IS RUSSIA REALLY LOSING IN UKRAINE?
By Drago Bosnic | September 29, 2022
After Russia launched its counteroffensive against NATO aggression, the state and corporate-run mainstream media of the political West started spreading multiple false narratives about it. One of the most common themes was that the Russian military supposedly “failed” because the Kiev regime didn’t collapse in a matter of days.
In the following months, especially after the Russian forces withdrew from northern areas of Ukraine, this was used to further reinforce the narrative that the Russian military was somehow “defeated”. However, the truth lies in the Russian military and geopolitical nomenclature regarding the events in Ukraine. While the political West is unanimous in calling it “an unprovoked, brutal invasion”, the Russian side calls it a special military operation.
Although the wording may seem irrelevant, it does have serious implications. The whole operation has been limited from the start. As Russian President Vladimir Putin himself stated, Moscow didn’t really show more than a fraction of its capabilities. And indeed, given the number of Russian troops initially engaged in the special military operation, which was approximately 100-150 thousand, versus more than 200,000 troops of the Kiev regime, it’s clear that Moscow never expected to take control of the entire territory of Ukraine. In addition, the Kiev regime forces exponentially grew in size after the forced mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men. And although Western media are trying to downplay it, multiple estimates put the number of conscripted personnel anywhere between several hundred thousand and nearly a million soldiers.
For its part, Russia decided not to increase the number of troops engaged in the special military operation. What’s more, with troop rotation, the true number of Russian soldiers actively engaged in combat operations was much lower, most likely standing between 50 and 100 thousand, stretching for well over a thousand kilometers from the northern areas of the Kharkov, through Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions all the way to the Black Sea coast. These forces have consistently been outnumbered by the Kiev regime troops for over 7 months now and have stood their ground.
And although this could be attributed to the Russian military’s vast technological and numerical superiority, especially in terms of artillery and air dominance, it can only be considered a remarkable achievement from a purely military standpoint. This also explains the Kiev regime’s reaction to Moscow’s recent low-level mobilization announcement, which will increase the number of Russian troops engaged in the special military operation by 300,000, pushing the total to well over 400,000 soldiers.
As per usual, the mainstream media in the United States and other countries of the political West have been trying to portray this as a sign of Russia’s supposed “weakness”. However, the Pentagon’s and NATO’s reaction speaks volumes of how the political West really feels about the mobilization. With Western Military Industrial Complexes already working at maximum capacity to supply the Kiev regime forces with additional weapons, having a twofold or threefold increase in the number of Russian troops is the last thing they needed (at least in the short term). If the Russian military was able to conduct successful offensive operations for months, while being outnumbered, what could one expect when Moscow decides to exponentially increase the size of its forces engaged in the special military operation?
In the meantime, the Western press and other media are constructing the narrative that millions of Russian men are supposedly trying to flee the country in order to avoid mobilization. Naturally, they are ignoring the fact that the Russian Ministry of Defense registered nearly 900,000 requests for joining the armed forces, with many regions and federal subjects in the country providing several times more troops than they’re required to. The most prominent example of this is Chechnya, which overshot its mobilization quota by over 250%. And yet, the Western media keep insisting that there’s supposed “widespread opposition to Putin’s war”. In reality, the fact that the Russian police arrested several hundred protesters in a country of approximately 150 million shows just how truly “widespread” the opposition to mobilization is.
Expectedly, the propaganda war isn’t only limited to the supposed “failures” of the Russian military, but also its leadership. Recent speculation that Vladimir Putin is ill, on the verge of death or losing power, while ignoring the rapidly deteriorating mental and physical health of Joe Biden serves as a testament to that. To make matters worse, the attempts by the so-called “fact-checkers” to whitewash Biden’s string of dementia-induced gaffes can only be described as comical. And while the political West’s propaganda machine works round the clock to create an alternate reality that doesn’t exist past a TV or smartphone screen, the economic and social unraveling resulting from the failed economic siege of Russia has been affecting hundreds of millions around the world and is only bound to get worse.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Who wins from demolishing the EU’s gas lifelines?
