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Bill Maher taunts Democrats for fruitless Trump complaints: 'You're making yourselves look weak'

Bill Maher
© Reuters / Fred Prouser
HBO's Bill Maher sent a shot across the bow of Democrats constantly complaining about the Trump administration, saying they should either "do something or stop talking about it."

The Real Time host hit out at what he saw as a litany of tiresome, futile complaints from Democrats, ranging from the ongoing bickering about Donald Trump's unreleased tax returns to the Mueller report's disappointing-to-Dems findings.

"I feel like we're in a permanent state of constitutional crisis," Maher said, before telling Democrats: "Either do something or stop talking about it because I think you are just making yourselves look weak. You are making yourself look like people who talk and talk and don't do anything."

Attention

Week 26 of Yellow Vest protests marked with tear gas water cannons in Nantes and Lyon

yellow vest protest
© Reuters / Charles Platiau
The defiant Yellow Vests, though in dwindling numbers, have marched across France for the 26th straight weekend. In Nantes and Lyon the rallies ended up in clashes between the demonstrators and police.

A week after the lowest turnout since the movement began as a protest against a planned fuel tax hike in November, the Yellow Vests, who are now protesting President Emmanuel Macron's broader reform agenda and supposed indifference towards the fate of the ordinary French people, once again took to the streets of the French cities.

Nantes and Lyon saw some major demonstrations on Saturday, as thousands of people joined the rallies organized by the protest movement in both cities.

In Lyon, 2,500 people hit the streets while in Nantes the police put the turnout at 2,200, according to the French media.

Star of David

The checkpoint and the wine opener: Israeli soldiers turn routine checkpoint into a nightmare

Aseel Baidoun/Amir Malhees
© Aseel Baidoun
Aseel Baidoun and Amir Malhees
The attack happened on April 26th. Aseel Baidoun, 28, and her husband Ameer Malhees, 27, and their friend Wisam were on their way from their home in Ramallah to a friend's engagement in Bethlehem.

Aseel, who works with the World Health Organization, was driving their car, while Ameer, a musician, sat in the passenger seat. It was routine for the couple when driving outside Ramallah: Baidoun, a Jerusalem ID holder, had to drive her "yellow-plated" Israeli vehicle, as her husband, a West Bank ID holder, is not legally allowed to do so.

Due to Malhees and Wisam's West Bank IDs, they are also not allowed to travel through Jerusalem to Bethlehem - a trip that takes about half the traveling time as driving through the winding, single-lane highways of the West Bank.

It was inconvenient, yes, but like thousands of others they had done it countless times before.

So when the group approached the Israeli military "container" checkpoint separating the northern and southern West Bank, they followed the routine, and slowly approached the through lane, guarded by several soldiers.

"They waved at me to stop my car, probably because it was yellow license plates," Baidoun told Mondoweiss. She said it was a regular occurrence when she drove in her car; it was nothing out of the ordinary. "They signaled for me to go to a different lane, away from the Palestinian cars. So we took the other lane and stopped," Baidoun said.

Pirates

Syrian army frees three villages from Nusra terrorists

Syrian army
© Sputnik/Mikhail Voskresenskiy
Syrian Army troops
The Syrian army liberated three more villages on the border with Idlib Province from militants of the Nusra Front terrorist group, Lebanese broadcaster Al Mayadeen reported on Saturday.

The army liberated the villages of al-Jamaziya, Bab al-Taqa and Mustariha in the northwestern part of Hama Province, it said.

Earlier on Saturday, Syrian army crossed the southern administrative border of Idlib and established control over the villages of Arima and Midan Ghazal, following clashes with Nusra terrorists.

Over the past week, terrorists have increased the number of attacks on settlements in the north of the province of Hama, in Aleppo and in mountainous Latakia.

Militant groups are making unsuccessful attempts to attack the positions of the Syrian army. The Syrian government forces and the air force, in turn, have intensified strikes against terrorists in Idlib, attacking warehouses, firing positions and advanced observation posts of the Nusra Front.

Megaphone

Paul Joseph Watson reacts to Facebook ban: 'No future for dissidents'

Paul Joseph Watson
Popular internet pundit Paul Joseph Watson is mulling legal action after being banned from Facebook for spreading "hate," telling RT that it's clear social media platforms are cracking down on dissident political speech.

Facebook kicked Watson off its platform on May 2 - along with conservative commentator Laura Loomer, Infowars founder Alex Jones, and black nationalist leader Louis Farrakhan. The group was accused of spreading "hateful" content, although no warnings or concrete reasons were provided for their seemingly arbitrary bans.


Watson, who runs a YouTube channel that boasts more than 1.5 million subscribers, has become a well-known but polarizing commentator on culture and politics. A long-time Infowars contributor, Watson now has his own outlet, Summit News.

Although he's been labeled as an "alt-right" conspiracy theorist, Watson insists that he's been smeared - and de-platformed - simply because he holds contrarian views.

Heart - Black

Outrage after video shows bear falling off cliff while being stoned by 'villagers' in India

Brown bear
© AFP / Abdullah Khan / Snow Leopard Foundation 1107
People on social media vented anger after a viral video showed a brown bear falling off a cliff while being stoned by a cheering crowd in India. Local villagers were reportedly behind the brutal act.

