UK’s GDP Falls a Record 20.4% in April Alone as Economy is Paralyzed by Lockdown

LONDON – Britain’s economy shrank by a record 20.4% in April as the first full month of the coronavirus lockdown triggered an economic crash three times greater than the 2008 financial crisis. Revealing the scale of the downturn, the official figures for the GDP from the Office for National Statistics showed no area of the economy was left unscathed, The Guardian reported.

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The decline was the largest since comparable monthly records began in 1997 and was more than triple the previous record fall of 5.8% in March, when the lockdown was imposed late in the month. The ONS said the monthly decline in April broke records across the board with all the main drivers of economic growth plunging into reverse, as businesses were forced to close and millions of workers placed on furlough.

The country’s dominant services sector shrank by almost a fifth, fuelled by the closure of shops on the high street, pubs, restaurants and hotels, and evaporating car sales. Air transport shrank by 92.8% in the biggest fall of any sector as flights were grounded across Britain and other countries. After the closure of hotels, pubs, bars and restaurants, the accommodation and food services sector shrank by 88% on the month.

Faced with disruption to international supply chains and the need to protect workers, shutdowns in production at many factories and reduced hours at others led manufacturing output to fall by 25%. The ONS said a 20.3% decline in production – which includes factory output as well as energy and mining – was more than double the collapse recorded during the miners’ strikes and Winter of Discontent of the 1970s, in the biggest slump since records began in 1968.

With cranes and diggers across the country falling idle, construction output plunged by 40%.

Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the ONS, said, “April’s fall in GDP is the biggest the UK has ever seen, more than three times larger than last month and almost 10 times larger than the steepest pre-COVID-19 fall.”

Although some lockdown measures are now being eased as the government attempts to gradually reopen the economy, the snapshot from the ONS showed Britain’s economy at the onset of the deepest recession in living memory.

https://www.fort-russ.com/2020/06/uks-gdp-falls-a-record-20-4-in-april-alone-as-economy-is-paralyzed-by-lockdown/

Ex-CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien: Network exec told her to only have the 'right kind' of black guests

Former CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien made stunning claims on Saturday that a network exec once told her she could only have the "right kind" of black guests on her show.

Reacting to the controversy that has rocked ABC News over the weekend, O'Brien reflected on her time at CNN and indicated that a network executive discouraged her to sit down with black radio host Roland Martin.

"This is an interesting read. Reminds me of the CNN exec who told me: 'Roland Martin isn’t the ‘right kind of’ Black person.' She didn’t want me to book him on my show. L," O'Brien tweeted.

The tweet included an "L" at the end, though it is unclear if that was alluding to the unnamed CNN executive or a typo.

She added that, according to the network executive, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, who was a frequent guest of hers, was the "right kind of black."

Blow, who is now a CNN contributor, reacted to O'Brien's claim about him on Sunday.

"I don’t know how to take this 'good negro' talk…" Blow wrote.

Martin also spoke out, tweeting "the internal s- I had to encounter at CNN would blow folks away" and telling Blow, "the s- said about me by certain people there behind closed doors…"

CNN did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/ex-cnn-anchor-soledad-obrien-network-exec-told-her-to-only-have-right-kind-of-black-guests

Ivy League Professor Says Intimidation Campaigns Gaining Ground On Campus

Criticism of BLM leads to renewed calls to oust Cornell law professor William Jacobson

Cornell University law professor William Jacobson thought he had grown callous to petitions for his ouster. Activists—including students, faculty, and alumni—have called for his firing on numerous occasions since he launched the popular conservative website Legal Insurrection in 2008, but the campaign against him has taken personal attacks to new levels in the wake of George Floyd's death in police custody.

"On [the Black Lives Matter] issue, you cannot deviate one iota or they will try to get you kicked out of the school, they will falsely accuse you of being racist, they will do a ‘name and shame' campaign against you," Jacobson told the Washington Free Beacon. "It's been a problem for multiple decades in academia."

BLM supporters, in a coordinated effort with the Black Law Student Association, Cornell alumni, and law school faculty, are calling on the school to sack Jacobson for publicly critiquing BLM's ideology. An alumni petition began on June 11 calling on the university to "take immediate action" to drive him out. The professor said his accusers are disingenuously attacking his character to force the school's hand.

In prior years, people who called on Cornell to fire Jacobson were generally off-campus political and ideological opponents, and the Cornell administrators defended his right to speak publicly. Now those calls are coming from within the Cornell community and the administration has remained silent.

"What we need in this circumstance is strong administrative leadership," Jacobson said. "It's a very repressive atmosphere and it's only getting worse. There appears to be a zero-tolerance for any criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement."

Cornell did not respond to a request for comment.

