SHOCKING NEW COVID VACCINE SIDE EFFECTS
Welcome to the next generation of possible vaccine harms. From mouth blisters to debilitating nervous system disorders, scientists are reporting troubling side effects from COVID-19 vaccines.
Prominent EU Activists Arrested, Harrassed for Opposing COVID Mandates
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 4, 2022
Officials in the Netherlands on April 3 re-arrested Willem Engel, a prominent campaigner against COVID-19 restrictions, claiming Engel violated the terms of his bail by discussing his case on social media.
Engel is co-founder of the Dutch organization “Viruswaarheid” (“Virus Truth”), which is challenging the legality of COVID restrictions implemented in the Netherlands.
He first was arrested last month and detained for two weeks before being released on bail.
Engel is one of two well-known European activists arrested recently for speaking out against COVID mandates and lockdowns. The other, French attorney Virginie de Araujo-Recchia, serves on the international grand jury convened as part of the People’s Court of Public Opinion, co-founded by German attorney Reiner Fuellmich.
The People’s Court aims to reveal “crimes against humanity” committed in the name of public health and combating COVID.
Araujo-Recchia, in a press release, and Engel, in an interview with The Defender, said they will continue their efforts to fight COVID-related restrictions and vaccine mandates.
French lawyer detailed on suspicion of connections to ‘terrorism’
Araujo-Recchia was arrested by French police at her home in the early morning hours of March 22 and held until March 24 by the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) in Paris.
Mainstream media reports said she was arrested, along with six other individuals, including a member of the French “Yellow Vests” movement, in connection with an ongoing “terrorism” investigation.
According to Libération :
“[T]he lawyer [Araujo-Recchia] is one of the seven people arrested yesterday ‘in a terrorist case linked to the figure of the conspiracy circles Rémy Daillet.’
“A judicial source confirmed … that seven police custody [sic] were in progress at the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) ‘for acts of association of terrorist criminals with a view to preparing crimes against persons.’ They are five men and two women, aged 36 to 62.
“Among those arrested would also include Sylvain B., a ‘yellow vest’ author of a ‘manual of peaceful insurrection’. AFP [Agence France Presse] specifies that searches were carried out during the arrests.”
French newspaper Libération described Daillet as a “neo-Nazi” and “a figure in conspiratorial circles already implicated and imprisoned” in a kidnapping case, who is also accused of being the mastermind of a group “planning violent actions … against 5G antennas, vaccination centers, but also against journalists and various personalities.”
In addition to serving with Fuellmich on the People’s Court grand jury, Araujo-Recchia is involved with similar issues domestically within France, working with three organizations that are attempting to levy criminal charges against politicians who, in 2021, voted for legislation strengthening COVID-related restrictions.
Working with three other lawyers, Araujo-Recchia filed a complaint on behalf of three associations: BonSens.org, AIMSIB [International Association for Independent and Benevolent Scientific Medicine] and the Collectif des Maires Résistants [Collective of Resistant Mayors], targeting French members of parliament who, on Aug. 5, 2021, voted for legislation implementing vaccine passports and requiring French workers to receive a COVID vaccine.
Araujo-Recchia and her legal team alleged these parliamentarians received favors in exchange for their vote and that the law itself violates French and international law. They presented a series of arguments against this legislation.
She also was said to be working on a new complaint, to be filed against French political parties and some of their members, at the time of her arrest.
In November 2020, Araujo-Recchia authored the Dictatorship Report 2020, published by France’s Genocide Observatory. This report was said to be intended to form part of a new set of criminal charges to be filed against members of the French government.
Following her arrest, Health Freedom Defense Fund posted an online petition calling for her release.
On March 30, Araujo-Recchia issued a press release describing her ordeal and time in detention. She clarified she is not facing any charges at this time, stating:
“[O]n 22nd March 2022 at forty minutes past six in the morning (06:40), twelve individuals including hooded commando officers, entered our residence on board six vehicles and pounded at the front door.
