Twitter has taken down a post by US President Donald Trump, in which he used a photo of himself to make a meme. The tweet was yanked shortly after the Times, embroiled in a bitter feud with Trump, filed a copyright claim.
The tweet in question was posted by Trump on Tuesday and featured a photo of him along with words:”In reality they’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.”
Trump is no stranger to using photos of himself to make a statement on his social media of choice (cue his Game of Thrones social media phase). This time, however, the US president apparently made a mistake, using a picture snapped by Times’ photographer Damon Winter.
It did not take long for the paper, which has recently escalated its attacks on the Republican leader, to spot Trump's apparent blunder and file a copyright claim, Axios first reported on Wednesday.
Upon removing the post, Twitter confirmed that the company acted upon a copyright complaint from a rights holder. The Times, in turn, acknowledged that they urged the social media giant to take action.
The photo originally illustrated a story on Trump the NYT ran back in 2015.
It’s not the first time Twitter pulled one of Trump’s posts citing copyright violations. Last month, the platform removed a video sporting a mock CNN chyron shared by the president. The video, which saw one toddler running after another, was removed after the children's parents filed copyright claims.
CNN, as well as the Times, have long been embroiled in a very public war with Trump, who has repeatedly labelled them ‘fake news,’ citing in particular the outlets’ regular claims of ‘Russian collusion’ at the height of the Russiagate saga, which has since fizzled out.
With the original Russiagate narrative debunked, the Times is now promoting a sources-based story which originally claimed that Trump was briefed on intelligence alleging that Russia paid bounties to Afgan militants to kill US troops. With US intelligence agencies and the White House denying that Trump ever received such a briefing, the story has shifted several times, and now claims that the intelligence had been included in one of Trump’s written briefs in February, and that the suspected recipients of the bounties were not the Taliban, but rather “criminals” who possibly had links to the militant group. Despite the Pentagon’s denial on Tuesday that it had so far unearthed “no corroborative evidence” to back up the story – as well as rebuttals from both the Taliban’s and Moscow – the Times has stuck to its reporting.
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Hundreds of protesters marched through New York City to voice opposition to Israeli annexation plans in the West Bank and the continued occupation of Palestinian territory as Tel Aviv gears up for a major land grab.
A sizable crowd of demonstrators gathered in Brooklyn for Wednesday’s ‘Day of Rage’ rally, where marchers were seen carrying an array of flags and banners while shouting slogans for a “free Palestine.”
The gathering grew throughout the afternoon, according to local reporters on the scene, who estimated that some 2,000 people turned out for the rally. Though there were no reports of clashes with law enforcement, riot police were present, trying and failing at one point to corral protesters to one side of the street.
— NYC Protest Updates 2020 (@protest_nyc) July 1, 2020
A tense moment at the #DayofRage march as police try to force over 2,000 protesters into the right lane at 63rd St. and 5th Ave. in Brooklyn. pic.twitter.com/XF554Oa4Ah
— NYC Protest Updates 2020 (@protest_nyc) July 1, 2020
Dozens of speakers from local organizations addressed the crowd during the march, while members of Neturei Karta, an anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish organization, were also spotted at the event carrying elaborate signs and placards.
Over 40 speakers from organizations across the city give testimony of their experiences and lead the crowd in chants. pic.twitter.com/MFYOjiyKlX
— NYC Protest Updates 2020 (@protest_nyc) July 1, 2020
Neturei Karta, a group of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews who believe Israeli statehood goes against Talmudic law and support returning land to Palestinians, are here to support the protest. pic.twitter.com/FcDWeZaeRT
— NYC Protest Updates 2020 (@protest_nyc) July 1, 2020
Reporting from the rally, RT’s Caleb Maupin spoke with a number of participants, who explained their reasons for showing up.
“I’m utterly opposed to Israeli annexation of Palestinian land. They’re living on stolen land, and they’ve been murdering and destroying people,” said one activist. “If you look at the map, you can see the amount of land that Palestinians have been allowed to live on has been decreasing rapidly over the years.”
“If they annex the Jordan Valley, it’s World War 3. Everything is on the table, everything is a go,” another marcher told Maupin. “If you look at what’s going on, Netanyahu is taking Israel and the Arab world into World War 3… after they annex the Jordan Valley, we’re talking about war.”
Similar rallies were also staged in New Mexico and California. Early on Wednesday morning, protesters gathered outside the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) to protest the annexation plan, calling on the lawmaker to join progressive Democrats in opposing the scheme, local media reported.
Happening now in San Francisco: People gathering at SF Civic Center for a car protest in solidarity with Palestine. No to annexation! No to apartheid! Defend Palestine! pic.twitter.com/f9zlAdEabi
— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslweb) July 1, 2020
The protests come as Tel Aviv moves ahead on plans to annex all Jewish settlements in the West Bank – including in the strategically important Jordan Valley – many of which were built on Palestinian land in defiance of international law. While the move was initially slated for July 1, on Tuesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested the plan would be delayed as talks continue with Washington, which has yet to give formal blessing for the land grab.
