The Media Playbook for Measles Looks a Lot Like Its COVID Playbook — This Time, Kids Are the Pawns
By Mary Holland, J.D. | The Defender | April 8, 2025
There are moments in the history of a movement that test its resolve. For the medical freedom movement, this is one of those moments.
We are in the midst of another full-on attack by the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, aided and abetted by a beholden mainstream media united around its allegiance to a $69 billion vaccine industry.
Five years ago, we fought back as our government, Big Media and Big Pharma orchestrated and executed a COVID-19 fear campaign — a campaign built on lies, deception and censorship — and then parlayed the public’s fear into dangerous and deadly medical mandates and hospital protocols that continue to cause profound harm.
The upside to COVID-19 global disaster?
It opened the eyes of millions more people to the dangers of shoddily tested vaccines, regulatory agency hubris and one-size-fits-all “medicine.”
As our movement has grown exponentially, so has our threat to Big Pharma.
In response, we’re seeing the same tactics rolled out again. This time, it’s measles. This time, children are the pawns in pharma’s playbook.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) stood strong and stayed true to our mission during COVID. We’re standing just as strong now. We remain just as committed now to the truth, informed consent and medical freedom as we were during the pandemic.
As pharma ramps up its measles playbook, our No. 1 job is to dismantle the vaccine industry’s lies — broadcast far and wide through the industry’s most reliable and faithful megaphone: mainstream media.
The media would have you believe that measles is a “deadly” disease. But any suggestion that MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccines are safer than measles infection isn’t supported by facts.
In fact, between 2000 and 2024, nine measles-related deaths were reported to the CDC. During the same period, 141 deaths following MMR or MMRV vaccination were reported in the U.S. to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — suggesting the MMR vaccine can be deadlier than measles.
The media echo the same familiar refrain: The MMR vaccine is “overwhelmingly safe.”
In fact, the MMR vaccine is associated with serious health risks. The package insert for Merck’s MMRII says, “M-M-R II vaccine has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential or impairment of fertility.”
Research also shows the MMR vaccine causes febrile seizures, anaphylaxis, meningitis, encephalitis, thrombocytopenia, arthralgia and vasculitis. In 2004, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that boys vaccinated with their first MMR vaccine on time were 67% more likely to be diagnosed with autism compared to boys who got their first vaccine after their 3rd birthday.
The media insist there’s no viable treatment for measles — hence prevention, with the MMR vaccine, is the sole solution.
In fact, as CHD reported, doctors in West Texas are successfully treating measles with budesonide and vitamin A. Even the World Health Organization recommends vitamin A.
Yet some hospitals and doctors are refusing to treat measles patients with budesonide. Texas health officials rejected pleas by a treating physician to endorse the treatment and get the word out to hospitals about its effectiveness.
Sound familiar?
We saw this identical playbook with COVID. Media parroted public health officials’ claim that the vaccine alone would save us — while discouraging, ridiculing and even outright sanctioning the use of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, budesonide and other treatments known to reduce COVID severity and death.
Last month, a 6-year-old child in West Texas died after developing pneumonia while recovering from measles. Media seized the opportunity to disparage the parents, members of a Mennonite community, for not vaccinating their child.
As our science and CHD.TV teams uncovered — after enlisting experts to review the child’s medical records — the little girl died not “from” measles, as media claimed, but from a tragic medical error.
In fact, the hospital properly diagnosed the little girl’s pneumonia — a community-acquired pneumonia that, when treated properly is not life-threatening. Unfortunately, the doctors failed to use the standard antibiotic indicated for treating her pneumonia until it was too late.
Even after CHD exposed the accurate cause of death, The New York Times reported the 6-year-old died from measles — and accused us of making “unfounded claims” about the death.
Last week, a second child in West Texas died. The media and Texas health officials reported the death as “measles pulmonary failure.” CHD is working with the child’s parents to analyze her medical records. We will report, accurately, on what we find.
The media have accused CHD and the health freedom movement — or “anti-vaxxers” as reporters love to call us — of “weaponizing” the tragic death of the 6-year-old who died because of a medical error. (We should point out that death by medical error is not uncommon in the U.S. It’s estimated that at least 250,000 people die every year as a result of the wrong diagnosis or treatment, making it the third-leading cause of death).
