Macron's popularity sinks to record low of 11%

Comment: Good riddance. 

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RT

 The French president is facing a deepening political crisis.

French President Emmanuel Macron's popularity has hit a record low, with his approval rating falling to just 11%, according to a new poll published by Le Figaro on Thursday.

Earlier this month, Macron avoided impeachment despite accusations that he bears responsibility for France's deepening political crisis. His government has lacked a parliamentary majority for two years, since his decision to dissolve the National Assembly in June 2024. The move, prompted by his coalition's defeat in the European Parliament elections, was widely seen as a gamble that backfired, producing a hung parliament and halting much of the country's legislative work.

Since taking office in 2017, Macron has seen seven of his prime ministers resign, including Edouard Philippe (July 2020), Jean Castex (April 2022), Elisabeth Borne (January 2024), Gabriel Attal (July 2024), Michel Barnier (December 2024), and Francois Bayrou (September 2025). The current office holder, Sebastien Lecornu, was reappointed by Macron after resigning in October due to a split in parliament over the government's efforts to pass a budget aimed at curbing the nation's rising debt.

The 11% approval mark echoes the nadir reached by Macron's predecessor Francois Hollande, who also saw his rating fall to similar depths in late 2016, shortly before announcing that he would not seek a second presidential term.

According to the Verian Group, which carried out the survey of a thousand respondents, Macron has tied Hollande as France's least popular president since the polling organization and its predecessors began tracking public opinion in the early 1970s.

Previous surveys showed a steady decline in Macron's approval. His satisfaction rating in January 2025 fell to just 21%. A survey conducted last month showed that the president's rating had slipped further to 15%, with 80% of respondents saying they do not trust him.

As Not Reported in The Media: Trump Gives 50-minute Address to The Nation on Election Fraud

Comment: Regardless of what you think of Trump, there was undoubtedly massive election fraud. This speech wasn't reported on the mainstream media and this is the President of the United States for God's sake. No greater example of how corrupt and ideologically compromised the mainstream media truly is. 

If you love democracy you'll separate yourself from right and left and begin to SEE.

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Reasons Why The 2020 Presidential Election is Deeply Puzzling

Election? What Election? EU Elite Will Censor Their Way Out of This Mess (or Die Trying)

Helen Buyniski
Aletho News

The neoliberal establishment is wringing its hands in the wake of European elections that proved a resounding victory for populist parties across the continent, casting around for someone to blame but utterly incapable of realizing their own interference has doomed them. Doubling down on the censorship, they are determined to provoke the catastrophe they need to make free speech history.

The NGO-industrial complex was operating at maximum capacity in the weeks leading up to the election, shutting down hundreds of Facebook pages deemed “fake” or “hate speech” in the hope of controlling the messages reaching voters before they made the terrible mistake of voting for a candidate who represents their interests.

Led by Avaaz, which claims to be a “global citizens’ movement monitoring election freedom and disinformation,” this well-heeled fifth column whipped the press into paranoid frenzies with reports like “Fakewatch,” which breathlessly documented 500 “suspicious” pages and groups it claims are “spreading massive disinformation.” The groups have little in common other than their alleged “link[s] to right-wing and anti-EU organizations,” a capital offense for the promoters of “democracy,” which can only be permitted where it doesn’t stray from the center-left path of most #Resistance.

“Far-right and anti-EU groups are weaponizing social media at scale to spread false and hateful content,” the study warns, gloating that after sharing its findings with Facebook, the platform shut down an “unprecedented” number of pages on the eve of the election (77 out of the 500, according to VentureBeat, which has credulously signal-boosted every utterance of Avaaz as if it is divine truth from the Oracle of Delphi). Avaaz’s reports frame the problem as an affliction of the right wing only, even though disinformation is second nature to political operatives at both ends of the spectrum (and, more importantly, in the sanctified center).

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'Brexit' claims its second scalp: Theresa May announces resignation as UK PM

Harry Yorke
The Telegraph

Theresa May has confirmed that she will resign as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 June in order for a leadership election to take place this summer.

