Zelensky uses martial law to avoid election
RT | July 26, 2023
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on Wednesday proposed to extend the state of emergency, thereby effectively canceling the parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
Zelensky announced martial law on February 24, 2022, and has been extending it ever since. The most recent 90-day extension was announced on May 20, and is due to expire on August 18. If the Verkhovna Rada approves Zelensky’s latest request, this will see the emergency extended through November 15.
Ukrainian law calls for parliamentary elections no later than October 29, with a 60-day campaign season starting on August 28. However, it also forbids campaigning and voting during martial law. Another extension would cut into the campaign season for the presidential elections, currently scheduled for March 2024.
“If we have martial law, we cannot have elections. The constitution prohibits any elections during martial law,” Zelensky announced in May. The following month, he told the BBC that “elections need to happen in a time of peace, when there is no fighting.”
Some of Ukraine’s supporters in Europe and North America have been critical of the possible cancellation of elections. Ukraine should prepare for a vote as soon as possible, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) head ‘Tiny’ Kox said in an interview in May.
“Although democracy is far more than only elections, I think we all agree that without the elections, democracy cannot properly function,” Kox said at the time.
Zelensky ran on a peace platform in 2019 and won with 73% of the vote. Soon thereafter, his newly formed party – named after the TV show in which he played a fictional president of Ukraine – won a supermajority in the Verkhovna Rada as well. By late 2020, he had pivoted away from the notion of peace in Donbass and began to openly talk about a military solution for “occupied territories.”
Within three months of the conflict with Russia escalating, in May 2022, Zelensky enacted a law that allowed him to ban any political parties merely accused of being “pro-Russian,” without any right to appeal. He has outlawed a dozen parties since then, including the formerly largest parliamentary opposition bloc.
Earlier this month, the Federal Intelligence Service of Switzerland accused Zelensky of attempting to “politically eliminate” Kiev mayor Vitaly Klitschko ahead of next year’s presidential election. The FIS cited “credible intelligence” to say that Zelensky was “showing authoritarian traits” which may lead to Western pressure, according to a classified report leaked to the outlet NZZ.
UK Blocks Ukrainian Orthodox Priest’s Testimony at UN Security Council
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 26.07.2023
London prevented the religious leader from delivering his first-hand experience of repression against the church in Ukraine.
“Today is an extremely sad moment for the UN Security Council, as well as for the international community as a whole,” said Dmitry Polyansky, first deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation in the UN.
“Western delegations actually agreed with the repressive policy of the Kiev regime against the canonical Orthodoxy. This is a clear evidence of blatant double standards in matters concerning freedom of expression, religion, and in general all those ideals that they preach. Your decision to block the participation of an Orthodox clergyman in accordance with the prerogatives of the president of the UN Security Council is clear evidence of how London treats ideals and how easily it is ready to give them up for the sake of narrowly selfish, petty attempts to prick Russia.”
The UK holds the 15-nation organ’s rotating presidency for July 2023.
Earlier, on July 18, Russia called for a meeting of the UNSC on Ukraine for July 26, in particular on the topic of repression against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
On the same day, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Moscow would raise the issue of the persecution of the vicegerent of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Bishop Pavel, at the upcoming meeting of the UN Security Council.
On July 14, a Kiev court changed the measure of restraint for Metropolitan Pavel from round-the-clock house arrest to detention until August 14.
For his part, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia called on the UN, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and heads of churches, including Pope Francis, to protect the vicegerent of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
Earlier this month Pope Francis responded to the appeal of Patriarch Kirill and spoke against politically motivated arrests in Ukraine.
The Kiev regime started to exert pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 2022. Ukrainian authorities gave an ultimatum to the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra to vacate the monastery’s premises until March 29 under the pretext of allegedly violating the terms of the lease – jurisdiction over which is divided between the National Kiev-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Preserve, a Ukrainian secular organization and the UOC. Lavra monks condemned the eviction order as illegal as it was not backed by a court decision. As they resisted the Kiev regime’s attempts to expel them from the monastery, the Ukrainian authorities resorted to persecution.
Other Ukrainian Orthodox priests have also been subjected to pressure from the Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian law enforcement officers searched the homes of bishops and priests, churches and monasteries, including the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in order to find traces of “anti-Ukrainian activities.”
West ‘Torpedoed’ Ukraine Peace ‘Because We Want War With Russia’ – RFK Jr.
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 26.07.2023
There is no chance of Russia losing the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine, the West fomented the conflict and a peace agreement is needed immediately to prevent further bloodshed, Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said.
