France strikes: Violent clashes, fires, and teargas mar Dictator Macron's vision
(Bloomberg Television) March 27, 2023. Protests continue across France against Dictator President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular bill to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64.
[That, of course, is not the only complaint but the one made much of by the Western press to belittle the French as if they were so lazy that this increase would cause French society to fall apart.]
Bloomberg's Caroline Connan looks at what it means for his political future.
ABOUT: Capitalism-promoting Bloomberg is for business news and analysis, up-to-the-minute financial market data, features, profiles, and more: bloomberg.com. twitter, facebook, instagram.
Protests continue, escalate after Macron pushes through pension reform in France
(ABC News) March 28, 2023. #pension #abcnews #france
ABC News’ Ines de la Cuetara breaks down the latest on the protests in Paris after French Dictator President Emmanuel Macron pushed through reforms to the country’s pension program.
"France is furious": Anger grows at Macron for raising retirement age as millions strike and protest
(Democracy Now!) March 24, 2023. French unions say nearly 3.5 million people took to the streets Thursday in a nationwide general strike to protest Pres. Emmanuel Macron's deeply unpopular move to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Dictator Macron forced the legislation through the French National Assembly last week, using a constitutional clause to bypass a parliamentary vote. Macron's government survived a vote of no confidence Monday by just nine votes, but public anger shows no signs of abating, with France's major trade unions planning another nationwide protest for Tuesday.
"Not only is the government trying to do this pension reform that people see as fundamentally unfair, but they're ignoring historically large protests even by French standards," says journalist Cole Stranger from Marseille. His new guest essay in The New York Times is headlined "France is furious." Latest shows
(Bloomberg Technology, 6/23/22) Google engineer Blake Lemoine is interviewed by Emily Chang to talk about some of the experiments he conducted that lead him to think that LaMDA was a sentient (self-aware, conscious, responsive, feeling) AI (artificially intelligent machine or program) and to explain why he is now essentially fired from Google or on "administrative leave."
Federal court to review "protest bans" in Portland arrests: U.S. court officials in Oregon are reviewing bans on future protesting that were placed on some citizens arrested during demonstrations in Portland after some raised concerns that the prohibitions violated the First Amendment. More
Feds will withdraw from downtown Portland following agreement, says Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
Oregon has struck a deal with the Trump administration to end weeks of clashes between paramilitary federal agents and peaceful demonstrators in downtown Portland that Pres. Donny Trump has made a focus of his re-election bid.
But federal and state officials gave conflicting accounts of the agreement amid continuing demonstrations and protests in the city over police brutality and police racism.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told reporters that police agents who were sent in an Afghan-style "surge" to Portland will now withdraw from the city when it’s clear to them that state and local law enforcement can secure downtown streets and prevent property destruction and violence at the federal courthouse, a focal point of demonstrator’s grievances.
Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said in a tweet that starting on Thursday [July 30, 2020], all Customs and Border Protection and ICE officers from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement wing of the federal army used against civilians would leave downtown and return to their camps soon after.
A violent federal law enforcement presence in Portland drew national attention after U.S. agents, some wearing military-style fatigues and driving unmarked vehicles, began patrolling Oregon’s largest city.
(Fox News) Federal government has agreed to withdraw feds from Portland
Reports are that they have been whisking away bystanders, civilians, demonstrators, and protesters, using aggressive tactics akin to random armed kidnappings and ultimately sparking even larger demonstrations and opposition from local leaders.
“These federal officers have acted as an occupying [militant] force, refused accountability, and brought violence and strife to our community,” Gov. Brown said in a statement.
Sec'y Wolf told reporters that his agents will remain in Portland “until we are assured that Oregon state police and the plan that the governor has put together is successful.” Federal officers will resume their operations to offensively surround the courthouse if needed, Sec'y Wolf said.
“We will surge up, and we will surge down over time depending on the circumstances,” Sec'y Wolf added.
