Scott Ritter: Biden’s Election Withdrawal Shows Who is Actually Running America
Sputnik – July 22, 2024
The timing of Joe Biden’s sudden withdrawal from the presidential race raises questions, argues former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and ex-weapons inspector Scott Ritter.
“There’s no doubt that Joe Biden is unfit to be president of the United States. No doubt. But here’s the question. If he’s unfit to run as the candidate of the Democratic Party, why did they put him up?” former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and ex-weapons inspector Scott Ritter said, noting that signs of Biden’s frailty were visible during the G7 summit in Italy last month.
According to him, the fact that Biden is unfit to be the POTUS but was still allowed to “function” begets the question: who is really in charge in the United States?
“Who’s running America? Because it’s not Joe Biden. We don’t know who. It’s an unelected group of handlers who are drawn from what I guess we can call the establishment. Some people might refer to it as the deep state. And these are the people who are calling the shots,” Ritter stated, noting that “the critical decisions of governance” this group makes are made “for the American people, but not necessarily on behalf of the American people.”
He describes the 2024 presidential election in the US as “a test of American democracy” and a “contest between established elites that are found in the Democratic Party and this surge of populism in the form of Donald Trump who is taking control of the Republican Party.”
Yet while Americans are normally allowed to “have a say in the outcome” of this process, the Democratic Party and the “elites known and unknown” now opted to meddle in this process and “will be selecting who their candidate will be for the presidency in the 2024 elections,” which is “not the way it’s supposed to be,” he noted.
“America is in a crisis, a crisis of democracy, a crisis of identity. And it doesn’t look like we have a solution because for the most part, the American people have been confused and misled and manipulated by the mainstream media into somehow thinking that this is normal,” Ritter lamented.
Ireland – mass-immigration and the Great Reset
By Gavin O’Reilly | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 21, 2024
On Monday morning, Ireland would awake to reports of unrest in the Dublin suburb of Coolock, when after months of peaceful protest by local residents over plans to move upwards of 500 male migrants into a disused paint factory in the working-class neighborhood, tensions would come to a head when Irish riot police cleared the on-site protest camp in a heavy-handed early morning raid. In response, work vehicles intended to convert the site would be set ablaze, leading to scenes reminiscent of the north of Ireland in the late 60s or early 70s.
As the day progressed, the parallels between Coolock and the Ireland of half a century ago would grow. Heavily-militarised police, under the direction of Garda commissioner and former RUC Deputy Constable Drew Harris, would soon arrive in the North Dublin suburb, resulting in scenes akin to Belfast or Derry in 1969. Local residents, including women, children, and the elderly, would be brutalised, a popular video streamer and citizen journalist would be arrested, and a number of elected representatives, who had arrived on the scene in a bid to calm tensions, would be pepper sprayed by police. By the end of the day, 15 people would be arrested and charged, with their names and addresses highly-publicised by the Irish media, an effective warning to others to not protest against the current immigration policies being imposed by Leinster House, which has seen large numbers of male migrants being placed into wildly unsuitable locations such as an inner city office block and childrens primary school, with no prior consultation being held with local communities beforehand.
Indeed, similar scenes would erupt in the small rural village of Newtownmountkennedy in late April, when again, after weeks of peaceful protest by local residents in opposition to plans to house male migrants in a disused hospital in the locality, police would once again carry out a heavy-handed early-morning raid on an on-site protest camp. In the ensuing hours, local residents would again be brutalised, a female journalist would be pepper sprayed, and martial law would effectively be imposed on the sleepy town.
In a grim irony, less than a week later, the southern Irish state would issue a statement condemning the response of the Georgian government to protests against its Transparency of Foreign Influence law, the previous week’s scenes in Newtownmountkennedy being wilfully ignored by Leinster House.
The current tensions surrounding immigration in Ireland began in November 2022, when, using the Russian intervention in Ukraine as a pretext, upwards of 300 migrants were moved into a disused office block in East Wall, a working-class neighbourhood in inner city Dublin. Protests would begin immediately amongst local residents, citing the unsuitability of the location and the lack of consultation with community representatives beforehand. Similar protests would take place at other sites in Dublin and throughout Ireland.
One year later, the tensions regarding immigration policy in Ireland would explode in their most notable manner so far. On the 23rd of November 2023, three children and their teacher were stabbed outside their Gaelscoil (Irish-language school) in central Dublin. With it soon emerging that the attacker was an immigrant previously subject to a deportation order, matters would come to a head. Calls for a protest in Dublin later that night would quickly spread throughout social media, seemingly attracting an opportunistic element who would engage in looting and the burning of vehicles. The Dublin riots would gain worldwide attention, with the focus seemingly more on the damage done to outlets such as McDonald’s and Footlocker, than the attack on the children and their teacher.
In the days following the riots, Security Minister for the southern Irish state, Helen McEntee, announced that facial recognition technology laws would be introduced in response, thus revealing the true intent behind current immigration policy in Ireland.
In addition to the devaluing of labour and the lowering of wages on behalf of industrialists, the mixing of vast amounts of people from different cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds that mass-immigration entails, ultimately leads to tensions. Tensions that, in tight-knit areas such as working-class neighbourhoods and small rural villages, will inevitably spill over.
As a result, the government-corporate alliance is presented with a ready-made pretext to implement solutions that align with their agenda. In this case, the same facial recognition technologies that are outlined in the Great Reset, the initiative launched by the World Economic Forum in 2020, using ‘Covid’ as a pretext, intended to create even further integration between the public and private sector worldwide.
With the issue of migrants arriving into Ireland without proper identification also receiving mainstream media attention, it is likely this is being done with the intention of directing the narrative towards the introduction of mandatory digital ID; which, combined with facial recognition technology, will lay the groundwork for the dystopian digital surveillance state that the Great Reset envisages.
Indeed, upon the recent election of WEF aficionado Keir Starmer as British Prime Minister, Taoiseach Simon Harris announced that it marked a ‘great reset’ in relations between both countries. A deliberate choice of words, indicating that like his predecessor Leo Varadkar, he is also a World Economic Forum ‘Young Global Leader’, fully intending to continue the Davos agenda in Ireland.
Ministers Were Informed Of mRNA Lies During Mandates, Cardiologist Reveals
Dr Aseem Malhotra had a direct line of communication to the Health Secretary
By JJ Starky | The Stark Naked Brief | July 19, 2024
We’ve had another mainstream breakthrough.
Yesterday, Dr. Aseem Malhotra appeared on TalkTV to discuss the UK government’s Covid response in light of Baroness Hallett’s report on the first module of the Covid Inquiry.
Commentators were surprised. Most predicted that the Covid Inquiry chair’s report would echo sentiments seen during proceedings, suggesting that lockdowns, despite all credible evidence, were the only viable solutions for dealing with Covid.
So when Hallett’s team concluded that “the imposition of a lockdown should be a measure of last resort… indeed, there are those who would argue that a lockdown should never be imposed,” it almost seemed strange.
During the interview, much like his January 2023 appearance on the BBC where he pivoted from discussing statins to linking Covid vaccines to cardiovascular issues, Malhotra shifted the focus to vaccines.
He covered a lot of detail in quick succession. He argued that the term “vaccine” used for mRNA products is misleading, as they are better described as gene technologies. He cited peer-reviewed reanalysis of Moderna and Pfizer’s clinical trials, which showed an adverse event rate closer to 1-in-800, a figure that outweighed Covid hospitalisation risk. He also mentioned that Israel saw a 25% increase in cardiac events among people aged 16-39 during the vaccine rollout.
But the standout moment came when Malhotra discussed his involvement in a court case in Finland concerning an entrepreneur who was denied entry to a café because he was unvaccinated.
Malhotra revealed that he witnessed a World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist testify under oath that by December 2021, the mRNA vaccine offered zero protection against Covid. He then disclosed that he had texted Sajid Javid, the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, informing him of this testimony, but Javid effectively ignored it.
Former UK Secretary State for Health and Social Care Sajid Javid
It has been difficult to gauge what certain officials knew at what time. However, now we have an indication that some were categorically made aware that their policies were illogical and at direct odds with the evidence-base.
Press releases show that Javid’s department finally revoked the Covid vaccine mandate for health and social care staff on March 15, 2022, months after Malhotra made contact.
In November 2021, a survey of industry leaders estimated that up to 20,000 carers had already quit or been sacked over mandatory jabs. Given the mandate carried on to March the following year, that could be a vast underestimate.
Malhotra, who once advocated for everyone to receive the vaccines before his father reportedly passed away from them, notably said, “This is the biggest corporate crime committed by the drug the industry.”
TalkTV did not post the interview on YouTube as the platform continues to issue strikes to channels discussing the topic. So here it is in full.
Summary of Hallett’s Report on the Covid Inquiry:
- Ad Hoc Intervention: Epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse described lockdown as an ad hoc intervention with no prior planning, guidelines, or clear expectations.
- Lack of Scrutiny on Consequences: The novelty of the lockdown approach meant there was no time to scrutinise its potential side effects, leading to ill-prepared policies with unknown consequences.
- Significant Economic Impact: The report highlights the 25% drop in GDP between February and April 2020 due to lockdowns, representing a major gap in the UK’s assessment of pandemic risk.
- Missing Topics: The report does not discuss the UK government’s evidence that the Test and Trace system had minimal impact on reducing Covid infections despite its high cost.
- Balancing Factors in Health Emergencies: The report emphasises the need for a balanced approach in health emergencies, considering economic impact, social wellbeing, and effects on education, as advocated by former chief medical officer Sally Davies.
- Exclusion of Certain Testimonies: Testimonies from Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty are notably absent, indicating a potential shift from previously dominant perspectives during the pandemic.
- Real Story of the Report: The report suggests that the UK was not prepared for the “wrong pandemic”, but rather that it resorted to an unprecedented policy without a proper evidence base or risk assessment. It advocates that lockdowns should be a measure of last resort, and perhaps never used at all.
Australia uses ‘illegal surveillance’ against pro-Palestinian student protesters: Activist
Press TV – July 20, 2024
Authorities at a top university in Australia have used illegal surveillance methods against pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who have for several months been protesting against Israel’s atrocities in the Gaza Strip.
Students at the University of Melbourne staged encampment protests and sit-in strikes to force the university to cut ties with weapons manufacturers, divest from Israeli firms, and “end its complicity in the genocide in Gaza,” said protest organizer Dana Alshaer.
Alshaer, one of the main organizers of UniMelb for Palestine, told Turkish news agency Anadolu that along with 20 other students, she is now facing “extremely baseless” allegations of misconduct from the university and the threat of expulsion.
“They targeted five main organizers of UniMelb for Palestine, and they also targeted some prominent students who have been very visibly present during rallies and protests on campus,” said Alshaer.
“In the misconduct allegations,” she said, “the university included CCTV footage and Wi-Fi location tracking as evidence … so there’s been a use of surveillance technologies against students.”
Alshaer said the university clarified in 2016 that “their Wi-Fi tracking cannot and will not be used to identify students.”
“However, what we saw in the misconduct allegations and documents that were sent to us is that Wi-Fi tracking has been used to track students.”
