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 There is an explosion of college protesters being arrested for being on the side of Palestinians, including Emerson College , USC , Columbia University , Yale and NYC .  Friendly reminder that connections exist: the covert / overt pushback against protests , the creation of Cop Cities nationwide , the hypocritical ban on TikTok ...all related to maintaining control of the narrative and the people that the narrative is directed to.  And just to show that I'm not alone, here's Rachel Blevins and Sabrina Salvati hitting some of the same points: And here's Lee Camp's coverage:

 

 When someone from an oppressed, disenfranchised or maligned group conducts themselves as a typical colonial-friendly, capitalism-obsessed WASP (guess we have to add and extra "S" for "Straight") all we've done is perform cosmetic surgery on the status quo:

 

 Well, a number of things, as this CNN story notes . Among them: China has the ability block any sale, which is likely considering that the purpose the US law is to force a Chinese company sell to an American buyer.  The owner of the company vows to fight through legal means. Even if the sale were to happen, China could remove the algorithm from the app, basically making it useless.  First Amendment experts doubt this law will hold up in court. The one thing the CNN story doesn't really cover is the " why ." Well, this app that was created and governed by another country; as such the leaders of America cannot control what is being said or done on the app. This means that (mostly young) Americans who use it can criticize America (within reason; Lee Camp apparently was banned). Compare this to when Americans (including Lee Camp) were on RT America, a Russian-backed news network that allowed Americans to critique the American government...not to mention its allies. TikTok al

 

 Here's one (very good) take:

 Danny Haiphong thinks so, and he shares some things with Margaret Kimberley . 

  Seriously; this guy would have made the CIA proud. 

 Chris Hedges and Vincent Bevins discuss:

 If flights leaving the Promised Land begin to pick up, you'll know why :  Nearly three-quarters of the Israeli public oppose a retaliatory strike on Iran for its massive missile attack on the country if such action would harm Israel’s security alliance with its allies, according to a poll published Tuesday. The Hebrew University survey also found that over half the public believes Israel “respond[s] positively” to the military and political demands of allies. Israel has vowed to retaliate after Iran overnight Saturday fired over 300 missiles and drones at the country. Almost all were intercepted before they reached the country as the United States led a coordinated air defense shield that involved Israeli, American, British, French and Jordanian forces, reportedly along with radar and intelligence input from some Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia. Maybe they should concentrate of getting back the hostages . For what it's worth, Iran is putting out a warning . 

 Prof Wolff discusses this with union member Kim Kelly:

  So much for "do no evil":  Google has fired more than two dozen employees who protested this week against the company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government. The workers were dismissed after an investigation found that they had staged protests inside Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. In Sunnyvale, they entered the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, according to a post on X by the group that organized the demonstration, No Tech For Apartheid. Protesters held banners that read “No More Genocide For Profit” and “We Stand with Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Googlers.” A Google spokesperson told CNN Thursday that the protests “were part of a long-standing campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work” at the company. “A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations. Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation

 

 First if all, Iran's attack was not unprovoked: Second: The impact of Iran's attack has been misinterpreted by the American/Western media: Third: The reason Israel wants to rattle Iran's cage is because they failed their Gaza operation: In short: Israel did this to themselves, and their leader would rather start WWIII than embrace peace or admit defeat. 

 Does it matter if it is " a participant, counter-protester or random yahoo ?" Nope! Due Dissidence has more:

  Notice he talks about "the scale;" a lot of publications have used "unprecedented" to describe Iran's retaliatory attack.

 The newspaper that went after Harvey Weinstein crumbles in the face of AIPAC and Benjamin Netanyahu: THE NEW YORK TIMES instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept. The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars. The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees. The memo — written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies — “offers guidance about some terms and other issues we have grappled with

 Did you know that Iran was willing not to send any drones/rockets if Israel had stopped the Gaza genocide?

 Jimmy Dore and Scott Ritter discuss: Long Story = Short: Israel needs to make peace. Also, if the US wants to "win" any military conflicts going forward, nuclear options would need to be on the table...and that's pretty much the endgame.