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/ivy-league-professor-says-intimidation-campaigns-gaining-ground-on-campus/

He Teaches Social Studies: Suspect Who Vandalized Columbus Statue in Rhode Island is Elementary Teacher

A social studies teacher in Rhode Island vandalized a Christopher Columbus statue last weekend.

Officers watched Derrick Garforth throw paint on the boarded up monument.

Leftists believe Columbus is evil for discovering the New World in 1492.

It makes you wonder what the angry felon was teaching the kids at school.

ABC6 reported:

One of the suspects involved in vandalism at the Christopher Columbus statue in Elmwood Avenue is a teacher at Pawtucket Public Schools who is now out on leave pending an investigation, according to the superintendent.

Derrick Garforth, 34, was charged with desecration of grave/monument, which is a felony.

Superintendent of the Pawtucket School Department, Dr. Cheryl McWilliams, told ABC6 News, “I have just learned about this and the School Department is investigating it.”

Around 1:30 a.m., on Saturday morning detectives noticed a man and woman getting out of a car and running across Elmwood Avenue towards Columbus square. The two began to splatter paint on the boarded up monument, according to police.

Both then fled across Elmwood Avenue towards Lexington Avenue.

Detectives saw both suspects enter the rear lot of the Feinstein School heading towards Ontario St. Detectives quickly drove to Ontario Street and were able to catch up to both suspects as they exited the lot.

Derrick Garforth, 34, and Charlotte Whittingham, 28, were both arrested.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/teaches-social-studies-suspect-vandalized-columbus-statue-rhode-island-elementary-teacher/

The Goth ISIS Utopia and Other Leftist Nonsense

The left everywhere, from college campuses and newsrooms, to corporate headquarters and city councils, has gone stark, raving mad. I’m not the first to say it, and probably not the last, but most Americans are rational and aren’t going to take this much longer. As for those wanting to defund and abolish the police, and in colleges and newsrooms forbid dissent from the BLM injustice mantra, Edmund Burke’s observation is timeless:

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites… in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

The Newsroom Revolts

In an essay in which this leftist writer bends a necessary knee to Trump hatred, Matt Taibbi nevertheless hits the press where it deserves to be smacked:

It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily.

They’ve conned organization after organization into empowering panels to search out thoughtcrime, and it’s established now that anything can be an offense, from a UCLA professor placed under investigation for reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” out loud to a data scientist fired* from a research firm for get this retweeting an academic study suggesting nonviolent protests may be more politically effective than violent ones!

Now, this madness is coming for journalism. Beginning on Friday, June 5th, a series of controversies rocked the media. By my count, at least eight news organizations dealt with internal uprisings (it was likely more). Most involved groups of reporters and staffers demanding the firing or reprimand of colleagues who’d made politically “problematic” editorial or social media decisions.

Only people who miss hearing the ravings of the juiced-up sophomores in their college dorm will continue reading the bilge produced under these constraints.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/the_goth_isis_utopia_and_other_leftist_nonsense.html

Palestinian Government Announces Inability to Pay Salaries to Employees

The Palestinian government cannot pay salaries to its employees, as it did not receive tax deductions from Israel, spokesman Ibrahim Milhim said on Sunday.

"The government did not receive tax deductions from Israel. The Palestinian leadership will not be subject to Israeli blackmail. When the necessary funds for salary payment appear in the Ministry of Finance, then the government will pay all salaries", Milhim said at a press conference.

Last week, Milhim said that the Palestinian government refused to accept Israeli monthly tax transfers for goods produced within its territory, as the country cut its ties with Israel.

The spokesman added that there were "casualties in every battle" and "personnel are partners in this battle".

In late May, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas decided to terminate all treaties with the United States and Israel, following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioning the potential annexation of the Jordan River's West Bank territories.

Israel has for decades been in conflict with the Palestinians, who seek diplomatic recognition for their independent state on the territories of the West Bank which were occupied by the Jewish state during the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel has been refusing to recognize Palestine as a state and defying UN resolutions in the process.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/202006141079612456-palestinian-government-announces-inability-to-pay-salaries-to-employees/

Narrative Control Operations Escalate As America Burns

Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and mainstream media are falling all over themselves with censorship and spin jobs to get the narrative back under control as mass protests continue to sweep across America.

In 2017, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed in a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” and adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord.”

“Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told by cold warrior think tank denizen Clint Watts. “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”

“Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced — silence the guns and the barrage will end,” Watts added.

Those words rattle around in the memory now as America burns with nationwide protests demanding an end to the police state, and as narrative control operations ramp up with frantic urgency.