Alshaer also raised concern “over the university’s possible and potential use of facial recognition programs.”
She said the university is using these misconduct allegations as a punishment “for students who defied the university’s ties with weapons manufacturers … and challenged the university’s ongoing complicity in the genocide in Gaza.”
She said that that university “is punishing students for standing up against [Israel’s] genocide” in Gaza.
Alshaer said that after their month-long Gaza solidarity encampment protests, they managed to push the university to disclose in June its links with US weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin, Boeing and BAE Systems, as well as over $15 million in research partnerships and investments with the US Department of Defense.
Despite being targeted by the university, she said, the students are determined to continue their activities for Palestine.
Pro-Palestine encampment protests that began at Columbia University in the United States in April and spread across campuses nationwide and worldwide, have faced harsh police crackdown and led to hundreds of arrests.
The protesters have been calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the regime’s atrocities in the Gaza Strip.
DONALD TRUMP AND THE TOLL OF VITRIOL
The HighWire | July 18, 2024
Nearly a decade of increasingly dangerous rhetoric and bias from corporate ‘journalists’ and those in power have prepared the grounds for violence. Who is to blame??
Secret Service under suspicion amid contradictions in Trump’s attempted assassination
By Uriel Araujo | July 19, 2024
Contradictions on Trump’s attempted assassination pile up, with serious security breaches and officials claiming an investigation is needed to determine whether it was a matter of incompetence or malice.
To begin with, according to the ABC News, “law enforcement officials investigating the assassination attempt on Donald Trump told lawmakers Wednesday that 20 minutes passed between the time U.S. Secret Service snipers first spotted the gunman on a rooftop and the time shots were fired at the former president.” How can one explain that?
Moreover, it is a well-established fact now that onlookers alerted the authorities about the presence of an armed man on a nearby roof. One witness reported that to the BBC shortly after the incident.
In addition, local officials in Pennsylvania are complaining that the Secret Service, in an attempt to deflect blame, is throwing them “under the bus”. According to one local police officer: “The Secret Service came out here more than a month ahead of time and met with all the local agencies. They tell us exactly what to do, exactly what they want and exactly how they want it. It’s all on them.”
More intriguingly, several witnesses describe a second shooter, and there seems to be plenty of cell phone footage indicating that – while the Secret Service insist there was only one. According to a Times of India story, “an audio forensic analysis conducted by experts from the National Center for Media Forensics at the University of Colorado in Denver suggests the possibility of a second shooter in the incident”. A CNN story in turn reports that “forensic analysis suggests that as many as three weapons were fired at the Trump rally.”
Stephen Bryen, security expert, takes the second shooter allegation seriously, and, in his Substack newsletter, he is calling for a “solid FBI investigation with Congressional oversight” on the matter. He adds that “there is a general consensus that security at the Trump Rally was poor”, and adds: “if the Secret Service actually approved all the security measures … we wonder, like millions of others no doubt, how could they overlook the rooftops.” Bryen is no fringe figure – he is a former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, who writes for Newsweek, the Jewish Policy Center, and others.
Cory Mills, a member of the United States House of Representatives, takes the matter a bit further, saying an investigation on the Secret Service is needed to determine whether this was merely incompetence or rather malice, with an intent to neutralize Trump.
Cory Mills is a former military, and was a member of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) 20 in Iraq. He is also a defense contractor, who has earned a Master of Arts in international relations and conflict resolution from American Military University. Again, this is also no fringe figure, and his allegations raise eyebrows.
Given all the above, it is no wonder suspicions abound – the fact that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is very close to the Biden couple certainly doesn’t help. According to the New York Post, she “landed her role thanks largely to a close relationship with first lady Jill Biden.” In any other country, by the way, after such a scandal, the Secret Service director would have been fired already or would have resigned. One thing that hampers further scrutiny, however, is an American cultural trait, namely the distaste for “conspiracy theories” (which is rather ironic in a country where conspiracies abound). Here, some context is needed.
Most scholars concede that sometimes conspiracy theories (CT) are proven to be at least partly correct. A “true” or ideal CT is supposed to always be false – meaning that its narrative does not describe reality. However, what happens when new data changes the “official” story? For instance, nowadays it is known that in 1962 the US Department of Defense proposed a false flag operation (the Operation Northwoods), calling for CIA operatives to actually commit terrorist attacks against American civilians and military targets in American cities (with bombings and hijackings) and then using those to justify a Cuban invasion. Then President John F. Kennedy rejected the plan, but the proposal existed, and no one denies it.
It is thus not clear at all how a “correct” conspiracy theory (one which later happens to be proven true) differs from a false one. Was it a CT when critics argued that the US government had lied about the real motivations which led it to invade Iraq? Other authors define “conspiracy theories” in a more neutral manner as any hypotheses that try to explain an event by invoking a “conspiracy” – namely, a secret plan carried out by a group of people.
One should also be cautious as to avoid equating a mere CT (about anything) and a conspiratorial way of understanding society and history in general. The latter (conspiracism), implicitly holds that nothing ever happens by chance but rather everything (especially tragedies) happens by design. Conspiracies do exist but not everything is a conspiracy. On the other hand, in the face of a major politically charged event, when various contradictions pile up, it would be naïve to readily dismiss everything as a “coincidence” (I would describe it as a “coincidence theory”).
With Biden’s undeniable senility getting worse, it is becoming increasingly clear he is not fit to run for the presidency again – he can barely participate in a debate or give interviews. Given this, the question then, as I wrote, is how can he govern, or rather how come has he been governing thus? In other words, who has been doing all the governing? Some talk about a “ triumvirate”, referring to Biden’s close advisers Bruce Reed, Mike Donilon, and Steve Ricchetti – the matter is far from being clear, though. One can only imagine the amount of palace intrigue going on amid this “emperor clothes” scenario.
With the ongoing political crisis, any investigation on the Secret Service will be either weaponized by Republicans against Democrats or covered up by the latter, amid a major narrative war and claims about “conspiracy theories”. The crisis is thus also an epistemic one, so to speak.
This state of affairs can only further undermine the legitimacy of American institutions, with serious consequences for the country’s stability. With a suspicious murder attempt on a presidential candidate and an embarrassingly senile incumbent president, the rest of the world holds their breath while the politics within the Atlantic superpower has just gone mad.
Ministry of Truth: Japan’s Communications Ministry Proposes Disinformation Law
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 19, 2024
Only recently, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an influential Washington think tank, outlined how the US and Japan could bolster their cooperation in “combating misinformation.”
In a report, CSIS noted almost in passing that Japan has in general fallen behind in this activity, but also that the group’s representatives had meetings with officials in Tokyo.
Coincidentally or not, news out of Japan this week says that the country’s Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry is looking at introducing new “anti-disinformation measures.” And, a draft report notes that here, “efforts are not sufficient” while transparency and accountability (ostensibly on the part of internet companies) have not been “adequate.”
That would suggest yet another “Ministry of Truth” and “disinformation law” are in the making somewhere in the world, these taking shape as a draft report details possible measures that social media companies would have to adhere to, going forward.
The report, which notably comes from the Interior Ministry (also in charge of Communications), speaks about the necessity of companies behind social platforms setting up “counter-disinformation systems” themselves, that would deal with what is deemed to be “disinformation” by deleting this content, but also, stepping up “screening of advertisers.”
And once again, time seems to be of the essence, because the report states that the reaction would have to be “prompt.”
The next step is for the draft to become subject to some form of public debate, after which the local press says it will become “official;” and the following step will be making it into law.
The situation reads almost like Japan wasn’t aware it had a “misinformation” problem of a magnitude that requires new and stringent rules, but is now just realizing that, and is almost mimicking the tone and language that’s been present around the topic for years already, in many parts of the world.
Thus, there are some vague and broad “definitions” – the content to be promptly dealt with is that which “contains obvious errors, infringes on the rights of others or is illegal (including disinformation).”
The Japanese plan states that once “a request” comes from a governmental agency, “the operators should make a prompt decision and provide notification as to whether they will delete the information or not.”
What about freedom of expression? The report’s authors seem to think this will do the trick: “The draft also requests that the administrative agency disclose information such as the contents of the request.”
One target is repeat offenders accused of peddling “illegal disinformation,” who will have their content deleted and accounts suspended.
Odessa Leads Violent Resistance to Mobilization as Poll Shows Ukrainians’ Sympathy for Draft Dodgers
© AFP 2023 / SERGEI SUPINSKY
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 18.07.2024
The southwestern Black Sea port city of Odessa is rapidly becoming the center of resistance to Kiev’s increasingly chaotic efforts to scoop up more souls for the war effort. Meanwhile, new polling and statistics released this week reveal that support for draft dodgers is growing across Ukraine, particularly its western regions.
On the night of July 16 alone, a wave of arson attacks targeting the service and personal vehicles of Odessa’s territorial recruitment center employees left five cars burned to a crisp. Similar incidents were reported in Vinnitsa, Rovno, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov the same night. Two more cars were burned in Odessa the next night, with the weekly total approaching a dozen.
The situation has gotten so bad in some cities that servicemen have reportedly resorted to putting “Not Territorial Recruitment Center” signs on their vehicles to avoid being targeted.
The ‘car-nage’ is no trifling matter for its perpetrators. On Tuesday, authorities in Rovno detained a 22-year-old suspect for the suspected arson of two military vehicles. He now faces up to 10 years in prison.
Arson is just one of the tools in the Ukrainian anti-war underground’s toolbelt. This week, unknown individuals attempted to blow up a territorial recruitment center in the town of Busk, Lvov region. Elsewhere in recent weeks, media have reported a stream of sabotage attacks targeting railway, electricity and other infrastructure, physical attacks on recruiters, and daily attempts by fighting-age men to escape Ukraine by crossing the border into neighboring Hungary, Poland, Romania or Moldova.
Ukrainian authorities have attempted to blame the unrest, including arson attacks on recruiters’ cars, on Russia, claiming suspects are being promised money or other rewards by the FSB via instant messengers.
But statistics and a fresh crop of sociological surveys suggest otherwise, indicating that Ukrainians are not only becoming increasingly tired of the conflict with Russia, but hostile to authorities, especially after the passage in May of a controversial law designed to strengthen mobilization, which obliges all men aged 18-60 to carry military ID with them at all times, allows summons to be served, and does not provide for demobilization. Combined with President Zelensky’s move this spring to lower the recruitment age from 27 to 25, the measures have proven a mental Molotov Cocktail encouraging resistance for Ukraine’s fighting age male population.
Punishments for dodging the draft are stiff. Earlier this month, the Kiev District Court in Kharkov sentenced a man with developmental disabilities to three years in prison for refusing to accept a summons after being deemed fit for service by a medical commission. Other men are grabbed in the streets, stuffed into vans, beaten and detained extrajudicially until they submit to conscription, reports have documented.
Ukrainians also have to worry about astronomical levels of corruption in recruitment offices, where bribe-taking has become the norm, rather than the exception. Shortfalls in recruitment rates resulting from wealthier Ukrainians being let off are inevitably made up by the poorer strata of society.
Western Ukraine Leading the Way in Dodging Draft, Stats Show
Unwillingness to fight has paralyzed much of the country, including –perhaps curiously, its most westernmost, anti-Russian, and pro-European regions.
