Fake News by Omision

If you do a search on the protest in France, you will find it hard to find any information on the topic although it has been going on each weekend across the entirety of France for twenty weeks.  Do not even attempt to find coverage on NBC, MSNBC, CNN, ABC or CBS because it doesn’t exist. Imagine that, hundreds of thousands take to streets weekly around the nation and it isn’t considered news worthy. To top it off, Macron has responded with strong arm tactics that we would expect from the leader of Saudi Arabia, Sudan or Venezuela. Thousands arrested, hundreds injured and several dead. Macron's government has repressed the Yellow Vest movement violently over going on 22 consecutive weeks. Recently Macron ‘s government banned yellow vest protests from being held along Paris’ Champs-Elysees avenue. Now he has taken it even farther, deciding to mobilize the army on this upcoming Saturday as part of the Yellow Vests rallies.

As I stated, this has been going on for five months. For twenty weeks, tens of thousands have gone and continue to go to the streets of Paris and other French cities on Saturday on behalf of anti-establishment gilets jaunes protests. And as the prior weeks, riot police fired tear gas at protesters across the nation because Macron and his administration do not or cannot acknowledge that most French people, especially outside of Paris, live worse now than they did a few years ago and even worse under Macron. For his part, President Macron and his government, in response to legitimate demands, has given his army permission to shoot at gilets jaunes protesters as if to say the rights of the EU run paramount to the rights of French citizens and that even if you open your eyes, European Democracy is merely an illusion.

Why were the gilets jaunes protesting? First to express their displeasure against government policies they do not desire wants and against increasing fuel prices due to the introduction of green taxes that place the environment over the people. There is also the issue of an increasing the cost of living under a former banker elitist President who not only appears to be but who is out of touch with most of the French. This can only be the case if it was more important to deal with climate change by strapping the common citizen with a carbon tax. 

President Macron is steadily losing control. Although Paris is the 2nd most expensive city in the world, most government employees make on average about $1600 a month on average. To compound this, the average rent of these workers as around $1100 to $1200. These are legitimate concerns yet as opposed to address them, Macron basically declares martial law, bans the freedom of protest and assembly, orders the police to shoot his citizens with rubber bullets and water cannons and put the French military on the streets to protect the rich. Truth be told, Macron has France looking like what we would see in Russia, Argentina or Turkey. Only difference if the media saw it there, they would be up in arms and outraged. Especially the leadership of the EU, they would be calling anyone doing what Macron is doing a despot. Add to this that President Macron has signed into law legislation giving security forces greater powers at demonstrations that opponents claim violate civil liberties, you have the making of a plutocratic Tsar.

Like I said, this should be weekly international news in the U.S., but you will never see a peep on CNN showing any footage of Macron’s police tear gassing and brutalizing unarmed #GiletsJaune (#Yellow Vests) protesters in Paris for the 22th weekend in a row today.  The irony is that Macron is calling the #yellow vests terrorists while calling AL Qaeda in Syria freedom fighters and that he is willing to use repression and military might to quash this movement. However, mainstream western media is too busy lying about no one spied on Trump or promoting disproven Russian election interference to report in such real impactful news. But one can best believe that the yellow vest protests have proved the biggest challenge to French President Emmanuel Macron since he came to power, and they will continue to be for as Huxley wrote, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”.

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Weekend Reading: 3/29/2019

San Franciscans raise $46,000 to stop homeless shelter in wealthy area

U.S. Projected to Add 1.5M Illegal Aliens to Population this Year

As Many As A Million Calves Lost In Nebraska – Beef Prices In The U.S. To Escalate Dramatically In The Coming Months

Pew Research: Deporting Illegal Aliens Is Top Priority for GOP Voters 

Charles Barkley on Smollett Hate Hoax: ‘We All Lose’

Kim Foxx Spoke at Fundraiser Hosted by George Soros‘ Son This Month

As Another Migrant Caravan Approaches, Trump Revives Threat To Close Southern Border

Man With Sword Fatally Shot by Police at Church of Scientology in Inglewood; 2 Officers Struck by Gunfire

President Bouteflika's decision not to seek another term has failed to calm protesters who want overthrow of old system.

Armed Samaritan Shoots Man who Shot at Basketball Players in Memphis

Valid concealed carry holder, pulled out a gun on a man who allegedly attempted to steal belongings from his car Monday night in Rockford

‘DREAMER’ Wanted For Murder Caught In North Carolina

Child Rapist Found Back In Kansas, Only Nine Days After He Was Deported 

Illegal Alien Who Repeatedly Stabbed Woman With Broken Beer Bottle Was Living Off Of Taxpayers

US calls airstrike on Yemeni hospital ‘awful’... then asks Saudis to investigate THEMSELVES

11 dead, 16 wounded in Somalia bomb blast, say medics

MACRON ON BRINK: French president CONDEMNED over resignations - ‘He is ISOLATED!’