By Rachel Marsden | Samizdat | September 29, 2022
Speculation abounds since both Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, designed to carry cheap Russian gas to Europe, were damaged this week in what officials widely describe as deliberate acts of sabotage. Who could be responsible? Incidents buried in the past may provide a clue.
Speculation abounds, and typically in a direction colored by the preexisting biases of the person speculating – which is hardly helpful.
Let’s start with the end result and work backwards. The outcome ultimately means that Europe’s economic impetus for ever seeking peace with Russia has been seriously undermined, if not literally destroyed. Someone has taken it upon themselves to demolish the remaining bridges between the two. Until now, there was always a chance of reconciliation. Russian President Vladimir Putin said himself recently that all the EU needed to do to pull itself out of its self-imposed energy crisis was to push the button on its gas supply from Russia and drop the anti-Russian sanctions that prevent it from doing so.
People in the streets of German cities protesting against Berlin’s blind following of Brussels’ anti-Russia sanctions also knew that was the answer. But now that option has been taken off the table. The EU is now adrift amid a deepening energy crisis and someone burned its last sails. It’s clear that Europe itself wouldn’t benefit from that. Nor does it benefit at all from any of its own anti-Russian sanctions. But who gave Brussels that idea, to harm its own economy in the first place?
At the onset of the Ukrainian conflict, it was Washington that egged on the EU to mirror measures that Washington itself had adopted in an effort to deprive Moscow of revenues to fuel its interests and objectives in Ukraine. The problem is that the EU’s economy was far more entwined with Russia’s than America’s. Any sense that US President Joe Biden and his administration may have given EU leaders, that they’d be there to help the bloc soften the blow of its self-sacrificial sanctions, has since been replaced by a harsh, pragmatic reality. US shale executives have explained to Western media that they simply lack the capacity to ramp up production for Europe’s winter crunch, even amid the growing rationing, deindustrialization, and risk of blackouts.
So, pressure has recently been increasing on EU member states to achieve a rapid diplomatic, peaceful resolution. But any reconnection of Nord Stream gas would have been a blow to US economic ambitions, which eventually include turning the EU into a dependent liquefied natural gas client. To that end, US officials have even tried to market their natural gas in the past as “freedom molecules,” in contrast to the “authoritarian” Russian gas.
Biden himself said of Nord Stream 2 during a press conference on February 7, before the Ukraine conflict had even popped off, that “we will bring an end to it,” despite it being out of American control. But even long before that, the US was sanctioning and bullying European companies into halting construction on Nord Stream 2 under the pretext of saving Europe from Russia. It’s worth noting that Europe didn’t really have problems with Russia this century until the US decided to make Ukraine an outpost for the State Department.
Not only did Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned operator of the pipeline, persist against all odds to finish it, but it’s really the only leverage that Moscow has in Europe. Attributing to Moscow the recent sabotage of their own economic interests in Europe seems absurd. The damage done to the pipelines now means that to prevent them from being completely filled with sea water and destroyed, Russia is forced to keep pumping gas through them and into the sea at their own expense. What exactly does Moscow gain from any of this? Conversely, what does Washington gain? Nothing less than Brussels’ full dependence, which proved elusive when Europe could split its interests between the east and west.
As for who possesses the technical ability to execute underwater pipeline sabotage, both Russia and the US do. Much has been made in the past of the potential for cutting undersea cables – defined as an act of war by UK defense chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. The US actually has a history in such operations, having tapped into undersea cables to spy on the Soviet Union in the 1970s Operation Ivy Bells, according to public records about Operation Ivy Bells. Washington also has sabotaged Soviet gas pipelines before, albeit indirectly – according to Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who served on the National Security Council in 1982, when then-US President Ronald Reagan allegedly approved a plan for the CIA to sabotage components of a pipeline operated by the Soviet Union. The objective was to prevent Western Europe from importing natural gas from the Soviets. Sound familiar?
Time and inquiry will uncover the culprit eventually – if we’re lucky. EU officials are vowing to get to the bottom of it. “All available information indicates leaks are the result of a deliberate act. Deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response,” Tweeted the bloc’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell. Perhaps investigators could pay a visit to Radoslaw Sikorski, European Parliament member and former Polish foreign minister, who tweeted a photo of the disaster aftermath along with the note, “Thank you, USA.”
But if it indeed turns out that Washington committed what some consider to be an act of war against Europe’s economy, will Brussels have the heart to really confront it? Or will Brussels continue to find justifications to remain complicit in its own demise?
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English. rachelmarsden.com
Kamala Harris’ visit to Tokyo aims to destroy Sino-Japanese relations
By Ahmed Adel | September 29, 2022
US Vice President Kamala Harris is on a trip to Japan and South Korea, her first visit to Japan and her second to Asia since taking office early last year. Ahead of the US midterm elections in November, Harris has increased her attacks on China, something she has not stopped doing since arriving in Japan on September 26 for the state funeral of assassinated former leader Shinzo Abe.
During a meeting in Tokyo on September 26, the American Vice President and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned China’s actions in the Taiwan Strait. A White House statement described Beijing’s actions in the Taiwan Strait as “aggressive and irresponsible provocations.”
Meanwhile, a series of visits to Taiwan by senior US officials and the increased US supply of weapons to the island have heightened tension in the region. It is evident that China’s actions are only a response against US-instigated provocations.
With these statements, the US has increased propaganda and support for actions against China. There is growing Western desire to erode the “One China” principle and Japan is increasingly participating in these actions. For Beijing, it is not just a matter of military exercises, warships passing through the Taiwan Strait and arms shipments to Taiwan, but an intensification of Western propaganda to put psychological pressure on China and normalise the idea of an independent Taiwan.
The gradual erosion of the “One China” principle is evident. Most of Asia is well aware of the American falsehoods, but this is influencing its partners in the West and Japan to the idea of an independent Taiwan.
At the meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister, Kamala Harris reaffirmed the US commitment to Japan’s security, but in return, Washington wants Tokyo to be more active in containing China. Washington’s main aim is to disrupt the process of improving Sino-Japanese relations. The US is counting on Japan’s help to incite tensions with China.
It is recalled that the provocative actions against China by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited Taiwan for the second time this year on September 26, also failed to bring the desired results, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin. On his first trip in early March, Pompeo was awarded Taiwan’s highest award for his contributions in promoting Taiwan-US relations. To express his “deep gratitude”, the American politician described Taiwan as a “great nation” with a developed democracy.
However, his second visit was even more provocative as he announced that Taiwan “doesn’t need to declare independence because it already is an independent country.” This statement prompted the Chinese Foreign Ministry to say in a statement that Pompeo’s calculations will not materialise, describing him as “a former politician of diminished credibility who staged these stunts for personal political gains.”
Adding to insult, Pompeo said in Taiwan: “China’s aggressive conduct, diplomatically, militarily, economically … have changed this region. And it brought those who prefer peace and commerce even more closely together. If we want a free 21st century, and not the Chinese century, the century which Xi Jinping dreams of, the old paradigm of blind engagement must end.”
It has not been unnoticed that the 50th anniversary of Sino-Japanese relations, marked on September 29, has been darkened due to differences over Taiwan. Beijing is becoming increasingly wary of Tokyo as it forges closer ties with Taiwan amid growing tensions, which Harris’ visit only provokes further.
According to Japan Times, an official from a Chinese group for bilateral friendship, who was also involved in commemorative events in 2012 for the 40th anniversary of bilateral relations, pointed to the absence of momentum in celebrating the 50th anniversary. The official said that Chinese people feel betrayed by Japan over Taiwan.
When Beijing and Tokyo normalised ties in 1972, Japan said that it understood and respected the notion that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory. The Global Times, the English mouthpiece of the Chinese government, said this month that Japan “tends to turn its back” on the promise it made 50 years ago.
Japan will be “able to create favourable conditions for the bilateral relations” only by keeping its promise, the Global Times also said.