Wikipedia formally censors The Grayzone as regime-change advocates monopolize editing@BenjaminNorton on how a cabal of editors got us listed as a "deprecated source" entirely on the basis of our political views and in violation of Wikipedia guidelines https://t.co/GlO7bvATgk

— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) June 11, 2020

A group of right-wing Venezuelans have managed to blacklist @MintPressNews, @TheGrayzoneNews, @venanalysis and @telesurenglish, among others, from Wikipedia citations. https://t.co/Eayi4THyCg

— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) June 12, 2020

The Grayzone reports that it has been blacklisted as a source on Wikipedia following a concerted campaign by a suspicious-looking group of editor accounts, many of whom appear to have ties to the right-wing opposition in Venezuela. Wikipedia, whose co-founder once told the US Senate that the online encyclopedia project “may be helpful to government operations and homeland security”, has added The Grayzone to a very short list of outlets that are never to be used under any circumstances, claiming on apparently no basis whatsoever that it publishes false information.

“In fact, in its more than four years of existence, including its first two years hosted at the website AlterNet (whose use is not forbidden on Wikipedia), The Grayzone has never had to issue a major correction or retract a story,” Grayzone’s Ben Norton says in its report on the matter. Norton documents how the Wikipedia editors are unable to cite any actual false information in any of the outlet’s publications in their arguments, leaving only their objection that Grayzone doesn’t parrot US government-approved narratives like The New York Times, Bellingcat, and Wikipedia’s other designated “reliable sources”.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/77191/narrative-control-operations-escalate-as-america.html

Image of Sir Winston Churchill disappears from Google amid rising cancel-culture tensions

The timing is odd.

UPDATE: (June 14) A day after this report, Google has responded and has fixed the issue.

Google says that the removal of the image wasn’t intentional but has yet to comment on why the featured image for Gone With The Wind was also down during the similar timeframe:

https://reclaimthenet.org/google-removed-churchill-image/

Congress spent $3.06 million on failed impeachment probe

According to a new report, Congress added $3 million to the legislative branch's already exorbitant $1.3 trillion annual budget for the failed impeachment of Donald Trump

The Golden Horseshoe is a weekly designation from Just the News intended to highlight egregious examples of wasteful taxpayer spending by the government. The award is named for the horseshoe-shaped toilet seats for military airplanes that cost the Pentagon a whopping $640 each back in the 1980s.

This week, our award is going to the the United States Congress for spending $3.06 million in taxpayer dollars between September and December 2019 on the failed impeachment of President Trump.

The recently released openthebooks.com report entitled "Congressional Membership Has Its Privileges: Salaries, Pensions, Travel & Other Taxpayer-Funded Perks" breaks down some of the exorbitant annual costs of the nation's legislative branch.

The oversight report, which is published annually under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, was initially sponsored by the late Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and then-Senator Barack Obama.

According to this year's analysis, during the period between Sept. 24 2019, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared an impeachment inquiry, and Dec. 13, 2019, when the House Judiciary Committee sent two articles of impeachment to the Senate, the lower chamber ran up a bill to taxpayers of over $3 million.

That price tag included the salaries of more than 100 congressional staffers and employees who, for those four months, essentially worked full-time on the impeachment proceedings. It also factors in the hourly fees of the six attorneys who were hired as lawyers of record for witnesses who made appearances during hearings, and acted as impeachment counsel for the House Democratic impeachment managers throughout the trial.

The high cost of the impeachment effort is primarily due to the House's decision to use congressional staffers to investigate the president for potentially impeachable crimes. For reference, during the impeachment of President Clinton 1998, the majority of the fact-finding was done by Independent Counsel Ken Starr's staff. For President Nixon's impeachment inquiry, the bulk of the investigating was handled by special prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski, in addition to a Senate select committee.

The $3 million tally is a conservative estimate, since it does not yet include the impeachment costs run up during the Senate trial in January and February. It also does not factor in overtime pay for Capitol Police, witness travel expenses, or supplies and materials required for the hearings and trial.

The impeachment inquiry began just weeks after the release of the Mueller Report and conclusion of the two-and-a-half year Russia probe. Adding the impeachment spending to the $32 million spent on the Mueller investigation, the taxpayer has been billed a total of $35 million for the two investigations, neither of which resulted in bipartisan findings of presidential wrongdoing.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/waste-fraud-and-abuse/wasteful-spending-watch-congress-spent-306-million-failed

Turkey imposes its currency on the areas it occupied in northern Syria

Aleppo/Hasaka, SANA – The Turkish regime increased its hostile actions of Turkification in the Syrian areas occupied by its forces in the countryside of Aleppo, Hasaka, Raqqa, and Idleb.

Local sources in the countryside of Aleppo, Hasaka, and Raqqa said that after settling of the terrorist’s family members in the homes of citizens who were displaced by force in order to make a demographic change, a “post establishment” affiliated to Turkish regime began establishing branches in the occupied areas in the countryside of Aleppo and Idleb.

The sources added that the Turkish regime is forcing civilians to use the Turkish lira instead of the Syrian Pound, particularly in Azzaz city.