Border Patrol struggles with surge of migrants in El Paso, Texas

Acte XX des « gilets jaunes » : interdiction de manifester à Avignon, Toulouse et Rouen

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The Growing Arrogance of Emmanuel Macron

After a few months, it appears that newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron is taking a page or two or three from the Donald Trump platform as well as Trump’s display of vanity. Like a reincarnated but taller version of Napoleon, Macron paraded into the Palace of Versailles a while back announcing extensive new changes to the French political establishment. Macron has broadcast that he plans to reduce the number of delegates in both the upper and lower houses of parliament by a third which for lack of a better phrase is just one phase of him “draining the swamp.” Macron has also channeled his Trumpian policy purview by focusing more and using tougher rhetoric. He is even pushing full steam ahead with his proposed tax cuts even given the $9.1 billion deficit in the French budget. However, the main observable overt behavioral comportment the new French president unfolds is a stuck-up and overbearing arrogance – even more than that of President Donald Trump.

He has other similarities to Trump also including his disdain for and continuous attempts to try and control the press. For example, he seldom speaks to the press and limits his public appearances to staged events in a similar manner as one of his unspoken political idols – Barack Obama. Like Trump, almost immediately after getting into office, he began to focus on fighting terrorism. First Macron created a counterterrorism task force. And has increased spending on fighting terrorism in former French colonies in Africa. But for Macron, all of this is to make him look good and concentrate supreme power and authority, regardless if his actions have substance or not, in his hands alone.

All of this has led some to take note of Mr. Macron of “authoritarian” tendencies.  In an interview, with Le Figaro he described his presidency and himself as the start of “a French renaissance [and] “European one as well,” The 39-year-old former Rothschild banker, has the support of the IMF and EU in his desire to decrease public spending. Then there are his proposed labor reforms, which has turned many of his voting block against him.   If people think that President Trump is arrogant and egotistical, then the same reasoning should fall in line for President Macron. Le Monde has reported that the president believes that his thinking did not "lend itself" to question and answer sessions such as those engendered during press conferences which resulted in him not having one on Bastille Day specifically because his"complex thoughts" may prove too much for journalists, reports say. Thus, in his mind, he Emmanuel Macron is too smart to communicate with, or to the serfs below him who put him in office. This may be why his popularity is even lower than the New USA President.

But if it were just smugness and disdain alone, he may not be perceived as so bad by the French populous.  However, there are other things – policy, that adds to his pomposity. There are his views regarding France’s labor code which he believes destroys jobs. Specifically, Macron’sdesire to harshly restrict payouts from labor boards to fired employees and reduce job protections. This singularly resulted in France’s largest labor unions too take to the streets in protest.  He has also cut social security allowances, housing subsidies, has proposed a partial lifting of the wealth tax and wishes to end local property taxes for 80 percent of those currently paying them starting in 2018. These events also led to widespread protest and this is just on the domestic side. His actions with respect to politics in France are also being severel ridiculed because from afar (not including spending $30,000 on make-up), he appears to put the desires of the EU, like reducing the budget deficit to 3% than for what is best and wanted by the citizens of France. Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin recently announced that the macron administration would cut 13 billion euros in funding for towns, departments and regions by 2022 to meet the EU goals.

There is a growing group of government officials upset by the president. Some say he blames them when policies he has approved are observed as unpopular by the populace. Others feel that he (through his interior minister Gérard Collomb) ignored the needsof migrants when they refused to open a new reception center at Calais for them. Others opposition party members have gone on the record to describe Macron as having "absolutist tendencies." National Front Leader Marine Le Pen said that" the ruling party is "choosing its opposition."

Macron has guaranteed to change by decree (without any input or resistance from the French Parliament) to permanently make the antiterrorism state of emergency standard rule and to reduce the military budget by €850m which some believe led to the resignation of Pierre de Villiers, the head of the armed forces. His decision to address the Congress of the French Parliament ahead of the prime minister'spolicy statement was also viewed as condescending.

The Republicans accuse Macron’s party of ignoring opposition when they appointed Thierry Solère of the majority, got an appointment (by secret ballot) that many say should have gone to the candidate of the largest opposition group, Republicans MP Eric Ciotti.  Macron is also rubbing other European leaders the wrong way. Just this past week he questioned the EU’s labor rules which allow firms to send temporary workers from low-wage countries to richer nations without having to pay social charges, causing Poland’s foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski to suggest that the reason why Mr. Macron was attacking other nations was because the French economy under Macron was not as strong as Poland’s economy.

Macron’s ego has lead him to put civil security above liberty. Only Macron’s Interior Ministry, with little review from the judicial branch has any say in searches and seizures and house arrests and the Macron administration can decide to close mosques if what is being said in them is not to their liking subjectively. Then there is way he talks about his populous as Italian psychiatrist Dr. Adriano Segator noted “When he talks about the poor or insults the workers of northern France, reducing them to smokers and alcoholics, when he denigrates women, lowering them to the level of the ignorant.” But this only makes sense. From an economic perspective, he is the classic neoliberal. He wishes to want to lower corporatetaxes and the cost of labor and reduce the amount of regulations that he believes prevents French business from be competitive on the international stage. And like neoliberals in the US, Macron advances fiscal policy that place the needs of public interest and government privatization over the needs and rights of the people.  If Macron isn’t the perfect example of arrogance, no one is.

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