The outcome of Russia’s ‘national vote’ on a series of amendments to the constitution serves to reaffirm that most Russians want the country to plow its own furrow, regardless of what outsiders think.
In the end, the margin was huge. Exit polls suggested around 70 percent of voters said ‘yes’ to 206 amendments to their constitution, and close to 30 percent rejected the changes. Official results put the 'yes' vote to above 78 percent, with 99 percent of ballots counted.
Even Moscow liberal political organizers conceded that their own exit polls showed the capital had supported Vladimir Putin’s proposals. What’s more, those tallies revealed how a majority of voters in numerous Moscow districts with opposition-controlled local councils had backed the ‘yes’ side.
One thing forgotten in almost all Western speculation about the process (erroneously labeled a ‘referendum’ by some US/UK media) was that it wasn’t strictly necessary at all. The backing Putin obtained in spring from the Duma (parliament), the Constitutional Court, and all 85 federal subjects sufficed. However, the President decided to stage a ‘confirmatory plebiscite’ to obtain broad public legitimacy for his project. Thus, the vote itself was mostly about establishing whether Putin still has a popular mandate to uphold his domination of Russian politics.
It had been a curious ‘campaign,’ with most prominent opponents of the Kremlin relatively muted. Indeed, the half-inside-the-tent Communist Party was an outlier in being more vocal and forthright than usual, emphatically calling for a ‘no’ vote. Veteran leader Gennady Zyuganov dubbed it “disappointing and depressing.”
Alexei Navalny had labeled the existing Constitution “disgusting” in January, saying it contained “the mechanisms used to usurp power” and telling his supporters "do not defend it.”
That document dated back to 1993, when then-President Boris Yeltsin introduced it – with Western support – to create a “hyper-presidential” system. It came after the Communist-controlled parliament attempted to impeach the pro-Western leader, and he resorted to military force to hold onto power, which led to 187 people killed and 437 wounded.
On Wednesday evening, a protest in downtown Moscow was so poorly attended and halfhearted that police handed out masks to the demonstrators, with Covid-19 in mind. Hardly the rough arm of the state crushing resistance. A handful of dissenters who gathered on Red Square, without permission, were detained and then swiftly released.
In truth, the Kremlin had left the opposition with a thankless task. While they opposed the plan to nullify Putin’s term limits, a lot of popular measures included were difficult to oppose without offending large swaths of voters: for instance, civil servants being prohibited from holding foreign bank accounts and citizenship, a ban on giving away any Russian territory, and a guarantee that the minimum wage will not be lower than the cost of living.
Like it or not, some people were also attracted by the clause banning same-sex marriage and another one saying ethnic Russians are to be recognized as the founders of the state. Another popular change was the provision recognizing the modern Russian Federation as the successor to the USSR and preserving its legacy as the victor in WWII, fueling the sort of militarism many liberals find distasteful.
Another issue is that polls have consistently shown a majority of Russians actually want Putin to remain in power after the 2024 election. Only last summer, Levada (a Western-leaning, pollster independent of the Kremlin) found that 54 percent of Russians would like him to stay on until at least 2030. Only 38 percent wanted him out four years from now.
Western media coverage of the process has been rather bizarre, focusing almost solely on the Putin term-limits issue while ignoring or glossing over the fact that the vast majority of Russians still clearly support his system. Once upon a time, this was attributed to the power of ‘state TV,’ but today, when the internet is beginning to overtake the zombie box as the primary source of news, that unsophisticated trope is clearly redundant.
Russia is not a dictatorship, and Putin is not a dictator. The setup is 'soft' authoritarian and it relies on the consent of the majority to keep power. The provisions in the new constitution - most notably term limits for future presidents and immunity after leaving office - also suggest the president wants to continue with a form of representative government.
The Kremlin is clearly not trying to go down the Chinese or Soviet route, but also doesn’t want to embrace western-style 'liberal democracy.’ Much as Russia itself is both in Europe and Asia but truly ‘of’ neither, its government structure and electoral procedures are also clearly going to remain somewhat unique. After Wednesday’s vote, it’s evidently what most Russians themselves want. At least for the foreseeable future, anyway.
Nevertheless, expect the endless US/UK media headlines predicting Russia's imminent collapse to keep coming. For over twenty years, they have been consistently wrong, and they'll almost certainly be inaccurate for at least twenty more.
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Twenty-four people were shot dead after a group of gunmen stormed a drug rehab center in Central Mexico and opened fire on patients and employees, the second deadly attack on the facility since last month.