“Russia’s not gonna lose this war. Russia can’t afford this – it’d be like us losing a war to Mexico. They are not gonna lose the war,” Kennedy said, speaking at a televised town hall Tuesday night.
“Go look at what Russia did in Stalingrad in order to preserve its territorial integrity. Russia’s been invaded three times through the Ukraine. The last time, Hitler killed one out of every seven Russians. They’re 400 miles from Moscow. We already have Aegis missile systems within 12 minutes of Moscow. We wouldn’t tolerate that if the Russians did it [like] in 1962 when they put them in Cuba,” the candidate added, referencing the Cuban Missile Crisis, during which time his late uncle, John F. Kennedy, was president.
US Sabotaged Peace
“The more disturbing thing,” Kennedy said, “is that on two occasions the Russians tried to sign a peace agreement with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky,” and both times the West sabotaged it.
The candidate pointed to the 2015 Minsk Agreements, which Zelensky expressed interest in before being talked out of it by the US in 2019, and the 2022 draft peace deal reached after talks in Belarus and Turkiye.
“In 2019, France Germany and Russia all agreed to the Minsk Accords. That year, Zelensky ran for president. He was a comedian. He had no political experience. Why did he win? Because he ran on one issue: signing the Minsk Accords. As soon has he got in there, Victoria Nuland and the White House told him he couldn’t do it,” Kennedy recalled.
“Then,” in February 2022, he noted, Russia sent “40,000 troops in. That’s not enough to conquer the country. Clearly, [Putin] wanted somebody to come to the negotiating table.” Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Istanbul, hammering out a draft peace deal. After that, “Putin in good faith began withdrawing troops from Ukraine. What happened? We sent Boris Johnson over there to torpedo it. Because we don’t want peace, we want war with Russia,” RFK Jr. stressed.
Road to Perdition
The Democratic politician also pointed out that the current crisis has its origins in the end of the Cold War.
“We promised in 1992, the Russian leadership said… ‘We’re gonna withdraw 400,000 troops from East Germany and we’re gonna allow you to reunite Germany under NATO,’ which is a hostile army. That’s a huge concession for them. ‘One commitment that we want,’ is what the Russians said, ‘is that you will not move NATO to the east.’ James Baker, who was then secretary of state under [George H.W.] Bush, famously promised ‘We will not move NATO one inch to the east.’ Well since then, we’ve moved it 1,000 miles and 14 countries. Now when we started that plan in 1997, Bill Perry, who was the secretary of defense under the Clinton administration, said ‘If you move NATO to the east, I am resigning because you are forcing the Russians to come to war with us.’ George Kennan, who’s the most important diplomat in American history, the architect of the containment policy [after] World War II, said the same thing. You do not need to make an enemy out of Russia,” Kennedy said.
Since announcing his run for the presidency in April, RFK Jr. has been the single most outspoken critic of the Russia-NATO proxy war in Ukraine in the Democratic Party, and like former Republican President Donald Trump, has promised to bring the conflict to a close if elected president.
The 69-year-old candidate, who is currently polling at 16 percent, is a veteran environmental lawyer and the son of assassinated former US Attorney General and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. RFK Jr. has enjoyed a groundswell of support among Democrats, Republican, and independents amid his refusal to play party politics, but has been smeared by media and largely ignored by the Democratic establishment as an “anti-vaxxer” and “conspiracy theorist.” Kennedy has rejected these claims and accused the establishment of trying to silence him.
Europe’s “48°C Horror That Never Was”…ESA, Media Sharply Criticized For Manipulative Reporting
“The most intense climate lie”: Last week it was all over the news: Temperatures in southern Europe skyrocketing to 48°C! But none of it was true.
By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | July 19, 2023
Surface temperature chart: European Space Agency (ESA)
The hysteria was started when climate sensationalist media outlets in Germany and elsewhere, like the Relotius Spiegel, uncritically cited a sloppily and manipulatively formulated July 13 report from the European Space Agency (ESA), that first referred to “air” temperature:
Temperatures are sizzling across Europe this week amid an intense and prolonged period of heat. And it’s only just begun. Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland are all facing a major heatwave with air temperatures expected to climb to 48°C on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia – potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.”
The original ESA report continued, only later specifying that it was in fact referring to surface temperature (emphasis added):
The animation below uses data from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission’s radiometer instrument and shows the land surface temperature across Italy between 9 and 10 July. As the image clearly shows, in some cities the surface of the land exceeded 45°C, including Rome, Naples, Taranto and Foggia. Along the east slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily, many temperatures were recorded as over 50°C.”
Meant here were not the standard temperatures recorded at 2 meters above ground level that we always here in daily weather reports, which are much cooler, but rather those right at the ground surface. That crucial difference went totally unnoticed by media and journalists, who reported of new record high temperatures. By the time the ploy was exposed by careful readers, the news had already gone around the world.
Yesterday, the ESA issued a (vague) clarification explaining the difference between surface and air temperature at 2 meters above ground, yet continued to mislead:
Land surface temperature is how hot the ‘surface’ of Earth feels to the touch. Air temperature, given in our daily weather forecasts, is a measure of how hot the air is above the ground.”
The ESA did not bother to mention how the surface temperature is much hotter than the 2 meter air temperature.
“Most intense climate lie”
“What we experienced over the past days was most intense climate lie since temperature recording began,” reported Germany’s Achtung Reichelt on the implications of the ESA’s sloppy, manipulative press release and the media firestorm that ensued: “The problem with that report is that none of it is true.”
In Sicily the temperature reached only 32°C over the weekend – a far cry from 48°C, which illustrates the great difference between ground surface temperature and readings taken 2 meters above the ground.
Once the trickery was exposed, Spiegel quietly changed the wording in its July 14 report.
How The BBC’s Heatwave Colour Schemes Have Changed
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | July 24, 2023
Note how the BBC has subtly changed its colour scheme since 2019:
https://twitter.com/banthebbc/status/1680950248183660545
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-66207430
Still, at least the BBC have not gone for blacks, as Sky News have:
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-weather-parts-of-country-could-see-months-worth-of-rainfall-this-weekend-12924166
FM says China’s move ‘based on facts and reason’ as Japan complains of China tightening seafood imports due to nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping plan
By Wang Qi | Global Times | July 20, 2023
The Chinese government puts people first, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, noting that China’s opposition to Japan’s ocean discharge plan is based on facts and reason, after Japan recently complained that China had tightened radiation testing on its seafood imports, and some Japanese seafood had reportedly been “held up” at China’s customs due to Tokyo’s nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping plan.
At a press briefing on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning urged Japan to “heed the call of the international community, stop pushing through the discharge plan, engage in full, sincere consultations with its neighbors, dispose of the nuclear-contaminated water in a responsible way and accept rigorous international oversight.”
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Wednesday that there have been cases of Japanese seafood exports “being held up by China,” along with Japanese media reports saying that China has ramped up efforts to test “all seafood imports from Japan for radiation.”
Earlier on July 7, China’s customs announced a ban on imports of food from Japan’s Fukushima and nine other regions, as Japan makes final preparations to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean.
Mao said Thursday that “Our job is to be responsible for the health of our people and the marine environment. Our opposition to Japan’s ocean discharge plan is based on facts and reason, so are the measures that we have decided to take.”
According to Japanese media outlet Asahi Shimbum, China is Japan’s largest seafood destination, accounting for 87.1 billion yen ($624 million) in imports.
Many people from Japan and most of its neighboring countries, including China, are against Tokyo’s irresponsible plan to dump the nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean.
A recent Japanese poll by Kyodo News showed 80.3 percent of respondents said they felt the explanation provided by the Japanese government on dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater was insufficient.
More than 80 percent of respondents in 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region except for Japan said Japan’s plan to dump nuclear-contaminated water into the sea is “irresponsible,” a survey conducted by the Global Times Research Center found recently.
A Gallup Korea survey from June shows that 78 percent of those polled said they were very or somewhat worried about contamination of seafood, according to a CNN report.
The obstruction of Japan’s seafood exports is entirely self-inflicted, Lü Chao, the director of Institute of US and East Asian Studies under Liaoning University, told the Global Times on Thursday.
Trying to shift local fishermen’s anger toward the Japanese government to neighboring countries exposed Tokyo as having no sense of decency and its ill intentions, Lü noted.
The Japanese government recently used various multilateral diplomatic occasions, including the NATO summit, to justify its plan, and gave signs that it will not postpone the hazardous dumping.
Mao criticized Tokyo’s move as a global PR campaign. She said that the legitimacy and safety of Japan’s nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumpling plan have been questioned by the international community, and no matter how much the Japanese side tries, it cannot whitewash the plan, and the protests of neighboring countries and the voices of doubt in Japan are clear evidence of this.
“If the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water is truly safe, Japan wouldn’t have to dump it into the sea—and certainly shouldn’t if it’s not,” Mao said.
Dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean will seriously damage Japan’s national image and its people’s interests, Lü said, “More countries may take more stricter measures or even reject Japanese seafood imports in the future, as it’s very obvious that radioactive elements can cause long-term damage to human.”
More deception by The Lancet
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | July 24, 2023
In March, The Lancet published a paper “Excess mortality attributed to heat and cold: a health impact assessment study in 854 cities in Europe”.
Despite all the doom-mongering, the paper reported what we all know – the cold kills far more people than the heat does. In fact, it kills around 10 times more people. In the 854 urban areas in Europe, 203,620 people died from the cold and 20,173 from the heat. This corresponds to 129 per 100,000 person-years for the cold and 13 per 100,000 person-years for the heat.
But there is a narrative to maintain – the world is burning up.
So, when presenting their results, the chart that was shown was as follows:
It looks as though heat deaths are almost as bad as cold deaths. However, if you look closely, that’s because they have changed the axis for the heat related excess death rate.
When the axis on the right is redrawn (h/t Bjorn Lomborg) so that it is the same as the one on the left, you get a chart that looks like this.
But I guess that isn’t as scary and won’t stop you driving your car or going on holiday.
German deindustrialization continues unabated due to Berlin’s suicidal energy policies
By Drago Bosnic | July 26, 2023
For close to a year and a half, the German economy has been going through a sort of unraveling, primarily due to suicidal subservience to its masters in Washington DC. Since the start of Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, Berlin has been experiencing a plethora of major economic problems that soon translated to societal and political ones, causing further instability in the country. In turn, this has started causing issues with investments and the overall business climate in Germany, as relevant people and companies started losing confidence in Berlin’s capacity to keep its economy stable.
“The German economy is losing its DNA as a place to do business and foreign investors are keeping their distance, instead focusing their attention on developing markets as a result,” Toralf Haag, the CEO of German Voith Group, warned.
Haag, the head of the German technology company, gave an interview to Die Welt, in which he discussed the rapidly emerging economic problems affecting Germany. He told the newspaper that his Voith Group has been able to weather the storm so far and protect itself from the recession the German economy has been in since the last quarter. However, Haag also expressed worry regarding the German economy’s future, specifically in terms of competitiveness, energy security and foreign investment. He complained about “Germany’s aggressive energy transition away from traditional energy production such as coal and nuclear to renewables”, calling it “problematic”.
“There are ambitious goals, but only insufficient incentives and support to be able to achieve these goals. What we need is less bureaucracy, faster approval procedures and faster implementation. The way it is currently running, it will not work in the long run,” Haag stated.
When asked about the current state of business and investment opportunities in Germany, he wasn’t very optimistic, not only about the prospects for his company (based in Heidenheim, operating primarily in energy, automotive and paper industries), but the overall situation.
“Investment decisions in Germany are becoming increasingly difficult,” Haag said, adding: “To be honest, at the moment we tend to choose Eastern Europe, Asia or the USA when it comes to new production facilities because the costs for energy and personnel are particularly high in Germany while at the same time bureaucracy and regulation are increasing.”
He lamented that the Voith Group was forced to hire another 30 people in the management in the last year or two just to be able to handle all the new regulations and obligations introduced due to the ever-growing red tape.
“I would like to invite the employees from the ministries to check what effect their specifications have directly inside a company – whether they are practicable and sensible. In order for Voith to make significant investments in Germany again, the framework conditions must change fundamentally. Unfortunately, I don’t see that at the moment,” Haag stated.
He said that the danger of Germany’s further deindustrialization is “very great”, primarily because of the reduction of industrial activity due to the tendency of many German companies to relocate to other countries.
“We now see almost every day that industrial companies are no longer investing in Germany but in other regions of the world. Administration and engineering may remain in Germany, but production, which is particularly valuable for an economy, is increasingly taking place elsewhere,” Haag complained, further adding: “As a result, the German economy is not only losing its DNA but also any potential for the future. With its well-paid jobs, industry is the guarantor of prosperity. The prosperity achieved so far cannot be maintained with administrative jobs and the service sector alone.”
Indeed, Germany’s deindustrialization is an ongoing process that is virtually irreversible at this point. Haag’s concerns are backed by the official data and statistics on the actual state of Germany’s economy, particularly its industrial capacity. German industry has always been the main driving force of its economy, particularly its automotive and high-tech industries, all of which are highly dependent on stable energy supplies. However, while Haag blamed the obsessive transition to alternative energy sources (particularly renewables) for the major issues Germany is experiencing, he failed to mention Berlin’s subservience to Washington DC and the resulting halt in Russian energy imports.