However, there is little indication that Tokyo wants to deescalate tense relations with Beijing, and rather, it is more likely that things will become worse before they become better, especially following Harris’ visit to Japan and Pompeo emboldening Taiwan towards independence rather than unification with mainland China.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Children among dead after Ukraine shells refugee convoy – Donbass official
Samizdat | September 29, 2022
The Ukrainian army has attacked a refugee convoy in the eastern region of Kharkov, killing over 30 people, according to the Lugansk People’s Republic’s envoy to Russia.
Rodion Miroshnik wrote on his Telegram channel that those killed in the artillery bombardment included children. He added that emergency services are unable to access the bodies, as shelling from Kiev’s forces continues. The republic’s health ministry stated that seven other people were injured, including two children who lost their parents in the shelling.
Miroshnik claimed the Ukrainian army knew exactly who they were shooting at, as they had allegedly used drones to track down the refugee vehicle convoy and were “intentionally aiming at civilians.” Kiev has yet to respond to the allegations.
Speaking to the Russia 24 TV channel, the LPR envoy noted that the number of civilians trying to get out of Kharkov Region has significantly increased in recent days, as fighting in the area has intensified in the wake of Kiev’s forces reclaiming most of the region. Miroshnik said most of the fleeing residents are trying to cross into Russia’s Belgorod region or the LPR, especially from the cities of Kupyansk and Balakleya.
Western withdrawal of citizens from Russia may be a provocation
This act looks like a threat of attack and could generate responses.
By Lucas Leiroz | September 29, 2022
The US and some other Western countries announced the evacuation of their citizens from the Russian territory. In a context of tensions between Moscow and NATO, this type of attitude sounds like a threat, further worsening the scenario of global security crisis.
The US State Department has asked Russia-based American citizens to leave the country immediately. The appeal was posted on the website of the US Embassy in Russia. The justification for the advice was that Moscow could mobilize citizens who have dual nationality, which is why foreigners based in Russia should flee as quickly as possible, before they are mobilized for combat on Ukrainian soil. The statement also highlights that there are currently a limited number of flights from Russia to other countries, and tickets for the next dates may not be available, so US citizens residing in Russia should hurry to leave.
It is interesting to analyze the communiqué issued by the Embassy when the reality of the mobilization promoted by Russia is not only partial but also absolutely moderate. The call-up of combatants has been promoted in a balanced way, with no urgency for foreign citizens to flee in a hurry to avoid being mobilized. Moscow has shown no interest in forcing foreign nationals with Russian passports to serve in the special military operation, which makes the American narrative weak and unsubstantiated.
However, some other countries also took measures similar to the one of the US. Poland and Bulgaria, for example, called on their citizens to leave Russia immediately. Commenting on the matter, spokespersons for the Polish Foreign Ministry released a note stating: “In case of a drastic deterioration of the security situation, the closure of borders or other unforeseen circumstances, evacuation may prove significantly impeded or even impossible (…) We recommend that the citizens of the Republic of Poland who remain on the territory of the Russian Federation leave its territory using the available commercial and private means”.
Also, Poland’s foreign minister Zbigniew Rau was more explicit in his words and stated that if Russia uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine, NATO’s response will be “devastating”, which is why Polish citizens should leave Russian territory as soon as possible. In fact, his words were just an endorsement of what had already been previously announced by the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who threatened Moscow by stating that “if Russia crosses this line (the use of nuclear weapons], there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia”, adding that “the United States will respond decisively”.
In fact, evacuating citizens is an elementary measure usually taken by states that are planning some kind of attack or invasion. It is the most direct and simplest way to prevent putting the lives of innocent citizens on enemy soil at risk when a war is breaking out. In this sense, any attempt at a massive withdrawal of Western citizens from Russia sounds like a threat to the Eurasian country at this point, as the Western military alliance has constantly warned of “consequences” against Moscow in the event of an escalation in Ukraine.
The problem is that the situation in Ukraine only tends to escalate because of the attitudes of the western countries themselves, which continue with their provocative military programs against Russia, supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev with lethal weapons and large amounts of money. Moscow has already issued communiqués warning of what it considers a “red line” in the Ukrainian conflict, which is Russia’s sovereign territory. Russian forces are unwilling to tolerate attacks on the Federation’s territory and make it clear that they will respond harshly if such attacks occur.
With the positive result for the integration of the liberated territories into Russia, the new oblasts will become part of the Federation and thus will be under direct protection of Moscow, not being tolerable Ukrainian attacks in these regions. The West, however, insists on not recognizing the referendums and encourages Kiev to attack these regions. This is precisely where an eventual nuclear escalation could happen. Russian military doctrine establishes that nuclear weapons should only be used as a last resort in the event of an existential threat to the Russian state. Moscow may consider Western-funded attacks an existential threat if the targets are within the Federation – including the new territories – which is why there is currently a nuclear danger.
So, it is the West itself that fosters the conditions for a nuclear escalation. And it is also the West that threatens to react to such an escalation by directly attacking Russia and starting a third world war. By evacuating its citizens, the US and its allies are once again provoking and threatening Russia, sending “red alerts” that something is “about to happen”. The objective is to act preemptively and justify a Western response.
In fact, the West seems to be acting in an anti-strategic manner. There no longer seems to be any military realism in the thinking of NATO leaders, who are willing to escalate tensions more and more, even though there are no winners in a possible scenario of world war.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
Like Alberta, Saskatchewan tells RCMP to ignore Ottawa’s request to confiscate firearms
By Rachel Emmanuel | The Counter Signal | September 28, 2022
The Government of Saskatchewan has followed Alberta’s lead in telling the RCMP to ignore orders from the Trudeau Liberals to confiscate citizen’s legally-purchased firearms.
Saskatchewan Chief Firearms Officer Bob Freberg revealed that the province wrote to the RCMP saying “no provincially funded resources of any type,” including the RCMP, will be used for federal Public Safety Minister Marco Medicino’s gun bans and buybacks.
Freberg made the comments on the radio program, the John Gormley Show.
As first reported by The Counter Signal, the Government of Alberta sent instructions to the RCMP K-Division, the arm of the federal police force with authority in Alberta, to ignore orders from the Trudeau Liberals to confiscate firearms.
The orders came after Medicino requested Premier Jason Kenney’s government help in implementing the so-called buyback program.
“I am writing to seek your support in implementing the buyback program,” Mendicino wrote in a letter to the Alberta government. He said his office would be working directly with policing authorities to successfully implement the program.
In May 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was banning more than 1,500 models of firearms, including AR-15s. Owners of these guns would have a two-year amnesty period to come into compliance with the prohibition, he said at the time.
The Liberals said they plan on spending up to $250 million buying back the guns.
Alberta Minister of Justice Tyler Shandro said Monday he would obstruct the gun grab by any means necessary.
“Alberta is not legally obligated and will not offer any provincial resources to the Federal Government as it seeks to confiscate lawfully acquired firearms,” Shandro responded.
“The decision to ban over 1,500 models of different firearms, simply because the ‘style’ of the firearm was deemed to be aesthetically displeasing, is offensive and suggests to us that you are uninterested in meaningfully addressing gun crime.”
Shandro wrote to the RCMP to say the confiscation wasn’t a priority for the Alberta government, and as such, it’s not an appropriate use of Alberta RCMP resources.
The Government of Alberta has also announced that it will intervene in six lawsuits against Trudeau’s proposed gun grab.
Trudeau issued a deadline of October 30 for any gun his government now deems illegal to be turned into the closest RCMP detachment.
Over 2.2 million Canadians are legally licensed to own and trade firearms in the country.
‘US Wants to Destroy EU as Economic Player’: Analysts Mull Ramifications of Nord Stream Breakdown
Samizdat – 28.09.2022
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines have been effectively rendered inoperable this week due to an incident that may have been an act of sabotage.
As the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines are currently incapable of transporting natural gas from Russia to Europe, experts ponder who is going to benefit from this catastrophe.
Vladimir Demidov, an international analyst of energy and natural resource markets, told Sputnik that the parties who oppose negotiations between Germany and Russia definitely benefit from the Nord Stream breakdown.
As these negotiations may lead to sanctions against Russia being partially lifted – potentially in exchange for gas shipments during winter – those who want to keep these sanctions in place could also be regarded as an interested party, he added.
“This is an act of aggression on a planetary level,” Demidov remarked. “A country or a bloc destroying infrastructure of another country. And we’re not talking about domestic infrastructure here, but infrastructure that connects countries and supplies about 30 percent of the natural gas Europe uses.”
Russian National Energy Security Fund analyst Igor Yushkov also observed that neither Russia nor Germany were interested in the pipeline’s destruction: for Berlin, Nord Stream presented an option to stave off a potential “energy collapse” during winter, while Moscow invested a lot of money into the project.
Both Demidov and Yushkov observed that Europe will now have to purchase natural gas from the United States, the largest liquefied natural gas supplier while it looks like Russia was essentially squeezed out from the European natural gas market.
“The natural gas from the US is going to become more expensive and Europe would still have to buy it because there is no other gas,” Demidov said. “A very amusing diversification has occurred in Europe: they switched from key supplier of the ‘bad’ gas from Russia to the ‘freedom’ gas from the United States that costs at least twice as much.”
He also pointed at former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorsky, who “thanked” the United States on social media for the Nord Stream breakdown, with Demidov arguing that when people of such caliber make such statements, it looks as if they are trying to make the truth look like a joke.
“I have a feeling that the United States really wants to destroy the European Union as a global economic player,” he said.
AfD headquarters raided by prosecution officials
Free West Media | September 28, 2022
The national headquarters of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Berlin has been raided by officials from the capital’s prosecutor’s office.
As FWM reported, according to a survey by the opinion research institute Insa, the AfD is now the strongest force in East Germany. The trend is seen nationwide. On the other hand, support for the once-popular ministers Karl Lauterbach and Robert Habeck (Greens) has imploded.
The officials raided six other locations in the German capital and the states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia were also searched. According to investigators, certain party members allegedly may have violated the country’s political parties act and committed breach of trust.
“The defendants are suspected of violating the German Political Parties Act and of breach of trust, as the accounts submitted to the president of the German parliament by the AfD for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018, for which the defendants are responsible, contained allegedly incorrect information regarding party donations,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The party condemned the raids. “Since this morning, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office has been conducting a house search in the premises of the federal headquarters of Alternative for Germany, without any prior inquiry having been directed to the AfD regarding the facts to be clarified.”
The raids coincided with an announcement by the party of a concerted protest movement against the government’s energy and Russia policies, with the rallying cry “Our country first!”.
Second energy protest roils Czechia
Protest against the Czech government at Wenceslas Square in Prague, Czechia, September 28, 2022. © Lukas Kabon / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Samizdat | September 28, 2022
A crowd numbered in the tens of thousands gathered in Prague on Wednesday to protest against the Czech government, NATO, and the European Union. Demonstrators called for Czechia’s neutrality and protested Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s policy of sanctioning Russia, which has driven up energy prices.
Meeting on St. Wenceslas’ Day – a public holiday celebrating Czech statehood – the crowd took to Prague’s main square, named after the medieval saint, and chanted slogans against the EU, NATO and Fiala’s cabinet. Prague police would not give a specific figure of the estimated crowd size, calling it only “tens of thousands.”
The protest was organized by a group called ‘Czech Republic First,’ which Reuters described as a coalition of “far-right and fringe groups and parties including the Communists.” CRF opposes the EU and NATO and has called for Czechia’s military neutrality.
“A government has two duties: to ensure our security and economic prosperity. This government does not fulfill either of these duties,” said one unidentified speaker at the rally, according to Reuters.
A demonstrator named Pavel Nebel accused the government of being “absolutely anti-Czech” and serving only the EU, NATO, and “American power” at the expense of Czech interests.
The organizers called for another protest on October 28 and said they intend to ask President Milos Zeman to disband the government and call for early elections, according to Lidove Noviny. It was the second such rally this month, after some 70,000 people took part in the September 3 protest, according to police. Similar rallies in other Czech cities drew hundreds of participants.
“People should not be taken advantage of by manipulators who offer simple but unrealistic solutions in the squares,” Interior Minister Vit Rakusan told Lidove in response to the protest.
Fiala had dismissed the September 3 demonstrations as “pro-Russian,” accusing their organizers of listening to “Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns.” His government has diligently followed the lead of Brussels in imposing trade embargoes against Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, which has translated into skyrocketing prices of energy normally imported from Russia.
Czechia had joined NATO in March 1999, just days before the US-led bloc attacked Yugoslavia. It became a member of the EU in May 2004.
FBI Misused SWAT Team to Arrest Jan. 6 Protesters – Whistleblower
Samizdat – 28.09.2022
An FBI whistleblower submitted a complaint to the Office of Special Counsel alleging that the federal agency and Department of Justice (DoJ) have violated constitutional rights of Jan. 6 defendants by misusing SWAT teams to make misdemeanor arrests.
Special Agent Stephen M. Friend informed the US Office of Special Counsel, a permanent independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, about alleged violations by the bureau and DoJ in a whistleblower complaint obtained by US media outlet Just the News earlier this week. Friend works for the FBI in Florida and serves as a SWAT team member.
“I believed the investigations were inconsistent with FBI procedure and resulted in the violation of citizens’ Sixth and Eighth Amendment rights,” Friend wrote. “I added that many of my colleagues expressed similar concerns to me but had not vocalized their objections to FBI Executive Management.”
In particular, Friend cited an inappropriate use of SWAT teams to arrest subjects for misdemeanor offenses related to the January 6 protests in DC. According to the complaint, the agent suggested alternatives such as “the issuance of a court summons or utilizing surveillance groups to determine an optimal, safe time for a local sheriff deputy to contact the subjects and advise them about the existence of the arrest warrant.”
Nonetheless, one of Friend’s bosses told him that “FBI executive management considered all potential alternatives and determined the SWAT takedown was the appropriate course of action.”
Last year, Julie Kelly, a political commentator, author and senior contributor to American Greatness (AG), described numerous cases when January Sixers were raided by SWAT teams despite not being accused of any violent crime or having a criminal record. Many of the defendants were also interrogated with no lawyer present, according to Kelly.
In one case on June 24, 2021, the FBI arrested a Florida pastor and his son for their alleged involvement in the January 6 protest, according to American Greatness. The son, Casey Cusick, was handcuffed in front of his three-year-old daughter, while Cusick’s father, James, the founder and pastor of a church in Melbourne, Florida, also was arrested. Neither of the Cusicks were accused of violent crimes related to the DC incident.
Joseph Bolanos, a 69-year-old New Yorker and former Red Cross volunteer was raided in February 2021 by the FBI anti-terrorism task force because a tipster falsely linked him to the January 6 Capitol hill protest. The old man remained handcuffed and detained for three hours before the problem was resolved.
Agent Friend noted in his whistleblower complaint that he believes that the January 6 investigation has involved “overzealous charging by the DOJ and biased jury pools in Washington DC”.
The whistleblower likewise revealed that the FBI field office in Washington DC was opening Capitol riot cases in other field offices across the US, thus creating “a false data trail” suggesting a nationwide domestic extremism emergency when in reality the cases all stemmed from the Capitol breach in one city: Washington.
As a result of this apparent manipulation, agents in field offices across the country are being listed as case agents for search and arrest warrants for subjects they actually had not investigated, according to Friend.
“There are active criminal investigations of J6 subjects in which I am listed as the ‘Case Agent,’ but have not done any investigative work,” Friend revealed. “Additionally, my supervisor has not approved any paperwork within the file. J6 Task Force members are serving as Affiants on search and arrest warrant affidavits for subjects whom I have never investigated or even interviewed but am listed as a Case Agent.”
To complicate matters further, the FBI deprioritized other investigations of serious crimes like child sex exploitation for the sake of January 6 investigation, according to the whistleblower: “I was also told that child sexual abuse material investigations were no longer an FBI priority and should be referred to local law enforcement agencies,” the agent wrote.
Speaking to Just the News, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio confirmed that his office had communicated with Friend and is aware of his complaint. The Republican lawmakers raised concerns about the FBI’s usage of excessive force both in raids against January Sixers and the bureau’s latest searches of former President Donald Trump’s premises in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, which took place on August 8.
The DoJ dispatched a whopping 30 FBI agents to raid Trump’s home. However, Jonathan Turley, Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University, wondered if the FBI’s sudden intrusion was really justified given that Trump’s team had previously cooperated with the DoJ and complied with a federal subpoena.
On August 14, GOP Rep. Jordan told Fox News that 14 FBI whistleblowers had come forward with concerns about the DoJ’s alleged political bias in the wake of the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid.
Earlier, a number of FBI whistleblowers reportedly informed Republican congressmembers that the bureau and the Department of Justice had selectively launched investigations into conservative-aligned individuals and exhibited a pattern of political bias. On July 25, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley accused FBI officials of pursuing “politically charged investigations” related to the Trump campaign while downplaying and discrediting negative information concerning Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
“If these allegations are true and accurate, the Justice Department and FBI are – and have been – institutionally corrupted to their very core to the point in which the United States Congress and the American people will have no confidence in the equal application of the law,” Grassley wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Not only Republicans are concerned with the FBI and DoJ’s apparent political bias: on July 23, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard called out the Biden administration, for “shamelessly weaponz[ing]” federal law enforcement agencies into a “political hit squad.”
Ranking Republican lawmakers have been reportedly conducting investigations into the DoJ and the FBI which could take on a new significance if the GOP wins the majority in the House and the Senate after the November midterms.
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New Book
The Garlic Book — 2026
Lies are Unbekoming | November 5, 2026
What The Garlic Book shows
The book is in four parts.
Part One, The Record, treats the history of garlic as evidence. From the clay garlic bulb placed in an Egyptian grave nearly six thousand years ago, through the Ebers Papyrus, through Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen, the Arab physicians under Avicenna, the medieval herbals, Culpeper, and the plague years, to the last era in which Western physicians prescribed garlic as a matter of course, which ran from 1850 to 1945. It closes with the living traditions that never stopped using it, and with the folklore of charms, vampires and the evil eye.
Part Two, The Chemistry and the Evidence, sets out what is known about why a clove has no smell until it is cut, and why the order of crush, rest and heat changes the medicine. It then reads the clinical evidence against the historical record — bacteria, blood and vessels, cancer epidemiology, metals and fatigue — and names the trials that went against garlic as directly as the trials that went for it, including the 2007 Stanford trial funded by the US National Institutes of Health which found that raw garlic, garlic powder and aged garlic extract moved LDL cholesterol no more than placebo did. It then turns to onion, garlic’s closest relative, and reads the newer evidence published since 2015, before closing with the whole of the record through the terrain lens.
Part Three, Why Medicine Set It Aside, asks the question directly. One chapter contrasts the pharmaceutical model of isolating a single active compound with the folk model of combining whole plants, and reports what the garlic evidence says about which model works better. One chapter examines the economics of research on a plant that cannot be patented. One chapter — Fire Cider — tells the story of a folk preparation whose name was taken into a United States trademark by a Massachusetts company in 2012, and won back by three herbalists in 2014 who documented forty years of prior use through Rosemary Gladstar and her students into the older tradition.
Part Four, Garlic in Practice, is the working manual — the kitchen pharmacy, traditional uses by body system, a full chapter on safety and interactions, and a complaint-by-complaint practical guide. The book closes with The Trial That Was Never Run — a one-chapter reading of the whole evidential architecture.
At the back: two appendices (a traditional list of uses, and a preparation quick-reference), a full bibliography, and a live index.
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