 In regards to Iran's attack:

 

 

 While most talk about Iran's recent retaliatory strike on Israel or the continuing fright between the IDF and Hamas, the West Bank is having their own problems : Hundreds of Israeli settlers surrounded Palestinian villages and attacked residents across the occupied West Bank, eyewitnesses told CNN, after an Israeli boy who had gone missing from a settlement was found dead. The body of Binyamin Achimair, 14, was found in the area of Malachei Ha’Shalom, with the Israeli military saying he was killed in a “terrorist attack.” It is unclear yet what was the cause of death, and the IDF is yet to provide evidence that this was a “terrorist attack.” CNN has reached out for clarity. Soon after, videos obtained by CNN show settlers setting houses and cars ablaze in the village of Duma, southeast of Nablus. Footage shows heavy smoke engulfing the air, as settlers fire gunshots in the area. Eyewitnesses said settlers stormed people’s houses, resulting in clashes with Palestinians. In one vid

 

  The biggest reason Africa is "poor" is because the rich continue to exploit the continent's resources.

 George Galloway asks Chris Hedges:

 

  Via C-SPAN .

 Well, now you do:

 The athlete-turned celebrity-turned controversial figure (as well as a classic case study on the dynamics of race, class and the legal system) has passed at 76 . 

  Sadly even the media doesn't want to admit that genocide is happening, in part because certain countries haven't defined it. So it's up to the courts. 

  It takes a lot of stones to lecture a country that your country had colonized on environmentalism. 

  Like Keaton said, when you're channel revolves around electoral politics, this is what you wind up doing. With their audience, The Young Turks should be telling people to hit the streets over every issue they feel passionate about instead of putting all their hopes in phantom candidates (or real ones that are deeply flawed). 

  Very telling : President Joe Biden won the state’s Democratic presidential primary earlier this week, obtaining 84% of the roughly 65,500 total votes, according to tallies from the secretary of the state’s office. No other candidate managed to get even 3% of the vote. But about 11.6% of Democratic voters cast a ballot for “uncommitted,” a higher share than in 2020 and 2016. The uncommitted vote was seen as a way to protest Biden’s support for Israel after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and Israel’s invasion of Gaza. “They’re wasting their vote, and they are wasting my time,” Lamont said. “The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who stay neutral or can’t make up their minds at a time of moral crisis.” The uncommitted vote varied by town. In seven towns, more than 20% of voters choose uncommitted, although some of these towns didn’t exceed 300 votes across all candidates.

 

 A follow-up of sorts to this previous post .

 Audio can be found here .

  My humble take? There are, generally-speaking, three factions in the leadership of the West (aka, NATO, US, Canada...): Stuck In The Past; Blind to the Present : These people still believe it's like the "glory days" where the West did what they wanted, mostly led by the United States. These leaders still believe that their countries have the best military, best economy and best moral standing. Sadly, this belief also makes them think that they can easily defeat China, Russia and/Iran in conventionally military combat. True Believers : They see the world in black & white, where the West is Good and Everyone Else is Evil. For them, the moral standing mentioned above carries more weight than everything else, and any "flaws" pointed out is negligible. " Ukraine has Nazis? " " Russia is worse. " " Israel is indiscriminately bombing and purposefully starving a group of people trapped in an open-air prison in genocidal fashion? " &qu

 “This is not anymore about the seven men and women of World Central Kitchen that perished on this unfortunate event. This is happening for way too long. It’s been six months of targeting anything that seems moves. This doesn’t seem a war against terror. This doesn’t seem anymore a war about defending Israel. This really, at this point, seems it’s a war against humanity itself.” - José Andrés, founder of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) after seven members ( including Jacob Flickinger ) were killed in a Israeli military strike. 

 

 Yemen is basically controlling the Red Sea: And between Iran and Hezbollah, everything else of strategic value is being hit:

 This is big, mostly because it's unprecedented: Why did Ecuador do this? Well, it may have to do with the former Ecuadoran Vice President (Jorge Glas). 

 

 Hint: it's those who aren't about Haitian independence: FYI: For what it' worth here's a 2022/2023 video about the richest people in Haiti:

 

 

 It might be hard for some to believe that at one point, GE had commercials all over the place and had owned NBC. But that was another time : GE once did almost everything for the typical American family – from providing much of the television they watched, to the light bulbs and appliances they depended upon, the electricity needed to power those household staples, even the subprime mortgage that allowed many of them to buy their homes. No longer. With Tuesday’s split into two companies, the break up of the once mighty industrial icon is complete. The company was founded by Thomas Edison in 1892 and built into the world’s largest and most valuable company by the once legendary, but now oft-criticized CEO Jack Welch. But, during this century, the company became a struggling, bloated conglomerate, weighed down by poorly timed deals that left it with unaffordable levels of debt. But instead of dealing with that debt and fixing its myriad problems, it spent tens of billions on share repur

 Strategy/long-term planning is key:

 Antony Blinken certainly believes so .