The results have been catastrophic, to say the least. Last week’s survey by the BVMW (Federal Association of Medium-Sized Businesses) showed that over a quarter (26%) of all CEOs of medium-sized German companies are considering shutting down their businesses, while over a fifth (22%) have expressed readiness to move their companies abroad. The reasons cited for such decisions were largely the same as those mentioned by the Voith Group’s CEO. As a result, the country’s industrial output experienced a dramatic plunge in the first quarter, including a drop of nearly 11% in March alone, the largest monthly reduction in years. In addition, the growing inflation (currently standing at 6.8%) is exacerbating the problem.
By February this year, Germany has experienced a “price shock” of over 40% due to its anti-Russian sanctions policies, in what can only be described as perhaps the worst case of a boomerang effect in the history of Western sanctions warfare against the world. Russian energy imports were probably the best possible energy source for Germany, particularly as Berlin was trying to increase the share of renewables in its energy production. These imports made it possible to rely on natural gas as a relatively clean source, while renewables played an auxiliary role. However, with the suicidal anti-Russian sanctions in place, as well as the US terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, Germany’s energy security was gone virtually overnight.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
It’s Past Time to be Honest About Israel
The deliberate corruption of American politics by an irresponsible foreign state must end
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JULY 25, 2023
One might think that since Honest Joe Biden declared his latest war entitled the US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism in May the media has certainly taken up the task of exposing evil in these United States by reporting every affront to Jewish groups or individuals and to the Jewish state, Israel. The purpose is to invent a narrative suggesting that the world’s richest and most powerful ethno-religious demographic is somehow a perpetual victim and that goes double for Israel, explaining and forgiving the apartheid state’s occupying army’s targeting and killing of 55 journalists and its murder of more than 150 Palestinian civilians so far this year, including the sniper shooting of a Palestinian two-year-old boy in the head. In spite of all that carnage, a wealthy Israel, which can afford to provide free health care and university education to its citizens, continues to receive nearly $4 billion in military aid plus billions more in trade and charitable benefits from the United States taxpayer annually, totaling more than $300 billion since the Jewish state was founded in 1948.
We have lately been treated to a massive propaganda campaign orchestrated by the likes of the notorious American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) hideous leader Jonathan Greenblatt. One wonders why organizations like that which work closely with the Israeli government are not required to register with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), but to question that relationship got John F. Kennedy killed, so it is probably best to look the other way.
The role of organizations like ADL and AIPAC, dedicated to spreading lies about the Middle East and the world in general, is in part to convince the American public that Israel is really a wonderful place that is threatened by the Arab “terrorists,” as they choose to put it for obvious reasons. This grants Israel blanket immunity whenever its government exercises the “right to defend itself” doing whatever it takes, including blowing up schools and hospitals and attacking its neighbors. An astonishing bill being promoted by extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir currently under consideration in Israel’s Knesset would grant complete immunity for soldiers and policemen who shoot dead Palestinians or foreigners, effectively granting “license to kill.” Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Tony Blinken might consider that as “self-defense” if asked and, oh yeah, so might our self-declared Zionist president Honest Joe.
And ADL and AIPAC and all the other groups constantly bleat how there is also a broader threat of surging antisemitism and even the abomination of holocaust denial wherever one chooses to look. Conveniently, Israel, without being held accountable, can imprison, beat, torture, and kill as many Palestinians as it wishes while also stealing their land and other property, depriving them of their livelihoods and of their very right to spend their own lives in peace. The persistent drive to make Israel into an all-Jewish apartheid state that is illegally incorporating what was supposed to have been a Palestinian state is hardly hidden, and, as it includes shooting and making homeless those under occupation who in any way resist, it is actually both a genocide and a war crime.
Virtually every international organization that has looked into the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, to include Israeli human rights groups, has denounced in the strongest terms the inhuman behavior that has become normal. So why don’t Congress and the American media get it since they are so ready to exploit the essentially bogus narratives of crimes against humanity that are being floated to justify going to war with Russia? If war crimes and crimes against humanity are the metric that one measures by in Biden’s “rules based international order” there is no country on earth that is more deserving of being invaded and sorted out than Israel, unless it is the warmongering United States itself.