Last week, Ukrainian media revealed, citing official government data, that enlistment offices had filed reports on over 417,000 draft dodgers since February 2022 (316,100 of them between 2023 and 2024), with western Ukraine lighting up bright red on the map among draft evader numbers despite being far more sparsely populated than the country’s center and east.
The figures show, for example, that while draft dodging in eastern, central and southern areas of the country range from as little as 200 people in the Ukrainian-controlled areas of Kherson, 4,500 in Kharkov and 14,300 in Kiev, in western areas, which include regions like Lvov, Zakarpatye, Ivano-Frankovsk, Rovno and Khmelnitsky, they total some 334,200 men.
In a recent report, Kiev-based journalist-turned Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier Artyom Ilyin said that most of the recruits from western regions of Ukraine he’s serving with are highly demoralized, asking why they should fight for a country that “has given them nothing but a machine gun in their entire lives.”
“Arguments about Putin and Moscow authorities do not work,” the journalist lamented, adding that “rumors” about the Kiev elite’s corrupt activities are rampant among the ranks.
Dodging the Draft Isn’t Shameful, Polling Says
Finally, shock polling this week by the Razumkov Center, generally regarded as one of Ukraine’s most respected public policy think tanks, revealed that a whopping 46% of Ukrainians do not consider it “shameful” to dodge mobilization, with 29.1% saying it is shameful, and 24.8% finding it difficult to answer. Among respondents aged 18-29, 50% said it is not shameful.
The same polling also found that 44% of respondents think the time has come peace talks with Russia, with 35% against the idea, and 21% undecided.
Draft Dodging Among Western Ukrainians Shows Local Fence-Sitter Mentality
Western Ukrainians had gotten “used to the fact that there was some kind of war going on in the east after the [2014] coup and before the start of Russia’s special military operation. The attitude was that ‘it doesn’t concern us, let the Donbass sort it out.’ They thought that the Ukrainian army’s terrorizing of the eastern regions would last forever,” Alexander Dudchak, a Ukrainian politics expert and leading researcher at the Institute of CIS Countries, told Sputnik, commenting on the unexpectedly high draft dodger rates among western Ukrainians.
When it came time to enlist for the current conflict, “they still prefer that the people from those [eastern] regions be sent to the front first,” Dudchak said. Today, the observer noted, the recruiters sent to major eastern and southeastern cities like Kharkov, Nikolayev and Odessa to collect fresh recruits often come from Ivano-Frankovsk, Lvov and other western regions.
As for the rising instances of arson and other acts of sabotage targeting recruiters, the military and infrastructure, Dudchak characterized the phenomenon as a fledgling form of popular resistance and guerilla warfare.
“This is the protest of the local population which in principle does not perceive this government as its own, or this military as their defenders. They act as best they can, using whatever capabilities they have,” he explained.
Ukrainian society today in general is in a state of apathy, and “doesn’t see any point any longer to continue the war,” according to the observer.
“Such tendencies are growing stronger. That’s what the sociological services are talking about, although they may also be preparing the population to accept the inevitable and the possibility of negotiations, and ceding territory. But of course, not under the current regime, not under Zelensky, most likely,” Dudchak summed up.
Ukrainian language rejected by children in Russian-majority regions
By Lucas Leiroz | July 18, 2024
The forced imposition of the Ukrainian language in regions with a non-Ukrainian ethnic majority appears to be failing. There has been a decline in the use of the Ukrainian language in the country’s schools, according to a report recently published by the Kiev media. The case clearly shows how, despite the use of force and violence, the neo-Nazi regime will have great difficulty in imposing its cultural agenda in the country’s remote regions.
Since 2014, the official use of Russian and other non-Ukrainian languages has been sharply reduced. The de-Russification measures were further intensified after the start of the special military operation, when the Kiev regime received a “carte blanche” by Western sponsors to commit all sorts of crimes, including ethnic and cultural genocide, an almost total ban on the Russian language and literature having happened since then.
However, despite efforts to eradicate the cultural and linguistic identity of ethnic Russians, the rejection of the Ukrainian language has been increasing throughout the country. A recent survey by the State Service for the Quality of Education showed that in the 2023/2024 academic year, only 74% of students stated that Ukrainian was their mother language. The previous year, the figure was 91%, which shows that there has been a significant drop in the number of children who identify as native speakers of Ukrainian.
Moreover, the drop is not limited to children. Similar data were also revealed in surveys of parents (93% to 82%) and teachers (94% to 86%). In practice, it is possible to say that there is a massive decline in the use of the Ukrainian language, with all the efforts of the neo-Nazi government to assimilate other ethnic groups having failed.
New statistics indicate that currently less than 40% of children in the country use Ukrainian exclusively in their informal activities. The figures naturally vary according to Ukraine’s geography, with more Ukrainian speakers in the western regions, where there are fewer ethnic Russians. Around 17% of children speak Ukrainian in the east of the country, while around 74% speak this language in the west.
It is important to remember that, in addition to Russian, other non-Ukrainian languages are used in the country by ethnic minorities, who are also suffering the impacts of cultural genocide policies. This is the case of the Hungarian language, for example, which is used in the Transcarpathian region, where Hungarians currently live in a situation similar to that of Russians in Donbass, being victims of apartheid-like measures. Despite all the persecution, however, these ethnic minorities refuse to abandon their cultural identity and continue to speak their languages.
This scenario in Ukraine was already expected by some experts. Implementing measures of ethnic and cultural cleansing is not easy. People affected by the measures tend to react by using their language even more intensely, as an act of political activism to preserve their cultural heritage. Amid the current conflict situation, some Russian families in Ukraine see the use of their native language as the last chance to preserve their identity amid the Russophobic madness that the authorities want to impose on all citizens.
