Lee Hnetinka

T he  BBC   has reported that Catalonia leader Carles Puigdemont will declare independence from Spain by "the end of this week or the beginning of next".In the interview with BBC, Puigdemont — who is the President of the Catalonia government, and driving figurehead behind the independence movement — also said that if the Spanish government was to intervene it would be "an error that changes everything". Earlier yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people had gathered in the centre of Barcelona to protest what Puigdemont described as "unjustified, disproportionate and irresponsible" violence at the Catalan referendum vote on Sunday, as well as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s dismissal of the vote as "illegal". King Felipe made an address in response to the strike, accusing the Catalan government of breaking the law. "They have broken the democratic principles of the rule of law... With their irresponsible conduct they could put at risk t

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is facing criminal charges in Iran due to the encrypted messaging application’s popularity with terrorists, child pornographers and other criminal elements, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi has said. Telegram is “providing services to terrorist groups such as IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS/ISIL), creating a suitable platform for the activities of other groups and promoting and facilitating the perpetration of child pornography, human trafficking and narcotics trafficking,” Dolatabadi said as cited by BBC Persian. The prosecutor didn’t specify the charges against the Russian entrepreneur, only saying that the case has been referred to the international affairs division of Tehran Prosecutor’s Office. According to Dolatabadi, “Western law” didn't apply to the Iranian case against Telegram. Durov can only be tried by Iran in absentia as he lives outside of the Islamic Republic and is unlikely to come to Iran for the trial. The entrepreneur holds

Donald Trump knocked $6 billion off of Amazon before most of the country was awake.In a tweet sent at 6:12 a.m. EST, Trump claimed Amazon was "doing great damage to tax paying retailers," resulting in the loss of jobs. The move isn't life threatening for Amazon, which is still worth in excess of $460 billion. It does, however, highlight growing concern that Trump may be willing to target Amazon, which has already stirred rumblings about the need for greater regulation  to limit the company's growing power. Amazon began to draw Trump's ire in late 2015 due to CEO Jeff Bezos's ownership of the  Washington Post , which aggressively reported on the Trump campaign. Trump went after Bezos, claiming that his ownership of the  Post  was so that he could reduce Amazon taxes. This wouldn't work, since the  Post  and Amazon are two entirely separate companies. That was just the beginning. Since then, Trump has on three other occasions

For anyone still wondering why Middle America’s so angry, just take a look at the guest list for the annual bash thrown by Washington Post heiress Lally Weymouth, currently the paper’s senior associate editor, in the Hamptons last week. It was full of politicians and power brokers — the ones who pantomime outrage daily, accusing the other side of crushing the little guy, sure that the same voter will never guess that behind closed doors, they all get along. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner partied with billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, who rubbed shoulders with billionaire GOP donor David Koch. Chuck Schumer and Kellyanne Conway were there. So were Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Ronald Lauder, Carl Icahn, Joel Klein, Cathie Black, reporters Steve Clemons and Maria Bartiromo, columnists Richard Cohen and Margaret Carlson, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, Ray Kelly, Bill Bratton and Steven Spielberg. Oh, and Lally’s

Jon Wiener: Jared Kushner has serious legal problems stemming from the Russia investigations, but they have not prevented him from going out. Amy Wilentz: Jared and Ivanka went to a party given by Lally Weymouth on July 4th weekend in the Hamptons. Lally Weymouth is a socialite, but she’s also the senior associate editor of The Washington Post, because of nepotism. Her mother was the editor and publisher of The Washington Post: Katherine Graham. Republicans were there: In addition to Ivanka and Jared, Kellyanne Conway, and David Koch of the Koch brothers. Also Dina Powell, the deputy national-security adviser in the Trump White House. On the other hand, Chuck Schumer was also there, along with top Democratic funders George Soros and Stephen Spielberg. Various members of the global financial community were also there—all at this party, sipping champagne together, side by side—making you wonder who’s running the world. JW: But we are told that the Democrats and Republicans hav

Wake up Missouri! Our government is lying to us as usual, we can’t believe everything that TV puts in front of us. We are young and reckless, there is no way that feds can stop us. I might be young but I’m wise. This is a call for the truth, write your stories and express yourself because this is the moment of the truth. Anton Lee Hnetinka is here to awake you. Time to start the show and prove them that we can think for ourselves. The Anton Lee Hnetinka blog is all about finding the truth and sharing it. I'm not a writer, that doesn't make my thoughts untruthful, Karl Marx used to say that the system is pushing us to specialized, to do only one thing and sacrifice our other joys and gifts. That's why I'm blogging, because Anton Lee Hnetinka thinks that we can do everything we want to. And we need to break all the rules, be like teenage rebels and start to follow our hearts, not our government's oppression Since Trump is in power, everyone is following