The alleged mass shooting in the city of Irapuato on Wednesday was first reported in local media and later confirmed by Pedro Zavala, Secretary of Municipal Citizen Security, who said the armed assailants entered the rehab clinic and started shooting, wounding seven in addition to the 24 killed. Graphic images have emerged on social media purporting to show the aftermath of the attack.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES
Fotos: "Sicarios llegaron al Anexo los pusieron en el suelo y los ejecutaron", así quedaron los cuerpos de las 24 personas ejecutadas hoy en anexo de #Irapuato hay 7 heridos más (Imagenes completas en el siguiente enlace) https://t.co/7Lf4jhpiE4pic.twitter.com/9Q7lh0MjQa
— Blog del Narco Oficial (@blogdelnarcomx) July 2, 2020
At a time when activists across America are tearing down statues, pranksters have put a new one up. A monument to sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein popped up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, then vanished just as mysteriously.
What looked like a bronze statue – depicting a young man in a polo shirt, pants and loafers – appeared on Wednesday outside the old city hall. Local reporters received pictures of the ‘monument’ described as Epstein, but it had vanished by the time a camera crew arrived on the site.
The statue was “actually a painted mannequin,” according to KOAT-TV, which also had pictures of the plaque affixed to its pedestal. It described Epstein as someone who “started as a teacher and worked his way up from a low level assistant to being one of the top financial advisers” in the US but “also a rapist who died in prison.”
It was signed as a gift to Bernalillo County by the ‘Antlion Entertainment Art Collective’.
The plaque also references Zorro Ranch, a property Epstein owned about an hour’s drive away from Albuquerque. The 10,000-acre desert property was home to a massive mansion, and multiple women accusing Epstein of rape and sexual abuse have named it as the key site in his sex trafficking operation.
Epstein himself told scientists he “hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women” at the ranch, according to a July 2019 New York Times report.
The viewer who sent photos of the statue to KRQE journalist Rachel Knapp said the person who put it up kept yelling: “If we don't have a statue of Epstein, how will people learn?”
A viewer sent this to me- they said it is a statue of Jeffrey Epstein and that it was placed in downtown ABQ Wednesday morning. The viewer said the person who placed it there kept yelling: "If we don't have a statue of Epstein, how will people learn?" @krqepic.twitter.com/vwAe5Smjwo
Epstein, who mysteriously accumulated substantial wealth, rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful for decades until he was charged with rape and sex trafficking last year. He died inside a New York jail cell last August, officially from suicide. However, much of the American public believes “Epstein didn’t kill himself,” according to the widespread expression.
The Albuquerque stunt comes as protesters and activists across the country have been tearing down monuments, in what began as protests over the death of an African-American man in Minnesota during a botched arrest by police. Initially going after Confederate generals from the Civil War, they have since moved to target the explorer Christopher Columbus, author of the American national anthem Francis Scott Key, and presidents George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt, among others.
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Twenty-four people were shot dead after a group of gunmen stormed a drug rehab center in Central Mexico and opened fire on patients and employees, the second deadly attack on the facility since last month.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES
Masacre en Anexo de Irapuato, Guanajuato.
Saldo Preliminar: 24 Muertos, 7 heridos. pic.twitter.com/DnWttpTTaS
Lauren Boebert, a mother of four with outspoken views on guns and fringe internet theories, has uprooted Colorado Rep. Scott Tipton. Her primary victory is part of a larger political insurgency taking shape across the country.
An unapologetic political outsider, Boebert was declared the winner of Colorado’s 3rd congressional district Republican primary on Wednesday. Tipton, the incumbent, had served five terms in Congress and was endorsed by Donald Trump. Apparently unbothered by her victory, the president took to Twitter to congratulate Boebert on her “really great win.”
Boebert’s colorful political ads and staunchly conservative platform made her a popular target of praise – and mockery – on social media. In one campaign video, she explains that she is raising her four sons to be “strong men” and will not allow them to grow up in a “socialist” nation.
“Their freedom IS my motivator! Threaten the liberty of Americans, and I’ll be there to hold you accountable!” reads her tweet.
In 2019, she grabbed headlines after attending a rally of then-Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke, during which she told him: “I was one of the gun-owning Americans who heard you speak regarding your ‘Hell yes, I’m going to take your AR-15s and AK-47s.’ Well, I’m here to say, ‘Hell no you’re not.’” Boebert, a fierce gun advocate, is the owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado. The cafe is famous for its armed waitresses and encourages patrons to also pack heat.
She has also publicly stated her belief in the internet ‘QAnon’ theory, which alleges that Trump has an elaborate plan to dismantle the ‘Deep State’. She said that she “hoped” the theory is true because “it only means America is getting stronger and better and people are returning to conservative values.”
A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee declined to pass judgment on her beliefs, arguing that Democrats should first disavow “dangerous conspiracy theorists like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff” who are haunting the halls of Congress with their “wide-eyed claims” that Trump is a “secret Russian double agent under the control of the Kremlin.”