In addition, there are basic sociological issues that explain the continued use of the Russian language. The authorities have no way of monitoring which language is being used in informal and family activities. Ethnic Russian citizens use their native language to engage in unofficial sociability, rejecting the Ukrainian language during casual conversations in shopping malls, in churches and other places.
With the survey data revealed, it is possible that Kiev will increase its repressive measures against Russian speakers even further from now on. The total banning of this language throughout the country remains one of the main goals of the neo-Nazi regime. Knowing the failure of the efforts so far, it is very likely that the violence will be intensified in an act of desperation to make the cultural genocide successful.
However, any action in this direction is likely to fail. Kiev will only further expand social and ethnic tensions, polarizing Russians and Ukrainians within the country and generating a crisis of instability that could seriously affect the regime’s mobilization plans during this war. Destroying an ethnic and cultural identity is not easy and Kiev will certainly not succeed, given the current Ukrainian state’s inability to maintain full control over what happens in the country.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.
Scholz orders closure of one of the opposition’s largest media networks after interview with Zakharova
By Ricardo Nuno Costa – New Eastern Outlook – 17.07.2024
On 16 July, Jürgen Elsässer (67) woke up startled at 6 a.m., opened the door of his house while still in his dressing gown, and in front of him were dozens of police officers, some with their faces covered, heavily armed, in a surreal image befitting any authoritarian state. However, it was in Brandenburg, on the outskirts of Berlin, in the Germany of the tragicomic Scholz government, aka the ‘Traffic Light’ coalition.
The police were about to raid his house, while more than 200 federal and Brandenburg state agents were deployed to carry out further searches in eight other houses and offices in the region. Other raids were carried out in the states of Saxony, Hesse and Saxony-Anhalt, ordered by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), who had ordered Compact to be closed by decree as an ‘association’, when it was legally a publishing house. She also banned any activity by the audiovisual company that produced Compact’s content, such as its YouTube, Facebook and Instagram accounts.
The minister later explained that Compact ‘incites hatred against Jews, against people with a history of migration and against our parliamentary democracy in an indescribable way’. According to the Ministry, the legal basis is the Law on Associations, according to which organisations that are directed against the free and democratic basic order can also be banned.
‘The ban shows that we are also taking action against intellectual arsonists who are fuelling a climate of hatred and violence against refugees and migrants and who want to bypass our democratic state,’ the minister explained. “Our message is very clear: we will not allow ethnicity to define who belongs in Germany and who does not. Our rule of law protects all those who are harassed because of their faith, their origin, the colour of their skin or even their democratic position.”
As early as 2022, the German intelligence services (BND) considered that Compact, ‘as a multimedia company, conveys anti-democratic positions in society and against human dignity’, and since then, it has been classified as far-right by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and under suspicion.
Interviewed by journalists during the police search of the house where he lives with his wife and partner in the company, Elsässer said that ‘in 14 years of existence there has not been a single criminal charge against his magazine’, which is why he was surprised by the minister’s announcement. He also said that he was in contact with his lawyer to defend his rights and jokingly imitated Donald Trump with his fist raised saying that he was ‘ready for a fight’.
Mixed reactions in the press
While journalists from the mainstream media are refusing to give this episode its due importance, others have seen the government’s unusual decision as a clear warning sign. Opinions were divided between the established media and the few journalists still struggling to report, and the internet was abuzz with the event. The tag #Compact was the main topic on German Twitter throughout the day, and Germans and foreigners alike made the Scholz government’s persecution of the media viral. Germany is under the scrutiny of international public opinion for the worst reasons.
Elsässer complains that this is ‘the biggest attack on press freedom in Germany since the 1962 Spiegel Magazine scandal’. At that time, it was discovered that the Adenauer government wanted to silence several journalists by illegal means for political reasons. When this was discovered, Defence Minister Franz Josef Strauß and two state secretaries had to resign. However, not even then was a troublesome media outlet banned, as it is now with his case. Elsässer says that only in the GDR and during National Socialism were things like this scene.
The metamorphosis of Elsässer, the current standard-holder of Germany’s ‘new right’
Jürgen Elsässer is a long-time political activist. With a degree in history and a short career as a teacher, he started out in the far-left anti-German movement in the 1970s, wrote books with a strong anti-national slant, worked on the editorial boards of various left-wing publications such as Junge Welt, Neues Deutschland, he collaborated with Der Freitag and the Jüdische Allgemeine and was editor-in-chief of Konkret magazine, until after disagreements with other elements, he founded Compact magazine in 2010, with the idea of bringing together the best of the left and the right in a transversal front (‘Querfront’), based on national sovereignty, the multipolar world and the rejection of the EU and NATO.
In 2017, with the demonstrations against Merkel’s open-door immigration policy, he joined forces with the leader of the AfD in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, considered a quasi-neo-Nazi, and Martin Sellner, leader of Austria’s Identity Movement. Since then, the magazine has become a major reference point for the so-called ‘new right’ and Elsässer has become one of the central figures in the German nationalist spectrum.
His political proposal and trajectory are controversial and very heterodox. He clearly calls for the ‘remigration’ of non-European foreigners, makes claims to Polish territories, likes to provoke his opponents, has aligned himself with openly Islamophobic elements such as Michael Stürzenberger or the PEGIDA movement, has played on the edge, but always within the rules of the game. At least until today.
Elsässer is an experienced figure, with a huge culture and a large archive of articles and books written, where he has changed his mind, or at least his appearance. He says that he hasn’t changed at all, that he remains in the same political position as he was 40 years ago.