Following a widespread revolt over her 'new Brexit deal', the Prime Minister has finally caved to growing calls from her MPs to step down. Her decision follows a meeting with Sir Graham Brady, the leader of backbench Tories, in Downing Street this morning.

Mrs May said that the process of electing her successor would begin the week after she finally stepped down as Conservative leader. She said she had informed the Queen that she would continue to serve as Prime Minister until that process was complete.

In an emotional statement on the steps of Downing Street, she said she had "done my best" to get her Withdrawal Agreement Bill through Parliament but acknowledged she had failed to do so. 


"It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit," she said.

"I have striven to make the UK a country that works not just for a privileged few but for everyone and to honour the result of the EU referendum." 

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Direct Democracy Is the Future of Human Governance – Part 1

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means.

– Lord Acton

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

– Buckminster Fuller

If you’ve read anything I’ve written over the past several years, you’ll be acutely aware of my belief that human civilization is currently in a major transition period between two great paradigms of world history. The old world we all grew up in no longer works for most people, yet is being relentlessly propped up by the powerful and their minions who benefit from its parasitic and destructive nature. Despite their best efforts, a system so poisonous, decrepit and corrupt cannot and will not last. At this stage, it’s little more than a Potemkin village fraud barely kept standing courtesy of increasingly intense deception, manipulation and the sheer will of those who profit handsomely from it.

By stating we’re in the transition period, I want to make it clear I believe things are very much already being disrupted and altered beneath the hood of a world which appears indistinguishable from what it was a decade ago on a superficial level. Specifically, I think there are two core aspects of human existence that will be completely transformed in the years to come. First, within the monetary and financial systems that define how commerce, savings and entrepreneurship function. The emergence and continued momentum of Bitcoin offers evidence that disruption in this realm is already very much underway, albeit still in its infancy. The second realm I expect will experience massive transformational change relates to forms of human governance. We’ve barely scratched the surface on this one, but nascent signs have started to appear, and I suspect a push towards political systems more defined by direct democracy will become increasingly common in the years ahead. I’ve spent many hours writing about the financial and monetary system, so today’s piece will focus on what appears to be coming with regard to human political evolution.

Direct democracy is something that’s been tried before, so there’s some history to it. Once you start exploring the concept you’ll be immediately confronted with a plethora of terms such as eDemocracy, liquid democracy, referendum, initiative, and recall to name just a few. The purpose of this post isn’t to dig into all of that, although it’s certainly a useful exercise and I’ll provide some helpful links at the end. The purpose of this post is to distinguish direct democracy from the most common form of democratic government functioning on earth today, representative democracy.

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‘Creepy tech oligarchs want to dictate your opinions’

spiked-online.com

Paul Joseph Watson on being banned from Facebook.

Paul Joseph Watson’s sardonic YouTube monologues against social-justice warriors, mass immigration and modern art have racked up millions of views and have even caught the attention of President Donald Trump. Last week, Facebook designated Watson a ‘dangerous individual’ and banned him permanently, alongside others on the right. spiked caught up with this ‘dangerous individual’ to find out more about social-media censorship. 

spiked: How did you find out you had been banned from Facebook?

Paul Joseph Watson: I received no notification whatsoever from Facebook. Facebook did not even send me a stock email to tell me my page had been deleted. I found out about it by media reports. I was on Twitter trawling through my feed. I saw CNN: ‘Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer and Milo Yiannopoulos have been banned.’ I thought, ‘Oh, really?’. I checked my Facebook and my Instagram and they were still up. They were still active for about half an hour after the first media reports came out. So immediately that tells you that they had given the story to the media, to get their justification out ahead of time, so that they could own the narrative.

They gave the story to the same media outlets like CNN, where their journalist Oliver Darcy has spent the past 18 months lobbying the social-media firms to ban CNN’s competition. People like Darcy have been abusing their platform and acting as activists rather than journalists, going to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and saying repeatedly, ‘Oh, doesn’t this post violate your policy? Doesn’t this violate your policy?’. 