The death of any child, for any reason, is heartbreaking. But in this case, who are the real “weaponizers?”
If media are genuinely concerned about children’s lives, where are the reports on children’s injuries and deaths from COVID-19 vaccines? From MMR vaccines? From the other 14 shots on the CDC-recommended schedule?
Last month, CHD reported on the senseless death of a 1-year-old roughly 12 hours after the child’s pediatrician insisted on administering six shots of 12 vaccines at once.
Where were the headlines deploring this child’s death, denouncing the child’s pediatrician? Where were the reports on the known dangers of “catching up” babies and children on vaccines?
As the media remain radio silent on the carnage inflicted on innocent children by a powerful, greedy industry and its minions in Congress, CHD is honoring the legacy of these children by reporting the facts, telling the truth and insisting on the rights of parents to make independent, informed medical decisions.
This latest round of attacks on the health freedom movement is a measure of pharma’s fear. We are winning. Pharma knows it.
We have no intention of backing down from the facts: Vaccines cause serious injuries, including death. As Big Pharma and Big Media wage a renewed battle for the hearts and minds of parents, we must strengthen our resolve, we must stay true to our mission.
Our children deserve nothing less.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
AfD leader slams latest German military aid to Kiev as ‘catastrophic’
Al Mayadeen | April 11, 2025
Germany’s plan to ramp up military support for Ukraine has drawn sharp criticism from Alice Weidel, co-leader of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Speaking on Friday, Weidel condemned Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’ announcement of further arms deliveries, warning that the move fuels conflict rather than advancing peace.
According to a report by RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND), Pistorius revealed that Berlin will allocate an additional 8 billion euros ($9 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine by 2029. This comes on top of roughly 7 billion euros worth of equipment pledged for delivery in 2025. Germany has already committed nearly €44 billion in aid to Ukraine since the war began in 2022, including military, financial, and humanitarian support, making it one of Kiev’s largest backers in Europe.
Responding to the announcement on social media platform X, Weidel said: “Pistorius announces new arms deliveries to Ukraine. This makes it clear: the small coalition continues the catastrophic course of escalation carried out by the ‘traffic light’ coalition. This is explosive. We must support the US efforts to achieve a ceasefire.”
Weidel and the AfD have long opposed German military aid to Ukraine, arguing that continued arms shipments escalate tensions and jeopardize German national interests. She has also criticized sanctions on Russia, warning they disproportionately harm Germany’s economy. In her public statements, Weidel has urged Berlin to adopt a neutral foreign policy stance and support diplomatic initiatives, particularly those backed by US President Donald Trump.
Russian officials have frequently argued that Western weapon supplies prolong the war and position NATO countries as active participants in the conflict. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated that any shipment containing arms intended for Ukraine is considered a valid military target under Russian policy.
Why Does Trump Want to Own Major Ukrainian Gas Pipeline?
Sputnik – 12.04.2025
Trump now wants to claim the pipeline used to transport Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine, according to a Reuters report on the April 11 US-Ukraine talks.
How could the US profit from owning the pipeline?
It’s all about the fact that the Ukrainian pipeline can be used to ship gas in reverse, says Dr. George Szamuely, a senior research fellow at The Global Policy Institute.
- Rather than being used to pump Russian gas to European consumers, the pipe can serve to deliver American LNG to Ukrainian consumers.
- By controlling the pipeline, the US can monopolize the Ukrainian gas market, further solidifying Washington’s hold on the country, which would become dependent on American LNG.
- The pipeline could also be used by the US to deliver American LNG to EU countries, making them dependent on US energy resources as well.
Europe and Ukraine “brought this on themselves” by cutting off cheap Russian energy and relying on more expensive American imports, Dr. Szamuely says.
Here we go again – $1 trillion for US ‘defense’
By Drago Bosnic | April 12, 2025
Remember when President Donald Trump promised to make the US military “far more powerful, but for much less money”? Remember when he pledged to end the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict in 24 hours? Well, me neither. In all seriousness, we can always say that Trump is a politician and that truth or consistency are not exactly the defining qualities of any politician.
On the other hand, the Messianic Complex among many Trumpists is certainly concerning, as there’s little questioning of Trump’s policies. He’s most definitely a very polarizing figure. The vast majority of people are either his staunch supporters or have TDS (Trump derangement syndrome). This prevents a more objective view of his performance, both at home and abroad.
Namely, Trump is exposed to numerous interest groups, many of which have very diverging views on how America should be. The old Deep State sees him as the greatest threat to “Pax Americana” and wants him out at all costs (including through physical removal), while other interest groups think extreme measures are unnecessary and that simply influencing Trump’s decision-making is more than enough.
The latter seem to be leading the charge, while the remnants of the previous administration are engaged in largely pointless protests. However, despite superficial enmity between them, there’s a quite solid continuity in many policies of the two administrations. This is particularly true when it comes to foreign policy and financing the US military.
In the case of the former, the Biden administration’s crawling economic warfare against the European Union (primarily through the destruction of its trade with Russia while the US continued to buy critical commodities from Moscow and even resell them to Europe) has been augmented by Trump’s trade wars.
In the case of the latter, there’s a robust continuity with virtually every US administration in the last 35 years (at the very least). Namely, the consistent increase in American military spending is a clear indicator that the same people are making the final decision on this issue, regardless of who’s in power. The Trump administration’s latest announcement regarding the US “defense” budget effectively proves this is precisely the case.
Namely, on April 7, President Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the Pentagon will get its first $1 trillion. Interestingly, what should’ve been breaking news was sidelined by global panic regarding the impact of new tariffs. In his usual manner of using superlatives, Trump said that “nobody’s seen anything like it”, adding that “we have to build our military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something we have to build, and we have to be strong”. It’s certainly commendable to see a government exercise “cost-consciousness”, with Trump employing Musk’s DOGE to be “the ultimate auditing organization”. However, giving a trillion dollars to the unaudited US military sounds like anything but frugality.
On paper, the administration has been adamant about cutting excess government spending, so this move doesn’t make much sense (unless all the auditing was designed to help find the money for the Pentagon). The logical conclusion is that Trump is exposed to the influence of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) just as much as any other president.
Hegseth was certainly happy with the arrangement, as evidenced by his announcement on Twitter/X where he thanked Trump and presented the development as something “fantastic for everyone”. It would be interesting to see what American taxpayers think about the fact that their money will be invested in more death and destruction instead of restoring America’s crumbling infrastructure.
As previously mentioned, the first official $1 trillion for the US military was only a matter of time, as the troubled Biden administration announced it two years ago, when it pledged to double the Pentagon’s budget. The latest increase is in line with this plan, as the actual US DoD spending has been well over $1 trillion for years (many of its expenses are distributed to other departments). In addition, the Biden administration’s 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was officially $895 billion, so the latest increase is nothing out of the ordinary and is in line with regular spikes in military spending with every US government in recent history. This certainly breaks the Trump administration’s attempts to present itself as “anti-establishment”.
In addition, the move can only exacerbate America’s debt crisis, particularly after it reached $35 trillion last year and is expected to go over $40 trillion next year. Experts are warning that the latest increase in military spending will likely add at least another trillion to the already rapidly growing debt and that budget cuts are yet to affect the Pentagon, adding that the US military “does precisely nothing to defend the USA” and that it “exclusively interferes in other countries”.
And indeed, Trump’s reshuffling at the Pentagon was largely political and never affected its financing. Worse yet, he also supports continued US aggression in the Middle East, where a war with Iran is looming. In addition, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wants to expand the US nuclear sharing policy.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Disaster in the Making: Secretary of State Rubio Proclaims the US Should Spend Five Percent of GDP on ‘Defense’
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | April 12, 2025
Since his first term, we have grown used to President Donald Trump badgering governments of fellow NATO countries to increase their “defense” spending to five percent of their respective GDPs. Quote marks are used in the preceding sentence because such spending by these governments, or the US, will largely be used for offense, feeding the military-industrial complex, and other purposes far removed from defense.