 This break in disturbing news is brought to you via CNN .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Via Katie Halper:

  Well put. TV/Radio/Internet Personalities are not ideal movement leaders, because they have to juggle their brand/business/livelihood (read: the MONEY) with the prospect of working every day to make the lives of those who are disenfranchised, oppressed, and/or discriminated better.  Activists don't really have time to put on shows because, they are, well, working on activism.  And let's be honest: most of the "revolutionary" talk in any media is described through a prism of electoral politics anyway. 

 Lee Camp talks about it (and explains why the mainstream media is not talking about it):

 RBN gives their take: I would add/expand that the "failing generation" here is not only blaming social media (specifically Tik Tok) but they are blaming younger generations as a whole. 

 Looking at the connections between all the global conflicts, it's hard not to think so: Remember this boils down to ego, power and money. The United States (and the West as a whole) can't contemplate a world where the US isn't top dog economically, politically and militarily, and are willing to kill, steal and destroy to maintain its standing. 

 According to CNN, Iran seems to think so .

 

 Remember: being for "free speech" means in every occasion, even when your business interests are threatened .

 

 Mark Sleboda explains this groups' origins in a discussion with Rachel Blevins:

 For some reason it was posted than removed, but fortunately the editors over at Black Agenda Report found it . 

 Well...

 

 It's almost like they're just barely left of mainstream media:

 Jemima Pierre talks to Sabby:

 Richard Medhurst on Yemen's latest move:

  The Francis Scott Key Bridge was apparently hit by a cargo ship .

 

 

 

 Ever wonder why you think the way you think after watching mainstream news?

 

  WARNING : The following shows military violence. Not posting video this time, but here's the link . Hard to watch this and then hear people talk about Hamas being the true target. 

 The answer is, sadly, yes:

  UPDATE: It's being reported that Kate Middleton is battling cancer. Hopefully, she'll be able to recover, but why go through all the trouble? Cancer is a pretty common illness, and revealing it would have most likely garnered her (and by proxy the Royals) more sympathy from the public. 

 Connecting to this post , Rachel Blevins revealed that this may cost them an expensive military base:

  Interesting : The European Union has announced a 7.4 billion-euro ($8.06bn) aid package and an upgraded relationship with Egypt, part of a new deal to stem migration flows to Europe that has been criticised by rights groups. The deal is scheduled to be signed during a visit on Sunday by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and leaders of Belgium, Italy, Austria, Cyprus and Greece, according to officials. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met separately with von der Leyen and other European leaders before the signing ceremony. The aid package includes both grants and loans over the next three years, with the EU saying it is upgrading its relationship with the Arab world’s most populous country to a “strategic partnership”. The proposed funding includes 5 billion euros ($5.45bn) in concessional loans and 1.8 billion euros ($1.96bn) of investments, according to a summary of the plan published by the EU. An additional 600 million euros ($654m) would be provided in gra

A lot of history and information that the average American isn't aware of:

 

 Richard Medhurst covers:

 

 

 Watching Sabby's review of the BJG/Cenk video, it's hard to come to any other conclusion. Thing is, she's right:

 

 First, the story : Britain this week showed off a new laser weapon that its military says could deliver lethal missile or aircraft defense at around $13 a shot, potentially saving tens of millions of dollars over the cost of missile interceptors that do the job now. Newly released video of a test of what the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry calls the DragonFire, a laser directed energy weapon (LDEW) system, captured what the ministry says was the successful use of the laser against an aerial target during a January demonstration in Scotland. “It’s a potential game changer for air defense,” the video says as a bright laser beam pierces the night sky over a firing range in the remote Hebrides archipelago, creating a ball of light as it hits its target. The Defense Ministry says the DragonFire can precisely hit a target as small as a coin “over long ranges,” but it did not offer specifics. The exact range of the weapon is classified, it said. The laser beam can cut through metal “leadin

 Hint: It's who Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X warned us about: In short: liberals hate friction and disruption, and do their best to minimize it while maintaining a claim that they want change. 

Compare how Israel reacts to the Hezbollah attack to how Palestinians have reacted to the Israeli attacks:

 

 Link here .  Video: