Knowledge is Power

I smell a Reichstag Fire

The Venezuelan government hunted on Wednesday for rogue policemen who attacked key installations by helicopter, but critics of President Nicolas Maduro suspected the raid may have been manipulated to justify repression.

In extraordinary scenes over Caracas around sunset on Tuesday, the stolen helicopter fired shots at the Interior Ministry and dropped grenades on the Supreme Court, both viewed by Venezuela’s opposition as bastions of support for a dictator.

Nobody was injured and the aircraft, identified by the government as an Airbus Bolkow 105, apparently referring to the Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm Bo 105, was gone.

Officials said special forces were seeking Oscar Perez, 36, a police pilot named as the mastermind of the raid by the helicopter that carried a banner saying “Freedom!”

In 2015, Perez co-produced and starred in “Death Suspended,” an action film based on real events in which he played the lead role as a government agent rescuing a kidnapped businessman.

There was no sign on Wednesday of Perez, described by officials as a “psychopath,” though police sources said the helicopter was dumped in Higuerote, on the Caribbean coast.

The attack exacerbated an already full-blown political crisis in Venezuela after three months of opposition protests demanding general elections and fixes for the sinking economy. [story]

It’s what dictators do.
Especially ones with mustaches.

I can smell Hoppes#9 bottles bein’ opened all across the area.
What kind of cowardly, low-life scum desecrates a soldier’s grave?

What do the “Antifa” radicals have in store for the Independence Day weekend at Gettysburg?

The “anti-fascist” organization plans to burn both American and Confederate flags in town and to “find their local Confederate graves” to desecrate.

That last stunt might be more difficult than they think. According to the experts at Gettysburg National Military Park, there are no Confederate soldiers buried there. [story]

There are dozens of markers for Confederate units, however.

Look, AntiFa (is it okay if I call you AntiFa?)
Look, AntiFa… Gettysburg is really not a good place to go all anti-American commie brat, especially on Independence Day and the anniversary of the battle (July 1-3, 1863).
At times like that, people tend to remember what America is all about (you know, Gettysburg Addreeeessss, Declaration of Indepeeennndeeennnce… stuff like that).
Besides, it’s a sacred place to most Americans of all sympathies where folks take their kids to give them some sense of their roots, a battlefield of heroism and horror, the high-water-mark of the Confederate invasion of the North.
You gain nothing by desecrating any part of it.
Tell you what, though, the Siege of Vicksburg ended about the same time (July 4, 1863); and there are plenty of Confederate graves down the-e-errre.
I’m sure the folks in Mississippi would be thrilled to have you guys try to desecrate their graves.
I suspect that wearin’ masks would be a good way to meet your brethren wearin’ hoods.
Bring your first-aid kits and plenty of bail money.
Oh, and petroleum jelly for after you get fireworks shoved up your butts.

(What? A reenactors’ bayonet charge? Yeah, that would cheer me up a mite.)

(What? Yeah, kinda what the Taliban and Daesh do, yeah. Here’s another one.)