban a Lvov Jewish charity's screening of the film "Two Tangos," a movie about the Holocaust in Ukraine, for "ethnic incitement."

The violent anti-government street protests that have rocked the Eastern European nation of Ukraine include a smorgasbord of opposition groups and dissenters who strongly object to the rule of President Viktor Yanukovych and the purported influence of Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the nation's affairs. Clashes between rioters and police have already killed at least 25 people and wounded more than 250.

The most controversial element of the anti-government alliance is Svoboda (Freedom), an extreme right-wing political party that not only has representation in parliament, but has been dubbed by its critics as a neo-Nazi organization. Britain's Channel 4 News reported that Svoboda has assumed a "leading role" in the street protests in Kiev, with affiliated paramilitary groups prominently involved in the disturbances. Svoboda flags and banners have been featured in the demonstrations at Kiev's Independence Square. During the continuing street riots, one Svoboda MP, Igor Myroshnychenko, created an iconic moment of sorts when he allegedly helped to topple the statue of Vladimir Lenin outside a government building, followed by its occupation by protesters.

However, despite its extremist rhetoric, Svoboda cannot be called a "fringe" party - indeed, it currently occupies 36 seats in the 450-member Ukrainian parliament, granting it status as the fourth-largest party in the country. Further, Svoboda is linked to other far-right groups across Europe through its membership in the Alliance of European National Movements, which includes the British National Party (BNP) of the United Kingdom and Jobbik, the neo-fascist, anti-Semitic and anti-Roma party of Hungary. The leader of Svoboda, Oleh Tyahnybok, who has appeared at the Kiev protests, has a long history of making inflammatory anti-Semitic statements, including the accusation during a 2004 speech before parliament that Ukraine is controlled by a "Muscovite-Jewish mafia." Miroshnychenko also called the Ukrainian-born American film actress Mila Kunis a "dirty Jewess."

Here is how it works these days: You start hearing about a big, national problem and then it becomes a drumbeat. First there are a few articles and columns mentioning that such-and-such is a problem. Then a number of articles appear, then a "study" from a "think tank" confirms the problem and sounds the alarm about how terrible it is, and then just as the issue seems to be the only thing you are hearing about a solution is presented. Of course, the solution always involves taking something away from you and giving it to some company or industry standing in front of a billionaire or three. The right question to start asking when you hear about these "problems" is which billionaire is driving this.

Here are five-plus examples of billionaires who use their money to try to get us to think what they want us to think in order to enact a right-wing economic agenda.

1) Pete Peterson's deficit/debt scare campaign and his ongoing effort to gut Social Security and other entitlements. Leading every list of billionaires pushing an issue is billionaire Pete Peterson and his forever war on government doing things to make our lives better, especially Social Security. Peterson leads the list because of reports of his pledge to spend $1 billion on his pet issue.

Have you ever heard anywhere that the budget deficit and national debt are a problem? You can't pick up a newspaper or magazine, turn on the radio or TV, or listen to any politician from the so-called "center" to the far right without hearing that, and the reason is Pete Peterson and his money.

Peterson and his money are a big part of the backing for the Concord Coalition, Fix the Debt, The Can Kicks Back, the Comeback America Initiative, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Moment of Truth Project, the Committee for Economic Development, America Speaks plus contributions to many other groups. As Michael Hiltzik worded it in Unmasking the most influential billionaire in U.S. politics at the LA Times, "The shame of Washington... comes from the fact that almost every organization promoting the grand fiscal bargain in which those programs will be on the table has accepted, somewhere and somehow, money from Pete Peterson."

Sourcewatch's Fix the Debt portal contains much more information on this big-money influence campaign, including this graphic:
Last week one of Peterson's deficit-scare groups was in the news. The Can Kicks Back is an organization named after the narrative that not cutting Social Security is just kicking the debt can down the road. They claim this is because there is a generational war where older people are living high on the hog and younger people will have to pay for this. The group tries to make legislators think younger people want them to cut Social Security, etc. using astroturf videos, Twitter posts, etc.

Well, the Peterson spigot seems to have dried up. The anti-debt group is... wait for it... in debt. All of that astroturf hype about younger people demanding Social Security cuts? When the Peterson money ran out, the urgency went away.