Recently we Americans have been treated to several iterations of the “Israel is good” contrived narrative, a tale that includes how both the US and the Jewish state share an “unbreakable bond” because both nations were “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” And the two nations also are allegedly linked by the “shared values” nonsense, which does not apply if one is either a Red Indian, a black slave, or a Palestinian of either Christian or Muslim persuasion. Indeed, even observant Jews in Israel who are not practicing according to the Orthodox beliefs are subjected to various restrictions on their personal lives, including how they must conform to marry, and suffer from an inability to practice their religious choice openly.
We have recently experienced a visit to the White House and an address to a joint session of Congress by Israel’s head of state President Isaac Herzog which was preceded by a vote in Congress on a bill introduced by Republicans declaring that Israel “is not a racist or apartheid state” and adding that the United States “will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel.” The vote abjuring Israel of all misbehavior passed by an overwhelming 412-9-1 vote. The nine “no” votes and one abstention were from Progressive Caucus Democrats, which features Pramila Jayapal as the chairwoman: Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Summer Lee, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Andre Carson, Delia Ramirez and Ayanna Pressley. Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, who has submitted a bill blocking US aid to Israel that is used to imprison Palestinian children, voted “present.”
Jayapal, who said recently accurately that “Israel is a racist state,” was rewarded with a torrent of criticism from her own party, to include a rare joint statement from House Democratic leadership rejecting her remarks plus also a separate statement signed by 43 Democratic Party colleagues who said they were “deeply concerned” about her “unacceptable” views. She consequently apologized effusively before flipping and supporting the resolution. And every other Democrat and all the Republicans voted “yes.” A day later, three House Republicans filed a censure motion against Jayapal for having the temerity to call Israel “racist.” That basically confirms the hypothesis that Israel could shit on the heads of the clowns in Congress and the recipients would applaud the act and beg for more. Jayapal is now focusing on more congenial issues like climate change.
Of course, the bill in Congress is a lie and a denial of reality. Israel is by self-definition legally a Jewish state which makes it both racist and apartheid in structure towards its non-Jewish citizens and also to the Palestinians who have the misfortune of living in areas under Israeli occupation. The recent atrocities against the Palestinian victims have not passed unnoticed even if the Jewish dominated US media has attempted to mitigate what is reported. In fact, many Democrats no longer buy into the Israel narrative. Mondoweiss reports how “A University of Maryland Critical Issues poll from earlier this year found that 44% of Democratic voters believe Israel is ‘a state with segregation similar to apartheid.’ That survey mirrors a number of public opinion studies that have been released recently… 49% of the Democratic voters polled said they sympathize with Palestinians, compared to just 38% who said they sympathize with Israelis.” Another recent poll indicated that 80% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans, in absence of a two-state solution to Israel-Palestine, “would choose a democratic Israel that’s no longer Jewish, over a Jewish Israel without full citizenship and equality for non-Jewish people living under its authority.”
Attempting to address the growing uneasiness of many Americans over the issue of Israel and Palestinian rights, Herzog basically told congress that criticism of Israel is a freedom of speech right but that it should not veer over into antisemitism. Unfortunately, his logic is a bit on the thin side as the definition of antisemitism used by the US government and the media coined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) includes criticism of Israel, making attacking Israeli regarding its ghastly behavior ipso facto antisemitism.
Herzog also lied his way through his preferred analysis of what drives the bilateral relationship with Washington as well as civil liberties and other rights in his own country, saying “We are proud to be the United States’ closest partner and friend. When the United States is strong, Israel is stronger. And when Israel is strong, the United States is more secure.” How exactly the US is made more secure by Israeli destabilizing of the Middle East was not made clear, but Herzog went on with another series of lies explaining how Israel “takes pride in its vibrant democracy, its protection of minorities, human rights and civil liberties, as laid down by its parliament, the Knesset, and safeguarded by its strong Supreme Court and independent judiciary.”
Nothing Herzog said was actually true and he forgot to mention the political donations from Jewish sources and the friendly Jewish media coverage that binds most American politicians to Israel. In recent electoral cycles, Jewish donations dominated in both parties and candidates were rightfully fearful of not saying and doing enough when it comes to Israel. But to really appreciate the deep hole of corruption that the United States is in with Israel and its friends in The Lobby calling the shots even when the narrative is so transparently false, it is best to quote the New York Times account of the revelry in the House of Representatives Chamber as Herzog spoke: “The reception for Mr. Herzog in the packed House chamber was staunchly supportive, with frequent standing ovations by the assembled lawmakers, including when he decried Palestinians for destroying the prospects for peace by supporting terror attacks against Israel.” Another big lie and the inevitable standing ovations from the Congress critters. We are in deep trouble when our Solons on Capitol Hill cannot appear to discern a series of self- serving lies by a foreign leader which do nothing but impoverish and do damage to the United States and its people. Indeed, the clowns applaud what they are hearing. It is the tragedy of our times, perhaps the final tragedy.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
US allies on alert after lithium-rich Bolivia inks defense deal with Iran
The Cradle | July 25, 2023
Members of Bolivia’s far-right opposition and the Argentinian government are demanding that La Paz disclose the details of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on defense and security affairs signed between Defense Ministers Edmundo Novillo y Mohamad Reza Ashtiani in Tehran last week.
