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Inside Canada’s Outsized and Under-Scrutinized Bid to Overthrow Maduro
VENEZUELAN COUP
Inside Canada’s Outsized and Under-Scrutinized Bid to Overthrow Maduro
Canada has been a major player in orchestrating repeated coup attempts in Venezuela since Juan Guaido declared himself president in January.
OTTAWA — Canada’s foreign policy, under the auspices of Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, is bucking the country’s long standing tradition of generally staying out of the affairs of governments to its south in Latin America. Indeed, Canada has been one of the major players orchestrating repeated coup attempts in Venezuela since Juan Guaido declared himself president in January.
One opinion piece in a major Canadian publication, the Toronto Star, notes:
Almost immediately after Guaido anointed himself president, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that he was Canada’s guy and that Maduro should cede power to him.
Maduro won’t do that without a fight. So what Freeland was really saying was that Canada would support anything, including an armed coup, to remove Maduro.”
Meanwhile, another major Canadian publication, the Globe and Mail, reports:
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke with Juan Guaido to congratulate him on unifying opposition forces in Venezuela, two weeks before he declared himself interim president.
Separately, Ottawa was told by opposition groups, former diplomats and a Venezuelan émigré to expect a major announcement.”
That was reported based on sourcing from a “senior Canadian government source who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.”
Perhaps it should be no surprise that Freeland — who said she was “proud” of her grandfather, a Nazi collaborator — sympathizes with Popular Will, the political party of Leopoldo Lopez, who appears to have kept a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in his library.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Syrian American Council’s Pressure Campaign to Censor One of Its Major Critics
The Syrian American Council’s Pressure Campaign to Censor One of Its Major Critics
“Clearly these regime change lobbyists want to burn my book because it exposes their own cynical tactics.” – Max Blumenthal
The Syrian American Council and a collection of pro-war lobbyists have led an intimidation campaign aimed at bullying a major Washington-based bookstore, Politics and Prose, into canceling award-winning journalist and author Max Blumenthal’s launch event for his new book The Management of Savagery.
And it appears to have worked. Politics and Prose announced that it would “postpone” the event, citing “concerns” over the event’s “format, substance, … [and] security” in a tweet. In a testament to the ferocity of the harassment campaign against the small chain, the company has pinned the statement to the top of its Twitter page so that anyone visiting it sees immediately that they caved.
Politics and Prose is the go-to space for D.C. book events. If you are on a book tour and coming to Washington, chances are that Politics and Prose will be hosting your event.
On Monday, I called the Politics and Prose location that was to host the event for Blumenthal. I was directed to the events department, as nobody in the store itself had authority on such matters. After being put on hold for a few minutes, I was told by an employee, “I spoke to all of my co… my manager and also our events person and we have no plans for canceling that event. It is going to go on as scheduled.”
What was left out was that the store had already begun making onerous demands of Blumenthal, including requiring him to have an “interlocutor” on stage, specifically, one who would appease the Syrian American Council. Blumenthal secured Andrew Cockburn, one of the premiere journalists covering U.S. and Middle East politics and a longtime correspondent for Harper’s Magazine.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Refusing to “Snitch,” Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Becomes Two-Time Political Prisoner
Refusing to “Snitch,” Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Becomes Two-Time Political Prisoner
“I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has been historically used to entrap and persecute activists for protected political speech.” — Chelsea Manning
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA — Chelsea Manning was thrown in jail on Friday for refusing to comply with a grand jury subpoena related to sealed charges against WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange. She is ordered to be held until she complies with the subpoena or the grand jury process concludes, which could be more than a year from now.
The whistleblower has already spent more than seven years behind bars for her activism — in that case, for blowing the whistle on U.S. war crimes in Iraq.
In a statement, Manning said the following of her remanding:
I will not comply with this, or any other grand jury. Imprisoning me for my refusal to answer questions only subjects me to additional punishment for my repeatedly-stated ethical objections to the grand-jury system.
The grand jury’s questions pertained to disclosures from nine years ago, and took place six years after an in-depth computer forensics case, in which I testified for almost a full day about these events. I stand by my previous public testimony.
I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has been historically used to entrap and persecute activists for protected political speech.”
“Accept whatever you bring upon me”
MintPress News spoke with Manning and members of her support team on Wednesday as she fought the subpoena in court, and has also examined how the timing of Manning becoming the target of a grand jury comports with the larger U.S. push to have Assange extradited from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