He worked for the Die Linke parliamentary group as a member of the BND enquiry committee in the Bundestag. He is an insightful expert on geopolitical issues. In 2012, he was received by then president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in Tehran, together with a German entourage. About that trip to Iran, he said he enjoyed everything, only missing a good cold beer, like the good German he claims to be. He recently teamed up with Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s European frontrunner, who advocates a Germany that guarantees its status as a pole in the multipolar world that has already been born and is taking its first steps.
A quality magazine
Compact magazine was the centrepiece of the network that included audiovisual channels, the organisation of events, conferences, the publishing and sale of books and Compact TV, with its YouTube channel, which recently reached one million views a day.
Over the years, you could say that the magazine has moved to the right. In 2014, it dedicated a cover to Netanyahu, in which it accused him of perpetrating a ‘Genocide in Gaza’, then shifted its focus to criticising immigration, especially of Islamic origin. Later articles were also read against Hamas. With the pandemic, it took a clear stance against the government, the pharmaceutical industry and the accusation of a biological warfare conspiracy by the great powers of the West.
With Russia’s entry into Ukraine, it advocated dialogue with Moscow and the resumption of Russian energy. It was one of the few media outlets to do an exhaustive report on the Nord Stream attacks, to which it devoted almost an entire issue. In its December 2023 issue, it details how an extremely powerful Zionist sect with global reach, currently in the Israeli government, is planning an eschatological end-of-times war with catastrophic consequences for the whole world.
The absence of the Compact has already been felt since the arrival of the ‘Traffic Light’ government. Heavy pressure on distributors led to the magazine disappearing from petrol stations, supermarkets, newsagents and bookshops. Little by little, it was confined to subscribers. It was one of the few magazines where you could read good geopolitical articles.
The German typhoon
The magazine ban is just one more of the government’s decisions that threaten to divide German society, but it doesn’t seem to bother the establishment, either in the government or in the opposition on the traditional right.
Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) welcomed the federal government’s move. Stübgen accused the magazine of spreading ‘Russian war propaganda and conspiracy theories against the democratic order’. He also said that ‘this platform of enemies of democracy has only one goal, which is the destruction of our liberal society’.
In a comment on social media, historian Hermann Ploppa, identified with the left wing and linked to the famous alternative politics portal Apolut, confesses that ‘the Compact is not to my liking. A lot of it is simply disgusting. But there is no violation of the law. It’s also clear that the Compact ban is the opening fanfare to suppress the inconvenient media. That’s why we shouldn’t stand idly by. WE ARE NEXT.”
Across the party spectrum, only the AfD criticised the magazine ban. The party’s leaders, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, jointly announced on Tuesday that it was a ‘serious blow to press freedom’. ‘The banning of a media organisation means the denial of discourse and diversity of opinion.’ According to the far-right party, the interior minister is abusing her powers to ‘suppress critical information’.
Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW had not commented on the Compact ban at the time of writing. Wagenknecht has been on the cover of the magazine on more than one occasion. In its December 2022 issue, she was described as ‘The best chancellor: A candidate for left and right’. The relationship between Elsässer and Wagenknecht goes back to the 90s. In 1996, a still communist Elsässer interviewed his comrade Wagenknecht, long before he became one of the main ideologues of the new ‘Querfront’ between the ‘left of labour and the right of values’, an enterprise for which he has called on Wagenknecht to participate on several occasions in recent times.
The Zakharova interview
If the move against Compact magazine didn’t come without warning, it did coincide with the interview with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, conducted two days earlier by Compact’s Moscow correspondent Hansjörg Müller and broadcast on the magazine’s website and YouTube channel.
With hundreds of thousands of hits on the first day on the website and more than 250,000 on YouTube, Zakharova ridiculed the “traffic light” government in the one-and-a-half hour interview. She sharply criticised the policies of Scholz, Baerbock and the sanctions, which not only destroy relations between Berlin and Moscow, but also harm Germany’s own interests, all at the behest of “third-party interests”.
The Russian spokeswoman also alluded to the problem of immigration in Germany, which she said had geopolitical origins, with Berlin playing a subservient role to “US and British operations in the Middle East and Southern Africa”, which are causing the migratory chaos that is burdening Europe.
She also spoke about Germany’s obligations under the 1999 2+4 Treaty, the murky role of the German authorities in the case of Navalny’s alleged poisoning in 2020, the pandemic, vaccines and the announced abolition of paper money in Europe, the Federal Reserve, the destruction of Nord Stream, and much more. All in all, a fascinating interview, highly recommended, and very uncomfortable for Western liberal elites, especially Germans.
It’s clear that, once again, the German government is acting in accordance with the Washington Consensus, because the magazine in question was clearly in favour of peace between Germany and Russia, was gaining public influence and threatening several pillars on which Germany’s structure has rested since 1945. The fact that this doesn’t please many people is understandable, but it doesn’t make it an illegal outlet. Mrs Faeser’s decision sets a serious precedent, foreshadowing difficult days ahead for free information in Germany and Europe. Having found no illegality, the German government had to use two paragraphs of a law on associations to ban a publishing house because it was inconvenient. It’s all food for thought.
Ricardo Nuno Costa ‒ geopolitical expert, writer, columnist, and editor-in-chief of geopol.pt.
Potential Ukrainian Trace in Trump’s Attempted Murder – Ukrainian Opposition Politician
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 16.07.2024
Volodymyr Zelensky and his backers in the Biden administration would do whatever it takes to destroy those advocating a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, the Other Ukraine movement’s Council Chair Viktor Medvedchuk warned Trump.