So far, fellow NATO members have steered clear of achieving this spending goal. Their residents should be happy that is the case as the money can instead be left in their pockets or at least be hoped to be spent by government on something that may provide them with some benefit instead of furthering death and destruction — butter, not guns.
Interestingly, the US government, despite all its hectoring, has also refrained from reaching that five percent of GDP figure for its spending on the Department of Defense. The targeted spending level would come in at nearly double current spending on what is already a top area of government spending. That increase would drop down some if various spending beyond the Defense Department spending is included as “defense” spending.
Comments made last week by US Secretary of Defense Marco Rubio indicated the goal is for the US to also reach this spending level. Rubio declared ahead of a NATO meeting that “we do want to leave here with an understanding that we are on a pathway, a realistic pathway, to every single one of the [NATO] members committing and fulfilling a promise to reach up to five percent of spending; that includes the United States will have to increase its percentage.”
Hopefully, this is just talk. To follow through on this course would be to invite disaster.
With a huge and growing debt, the US cannot afford the increase. Such an increase will help bring the nation more quickly toward financial disaster. It will likely even help ensure increased spending in other areas as was experienced during the Ronald Reagan administration when the executive branch bargained with legislators for more military spending by agreeing to increased spending in other areas too.
More war can be expected as a result as well. The temptation for politicians to use a “new and improved” military brought into being by the increased spending would be immense.
More debt and more war is a literally killer combination for America.
The fix is in for new Air Force F-47 — and so is the failure
By Andrew Cockburn | Responsible Statecraft | April 7, 2025
If and when it finally comes to be written decades from now, an honest history of the F-47 “fighter” recently unveiled by President Trump will doubtless have much to say about the heroic lobbying campaign that garnered the $20 billion development contract for Boeing, the corporation that has become a byword for program disasters (see the KC-46 tanker, the Starliner spacecraft, the 737 MAX airliner, not to mention the T-7 trainer.)
Boeing, which is due to face trial in June on well-merited federal charges of criminal fraud, was clearly in line for a bailout. But such succor was by no means inevitable given recent doubts from Air Force officials about proceeding with another manned fighter program at all.
“You’ve never seen anything like this,” said Trump in the March Oval Office ceremony announcing the contract award.
Well, of course we have, most obviously in recent times with the ill-starred F-35. Recall that in 2001 the Pentagon announced that the F-35 program would cost $200 billion and would enter service in 2008. Almost a quarter century later, acquisition costs have doubled, the total program price is nudging $2 trillion, and engineers are still struggling to make the thing work properly.
Thus, succeeding chapters of the F-47’s history will likely have to cover the galloping cost overruns, unfulfilled technological promises, ever-lengthening schedule shortfalls, and ultimate production cancellation when only a portion of the force had been built.
There seems little risk in predicting the F-47 — “a beautiful number,” said the 47th president — will follow the same dollar-strewn path. As Trump truthfully remarked, “we can’t tell you the price.” And don’t imagine that, if the development phase reveals that the program can’t fulfill any or most of its projected requirements, the Air Force will call it a day and kill the program. The official Air Force press release accompanying the announcement states: “This phase will produce a small number of test aircraft for evaluation. The contract also includes competitively priced options for low-rate initial production.”
In other words, the fix is in. “Low rate initial production” means that subcontracts will be spread across the political landscape, ensuring the creation of an unstoppable lobby preventing any future effort to strangle this boondoggle in its cradle.
For confirmation, look only at the F-35, 1,000 or so copies of which were cranked out before Lockheed got the go-ahead for full-scale production. In confident anticipation that nothing will interrupt the production cycle, Boeing has invested a reported $2 billion in expanding production facilities at its St. Louis, Missouri, plant, where production of the F-15EX (a costly version of the venerable F-15, originally gold-plated to sell to the Qataris) is due to end this year.
Extolling the plane’s advertised virtues, Trump singled out its presumed invisibility to radar. “America’s enemies will never see it coming,” he said.
Stealth has indeed been the holy grail of aerospace development ever since the days when Jimmy Carter sought to kill the B-1 bomber program in favor of the F-117 stealth bomber. (We did of course end up buying both.) Claims for this technology appeared to be justified when Lockheed’s F-117 diminutive bomber was advertised as having effortlessly penetrated Iraqi air defenses undetected on the first night of the 1991 Gulf War.