It’s not just Darcy. There is also the likes of Jared Holt at Right Wing Watch and Will Sommers at the Daily Beast, who have been very successful in silencing a great percentage of the online people who were instrumental in getting Trump elected. This has never been about ‘bullying’, ‘harassment’ or ‘hate’, whatever those mean; it’s about them fomenting this political purge ahead of the 2020 elections. 

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Nxivm sex-cult members presented Hillary Clinton with illegal campaign donation

Chris Spargo
The Daily Mail

Nxivm members presented Hillary Clinton with illegal campaign donation at event in hopes of 'obtaining political influence to further their agenda'

It seems that Hillary Clinton may have unknowingly played a large role in the racketeering charges that Nxivm founder Keith Raniere is currently facing in court.

Court documents filed by the US Attorney's office prior to the trail detail how multiple members of he cult - including all five of the defendants who were indicted in the case - exceeded the legal limit for campaign donations when giving money to Clinton's first campaign for president.

That motion, which sought to have evidence admitted to the case to support the racketeering allegations against the defendants, said that the funds were donated in hope of gaining influence over Clinton.

This plan hit an unexpected snag however when Clinton failed to even make it past the primary, with the former senator's momentum halted by the man who would go on to win the presidency, Barack Obama.

Above the law: Nxivm members exceeded campaign donation limits back in 2007 when they gave thousands to Hillary Clinton (above in April) according to a court filing

'Witness testimony, corroborated by documentary evidence, will demonstrate that at least 14 members of the Nxivm community, including at least five defendants and co-conspirators, made the maximum campaign donation to a primary campaign with the understanding that they would be reimbursed by Bronfman or Nancy Salzman,' reads the filing.

'At the suggestion of a political operative, who has since pleaded guilty to an unrelated New York state bribery charge also involving campaign contributions, the contributions were "bundled" and presented to the candidate at a fundraising event attended by conspirators, including Nancy Salzman.'

The document goes on to state: 'A cooperating witness who attended the event will testify that the defendants and their co-conspirators made the contributions in hopes of obtaining political influence to advance their own agenda, including targeting perceived enemies of Raniere.' 

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Tulsi Gabbard - Why she is running for president

Comment: Much as I like Gabbard she won't be allowed to get anywhere near the presidency.

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Tulsi Gabbard

Stand with Tulsi: https://www.tulsi2020.com | If you share only one thing about Tulsi with your friends and family, make it this video. Over six minutes, this raw and emotional exchange encapsulates the reason she is running for president. 

From Tulsi Gabbard: 

As a soldier, I know the cost of war—on my brothers and sisters in uniform, their families, and the people in those countries where we intervene, whose lives are completely devastated. Over the last two decades, through the Iraq War, the invasion of Libya and the Syrian War, we’ve seen the catastrophic impacts of American intervention. But it’s not only those who are impacted by combat who pay the price—every single American pays the price for these wars.

My mission as president will be to put an end to wasteful and reckless regime change wars, the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, and introduce a Peace Dividend to reinvest the trillions that would be spent on those wars to instead meet the needs of the American people.

Our needs are great—redirecting those trillions of dollars means investing in universal healthcare and education, climate change solutions, clean air and water for our communities, rebuilding our nation's crumbling infrastructure, investing in a green energy economy, and protecting Social Security for seniors.

The people in charge of our foreign policy—the ones ratcheting up tensions with Russia, China and North Korea, the ones who are making the case for regime change war in Syria, Venezuela and Iran, either don’t know or don’t care about the true cost of war and the very real threat of nuclear war in our world today. To effectively address the threats we face in a global economy and as a global community - including nuclear war, climate change and global pandemics—we need to get out of the Cold War mentality that pits one nation against another nation. This is fossilized 20th century thinking that doesn't fit the world we live in today.

We're not in a win-lose scenario anymore—we have to be committed both militarily and economically to a win-win approach based on cooperation for mutual security and prosperity. Regardless of party or label—Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Progressives—we must come together to bring about a sea change in our approach to foreign policy.

This is why I’m running for president: to institute a Peace Dividend by ending regime change war, ending the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, taking the trillions of dollars wasted in these wars and giving them back to the American people. With this Peace Dividend, we can provide Medicare for All, we can protect Social Security, we can ensure our students have access to an affordable education, we can rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and we can protect our air and water, to build a brighter future for all Americans. 

 #TulsiGabbard #TULSI2020 #PeaceDividend #IraqWar #AfghanistanWar #Venezuela

"Our Very Democracy Is At Stake" - Joe Biden Launches Campaign For President

Comment: (A long belly laugh) Old Paedophile Biden is a Ghost runner. I wonder who the real manchurian candidate will be this time? Or will Trump manage to do it again?
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Zero Hedge 

Following months of anticipatory leaks and the 'gropegate' scandal that nearly derailed the former VP's ambitions, Joe Biden, who has consistently polled at the top of the ever-expanding Democratic field, has finally announced his plans to seek the 2020 nomination.

In a video published via his twitter feed Thursday morning, the former vice president and Senator from Delaware declared his intention to run, declaring "the core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy...everything that has made America -- America - is at stake."

In the video, Biden framed his video with the infamous 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va., - a "defining moment for our nation in the last few years" - where a counter-protester was killed after a member of a white supremacist group plowed into a crowd with his car. He contrasted the march with the writing of the 'Declaration of Independence,' which was penned by Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville more than 240 years earlier.

Biden will follow his announcement with a fundraiser on Thursday, then a rally Monday in Pittsburgh, Bloomberg reported, citing an announcement from his campaign. Over the next ten days, he plans to make stops in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, the earliest primary and caucus states.

Though Biden's eight-year stint as Obama's VP gives him unrivaled name and brand recognition in a field of 20 candidates, Obama has said he won't make an endorsement until a nominee has been chosen. Online betting odds still favor Biden, 76, as the front-runner for the nomination, though "Democratic Socialist" Bernie Sanders is a close second, followed by the ascendant South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Of course, Biden's well-documented history of inappropriate touching isn't his only major liability going into the Democratic primary (the Iowa caucuses are just 10 months away). The appearance of a quid-pro-quo involving Biden, his son, taxpayer money and a 'sweetheart' deal in Ukraine could very well become the scandal that finally proves his undoing.

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Tulsi Gabbard Wants to Legalize Marijuana, Punish Big Pharma and End Private Prisons

Elias Marat
Activist Post

Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii’s democratic congresswoman and one of many entrants in the crowded 2020 presidential race, is already turning heads thanks to her anti-interventionist foreign policy approach and progressive stance on a variety of issues, making her an outlier among establishment Democrats.

If her pre-campaign messaging and campaign launch speech are any indicator, the potential presidential contender has no intention of backing down – especially when it comes to her strong advocacy of medical marijuana and harsh criticisms of the criminal justice system and pharmaceutical industry.

Declaring her formal entrance into the Democratic Party presidential primaries, Gabbard issued a rousing call to end the for-profit prison industry, which has seen private corrections corporations rake in profits while shirking prisoners’ and immigrant detainees’ food, health care, and other essential services while exploiting incarcerated people as essentially slave labor.

“We must stand up against private prisons, who are profiting off the backs of those caught up in a broken criminal justice system,” Gabbard said.

Continuing, she added that “a system that puts people in prison for smoking marijuana while allowing corporations like Purdue Pharma, who are responsible for the opioid-related deaths of thousands of people, to walk away scot-free with their coffers full.”

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With election of new president, often-cynical Mexicans opting for hope

Whitney Eulich
The Christian Science Monitor

It’s not every day a nation wakes up after a presidential vote and collectively dons the colors of their national flag.