Attacks on politicians advocating negotiations and peace in Ukraine have become a worrisome trend, Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian opposition politician and chairman of the council of the Other Ukraine movement, wrote in an open letter to Donald Trump, the US Republican frontrunner.
“The terrorist [shooter of Trump], whoever he is, was clearly not a lone wolf,” Medvedchuk noted. “On the campaign trail, you [Trump] have repeatedly stated that you will be able to bring peace to the long-suffering Ukrainian land. But this peace means the loss of power by the [Volodymyr] Zelensky [neo-] Nazi regime and its American handlers in the Biden administration.”
“It is because of this, dear Mr. Trump, that you have become a personal enemy of Ukrainian neo-Nazi Zelensky, this scoundrel would do whatever it takes to prevent you from winning the presidential election. I think that a Ukrainian trace will appear in the attempted murder case.”
Medvedchuk drew attention to the fact that a day before the assassination attempt, the chief of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov bragged to the Ukrainian press that there had been several attempts, “albeit unsuccessful so far,” to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In May 2023 in one of his interviews, Budanov acknowledged that the Ukrainian intelligence had been involved in terrorist attacks against a number of Russian public and media figures. However, he did not name the victims and refused to answer clarifying questions.
Prior to that, Russian military blogger Maxim Fomin, known to the public by his nom de guerre Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed in April 2023. In August 2022, a Ukrainian sabotage group used a car bomb to kill Daria Dugina, the daughter of Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, as per Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee.
Medvedchuk didn’t rule out that the May attempted murder of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who ardently advocated halting the flow of EU weapons to Ukraine, was carried out by “another supporter of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime.”
“The struggle for peace in Ukraine is increasingly causing open aggression on the part of war supporters and is becoming more and more dangerous,” Medvedchuk stressed.
“Former President of Ukraine and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Zelensky has lost his legitimacy since May 21, 2024; the power has been usurped by a group of conspirators; fundamental human rights have been violated by the incumbent criminal regime; the rule of law and political pluralism have been completely destroyed,” the Ukrainian politician continued.
Zelensky’s personal interest in prolonging hostilities in Ukraine in order to stay in power could lead to an aggravation of the conflict and create a threat to the entire world, concluded Medvedchuk.
What? 3 police snipers were staged inside the building from which Crook took his shots.
By Meryl Nass | July 16, 2024
Consider JFK, RFK assassinations: there was a patsy and there were the real shooters. The Deep State does not rely on its patsy to do the job. It relies on at least 2 distance shooters or a point blank hit. Because it cannot afford to fail.
And yet it just did. Thanks to Providence. Look at the freefall the Democrats are now experiencing. Because the whole world knows who did this. After all the attacks during Trump’s earlier Presidency, the extraordinary lawfare attacks during his campaign, and now this attempted assassination, it does not take a rocket scientist to say Qui Bono (who benefits?).
And Biden, cool as another cuke, gives himself a pass over his inflammatory language 5 days before the hit: “I didn’t say crosshairs, I said bullseye!” in interview with Lester Holt.
I dredged up this interesting quote from February 2020:
Now for the claims about another shooter, etc.
The FBI may say the investigation is over and Matthew Crooks acted utterly alone, just another lone gunman, but everybody else seems to be ignoring the ailing law enforcement agency. CBS ran a live update yesterday headlined, “Three snipers were stationed inside building used in Trump assassination attempt.” In a story broken by the local Beaver County paper, we learned yesterday that three local Beaver County sharpshooters who should have been stationed on the building, were instead inside the building, and it gets worse.
Snipering usually works much better from an elevated position, and isn’t super effective from the ground. I’m not an expert, but it seems obvious.
Anyway, the cops spotted assassin Crooks, several times. Each time Crooks was acting incredibly sketchy and even once used a rangefinder. The Beaver County police stayed put, but called it in to the command post — all while Crooks continued prowling around on the ground. They knew exactly where he was —well before he took the shot— called it in more than once, and even took pictures of him, but still didn’t stop the shooting. CBS:
Whatever reason. Another unconfirmed wrinkle developed yesterday on social media, with no mention in any of the confirmed reporting. They could just be confused by the fog of war, but at least two witnesses interviewed by local reporters claimed there was a second shooter on the water tower.
Here is witness clip one. And here is witness clip two.
Here is a top-down map showing the potential shooting angles.
Who knows? It’s much too early to rule anything in or out. But even though the FBI is wrapping up its “thorough” research, multiple other investigations are already underway. You can expect this thing will get a lot of attention. For instance, in its article, the BBC reported that the House Oversight Committee has already confirmed Secret Service Directory Kimberly Cheatle to testify and requested all the rally records:
Finally, the New York Post interviewed a trained Canadian sniper who holds the current record for the longest kill. I was especially gratified that a professional, military-trained sniper agreed with C&C’s assessment: it seems unlikely unemployed drifter Crooks could possibly have planned and executed the sophisticated operation without some help, regardless of what the FBI says:
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Should Europeans ‘Thank’ the Americans for Destroying Nord Stream?
By Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 29, 2022
With an investigation continuing into the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline that provided energy supplies to Europe from Russia, there appears to be just one prime suspect, and that should surprise nobody.
Following the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski already seemed to know the identity of the perpetrator when he tweeted out: “Thank you, USA.”
At first glance, it seemed that Sikorski was speaking sarcastically, berating Washington for carrying out an attack that will have severe repercussions for the people of Europe. After all, how could anyone see any good coming from the termination of Europe’s primary source of gas reserves with winter just around the corner? It was Sikorski’s homeland of Poland, after all, that urged its citizens to collect firewood in the face of dwindling gas reserves.
In fact, the Polish diplomat was speaking one-hundred percent literally… continue
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