Only later did a GAO report reveal that in fact the planes had required the protection of a fleet of electronic warfare planes, and they missed most of their assigned targets, and furthermore failed to destroy Saddam’s air-defense network as claimed.
In the 1999 Kosovo war, the Serbs managed to knock down one F-117 and severely damage another using clever tactics and a modified ancient Soviet SAM missile system. Nowadays both the Chinese and Russians claim to have developed technologies to detect stealth intruders — there are even claims that the Chinese system could passively employ signals from Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink satellite array!
Nevertheless, the F-47 designers have clearly prioritized stealth, despite the fact that obligatory features, such as carrying all bombs and missiles internally, enlarge the fuselage. Hence the large nose-on profile, apparent even in the uninformative images so far released. This militates against aerodynamic performance and maneuverability, unfortunate deficiencies for a fighter.
Such carping aside, the most notable feature of the F-47 program is that it will purportedly not fly alone, but be accompanied by unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or drones, “as many as you want,” according to Trump. The Air Force plans to buy 1,000 of them, at around $30 million a pop.
Under the overall direction of the F-47 pilot, they will in theory at least be able to engage enemy planes, attack targets on the ground, or perform reconnaissance. Two contractors, General Atomics and Anduril, are already competing for the initial CCA contract and have been displaying mockups of their candidates at trade shows since last year while hurling insults at each other via social media and the trade press.
“Anduril is the Theranos of defense,” jibed General Atomics spokesman Mark Brinkley during the Air Force Association jamboree in Washington D.C. last September, referencing the infamous Palo Alto startup that fraudulently claimed to perform comprehensive medical diagnostics from a single drop of blood. Both contestants are supposed to put prototypes in the air this summer.
Pentagon insiders are not impressed either with the concept or at least progress to date. One veteran observer of technologically ambitious programs suggested to me that the Air Force staff officers supervising the CCA program may be easy prey for the contractors.
“They’re not nearly skeptical enough about General Atomics or Anduril. I don’t see any of the skepticism they should be exhibiting for pouring out this kind of money,” the observer said.
Hopefully, these glib enthusiasts will be mulling the problems associated with the software required to enable an F-47 “quarterback” pilot to oversee the operations of the wingmen drones. After all, their peers in the F-35 program are still struggling with “Technology Refresh-3,” the latest (failing) effort to make the plane’s software work adequately. Mulling other inevitable problems facing an F-47 in combat, such as surviving enemy efforts “to find you, track you, and kill you” before getting into position to deploy the unmanned aircraft with their missile loads
“I don’t know why we’re doing it, I don’t get it,” the observer concluded.
Last December, then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall suggested that the Air Force might not be able to afford a next-generation fighter as well as the collaborative drone, in addition to a next-generation refueling tanker, and that “we have to get somewhat creative…to meet the threat.” As it turned out, no creativity at all was required, as the history books will most assuredly record.
Maidan and Odessa – The West’s Ukrainian Massacres
By Sonja van den Ende | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 12, 2025
In 2016 and 2017, I was invited by the families of the victims of the 2014 Odessa Trade Union House massacre to document this atrocity. The slaughter on May 2, 2014, received little – if any – attention in Western media. Over 40 people were burned alive after a mob of neo-Nazi hooligans, backed by the West, attacked peaceful protesters demonstrating against the fascist regime installed in Kiev. This regime was the product of a 2013 coup d’état orchestrated by the U.S. and its EU accomplices, branded as the “Maidan Revolution.” By 2014, its violence had spread to Odessa.
The Mothers of Odessa – echoing Argentina’s Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo – sought justice for the massacre. Like the Argentine mothers who protested the disappearances under military dictatorship, they demanded accountability for May 2, a day the West has long buried in silence – because it was complicit in Kiev’s coup and, indirectly, Odessa’s tragedy.
That day, a football match between Kharkov’s Metalist and Odessa’s Chornomorets had drawn hooligans, including followers of Andriy Parubiy – a self-proclaimed admirer of Hitler’s national socialism. Many of these neo-Nazis later joined the Azov Regiment, entrenching themselves in Mariupol’s Azovstal plant. But on May 2, 2014, they descended on the Trade Union House, slaughtering 42 protesters.