The heart-wrenching footage captured a brown bear trying to hold its balance on a rocky cliff while being hit by stones. Eventually, the animal falls down into a mountain stream as cheering voices are heard in the background.

The incident occurred in the Kargil district of the northern Jammu and Kashmir state. The bear climbed up the cliff striving to escape from the local residents who chased him all the way from the nearby village, local media report. As the bear was running away he got trapped in barbed wire but managed to free himself, a separate video suggests.

The gruesome footage quickly went viral and sparked outrage among social media users. "This is truly barbaric," one person wrote while another one dubbed the scene as "cruelty at its best."

Comment: Here is another video after the bear reached the bottom of the cliff:




Eye 1

Search continues for Amanda Eller, woman who went missing during hike on Maui 4 days ago

Amanda Eller
© Sarah Haynes
Amanda Eller, 35, went missing in Maui, Hawaii, when going on a hike Thursday, May 9, 2019. The physical therapist and yoga teacher has not been seen for three days.
Friends, family and rescue crews spent a third day searching for a missing Maui woman on Saturday after she mysteriously disappeared during a routine hike.

Amanda Eller, 35, who is a physical therapist who moonlights as a yoga teacher, drove to Makawao to hike the Kahakapao Trail on her day off Wednesday. Eller is a regular hiker and avid outdoorswoman, friends say, but she has not been seen since taking to the trail.

The Maui Fire Department found Eller's white Toyota RAV4 at noon on Thursday, with her keys and cellphone inside. Friends said it was not uncommon for her to hike or run the trail without her phone.

Her boyfriend told police he last saw her Wednesday morning. He is not a suspect, friends say.

2 + 2 = 4

Head of elite school under fire for comparing criticism of fee-paying schools to anti-Semitism

graduates
© Reuters / Hannah McKay
The head of a prestigious £12,000-a-term school prompted fierce reactions after suggesting that the bashing of fee-paying schools was similar to the tropes found in anti-Semitic conspiracies.

Anthony Wallersteiner, head of the Stowe school in Buckinghamshire, UK, claimed that students from independent, fee-paying schools were unfairly losing out on places at Oxford and Cambridge universities at the expense of their state-educated counterparts, in an interview with the Times newspaper. He added that many fee-paying parents were now accusing Oxbridge admissions offices of "social engineering" and positive discrimination by limiting the number of successful privately-educated applicants.

Wallersteiner's most controversial comment came, however, in his analogy likening criticism of the private education sector to anti-Semitism. "The rise of populists and polemicists has created a micro-industry in bashing private schools," he said before noting that their criticisms echoed the "conspiratorial language" found in the notorious fabricated anti-Semitic text, 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'. He added that it was easy for Hitler and the Nazis to suggest that Germany's Jewish minority was overrepresented in key jobs such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, and creatives.

Bullseye

Author loses book deal and gets eviscerated on Twitter for reporting black, female Metro employee eating on a train

metro commuters
© REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
A legit but somewhat petty complaint has cost an author her book deal and reputation after liberal Twitter ganged up on her for reporting a DC Metro employee eating on a train. It's a violation, but the employee is a black woman.

Jordanian-American journalist and writer Natasha Tynes faced Twitter wrath after she alerted the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to a black woman in a Metro uniform eating on a train presumably on her way to work. Tynes, who has since deleted her tweet, reportedly wrote: "I thought we were not allowed to eat on the train. This is unacceptable. Hope @wmata responds."

"When I asked the employee about this, her response was, 'worry about yourself,'" Tynes said.

It did not take long for WMATA to respond. The transit authority asked Tynes to provide the exact time and location of her encounter and thanked her for helping to "make sure all Metro employees are held accountable."

But that was only the beginning of the story, as Twitter erupted with outraged posts accusing Tynes of being a snitch. The backlash mostly focused on the race and gender of the employee, with many calling out Tynes for contributing to the oppression of women of color.

Attention

Sabotage to out activists? Now water has been cut to Venezuela's US embassy, govt. denies action

Man in window
© REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Anti-coup activists demonstrate from the window of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, U.S., May 1, 2019.
Anti-coup activists holed up in the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington say they have been left with no utilities after the water supply was shut off or disrupted. The municipal water provider has denied responsibility.

The already dismal conditions the activists known as the Embassy Civilian Protection Collective have had to endure after the US authorities complied with the opposition's request to shut down power in the building, have grown even worse, with water now reportedly gone as well.

Since it comes just two days after the 'ambassador' appointed by Juan Guaido, the US-backed opposition leader and self-proclaimed 'interim president' of Venezuela, demanded that the US authorities shut down the power, the activists said it was yet another joint attempt by Washington and Guaido to drive them out of the embassy.

"The US govt turned off water at Venezuela Embassy this morning to try to force the #EmbassyProtectionCollective to leave," Code Pink's Medea Benjamin wrote, while another activist, reporter Mark Hand, accused municipal water company DC Water of leaving the activists without water, and public utility Pepco for the continued blackout.

Comment: See also: