Daily Archives: December 19, 2019

2019-12-19: News Headlines

RT (2019-12-19). 'She's joined the Death Eaters': JK Rowling slammed as 'TERF' over support for woman fired for saying sex is immutable. rt.com Harry Potter author JK Rowling has been eviscerated by former fans after tweeting in support of a woman fired for denying that a person can change their biological sex. Will she have to write a trans Voldemort to win them back?

Staff (2019-12-19). McConnell Blasts Trump Impeachment by House, Pledges Senate Action. truthdig.com Majority leader denounces House approval as "most unfair" and takes umbrage at Pelosi not saying when two articles will be sent for trial.

yenisafak (2019-12-19). At least three people killed in shooting in central Moscow. yenisafak.com At least three people were killed by gunfire in Russia Thursday in an attack near the building of the Federal Security Service in central Moscow, local media reported. In a video posted on social media, multiple law enforcement officers can be seen and gunfire can be heard, said Russian state-supported television RT.Though what happened remains unclear, "conflicting reports indicate that one to three individuals, armed with 'assault rifles' attacked the FSB building," said RT.This is a developing story.

yenisafak (2019-12-19). Turkey rejects ex-Israeli envoy's remarks on Hamas ties. yenisafak.com Turkish Foreign Ministry on Thursday rebuffed allegations saying its territory was used for act against Israel or any other country.The statement came after Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, accused Turkey of permitting senior Hamas figures to "order attacks against Israel from Istanbul.""The majority of the international community considers Hamas not as a terrorist organization but as a political reality which has won the elections in Gaza in 2006," the ministry said on Twitter.It went on saying that the UN General Assembly (UNGA) had rejected calling Palestine's Hamas as a terrorist organization…

RT (2019-12-19). Trump taunts 'do-nothing' Democrats for stalling on sending impeachment articles to Senate. rt.com President Donald Trump slammed the "do-nothing" Democrats after party leaders said they would delay sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate until they could guarantee a "fair trial" in the Republican-controlled chamber. | "Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles & not deliver them to the Senate," Trump tweeted a day after being impeached by the House of Representatives for "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress." | I got Impeached last night without one Republican vote being cast with the Do Nothing Dems on their continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American histor…

RT (2019-12-19). FSB shooting: Man opens fire near HQ of Russian intelligence in central Moscow, one FSB staff killed. rt.com Gunfire has broken out near central Moscow's Lubyanka Square in the immediate vicinity of the Federal Security Service building. The authorities said the gunman was neutralized and two FSB officers seriously injured. | The shooting occurred around 6pm local time right at the heart of Russia's capital on a street leading to the square and the iconic FSB building and some 10 minutes on foot from the Kremlin. | | Gunfire can be heard in several videos from the scene circulating on social media. The footage also shows multiple law enforcement officers in full gear and ambulances. | –í–∏&n…

RT (2019-12-19). VIDEO reportedly showing last moments of Moscow shooter emerges online. rt.com Footage has surfaced on social media that purports to show the final moments of the gunman who opened fire at the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) headquarters in central Moscow. | SOME READERS MAY FIND THE CONTENT DISTURBING | The video shows a black-clad person with a backpack, armed with what looks like an assault rifle, hiding behind a column of a building right next to the FSB HQ. The hooded man is visibly engaged in a shootout. | He is shown shooting, supposedly at police or FSB officers, and then apparently getting hit himself. The video shows him crouching and eventually falling to the ground.

RT (2019-12-19). 'Out of touch & out of time': Angry Brits react to pomp & ceremony of Queen's Speech. rt.com Queen Elizabeth has delivered a post-election speech opening Parliament, but not all were enthralled by the pageantry of the occasion, many complaining on Twitter about poverty, homelessness and the 'out of touch' monarch. | New figures from the Shelter charity earlier this week showed that more than 280,000 people will be homeless on Christmas Day in England alone — up 23,000 since 2017. The numbers are a conservative estimate, too, since they d…

RT (2019-12-19). Tulsi Gabbard votes 'present' on both impeachment articles, stoking liberal ire on Twitter. rt.com Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard broke ranks with her party and voted "present" on two articles of impeachment, slamming the process as "partisan." The vote drew swift condemnation from Twitter's more progressive quarters. | Voting "present" instead of "yes" or "no" in Wednesday's full House vote for two impeachment articles passed in committee last week, Gabbard became one of only a tiny minority of Democrats to swim against the current in her own party. | "I could not in good conscience vote for impeachment because removal of a sitting President must not be the culmination of a partisan process, fueled by triba…

The Canary (2019-12-18). Tories spent over £950,000 on Facebook adverts in late election blitz. thecanary.co The Conservative Party spent more than any other party on Facebook and Instagram adverts in the run-up to last week's General Election, analysis by the PA news agency has found.It largely came in a spending blitz in the final two weeks of the campaign.Across their two main pages — named Conservatives and Boris Johnson — the party spent a total of £959,329 in the four weeks up to the vote.In comparison, Labour spent £552,035 on its Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn pages between 14 November and 12 December, the fourth most of the major UK parties.The Liberal Democrats were the second biggest spe…

Mark Gruenberg (2019-12-18). Hundreds of thousands demand impeachment, removal of Trump. peoplesworld.org Even in Richardson, Texas, people want to throw Donald Trump out of the Oval Office. At least that's what Rae Ann Emery reported from the Dallas suburb in the heart of the deep-red state after attending the pro-impeachment rally there, one of 632 nationwide on the evening of Dec. 17. Emery accompanied her tweet with …

Staff (2019-12-18). Accusations of Anti-Semitism Against Bernie Sanders Draw Fire. truthdig.com Progressives are taking the initiative to destroy and defeat accusations that Sen. Bernie Sanders, a frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, is running or at the least tolerating an anti-Semitic primary campaign—accusations that come while the right-wing sharpens its knives for the Vermont senator as he rises in the polls. | Attacks against Sanders began last week after U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn suf…

Alan Macleod (2019-12-18). Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Spends Her Birthday Imprisoned. mintpressnews.com Military whistleblower Chelsea Manning spent her 32nd birthday behind bars yesterday for continuing to refuse to testify against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange. She has been in prison since May after a U.S. District Judge ordered her incarceration for not recognizing the legitimacy of the grand jury. She tweeted that she was grateful for t…

Alan Macleod (2019-12-18). BBC Director-General Calls for Media Critics to Be Purged From Social Media. mintpressnews.com The BBC has responded to criticism over its coverage of the UK's general election by calling for their online critics to be banned from social media.

WSWS (2019-12-18). US Army XVIII Airborne Corp posts sympathetic portrayal of Nazi war criminal on Facebook. wsws.org The publication of a glowing portrayal of Nazi war criminal Joachim Peiper by the Army's XVIII Airborne Corp's Facebook page exposes a constituency within the military for fascism.

RT (2019-12-18). Donald Trump says all US administrations 'abused power'… hours before his House impeachment vote. rt.com US President Donald Trump has slammed his expected impeachment as a sham "to get at the President" with a "vague abuse of power" — that he claims all White House administrations have engaged in. | The US President launched his scathing Twitter attack at his political opponents ahead of a historic House of Representatives vote on Wednesday on whether to impeach him. While on the one hand he said he "did nothing wrong" as president, on the other he somehow admitted that there had been a "vague" abuse of power which had apparently always happened in the past. | Trump tweeted: "They just wanted to get at the…

RT (2019-12-18). Poetic revenge: GOP's impeachment-themed Christmas POEM has Twitter spitting out its eggnog. rt.com Spreading some Christmas spirit, the GOP House Oversight Committee has posted a lengthy impeachment-themed holiday poem. While the verses may not pass muster with Yeats or Milton, Twitter received the gift with glee — mostly. | Written along the lines of Clement Clarke Moore's "Twas the Night Before Christmas,' the Republican committee shared the satirical poem to Twitter on Tuesday night in nine parts, poking fun at members of the Democratic "Coastal Impeachment Squad," and taking special pleasure in mocking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. | "'Twas the night before #impeachment and all through the House, P…

RT (2019-12-18). 1 killed in mass stabbing in Oregon shopping center, suspect detained. rt.com Several people have been stabbed at the Murray Hill shopping center in Beaverton, Oregon, according to police, who have detained a suspect. One person has been killed. | The incident took place at a Wells Fargo bank within the shopping center on Wednesday. Police report there are multiple victims in addition to the death, but that the suspect is in custody and no longer a danger to the community. | Multiple stabbing victims at the Murray Hill shopping center at SW Murray Blvd / SW Teal Ave. Washington County…

Joe Emersberger (2019-12-17). Reuters Shields OAS Over False Claims That Sparked Bolivia Coup. fair.org Reuters ( 12/4/19) highlights the findings of the Organization of American States—while omitting the criticism of those findings. | Organization of American States (OAS) election monitors published a "final report" on December 4— 22 days later than promised—on Bolivia's October 20 presidential election, won by President Evo Morales. The tardy release of the fin…

Candice Yanez (2019-12-16). Viral Chilean feminist anthem reveals powerful international sentiment against sexual violence. liberationnews.org The protest song was first performed for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 20 in Valparaíso, Chile.

Ramzy Baroud (2019-12-02). The War on Truth: How Israel's Social Media Trolls Conquered Facebook. zcomm.org Israel may have found a way to circumvent the influence of Facebook on the discussions pertaining to Palestinian rights and the Israeli occupation…

Matt Bruenig (2019-12-01). The Usual Incoherence on Student Benefits Is Back. peoplespolicyproject.org Of all the welfare state topics, student benefits manages to consistently attract the most incoherent and weird arguments, and the recent spate of arguments on this front are no exception. In the last week, a student benefit dustup has been instigated by Pete Buttigieg ostensibly being against free public college for millionaires and billionaires while Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are ostensibly for it. | This has set off the usual round of commentary about how Buttigieg is arguing for means-testing while Warren and Sanders are arguing f…

Matt Bruenig (2019-11-17). CAP's Topher Spiro Is Trying to Deceive Journalists By Lying. peoplespolicyproject.org It's been fun to see how the Center for American Progress (CAP) navigates this year's presidential election. For insider political reasons, they can't support Biden or Sanders. But for a long time, it was unclear who the alternative candidate they could support would be. | When Kamala Harris was rising, CAP's staff was doing overtime boosting her on Twitter and in the press, including boosting Harris's absurd health care proposal. But Harris's collapse put an end to that strategy. Recently Warren has risen as the alternative and so CAP has been working to promote her campaign, which puts CAP in the comical positi…

2019-12-19: Social Media Postees

Please be social by posting these 'POSTEES' on social media!

At least three people killed in shooting in central Moscow
yenisafak.com | 2019-12-19
At least three people were killed by gunfire in Russia Thursday in an attack near the building of the Federal Security Service in central Moscow, local media reported. In a video posted on social media, multiple law enforcement officers can be seen and gunfire can be heard, said Russian state-supported television RT.Though what happened remains unclear, "conflicting reports indicate that one to three individuals, armed with 'assault rifles' attacked the FSB building," said RT.This is a developing story.
yenisafak.com/en/world/at-least-three-people-killed-in-shooting-in-central-moscow-3507828

Turkey rejects ex-Israeli envoy's remarks on Hamas ties
yenisafak.com | 2019-12-19
Turkish Foreign Ministry on Thursday rebuffed allegations saying its territory was used for act against Israel or any other country.The statement came after Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, accused Turkey of permitting senior Hamas figures to "order attacks against Israel from Istanbul.""The majority of the international community considers Hamas not as a terrorist organization but as a political reality which has won the elections in Gaza in 2006," the ministry said on Twitter.It went on saying that the UN General Assembly (UNGA) had rejected calling Palestine's Hamas as a terrorist organization…
yenisafak.com/en/news/turkey-rejects-ex-israeli-envoys-remarks-on-hamas-ties-3507826

Tulsi Gabbard votes 'present' on both impeachment articles, stoking liberal ire on Twitter
rt.com | 2019-12-19
Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard broke ranks with her party and voted "present" on two articles of impeachment, slamming the process as "partisan." The vote drew swift condemnation from Twitter's more progressive quarters. | Voting "present" instead of "yes" or "no" in Wednesday's full House vote for two impeachment articles passed in committee last week, Gabbard became one of only a tiny minority of Democrats to swim against the current in her own party. | "I could not in good conscience vote for impeachment because removal of a sitting President must not be the culmination of a partisan process, fueled by triba…
rt.com/usa/476241-tulsi-votes-present-impeachment/

'She's joined the Death Eaters': JK Rowling slammed as 'TERF' over support for woman fired for saying sex is immutable
rt.com | 2019-12-19
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has been eviscerated by former fans after tweeting in support of a woman fired for denying that a person can change their biological sex. Will she have to write a trans Voldemort to win them back? | …
rt.com/uk/476412-rowling-trans-woman-fired-rage/

Trump taunts 'do-nothing' Democrats for stalling on sending impeachment articles to Senate
rt.com | 2019-12-19
President Donald Trump slammed the "do-nothing" Democrats after party leaders said they would delay sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate until they could guarantee a "fair trial" in the Republican-controlled chamber. | "Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles & not deliver them to the Senate," Trump tweeted a day after being impeached by the House of Representatives for "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress." | I got Impeached last night without one Republican vote being cast with the Do Nothing Dems on their continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American histor…
rt.com/usa/476418-trump-do-nothing-democrats/

VIDEO reportedly showing last moments of Moscow shooter emerges online
rt.com | 2019-12-19
Footage has surfaced on social media that purports to show the final moments of the gunman who opened fire at the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) headquarters in central Moscow. | SOME READERS MAY FIND THE CONTENT DISTURBING | The video shows a black-clad person with a backpack, armed with what looks like an assault rifle, hiding behind a column of a building right next to the FSB HQ. The hooded man is visibly engaged in a shootout. | He is shown shooting, supposedly at police or FSB officers, and then apparently getting hit himself. The video shows him crouching and eventually falling to the ground.
rt.com/news/476433-moscow-shooter-fsb-last-moments/

FSB shooting: Man opens fire near HQ of Russian intelligence in central Moscow, one FSB staff killed
rt.com | 2019-12-19
Gunfire has broken out near central Moscow's Lubyanka Square in the immediate vicinity of the Federal Security Service building. The authorities said the gunman was neutralized and two FSB officers seriously injured. | The shooting occurred around 6pm local time right at the heart of Russia's capital on a street leading to the square and the iconic FSB building and some 10 minutes on foot from the Kremlin. | | Gunfire can be heard in several videos from the scene circulating on social media. The footage also shows multiple law enforcement officers in full gear and ambulances. | –í–∏&n…
rt.com/russia/476415-central-moscow-man-opens-fire/

'Out of touch & out of time': Angry Brits react to pomp & ceremony of Queen's Speech
rt.com | 2019-12-19
Queen Elizabeth has delivered a post-election speech opening Parliament, but not all were enthralled by the pageantry of the occasion, many complaining on Twitter about poverty, homelessness and the 'out of touch' monarch. | New figures from the Shelter charity earlier this week showed that more than 280,000 people will be homeless on Christmas Day in England alone — up 23,000 since 2017. The numbers are a conservative estimate, too, since they d…
rt.com/uk/476413-queens-speech-homelessness-uk/

Hundreds of thousands demand impeachment, removal of Trump
Mark Gruenberg | peoplesworld.org | 2019-12-18
Even in Richardson, Texas, people want to throw Donald Trump out of the Oval Office. At least that's what Rae Ann Emery reported from the Dallas suburb in the heart of the deep-red state after attending the pro-impeachment rally there, one of 632 nationwide on the evening of Dec. 17. Emery accompanied her tweet with …
peoplesworld.org/article/hundreds-of-thousands-demand-impeachment-removal-of-trump/

BBC Director-General Calls for Media Critics to Be Purged From Social Media
Alan Macleod | mintpressnews.com | 2019-12-18
The BBC has responded to criticism over its coverage of the UK's general election by calling for their online critics to be banned from social media.
mintpressnews.com/bbc-calls-media-critics-banned-social-media/263588/

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Spends Her Birthday Imprisoned
Alan Macleod | mintpressnews.com | 2019-12-18
Military whistleblower Chelsea Manning spent her 32nd birthday behind bars yesterday for continuing to refuse to testify against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange. She has been in prison since May after a U.S. District Judge ordered her incarceration for not recognizing the legitimacy of the grand jury. She tweeted that she was grateful for t…
mintpressnews.com/whistleblower-chelsea-manning-spends-her-birthday-imprisoned/263594/

US Army XVIII Airborne Corp posts sympathetic portrayal of Nazi war criminal on Facebook
wsws.org | 2019-12-18
The publication of a glowing portrayal of Nazi war criminal Joachim Peiper by the Army's XVIII Airborne Corp's Facebook page exposes a constituency within the military for fascism.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/18/face-d18.html

Tories spent over £950,000 on Facebook adverts in late election blitz
The Canary | thecanary.co | 2019-12-18
The Conservative Party spent more than any other party on Facebook and Instagram adverts in the run-up to last week's General Election, analysis by the PA news agency has found.It largely came in a spending blitz in the final two weeks of the campaign.Across their two main pages — named Conservatives and Boris Johnson — the party spent a total of £959,329 in the four weeks up to the vote.In comparison, Labour spent £552,035 on its Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn pages between 14 November and 12 December, the fourth most of the major UK parties.The Liberal Democrats were the second biggest spe…
thecanary.co/uk/news/2019/12/18/tories-spent-over-950000-on-facebook-adverts-in-late-election-blitz/

Donald Trump says all US administrations 'abused power'… hours before his House impeachment vote
rt.com | 2019-12-18
US President Donald Trump has slammed his expected impeachment as a sham "to get at the President" with a "vague abuse of power" — that he claims all White House administrations have engaged in. | The US President launched his scathing Twitter attack at his political opponents ahead of a historic House of Representatives vote on Wednesday on whether to impeach him. While on the one hand he said he "did nothing wrong" as president, on the other he somehow admitted that there had been a "vague" abuse of power which had apparently always happened in the past. | Trump tweeted: "They just wanted to get at the…
rt.com/usa/476205-trump-power-abuse-impeachment/

Poetic revenge: GOP's impeachment-themed Christmas POEM has Twitter spitting out its eggnog
rt.com | 2019-12-18
Spreading some Christmas spirit, the GOP House Oversight Committee has posted a lengthy impeachment-themed holiday poem. While the verses may not pass muster with Yeats or Milton, Twitter received the gift with glee — mostly. | Written along the lines of Clement Clarke Moore's "Twas the Night Before Christmas,' the Republican committee shared the satirical poem to Twitter on Tuesday night in nine parts, poking fun at members of the Democratic "Coastal Impeachment Squad," and taking special pleasure in mocking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. | "'Twas the night before #impeachment and all through the House, P…
rt.com/usa/476147-republican-committee-impeachment-poem/

Viral Chilean feminist anthem reveals powerful international sentiment against sexual violence
Candice Yanez | liberationnews.org | 2019-12-16
The protest song was first performed for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 20 in Valparaíso, Chile.
liberationnews.org/viral-chilean-feminist-anthem-reveals-powerful-international-sentiment-against-sexual-violence/

The War on Truth: How Israel's Social Media Trolls Conquered Facebook
Ramzy Baroud | zcomm.org | 2019-12-02
Israel may have found a way to circumvent the influence of Facebook on the discussions pertaining to Palestinian rights and the Israeli occupation…
zcomm.org/zmagazine/the-war-on-truth-how-israels-social-media-trolls-conquered-facebook/