Trump has repeatedly called attention to the often peaceful and sometimes violent protests in Portland, blaming Democrats and "anarchists" as he has tried to cast himself as a Hitleresque "law-and-order" dictator.
The president tweeted Wednesday that without federal agents’ presence “there would be no Portland” and threatened to send armed federal militants into the city to do local policing, just as Obama and Biden made possible when they signed the NDAA against the wishes of civilians, constitutional scholars, and groups like the ACLU.
Democrat Joe Biden pretended to condemn the Homeland Security Department’s presence in Portland, saying the agents had no clearly defined mandate or authority. [It seems he will send them in with the NDAA as his authority and a clearer mandate to violently clampdown on demonstrators.]
Trump’s decision to send federal agents to Portland and other cities to "quell unrest" as if it were an native uprising in the time of imperial U.S. expansion across the Southwest and combat crime has raised questions about whether the move violates the Constitution. It has reignited a national debate on the militarization of civilian police.
Federal officials had said that their use of unmarked vehicles is a standard practice, because demonstrators target patrol cars. Officials said that all officers in Portland wore uniforms that say “police,” not their names to personally identify them. This cuts down on civil lawsuits and criminal charges against the agents when they are accused or filmed abusing civilians and violating their rights.
Sec'y Wolf said he was encouraged that Gov. Brown and other state and local officials have offered a plan to end violent confrontations between federal police and peaceful demonstrators at and near and sometimes far from the courthouse, which merely serves as the pretext for their presence.
“I’m glad that they are finally seeing the errors of their ways,” Sec'y Wolf said, “and stepping up and doing what they should have been doing for the past 60 days, and that is partnering with federal law enforcement to do their job.”
Gov. Brown said that state police will remain in downtown with military-grade weapons and tactics to protect free speech and keep the peace even if it means demonstrators get arrested, wounded, or killed.
“Let’s center the Black Lives Matter movement’s demands for racial justice and police accountability,” she tweeted. “It’s time for bold action to reform police practices.”
Many local businesses had sought the departure of the federal agents, led by the Portland Business Alliance, the area’s chamber of commerce. Stacey Gibson, who co-owns a Subway franchise downtown, a few blocks from the courthouse, said she’s hopeful violence would subside.
“Hopefully it will all calm down,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll see an improvement in the violence.”
Email: quicktakenews@gmail.com. Bloomberg is a global news network delivering up-to-minute slanted news that defends the status quo while wearing a liberal label.
Racist Trump defends monuments in divisive Mount Rushmore speech
Pres. Trump kicked off the holiday weekend with an Independence Day super-spreader "celebration" at Mount Rushmore Friday (the 3rd of July), after Native Americans (Sioux, Oglala, Lakota, and others) who demonstrated were arrested when they blocked a road leading to the racist monument to disrupt Trump's nearly all-White rally. Despite the advice of doctors and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Don and the First Lady refused to wear masks at the social event. Nikole Killion reports on the national embarrassment's fiery remarks and teleprompter rhetoric.
Adding Trump to Mount Rushmore?
Imagine what life would be like if Don Jesus Trump were added to Mount Rushmore alongside other prominent racists and slave drivers George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. (Starring: Anthony Atamanuik, Fred Armisen, Bobby Moynihan, Jeff Ross, and Jimmy Kimmel).
I'm not a rich fat cat. This is goiter (rense.com).
(PBS) Donny Trump is promoting his implicitly biased "MAGA" slogan yet again. Midwest does not lap it up this time. The arena was half empty with many empty seats in the rafters. Bloomberg's broadcast was full of audio problems. Fox News was sleek but got many fewer views. There was a stage set up to address the overflow crowds, and as there were none, that stage was quietly dismantled. Trump is slipping severely and worried senile Joey Biden might easily beat him. Then the mainstream media reports that six members of Trump's advance team have tested positive for coronavirus. Who analyzes those tests? This Nuremberg-style rally may be counted a complete failure.
Bloomberg trumps up coronavirus (COVID-19) scare across the country.
Jeff Bezos Revealed: Building Amazon One Box at a Time
(Bloomberg, Jan. 2017) "Bloomberg Game Changers" profiles Amazon.com, Inc. founder Jeff Bezos. This program explores the story behind the founder of Amazon, the world's most successful online retailer, and examines key moments in his life.
Bloomberg TV offers extensive coverage and analysis of int'l business news and stories of global importance. It is available in more than 310 million households worldwide and reaches the most affluent and influential viewers in terms of household income, asset value, and education levels. With production hubs in London, NY, and Hong Kong, the network provides 24-hour continuous coverage of the people, companies, and ideas that move the markets.
The report from the Institute for Policy Studies, titled
“Billionaire Bonanza 2017,” finds Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren
Buffett hold a combined $248.5 billion, while the lowest 20 percent of
U.S. households hold zero or negative wealth.
We idolize Bezos and want his bucks!
The report’s authors --
Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie -- warn, “Over recent decades, an incredibly
disproportionate share of America’s income and wealth gains has flowed
to the top of our economic spectrum.”
The findings come as Senate
Republicans prepare to unveil their plan to cut taxes -- a bill that’s
expected to balloon the national debt while slashing taxes on
corporations and inherited wealth, showering most of its benefits on the
wealthiest Americans. More
Harald Quandt, Magda Goebbels' son by her first marriage, center back in uniform with his Nazi stepfather Joseph
Goebbels. Bottom from right: his mother and the
couple's children, Helga, Hildegard, Helmut, Hedwig, Holdine, and Heidrun
in 1942 (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images).
Mr. Hitler (Hugo Jaeger/Getty Images)
Normally we keep an ear on nagas (reptoids, dragons, draconian serpents) in the news. But Nazis may qualify. The Third Reich was not principally the creation of Adolf Hitler. He certainly gets most of the blame as its figurehead. In the same way, George W. Bush was never a mastermind. His "architect" was Karl Rove. Similarly, Hitler's architect was Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. That he and his heirs profited from their war crimes should not come as a surprise.
Nazi Fuhrer and his son (jonguess-officiel.fr)
More surprising is the fact that the Nazis did not really lose WW II. But that is what the mainstream history books report. In reality, Nazis changed their name and aligned with other countries -- including this one. Former "Nazis" gave us rockets, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and nuclear weapons. There has also been a great deal of secret information provided to North and South American nations, including futuristic spacecraft technology (received through the Vril Society and its oracle).
WARNING: Ironic racism, perpetuating racist and homophobic stereotypes! "Jewish people driving German cars? What the c--- is that s---? It's the opposite of fubu."
Actual Nazis own BMW? Sarah Silverman was right! Why are we driving German cars? And to think the US was in on the deception protecting former Nazis from the start.
Nazi Goebbels' Step-grandchildren living as hidden billionaires
In the spring of 1945, Harald Quandt, a 23-year-old officer in the
German Luftwaffe, was being held as a prisoner of war by Allied forces
in the Libyan port city of Benghazi when he received a farewell letter
from his mother, Magda Goebbels -- the wife of Nazi propaganda minister
Joseph Goebbels.
The hand-written note confirmed the devastating
news he had heard weeks earlier: His mother had committed suicide with
her husband on May 1, after slipping their six children cyanide capsules
in Adolf Hitler’s underground bunker in Berlin.
“My dear son!
By now we’ve been in the Fuehrerbunker for six days already, Daddy, your
six little siblings and I, to give our national socialistic lives the
only possible, honorable ending,” she wrote.
“Harald, dear son, I want
to give you what I learned in life: Be loyal! Loyal to yourself, loyal
to the people and loyal to your country!”
Quandt was released
from captivity in 1947. Seven years later, he and his half-brother
Herbert -- Harald was the only remaining child from Magda Goebbels’
first marriage -- would inherit the industrial empire built by their
father, Guenther Quandt, which had produced Mauser firearms and
anti-aircraft missiles for the Third Reich’s war machine. Among their
most valuable assets at the time was a stake in car manufacturer Daimler AG. (DAI). They bought a part of Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) a few years later.More
#OWS is a leaderless, people-powered movement for democracy launched on Sept. 17 in the NYC financial district inspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and Spanish acampadas. We vow to end monied corruption of our democracy.
Michael Moore: "This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement.
"It was attended by 40+ people, and the discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement's 'vision statement' to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:
We envision: [1] a truly free, democratic, and just society; [2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus; [3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making; [4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others; [5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments; [6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few; [7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings; [8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible; [9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.
The next step will be to develop a specific list of goals and demands. As one of the millions of people who are participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, I would like to respectfully offer my suggestions of what we can all get behind now to wrestle the control of our country out of the hands of the 1% and place it squarely with the 99% majority.
Here is what I will propose to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:
10 Things We Want A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street Submitted by Michael Moore 1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).
2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.
3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.
4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.
5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.
6. Reorder our nation's spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century Internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.
7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.
8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.
9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. (For any U.S. businesspeople freaking out at this idea because you think workers can't run a successful company: Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)
10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:
a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.
b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.
c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a "second bill of rights" as proposed by President Frankin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.
Let me know what you think. Occupy Wall Street enjoys the support of millions. It is a movement that cannot be stopped. Become part of it by sharing your thoughts with me or online (at OccupyWallSt.org). Get involved in (or start!) your own local Occupy movement. Make some noise. You don't have to pitch a tent in lower Manhattan to be an Occupier. You are one just by saying you are. This movement has no singular leader or spokesperson; every participant is a leader in their neighborhood, their school, their place of work. Each of you is a spokesperson to those whom you encounter. There are no dues to pay, no permission to seek in order to create an action.
We are but ten weeks old, yet we have already changed the national conversation. This is our moment, the one we've been hoping for, waiting for. If it's going to happen it has to happen now. Don't sit this one out. This is the real deal. This is it.
Occupy the MIC (military-industrial complex) wherever it hides: Wall St, City Hall, WH...
The Power of an Idea whose Time has Come Wisdom Quarterly Nov. 16, 2011 Occupy Wall Street's first camp is demolished and swept into the dustbin. But you can not arrest an idea, or a movement, or the truth. The worldwide movement lives on. And Wall Street is still the focus of attention. The movement was never about a single location because the camp was never allowed on Wall Street to begin with. Parks and city centers all over the US are simply manifestation of the power of an idea whose time has come. The police state, predictably, cleared corporate Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan in a predawn raid.
(RussiaToday) Zuccotti Park today, Nov. 16, 2011, post invasion
Protesters have been allowed to return but without their insufficient winter equipment, which was stolen from them. The court intervened with a restraining order on police then quickly backed down due to 1 percenter multi-millionaire Mayor Bloomberg's influence behind the scenes. Demonstrators can now bring only a small bag with them, but no tents or sleeping bags are being allowed.
Multi-billionaire investor, mogul, and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett eating ice cream (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – More than 30 U.S. billionaires pledged on Wednesday to give away at least 50 percent of their wealth to charity as part of a campaign by investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Among the billionaires joining the campaign are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entertainment executive Barry Diller, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens, media mogul Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, and investor Ronald Perelman, according to "The Giving Pledge" website.
Gates and Buffett launched "The Giving Pledge" in June to convince hundreds of U.S. billionaires to give away most of their fortune during their lifetime or after their death and to publicly state their intention with a letter of explanation. The full list of billionaires and their letters can be seen at thegivingpledge.org. The Giving Pledge does not accept any money; it simply asks billionaires to make a moral commitment to give away their wealth to charity. More>>
Billionaires' secret meeting Oprah, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, and more of the world's richest people recently met behind closed doors in New York. Their bold idea
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