Parubiy, a fascist and neo-Nazi, would later ascend to Ukraine’s political elite, serving as Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council and Speaker of Parliament. He was warmly received by EU officials, including Victoria Nuland, even as he pushed laws banning Russian, Crimean Tatar, Romanian, and Hungarian in official spheres.
In March 2025, the European Court of Human Rights finally ruled on the case – eleven years late. It found Ukraine guilty of failing to investigate and awarded each victim’s family a meagre €14,000 in damages. The court also condemned Kiev for delaying the return of one victim’s body to his family. A token verdict for state-sanctioned murder.
The police and judiciary’s refusal to act in Odessa mirrored the Maidan massacre in February 2014, where fascist gunmen – backed by the U.S. and EU – fired on protesters from the Hotel Ukraina, sparking chaos to enable the coup. Among the orchestrators were EU figures like the late Dutch politician Hans van Baalen (VVD) and Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt, who incited the mob with inflammatory speeches.
Recent revelations expose the role of Georgian mercenary Mamuka Mamulashvili and U.S. sniper Brian Christopher Boyenger, a former US Army soldier. Both apparently helped lead the group of snipers who fired on the protesters from the Ukraina hotel in Kiev during the Maidan coup.
It’s worth noting that these efforts were likely supported – and possibly encouraged – by former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Mamuka Mamulashvili, who served as a senior military advisor to Saakashvili, played a key role in what was termed the “revolution” in Ukraine. Saakashvili’s involvement bore fruit: on May 30, 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appointed him governor of Odessa. To assume the role, Saakashvili took Ukrainian citizenship, renouncing his Georgian ties. However, in 2017, his Ukrainian citizenship was revoked, leaving him stateless and residing in the Netherlands. Later, President Volodymyr Zelensky reinstated Saakashvili’s citizenship and, in May 2020, appointed him head of Ukraine’s National Reform Council. In 2021, Saakashvili returned to Georgia, where he was arrested on corruption charges and remains imprisoned.
Mamuka Mamulashvili has led the Georgian Legion, a military unit fighting against Russia in Ukraine, and is wanted by Russian authorities. Likely recruited between 2013 and 2014, Mamulashvili allegedly served American interests, including acting as a sniper in Kiev during that period. His involvement spans decades of conflicts in the Caucasus, including wars in Abkhazia, Chechnya, South Ossetia, and now Ukraine, where he commands the Georgian Legion.
A recent report highlighted American fighters returning from Ukraine, bringing violence home. One such figure, Brian Christopher Boyenger, served with the Right Sector in Ukraine during the summer of 2016. Boyenger appeared in a Ukrainian documentary aired in April 2016, alongside another American, showcasing their combat roles. A former sniper with the U.S. 101st Airborne Division in Iraq, Boyenger later joined the 2014 Maidan events in Kiev as a sniper.
The conflict in Ukraine didn’t begin with Russia’s Special Military Operation in 2022 but traces back to the 2013 coup, often labelled a “revolution.” This event, one of many U.S.-backed regime changes – frequently in collaboration with the EU – spiralled out of control. The West believed it had Russia cornered, expecting NATO’s expansion to Ukraine would weaken Moscow. The U.S. and Europe anticipated an easy victory in this proxy war, pushing toward Odessa to spark another uprising. They overlooked Odessa’s predominantly Russian-speaking population, miscalculating the city’s loyalties. The ultimate aim was regime change in Russia, a goal partially achieved in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Yet Ukraine exposed the limits of Western hubris, costing countless lives since 1945. Europe now faces decline, no longer aligned with the “MAGA” vision of America.
The “Make America Great Again” movement prioritizes self-interest but hasn’t abandoned imperialism. It backs Zionism – a colonial project since 1948 – in Israel and seeks global dominance through commerce, though it shuns investment in Gaza, as Trump recently stated. America now operates like a ruthless corporation, trading overt wars for business deals while still fuelling conflicts in Palestine, Syria, and Yemen. Europe, meanwhile, reels from its defeat in Ukraine, fearing an eventual war with Russia – perhaps by 2030, some speculate.