In Mexico Monday, that national pride had something to do with a World Cup soccer match. But the image of unity in the flag-waving, jersey-clad masses was an apt reflection of the energy and hope here following Sunday’s historic presidential vote.

Three-time candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly referred to by his initials, AMLO, took the presidency with about 53 percent of the ballots. It’s the first absolute majority earned by a president in nearly two decades, and with 30 points between him and his closest competitor, the highest winning margin since 1982.

Mexicans have long been profoundly cynical when it comes to their elected officials. That's been especially true the past six years, under a president who ran on a platform of change, but instead became synonymous with all-too-familiar scourges like corruption and violence.

But Mr. López Obrador’s overwhelming victory represents a new wave of hope for many here. He ran on promises to end corruption and to direct the country toward a fresh path that leaves behind violence and unemployment. There are nevertheless still plenty of Mexicans, many of whom have expressed a desire for change, who are skeptical of what kind of leader he will be, or if he can deliver on his pledges.

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Turkey’s ‘Do or Die Moment’: Snap Elections Could Determine Future of the Republic

Dr Can Erimtan 21st Century Wire

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (or the Prez) and his Justice and Development Party (or AKP) are now heading into the most important elections in recent Turkish history. Elections that will decide the long term future direction and orientation of the Republic of Turkey.

Turkey’s long-serving leader Tayyip Erdoğan has so far handsomely succeeded in irrevocably changing the look and feel of the Turkish Republic – from being an ostensibly secular nation state beholden to the example and legacy of the founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) to a land of believers, adhering to the rules and regulations laid down by the Prophet Muhammad (c. 570-632) loudly proclaiming to be Muslims. Following his victory in the 2017 constitutional referendum envisaging the country’s transformation from a parliamentary to a presidential republic, national and presidential elections to be held in 2019 were then supposed to turn this political potentiality into a living actuality thereby also structurally and bureaucratically solidifying the momentous changes already intoduced. But then, somewhat abrupt and unexpectedly, Erdoğan and his sole political ally, the rather pointless ‘fascist’ (some would say, nationalist or racist) politician that is Devlet Bahçeli, jointly decided to call for early elections in order to receive a popular mandate for continuing to shepherd the new “Nation” that was supposedly born on 15 July 2016 into heretofore uncharted territories.

The ruling AKP (or Justice and Development Party) and the previously opposition MHP (or Nationalist Movement Party) are now united in a so-called ‘People’s Alliance’ (or, Cumhur İttifakı, in Turkish), exemplifying what could be termed the ‘Turkish-Islamic Synthesis’ of the 21^st century. Then, speaking from his homestead at the presidential or People’s Palace (Beştepe Millet Sarayı, on 18 April 2018), Tayyip Erdoğan told the world that “[w]e have decided that elections should be held on 24 June 2018. Our preference has been to try to hold out till the date in November 2019. However, whether it be the cross-border operation in Syria, or the historic developments in Iraq and Syria have made it so that it is paramount for Turkey to overcome uncertainty.”

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Why Does Imran Awan Work At His Clinton-Linked Attorney's Law Firm?

Zero Hedge

stunning video by investigative journalist Jason Goodman of Crowdsource the Truth reveals that Pakistani IT worker Imran Awan is reportedly answering phones at the office of his attorney, Chris Gowen. 

Gowen notably worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton in various capacities.

Gowen is a founding partner of Gowen, Rhoades, Winograd and Silva law firm, with offices in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Penn.

His official bio on the firm’s web site notes that he “left the Public Defender’s office to work for former President William Jefferson Clinton and then-Senator Hillary Clinton. Chris was a fact checker for President Clinton’s memoir, ‘My Life.'”