“They say that [Iran] will give us drones. Others say they will give us missiles. All of this sounds strange, even more so considering it involves Iran … I can’t understand why Bolivia is getting involved in such a complex and difficult relationship,” said lawmaker Gustavo Aliaga, who belongs to the Comunidad Ciudadana (CC) party.
In 2019, CC leader Carlos Mesa supported the US-orchestrated coup that forced socialist leader Evo Morales to flee Bolivia, leaving it under the control of a far-right dictatorship that conducted multiple massacres of Morales supporters and sought to surrender the country’s massive lithium deposits to western transnationals.
The Argentinian foreign ministry also demanded explanations from La Paz on Monday under pressure from the Delegation of Argentinian Israeli Associations (DAIA), who said the MoU “risks for the security of Argentina and the region” due to Tehran’s ties with Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah.
In a press release, DAIA called on the Argentinian government “to condemn this agreement and demand Bolivia reconsider its decision.”
Buenos Aires blames Hezbollah and Iran for the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center that left 85 dead. Both Tehran and Hezbollah deny the accusation.
The statements by the CC and DAIA came on the heels of a report by the neoconservative Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which claims that the deal between Tehran and La Paz includes the delivery of Iranian drones for the South American nation.
Last week, Iran agreed to help Bolivia combat drug trafficking along its borders and boost cooperation with the Bolivian army.
“[Due to] Bolivia’s critical needs in terms of border defense and the fight against drug trafficking, we will establish collaboration in equipment and specialized knowledge,” Ashtiani said following his meeting with the Bolivian defense minister last week.
For his part, Novillo said Iran is a “role model” for nations that seek freedom, highlighting the Islamic Republic’s “remarkable progress in science and technology, security, and the defense industry despite sanctions.”
Bolivia is the latest Latin American nation to ink a security agreement with the Persian nation, following in the footsteps of Nicaragua and Venezuela. Over the past year, the Islamic Republic has also made significant inroads with Brazil.
Iran and Bolivia also hold two of the largest lithium deposits in the world, with the Islamic Republic earlier this year announcing the discovery of a massive deposit holding a reported 8.5 million tons of the rare element. On the other hand, Bolivia has the richest known lithium deposits in the world, with an estimated 21 million tons.
Russian military experts on the current state of the war
By Gilbert Doctorow | July 25, 2023
There is a lot of cheerleading for Russian military successes on the Western alternative news portals. There is also a fair amount of cheerleading coming from front line Russian war correspondents on Russian state television. But, as I have indicated in past essays, the more serious Russian news programs such as Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov also give the microphone to military experts from among Duma committee chairmen and others who actually bear responsibility and accountability for the war effort and are not just talking heads. These speakers are much more restrained in their remarks on the war’s progress and I use this opportunity to share with readers what I hear from such sources. I will be drawing in particular on what was said on the Solovyov show two days ago.
The most sober remark was that it is a mistake to gloat over reports that the Ukrainians have run out of reserves and that their soldiers at the front are now just old men and youths, who are demoralized and surrendering to Russians when they can. Saying that is to diminish our respect for the heroism of Russian soldiers who are facing, in fact, peer equals in the Ukrainian forces. This is a tough war.
Moreover, the Ukrainian reserves are not yet exhausted. Out of the approximately 60,000 elite troops that received training in NATO countries only 30 – 40% were killed or wounded in the battle for Bakhmut and subsequent Ukrainian counter-attack after 4 June. The Russians will not begin their own massive offensive to knock out the Ukrainian military until they are confident that most of the Ukrainian reserves have been depleted in the ongoing war of attrition.
Accordingly, what we are witnessing these days is localized attacks that have tactical, not strategic importance. Yes, the Ukrainians make advances here and there of a few meters at great cost in lost lives of the soldiers. Yes, the Russians make advances of three or four kilometers here or there, at significantly lower cost. The Russians are biding their time. This is not a stale-mate as Western media keep telling their audiences.
