“A series of controlled explosions are to be used on Monday to separate the stricken Dali cargo ship from the remains of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Crews plan to use explosives to break down bridge sections still covering the Dali, which crashed in March. The planned demolition was postponed on Sunday due to lightning storms. The container ship crash killed six people and sent around 4,000 tonnes of debris into the Patapsco river. The 948 ft (289 m) ship has remained at the scene since the accident and is covered in scrap from the bridge. Authorities hope to detonate one of the spans covering the ship, which is estimated to be 500 feet (152 meters) long and weigh 600 tonnes, BBC’s news partner CBS reported. The port has been closed since the accident. Officials plan to use precision cuts with controlled detonations to remove the remnants of the bridge.” (05/13/24)
“In our country’s 248-year history, there have been many important dates, such as July 4, 1776, April 9, 1865, December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001. Yet, there is an upcoming date that is arguably even more important: November 5, 2024. This will be the election day that will determine whether our nation survives. Will the country continue with President Joe Biden and his hellish, left-wing policies or return to the ‘Make America Great Again’ policies of President Donald Trump. It is easy to contrast the records of the two Presidents. Under President Trump, there was prosperity at home, with low interest rates and the American dream was in reach for first time home buyers. …In contrast, the Biden economy has been a disaster with skyrocketing inflation and interest rates. The American dream is impossible for millions of Americans.” [editor’s note: Well, that’s one variant of Trump Derangement Syndrome – TLK] (05/13/24)
“An American Army officer on Monday described months of being increasingly disturbed by the images and news of Israel’s U.S.-backed bombardment of Gaza, which culminated in his public resignation from his position at the Defense Intelligence Agency to avoid further complicity in Israel’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians. Army Maj. Harrison Mann published his resignation letter on LinkedIn, saying he had distributed it internally on April 16 to announce his resignation from the agency. As an officer at the DIA, Mann said, he has been unable to escape the fact that his place of work ‘directly executes policy’ for the Biden administration, including its ‘nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel, which has enabled and empowered the killing and starving of tens and thousands of innocent Palestinians.’ ‘My work here — however administrative or marginal it appeared — unquestionably contributed to that support,’ wrote Mann.” (05/13/24)
“Melinda French Gates announced Monday that she is stepping down from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation next month. French Gates wrote in a post on X that her last day as co-chair of the foundation will be June 7, which she said isn’t a decision she ‘came to lightly.’ Under the terms of her agreement with her co-chair and ex-husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, she will have an additional $12.5 billion to commit to her work on behalf of women and families. ‘This is a critical moment for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world – and those fighting to protect and advance equality are in urgent need of support,’ she wrote.” (05/13/24)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Politico reports that the DNC is planning to move the Chicago convention partially online in order to ‘tamp down demonstrators’ against Biden’s genocide in Gaza. The Democratic Party’s apathy toward this election is almost as blatant as its support for police crackdowns on political dissent. When nobody in power will lift a finger to earn your vote but they’re falling all over themselves trying to stomp out a robust protest movement, that tells you what the powerful are actually afraid of and where you should really be focusing your political energy. Your votes don’t matter, but your activism does. These freaks are terrified that one day the people will stop playing with the toy steering wheel of voting that they were given to divert their political energy and use the power of their numbers to grab the real steering wheel.” (05/12/24)
“Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova was sworn as the first female president of North Macedonia on Sunday and immediately reignited a diplomatic spat with neighboring Greece. At the ceremony in the country’s Parliament, Siljanovska-Davkova referred to her country as ‘Macedonia,’ rather than the constitutional name ‘North Macedonia.’ This prompted Greece’s Ambassador to Skopje, Sophia Philippidou, to leave the inauguration ceremony. The Greek Foreign Ministry later issued a statement saying that the new president’s actions violated an agreement between the two nations and put in danger both bilateral relations and North Macedonia’s prospects of joining the European Union. The use of the name ‘Macedonia’ provokes a strong Greek reaction, with Greece accusing its northern neighbor of appropriating a Greek name and the history of the Ancient Greek Kingdom of Macedonia, which existed centuries before Slavic people, such as the contemporary ethnic Macedonians, arrived in the area.” (05/12/24)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“One of the most frustrating things happening in the world right now is the way people of conscience are doing everything they can to bring a stop to Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza, and Israel supporters are responding to this by pointing at an epidemic of ‘antisemitism’ which has no existence outside their own imaginations — but we’re all expected to pretend it’s real and worthy of respect. TV’s ‘Dr Phil’ McGraw flew to Jerusalem to give war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu an hour-long platform on which to justify his genocidal violence in Gaza to an American audience …. Netanyahu went so far as to advance the ridiculous suggestion that this sudden wave of support for Palestinians has nothing to do with Israel’s actions in Gaza at all, but is solely due to a massive ‘explosion’ in antisemitism which just so happens to coincide with those actions.” (05/12/24)
“In April, French President Emmanuel Macron described Europe as ‘a continent-world that thinks about its universality’. Perhaps he would include thinking about singing, that most universal of languages. On Saturday night, an audience of more than 150 million people – larger than the Super Bowl – is expected to watch performers from 26 countries in the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest. The event, now in its 68th year, will again shape a tighter European identity that honors the singing talent from individual countries, most of them in the European Union. The ‘universal’ in Eurovision lies in its democratic and inclusive nature. Viewers, along with an expert jury, get to vote on who wins. And the event’s organizer, the European Broadcasting Union, is quite open about its struggles to welcome new countries while keeping the musical competition as free of geopolitics as possible.” (05/10/24)
“Recently, some Russian political leaders and generals, an occasional Chinese Communist Party insider, Turkish President Recep Erdoğan, unhinged North Korean Kim Jong-un and, of course, the Iranian theocracy, have threatened to annihilate their enemies. Sometimes the saber-rattlers boast of using nuclear weapons, surprise invasions, or rocket barrages, such as we saw against Israel last month. Or as Erdoğan recently warned Greece of Turkey’s new missile arsenal, ‘We can come down suddenly one night when the time comes.’ Taiwan is told it will be absorbed. North Korea warned recently it would ‘annihilate’ South Korea. When we dismiss these lunatic threats, are we really assured they’re truly crazy?” (05/11/24)
“‘Civil asset forfeiture’ is the legal euphemism for when the cops steal your stuff. In this country, if you are stopped or arrested, the police can take all the personal property you have on you and call it ‘incident to the arrest.’ … When cops decide to help themselves to your property, they can do it without a warrant, without securing a conviction, without even charging you with a crime. Once they’ve taken it, the cops then force people to engage in a long legal fight to get their stuff back. Often, the value of the property stolen by the government is less than the cost of lawyers needed to fight the government. There’s no right to public counsel when the cops steal from you, so most people can’t afford to fight them, never get their stuff back, and the cops end up selling it for profit.” (05/10/24)