“He also served as a traveling aid for President Clinton’s national and international trips. Chris finished his tenure with the Clintons by directing the advance operations for then-Senator Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign.”
Conservative Review — which first reported Gowen’s extensive Clinton connections Wednesday — said they also include work for the Clinton Foundation and its Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Health Access Initiative. -Daily Caller

In the video, Goodman can be seen visiting the law offices of Awan's attorney, where he asks to speak with the former House IT staffer. After his request was denied, Goodman asks: "Is Imran here?", to which the employee replies "Uh, he is, why?"

Goodman responds "'Cause it sounds like he's answering your phones," which drew the retort "What's your point?" 

"Is he working for you?" asks Goodman, to which the employee whispers back "Go away." 
Watch: 

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After Greece, Now a Coup d’Etat in Italy!

Giulietto Chiesa
Global Research

Italian President Mattarella leaves the Constitution and prevents the formation of the 5Stelle-Lega Government

This opens an unprecedented crisis in post-WWII political history in Italy. A crisis that can be defined as “European”, because it says something unequivocal: that the majority of the Italian electorate deems it necessary to change the politics of Europe, to change Europe as it is. Stop. Nothing more, but also nothing less.

And the outcome – provisional, completely provisional – says that the Italian ruling class, the one that led the country to the current crisis, the public debt over € 2.300 billion, six million poor families, youth unemployment to 50 % in the south, the disaster of social services, wild privatization, stagnation, generalized precariousness, not only does not intend to leave, but relies on the blackmail of the “markets” and claims that it has the best of the popular vote.

Interpreter of this “strange idea” was the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, who explicitly explained his thoughts. Violating article 1 of the Constitution, on which he swore, that sounds unequivocal:

“Sovereignty belongs to the people”.

The “excuse” choice was the nomination of Paolo Savona as minister of Economy. The professor was “accused” by Mattarella to want the Euro exit. The accusation was totally unfounded, as he informed interested parties with a statement by the unequivocal words:

“I just fight for a stronger and juster Europe”.

It was not enough. Mattarella did not make any secret of his alarmist and alarmed thoughts: a government with this minister would still be a negative sign for Europe. And therefore, better prevent the formation of the government that run this risk.

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Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy Ousted From Power; Sanchez Is New Socialist Prime Minister

Zero Hedge

As was widely expected, this morning Mariano Rajoy's six year reign as Spain's prime minister, ended when he become the first prime minister in Spain’s democratic history to be ousted by parliament after losing a vote of no-confidence amid a corruption scandal engulfing his Popular party. He will be replaced by the Socialist opposition leader Pedro Sánchez.

A small but sufficient majority of Spanish lawmakers was sufficient to end Rajoy's career, voting 180 to 169 to remove the prime minister, cutting short the second term of one of Europe’s longest-serving leaders currently in power. The center-left Socialist Party had called the no-confidence vote last week and proposed its leader to replace Mr. Rajoy. 

Quoted by the FT, in his brief final speech to parliament, Rajoy bade farewell to the country after seven years in power: “It has been an honour to leave Spain better than I found it. Thank you to all Spaniards and good luck.” The speech came after a last meal of sorts:

Mr Rajoy spent eight hours in a Madrid restaurant on Thursday afternoon instead of sitting through the first part of the parliamentary debate, but appeared composed on Friday during his resignation speech.

Socialist Party leader Pedro Sánchez, who becomes prime minister immediately, told lawmakers that his policy goals include bolstering social policies to address problems such as unemployment and poverty levels, both of which remain high despite Spain’s strong growth. Among Sanchez' challenges will be managing the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy and dealing with internal problems such as the crisis in Catalonia.

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As Evidence Piles Up, The Media Ignore The 'Other' Trump-Russia Scandal

Investors Business Daily
 

 "...while the Mueller investigation sputters along, the evidence of political abuse at the FBI and Justice is piling up."

 

Scandalous Media Bias: There have been two major ongoing investigations involving President Trump. One is looking into whether Trump colluded with Russia. It's borne no fruit. The other involves abuse of power at the highest levels of government to hurt Trump and is producing damning evidence by the bushel. Guess which one the press is ignoring?