Now let us turn to another aspect of the conflict that has grabbed the news over the past week when ground skirmishes between the hostile forces moved to the back pages of our newspapers. I have in mind the spectacular Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odessa, in Nikolaev and yesterday in a river port of the Danube estuary just across from the Romanian border. These attacks are described by official Russian military sources as “revenge attacks” for the damage inflicted on one of the roadways of the Crimean bridge by Ukrainian surface drones that exploded under bridge supports.
Of course, that is just Public Relations talk to satisfy the Russian public and overwhelm local outrage at the failure to defend what is, finally, vulnerable infrastructure. No, the reason for the Russian destruction of the Ukrainian port facilities day after day lies elsewhere. The missile strikes were not so much intended to inflict pain on the Ukrainians as to avert what could be naval battles on the Black Sea and a quantum jump in risks of total war. And, en passant, they demonstrated that the latest sea-launched Russian cruise missiles with 3,000 km range that fly just 15 meters above the sea at Mach 3 cannot be intercepted by present Ukrainian air defenses.
Let us remember that when Vladimir Putin announced that the grain deal with Turkey and the United Nations would expire on 18 July, the RF Ministry of Defense announced that any vessels headed towards Ukrainian ports ostensibly to receive export grain would henceforth be considered as carriers of arms to Ukraine and were fair game for destruction by Russian forces.
Immediately after this Ukrainian President Zelensky went on air with his proposal to Turkey that the grain exports by sea continue without Russian participation. The safety of the vessels would be assured by Turkish and other NATO naval convoys. In the context of Erdogan’s latest turn to the U.S. and away from Russia, it appeared that Ankara was prepared to strike a deal with Zelensky. If that were done, then the chances of naval battles between Russian and NATO vessels in the Black Sea would have soared.
And so the Russians decided to destroy the Ukrainian port facilities active in the grain trade and so to preempt the dangers in view. Erdogan was compelled to draw back from any agreement with Zelensky on resumption of the grain corridor mission.
To be sure, export of grain by ship is the cheapest solution to bringing Ukrainian grain to world markets. But there are other means, namely by rail and truck, traveling north and west across Bulgaria or Romania or Poland. These logistics were used last autumn to move a lot of grain, but that grain tended to disappear into the nominal transit countries where it provoked outrage among the farming communities of these countries for underpricing their own grain crops. We may expect more of this political turmoil in Eastern Europe and protests against Ukraine in the coming months, and this also will serve the Russian objective of making Europe pay for its support of Kiev.
The U.S. State Department representatives have shrieked over the humanitarian disaster that the Russians were causing first by pulling out of the grain deal and then by destroying Ukraine’s export infrastructure in the Black Sea. Particular attention has been directed at the nations of Africa which purportedly represent a large proportion of the poor destination countries for Ukrainian grain.
It is interesting to note that notwithstanding vicious American propaganda against the Russian pull-out from the grain deal, the leaders of Africa have not gone for the bait. Today 47 African leaders are assembling in Russia for highest level strategic talks and deal-making with their Russian counterparts. The Russians are offering free of cost grain to the poorest countries and contracts for grain supply to the others at normal commercial terms. The certainty of supply is assured by what the Russians say will be their biggest grain harvest ever during this season.
Though I denounce the U.S. State Department policies under Antony Blinken as a force for evil in the present world context, I do not mean to say that each and every player there is a villain. I am amused to see on Russian television images of the speeches to the United Nations about the grain corridor delivered by Rosemary Di Carlo, a former U.S. career diplomat who since 2018 has served in the UN as Under-Secretary General for Political and Peace-building Affairs.
Once upon a time, in 1998, I had conversations with Rosemary when she was in charge of cultural affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. We sat together at the head table of a gathering of American graduate students and professors on the academic exchange with Russia directed by a Cold War holdover NGO, IREX, for which I was briefly country manager back then. Rosemary talked about the theater season in Moscow and we discussed possibilities for assisting Russian museums and other cultural institutions to adapt to the post-Soviet realities of low government funding and finding private sponsors. She held a Ph.D. in Slavic literature. She was one of the relatively few career diplomats who actually understood and spoke Russian. Her heart was in the right place and I very much doubt that she is working to do the Russians a bad turn today.
Moral of the story above from start to finish: very often things are not what they seem.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
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Book Review
Why the War on Conspiracy Theories Is Bad Public Policy
By Kevin Barrett • Unz Review • February 1, 2019
A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski
On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying “we’ll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways—such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.”
At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.
But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First, the word “recommend” is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn’t really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying. … continue
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