Although Boebert’s victory came as a surprise, she’s far from the first rogue candidate to uproot establishment Republicans. In May, Jo Rae Perkins, another QAnon supporter, won a Republican Senate primary in Oregon. Another outsider and QAnon backer, Marjorie Taylor Greene, will compete in an August congressional primary runoff in Georgia.
President Trump threatened to reject next year’s National Defense Authorization bill if lawmakers go ahead with Confederate name changes for army bases, including Fort Bragg, Fort Benning, and others.
“I will veto the Defense Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other military bases from which we won two World Wars, is in the Bill!” US President Donald Trump tweeted.
I will Veto the Defense Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars, is in the Bill!
His intervention is a swipe at a recent speech by Senator Warren, in which she urged once again to proceed with name changes for military bases and in-base installations that pay homage to “the traitors who took up arms against the United States to defend slavery.”
Warren, who dropped out of the Democratic Party presidential primary race in March, rolled out the amendment in question on June 9. Days later, senators voted in favor of the proposal telling the Pentagon to remove“all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia” tied to the Confederate military.
There are 10 military bases still bearing the names of officers who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Many of them – or their families – were slave owners like Braxton Bragg, Henry Benning, and the Confederacy’s most decorated general, Robert E. Lee.
Trump has already expressed his opposition to the name changes, reaffirming earlier in June that “my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these magnificent and fabled military installations.”
The Confederate legacy has long been a source of controversy, but the debate escalated in recent weeks after unarmed black man George Floyd died at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Warren’s call to strip the military installations of the Confederate names comes after the US Navy and Marine Corps – as well as NASCAR – moved to ban all public displays of the Confederate battle flag.
The coronavirus outbreak has been very costly to Asian economic development, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said as it revised down its forecast for the region and warned of possible protracted recovery.
“For the first time in living memory, Asia’s growth is expected to contract by 1.6 percent—a downgrade to the April projection of zero growth,” Chang Yong Rhee, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, wrote in a blog post.
Even the recent positive developments in the epidemic situation in some countries that allowed them to at least partly reopen have not helped to change the gloomy projections. The IMF said it had to downgrade the economic outlook for most countries in the region as they are dependent on global supply chains, making growth “impossible” while the “whole world is suffering.”
Although the IMF expects Asia to rebound strongly to 6.6 percent as early as next year, it noted that the pandemic is likely to have far-reaching consequences. While regional driver China has already started to return to normal after becoming the first country to be hit by Covid-19, positive developments there are not enough to bring Asia’s economic output back to pre-crisis levels. According to the IMF, the region’s economic output in 2022 will be about five percent lower compared with earlier predictions.
While the Washington-based agency assumes a strong rebound in private demand, it warned that there are “clouds on the horizon” which could undermine recovery. Those worrying signs include shrinking trade, longer than expected lockdowns, rising inequality, weak balance sheets, and geopolitical tensions.
Earlier this month, the IMF said that it expects “a deeper recession in 2020 and a slower recovery in 2021” as the virus had an uneven impact on sectors and countries, and there is still no medical solution for it. According to its recent outlook, the global real GDP could shrink by 4.9 percent this year, followed by a partial recovery, with growth at 5.4 percent in 2021. This would result into a cumulative loss to the global economy over two years of over $12 trillion from this crisis.
Russians are heading to the polls on the last day of voting on amendments to the country’s constitution. Citizens have plenty of time to express their will, as July 1 has been declared a holiday.
Among other things, the proposed amendments would transfer more power to Russia’s two houses of parliament, as well as potentially allow Vladimir Putin to run for the presidency two more times.
Voting started on June 25, and until June 30 people could cast their ballots online.
You can watch RT’s special coverage of the vote here:
A single-seater combat aircraft hit the ground and caught fire during a training flight at Shaw Air Force Base, the military installation confirmed. The pilot reportedly survived and was rushed to the hospital.
The F-16 belonging to the 20th Fighter Wing crashed at approximately 11:30pm local time on Wednesday, according to a brief statement the base posted on Facebook. It said the cause of the crash, which happened during a "routine training mission," is not yet known.
Local media reported that the pilot was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, but his condition is still unknown.
Video that surfaced online shows what appears to be a crash site. Firefighters are seen putting out a fire.
https://ift.tt/2NJNG6n
Shaw Air Force Base, located outside Sumter, South Carolina, houses three squadrons of F-16CMs. The 20th Fighter Wing specializes in the suppression of enemy air defenses, air interdiction, and combat search-and-rescue operations.
This recent incident comes after a series of crashes involving US Air Force jets in recent weeks. Earlier in May, an F-35A and F-22A were lost during the same “training missions” in Florida; in both cases, the pilots managed to eject to safety.