The scars endure in Odessa, Kharkov, Mariupol, and Volnovakha, where war has claimed countless loved ones. Calls for peace echo loudly, yet for the residents of Russia’s four new regions, peace remains elusive. They know who fired the shots: Western proxies, including Americans and Europeans, with the latter still clinging to the path of conflict.
Here’s why the AfD is destined for the German government
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | April 12, 2025
Germany has an undeserved reputation for dour rationality and lacking an appreciation of the absurd. In reality, however, Germany is a – for want of nicer terms – very counterintuitive country.
If you are running a regime in Kiev (at least according to the official story) and blow up Germany’s vital energy infrastructure, Germans will say thank you and throw money and arms at you, while also helping you blame someone else (the Russians, of course: Germany has never been an imaginative country).
If you are in Washington and certainly had a hand in blowing up that infrastructure, and then go on to fleece the Germans by selling LNG at a high cost and promoting their deindustrialization by filching their companies, good Germans get very, very angry – at China.
If you happen to be the single most popular and perfectly legal political party in Germany, get ready to never be allowed to actually participate in governing. Because Germany is also a country in which that single most popular party – the Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, commonly known simply as AfD) – is locked out of building governing coalitions. By definition.
That system is called a “firewall” – against that nasty most popular party that makes life so difficult for all those other, no longer popular parties. It has absolutely no basis in the constitution or in law.
Come to think of it, as the “firewall” systematically and deliberately treats the votes of AfD voters as somehow less effective than those of others, it may well be the “firewall” itself that is unconstitutional, at least in spirit if not even by the letter of the law. So much for Germany, the country that allegedly loves order and rules.
In reality, the “firewall” amounts to a dirty political cartel and a form of disenfranchisement: The traditional parties, feeling threatened by the insurgent AfD have simply decided that they do not care what the voters say and won’t have anything to do with it. Since German governments are virtually always based on coalitions, which means that the AfD and its voters are treated as inferior. That this means that, as of now, in particular voters in the former East Germany are subject to this kind of discrimination, adding a West-East aspect to it that sits very badly with talk about German unity.
To get one thing out of the way: For now, it is only one poll that shows the AfD in the lead; other polls still have it in (barely) second place after the mainstream conservatives of the CDU/CSU bloc (which, in reality, functions as one party) of soon-to-be chancellor Friedrich Merz. But these differences are irrelevant. What matters is that the AfD’s rising trend is unbroken. That is definitely a blow to Merz, even before he has officially assumed office, as international observers are noting. Especially in view of the fact that Merz’s own poll numbers are cratering at the same time.
Yet there is a broader point, too: The whole “firewall” strategy is malfunctioning extremely badly. Sensible observers have long predicted it, and now it is becoming ever more obvious: Freezing the AfD out only serves to make it stronger.
One thing that does not make Berlin’s ruling parties, the CDU and SPD, any more popular is that they have concluded their negotiations on how to divvy up the spoils of ministries and other goodies. Indeed, it is extremely embarrassing for the new governing coalition of conservatives and Social-Democrats (SPD) that the most recent AfD milestone breakthrough is happening now. It is a coincidence from hell: there they are, the traditional parties, seemingly safe behind their “firewall” and all ready to go, and the voters – uncouth as they can be – show them just how unpopular they are.
Germans expect little from them, even now: A fresh poll shows that two thirds do not believe that things will change under the new coalition of tired old parties.
Note that most Germans have been deeply unhappy with the status quo, as we also know from recent polls: In February, Ipsos found that the general mood was “as bad as never before.” Only 17 percent of citizens – less than a fifth – believed their country was “on a good trajectory.” The other 83 percent were not indifferent or neutral but felt Germany was on the “wrong” trajectory. Even for a nation with something of a culture of angst and doom, those are atrocious figures.
Hence, expecting no change now amounts to deep pessimism: Germans have felt for a while already that they are in dire trouble; and a preponderant majority thinks that that is where they will be stuck under new old management as well.