The measures by the Turkish regime had been rejected by civilians who protested and expressed their rejection of imposing the use of Turkish currency.

For their part, the Turkish opposition media revealed that Erdogan’s regime intends to reinforce its occupation of Syrian territory through printing new maps of Turkey that include the occupied areas in Syria.

In addition, the Turkish regime’s authorities decided that agricultural crops in the occupied Ras al-Ayn area northwest of Hasaka are to be marketed exlusively to Turkey as of Sunday.

https://sana.sy/en/?p=194249

George Washington Statue in Chicago Vandalized With KKK Hood, Graffiti: ‘Burn the White House Down’

Vandals in Chicago spray-painted a statue of George Washington overnight with messages in red paint on three sides reading, “Slave Owner!”, “Burn the Whitehouse down” and “God bless AmeriKKKa”, reported Alexis McAdams with WLS-TV, via Twitter. A white KKK hood and cloak were also placed over Washington’s head.

Image via Chicago Park District, details: Location: 5531 S. Martin Luther King Dr. Chicago, IL 60637 Within: Washington (George) Park Artist: Daniel Chester French and Edward C. Potter Year Created: 1900 Installed: 1904

“Graffiti covers the more than 100 year old George Washington statue on the Southside. Messages in red spray paint read “Slave Owner” “Burn the Whitehouse down” & “God bless AmeriKKKa” CPD investigating. Some neighbors want the statue to go, others say it’s part of history.”

WMAQ-TV reported on the statue also having a white hood and cloak put on it.

“Vandals spray-painted graffiti and put a white hood on a statue of George Washington in Chicago’s Washington Park neighborhood Sunday morning. Photos from the scene show the statue, which is located in the 5500 block of South Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, with spray-painted messages scrawled on its base. Earlier in the day, a white hood and gown, likely intended as a representation of the Ku Klux Klan, had also been seen on the monument.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/george-washington-statue-chicago-vandalized-kkk-hood-graffiti-burn-white-house/

Nigeria: Boko Haram Kills 81 in ‘Barbaric’ Overnight Village Attack

Islamic terror group Boko Haram massacred a village on Tuesday in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State killing at least 81 people, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) reported.

Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum confirmed the attack on Foduma Kolomaiya village in the Gubio area of Borno State on Wednesday after visiting the community and speaking to local residents.

Rabiu Isa, a member of a local Gubio area defense force, described Tuesday’s overnight ambush: “They came on motorcycles and vehicles and killed people at will in an attack that lasted more than two hours. In all, we counted 69 corpses but the death toll may be higher because some people are still missing.”

According to the report, Governor Zulum raised the death toll to 81 on Wednesday after interviewing survivors of the attack. He said that after speaking with locals he learned that seven people, including the leader of the village, were kidnapped by Boko Haram.

“This is barbaric,” Zulum told the Associated Press (AP) of the massacre.

Malam Bunu, the leader of a Gubio defense group, told the AP that the terrorists returned Wednesday morning to finish off a local herdsman who had originally escaped the attack on Tuesday night.

“Then [Boko Haram] set the entire village ablaze before they left. As I am talking to you now, the village is still smoking,” Bunu said on Wednesday.

Bunu said he believed Tuesday’s razing of Foduma Kolomaiya was an act of retaliation for the death of two Boko Haram terrorists “whom the villagers managed to kill when the insurgents attempted to attack them about two months ago.”

Gubio is located about 62 miles northwest of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State. As Boko Haram’s stronghold, Borno State has endured countless attacks over the years by the terrorists. According to DW, Gubio residents are primarily animal herders who have managed to resist Boko Haram’s aggression in recent years.

Malam Bunu said that the terrorist group later stole 1,200 cattle from local herders following Tuesday night’s attack. Boko Haram often forces local villagers in Borno State to pay illegal taxes for their own livestock and agricultural goods. Until now, Bunu said, villagers in Gubio had been able to resist the extortion.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari released a statement through his spokesperson on Wednesday condemning the attack, Nigeria’s Premium Times reported.

“He [Buhari] is deeply shocked by the brutal killing of tens of people by the Boko Haram/Islam in West Africa Province (ISWAP) in Gubio village, Borno State,” the statement read, adding that the president was “particularly shocked” by the “primordial nature of the killings” because it happened “not long after the Ramadan and Eid [Islamic holidays], and [as] the country is preparing to celebrate [Nigeria’s] Democracy Day.”

According to the statement, Buhari has ordered Nigeria’s armed forces “to extract a heavy price from the attackers, and bring back all those they kidnapped as well as a large number of cattle rustled.”

https://www.breitbart.com/africa/2020/06/12/nigeria-boko-haram-kills-81-in-barbaric-overnight-village-attack/