National Review reporter John Fund relates an interesting story. He was waiting to go on the air and struck up a conversation with another prominent reporter in the network's green room.

Why, he asked, aren't reporters actively investigating the suspicious activities at the Justice Department and the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia and Hillary/email investigations?

Fund says the reporter "bluntly told me 'There's only room for one narrative on all this. And it's all about Trump.' "

You might think that reporters are chasing facts wherever they might lead, and "speaking truth to power," especially when that power involves the CIA, FBI and Justice Department.

Instead, it's all about the "narrative."

And when it comes to the Russia story, the only narrative the press will consider is that Trump somehow colluded with Russia to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. Or if not that, he did something illegal or improper that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will ferret out.

Anything that doesn't fit this narrative gets dismissed as conspiracy talk, fueled by conservatives and Trump supporters, to distract attention from the "real" story. 

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Facebook Announces Partnership with Think Tank Connected to NATO, Military Industrial Complex

Derek Broze
Activist Post

Facebook has announced a new partnership with the Atlantic Council, a think tank with close ties to the Military Industrial Complex and Defense Department.

On Thursday Facebook announced a new partnership with the Atlantic Council, a think tank which officially claims to provide a forum for international political, business, and intellectual leaders. The social media giant said the partnership is aimed at preventing Facebook from “being abused during elections.” The press release promotes Facebook’s efforts to fight fake news by using artificial intelligence, as well as working with outside experts and governments.

Today, we’re excited to launch a new partnership with the Atlantic Council, which has a stellar reputation looking at innovative solutions to hard problems. Experts from their Digital Forensic Research Lab will work closely with our security, policy and product teams to get Facebook real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world. This will help increase the number of “eyes and ears” we have working to spot potential abuse on our service — enabling us to more effectively identify gaps in our systems, preempt obstacles, and ensure that Facebook plays a positive role during elections all around the world.

Facebook goes on to describe how the Atlantic Council’s Digital Research Unit Monitoring Missions will be monitoring traffic during elections and other “highly sensitive moments.”

Facebook claims this will help the company monitor for misinformation and foreign interference. Of course, there is also the obligatory reference to protecting democracy and “free and fair elections across the world.”

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Conspiracy Theory? Politicians and Corporations Admit to Paying Actors to Show Fake Support

John Vibes
Activist Post

In an age where most politicians have very little support for their campaigns and causes, they have been known to resort to desperate measures to improve their public image. While this practice is disregarded by some as a “conspiracy theory,” many politicians have been caught hiring actors to fill the crowds of their campaign speeches—corporations, too.

In fact, just this week in Ontario, Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford’s campaign was forced to admit that they hired actors for at least one of their events. Ford’s staff acted like this was not authorized by them, but instead blamed a local candidate for arranging their actors. Campaign officials for Toronto Centre Tory candidate Meredith Cartwright reportedly hired the actors to support Ford at a rally in Dundas Square.

“We were very confused by this situation because we are getting record numbers of supporters to every event across Ontario. This was done by a local candidate and it won’t be continuing,” Ford’s spokeswoman, Melissa Lantsman, said in an email to the Toronto Star.

A number of these actors reached out to the press about the event to blow the whistle, including artist and performer Devanshu Narang.

Narang told The Star that he was offered $75 to appear at the rally between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. wearing the candidate’s t-shirt, but he turned down the gig.

“I was shocked to see this happen in Canada, in Toronto. I find it offensive even to the Canadian democracy. The main thing was that you know, the moment I saw that I kind of felt odd about it. You know, politicians hiring actors to play supporters is like the way it works in the Third World,” Narang said.

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Business Elite, Banks Panic after Presidential Front-Runner Threatens to Scupper Mexico’s Largest Infrastructure Project

Don Quijones
Wolf Street 

A project in "Mind -Watering" magnitude in money and corruption.

The Mexican peso suffered its biggest rout in four months on Thursday, likely due to the realization dawning on market participants that the veteran populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (or AMLO) may  win the presidential elections on July 1. AMLO has led all the polls in Mexico for well over a year and is still 15 points ahead of his closest rival. And now he’s threatening to put an end to the country’s most expensive public infrastructure project, Mexico City’s new airport, which has been plagued by corruption, scandals, and cost overruns since its inception four years ago.

AMLO’s latest pledge has aroused fits of apoplexy among Mexico’s business elite, many of whom stand to rake in large sums of money from the project — no one more so than Mexico’s richest man, Carlos Slim, who told journalistsin Mexico City this week that suspending the project “would mean suspending the country’s growth.’’ Slim urged AMLO to reconsider his opposition.

Slim’s concern is not wholly altruistic. Grupo Carso, one of his many construction companies, is deeply involved in the building project. Three big contracts allegedly worth 94 billion pesos ($5 billion) are in the hands of consortia led by Grupo Carso or other firms owned by Slim and his family.

The first tender that Slim’s family won was for the airport’s architectural design, which was awarded to a firm run by Fernando Romero, a Mexican architect who is married to one of Carlos Slim’s daughters. British architect Nigel Foster led the design project, for which Fernando Romero Enterprises was reportedly able to bill Mexico’s government a cool $1 billion.

Other large Mexican companies involved in the project include ICA, which almost went under two and a half years ago after overdosing on dollar-denominated debt, Prodemex, GIA, and Grupo Hermes, which is owned by Carlos Hank, a billionaire banker with cozy ties to the current government. Two other major participants are the Spanish infrastructure giants Acciona and FCC, the latter of which is also majority-owned by Carlos Slim.

One of the biggest potential money earners for some of these companies will be the airport’s absurdly high maintenance costs once it’s built. Until recently, the site on which it’s being developed was home to a very large lake, which was drained before work began. But the ground still has extremely high water content and low resistance to stress. As the Mexican newspaper Proceso reported last year, this will inevitably result in very juicy contracts just to keep the land upon which the airport is built fit for purpose.

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"Brazen Plot To Exonerate Hillary Clinton" And Frame Trump Unraveling, Says Former Fed Prosecutor

Zero Hedge

 

A former Federal Prosecutor sat down with The Daily Caller to give perhaps the most comprehensive rundown of the Obama Administration's "brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton" and "frame an incoming president with a false Russian conspiracy."

In this highly recommended 30 minute interview with Joe diGenova, the former Special Counsel who went after both the Teamsters and former NY Governor Elliot Spitzer, paints a very clear picture of collusion is painted between the Obama administration, the FBI, the Clinton campaign and opposition research firm Fusion GPS.
From the Daily Caller:

The FBI used to spy on Russians. This time they spied on us. what this story is about - a brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton from a clear violation of the law with regard to the way she handled classified information with her classified server. Absolutely a crime, absolutely a felony. It's about finding out why - as the Inspector General is doing at the department of justice - why Comey and the senior DOJ officials conducted a fake criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton. Followed none of the regular rules, gave her every break in the book, immunized all kinds of people, allowed the destruction of evidence, no grand jury, no subpoenas, no search warrant. That's not an investigation, that's a Potemkin village. It's a farce. 
And everybody knew it was a farce. The problem was, she didn't win. And because she didn't wain, the farce became a very serious opera. It wasn't a comic opera anymore, it was a tragic opera. And she was going to be the focus.
What this is about, this is about a lavabo, a cleansing of FBI and the upper echelons of the Department of Justice.
We're going to discover that the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, her deputy Sally Yates, the head of the national security division John Carlin, Bruce Ohr and other senior DOJ officials, and regrettably, lying attorneys. People who were senior career civil servants violated the law, perhaps committed crimes, and covered up crimes by a presidential candidate - but more than that, they tried to frame an incoming president with a false Russian conspiracy that never existed, and they knew it, and they plotted to ruin him as a candidate and then destroy him as a president. That's why this is important. That's why connecting the dots is important.

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