A senior AfD leader, Alexander Gauland, is already more than confident: “It’s a natural law that we’ll be ahead of the CDU at the next elections,” he recently declared. That may be jinxing it. The AfD is, after all, much less unlike other parties than the latter like to pretend: The AfD as well may end up squandering its current good luck with infighting, for instance, over how to react to US President Donald Trump’s tariff attacks, which will severely harm Germany.
Yet there is no doubt that the traditional parties are doing their utmost to repel not only voters but even their own members. In particular Merz’s CDU is in barely contained rebellion: its members and voters are fuming at having voted conservative and yet being saddled with a massive deficit spending program. The pretext that all of this is needed because of – drum roll – Big Bad Russia is not dampening down the anger.
One local CDU organization has already rebelled openly. In the state of Sachsen-Anhalt, formerly part of East Germany, CDU members from the Harz district have gone public with an official resolution making two points and one demand: There is “massive” unrest among the CDU’s base of ordinary party members, and in Germany’s “East,” that is, what used to be the former German Democratic Republic, the CDU has decisively lost the last federal elections. The demand is to tear down the so-called “firewall” against the AfD and start collaborating with it systematically. It is symptomatic that this very local rebellion is making news all over the country.
“What a scandal! Opening the gates to the far right!” many will scream. Yet they have it all upside down: Disregarding the fact that, in reality, the CDU/CSU conservatives and the AfD mostly see eye-to-eye ideologically, one day, in the not so far away future, the AfD may well enter and perhaps even dominate a German government. The irony is that when that happens, those who have upheld the, frankly, moronic “firewall” will have only themselves to blame. Because the real question is not if the AfD will enter government in Berlin but how and, in particular, how strong. The longer the “firewall” is kept up, the more likely the AfD will not just participate but dominate.
Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory
Ukraine’s Kursk Incursion Robbed Western Taxpayers of $7.8Bln in Lost Military Equipment
Sputnik – 12.04.2025
MOSCOW – Kiev lost in the Kursk Region 5,500 units of equipment supplied by the West worth $7.8 billion, Sputnik calculations based on the data provided by the Russian Sever group of forces, as well as on the data on the equipment’s cost from open sources revealed on Saturday.
Earlier Sputnik, on the basis of the data from the Russian Sever group of forces calculated that during the hostilities in the Kursk Region Kiev spent more than $27 billion, which is more than half of all foreign financial aid received by Ukraine from Western countries in 2024.
According to open sources, the average cost of a tank is $4.5 million, a self-propelled artillery unit – $4 million, an APC – $300,000, a BMP – $600,000, etc. The total value of the trophy equipment destroyed and taken by the Russian Armed Forces was calculated by Sputnik and amounted to about $7.8 billion.’
“Part of the allocated funds was spent by the Ukrainian armed forces for supplemental staffing and partial repairs before sending the equipment into combat operations,” the Sever group of forces said.
Ukraine Could Be Sabotaging Agreements by Violating Moratorium with Strikes on Energy Facilities
Sputnik – 12.04.2025
MOSCOW – Kiev’s strikes on energy facilities are carried out either because there was no order to halt them or because the order was not followed, Director of the Second Department of CIS Countries of the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexey Polishchuk told Sputnik in an interview out on Saturday.
“This can be happening for two reasons. Either Kiev did not give the order to cease shelling, or the order is not being followed. Both of these reasons are extremely worrying,” Polishchuk said.
If there was no order given, then we are dealing with deliberate sabotage of agreements, Polishchuk also said.
“If it [the order] is not implemented, then the Kiev authorities are failing to control their own military,” Polishchuk added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone call with US President Donald Trump on March 18. Trump put forward a proposal for the parties to the conflict to mutually refrain from strikes on energy infrastructure facilities for 30 days. Putin supported this initiative. Later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would support the proposal to stop attacks on energy infrastructure.
Since the agreement on a 30-day moratorium on strikes against energy facilities was reached, Kiev has violated it more than 60 times, Alexey Polishchuk added.
“The Kiev regime is indeed maliciously violating the 30-day moratorium on strikes on energy facilities, which was agreed upon on March 18 by the presidents of Russia and the United States [Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump] and then supported by [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy,” Polishchuk said.
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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