“The team was made up of various security-agency members, notably from the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure (DGSI, more or less equivalent to MI5), a representative of the Paris Bar (Bâtonnier du Barreau de Paris), a Clerk of the Court and two investigation-magistrates. Without striking a blow, they entered our residence and searched each and every room including our children’s room, our vehicle and the garden.
“On suspicion of being an accomplice to terrorism, I was then removed to DGSI premises at Levallois-Perret.
“There, I was held for roughly sixty hours under conditions that can only be described as inhuman. For reasons of personal dignity I shall refrain from elaborating further.
“On being released from custody, I found that not a single charge would be raised against me, nor was I even a suspect (témoin assisté). In a word, I am no party to the matter.
“Apart from being amongst the lawyers instructed by an individual who has been charged, my involvement with the case is nil.
“Would it not have been simpler to call me in, rather than carrying me off in front of the children and detaining me under grotesque conditions – when at the end of the day, there being nothing to reproach me with, it proves to be but a fishing expedition?
“Innocent until proven guilty did you say?”
In the press release, Araujo-Recchia also claimed that during her interrogation, which lasted 10 hours, she was asked the following questions in an apparent attempt to smear her as a “conspiracy theorist” and racist, and to connect her to alleged “terrorist” activity:
- Are you a patriot?
- What does the term “conspiracy theorist” refer to?
- Your view of Islam?
- Your view of Judaism?
- Your view of 5G?
- Your view of pedophilia?
- Your view of the Freemasonry?
- Might there be [government] ministers with ties to pedophile networks?
- Your view of [French President] Emmanuel Macron?
- What measures have led you to assert that crimes against humanity have been perpetrated?
- What is meant by “New World Order”?
Responding to this line of questioning and media reports about her connections to “terror” suspects, Araujo-Recchia wrote:
“Various press outlets have referred to a ‘terrorist file’, and to my name as a ‘lawyer representing individuals in conspiracy-theorist circles’ or ‘extremist cells,’ The libelous nature of that particular mixture being perfectly plain to all and sundry.
“Trust that I shall not let the business drop: we are dealing with outright libel and intent to harm. I shall moreover exercise my right to respond.
“The investigator asked me to set out my ‘ideology’ in broad strokes. I replied that it has nothing to do with an ideology, but rather with plain facts backed by evidence which I have been at pains to collect over the past two years.
“The International Court of Public Opinion and the Grand Jury, inter alia, have held hearings at which there testified acknowledged international specialists in science, medicine, psychology and psychopathology, economics, geostrategy, as well as victims past and present.
“For my part, I have taken testimony from victims, health-care workers, French firemen and present[ed] it to the Grand Jury.
“No ideology is being served up here, but rather expert opinion, professionals, witnesses and victims.
“Truth alone is the goal we seek.”
Araujo-Vecchia also noted that lawyers and doctors, as well as activists such as members of the Yellow Vests, “are subjected to similar forms of intimidation, as they attempt to raise the alarm over certain measures designed to manage the public-health ‘crisis’ or harm incurred through the experimental gene-therapy shots,” adding:
“[T]here are those of us who, having confronted the State and major financial interests such as the pharmaceutical-, finance- and MSM multis, find ourselves being in custody without cause.
“None of this will prevent my fighting for civil rights and liberties.”
France, beginning in 2020, enacted some of the most stringent COVID-related restrictions in Europe, including vaccine passports to enter most public and private venues.
In January, French President Emmanuel Macron, who is running for re-election, said he is continuing implementation of such passports because he wanted to “piss off” the unvaccinated.
Dutch activist detained for 14 days on charges of ‘incitement, sedition’
In an incident remarkably similar to Araujo-Vecchia’s arrest, Dutch activist Willem Engel, co-founder of the “Viruswaarheid” (“Virus Truth”) movement, on March 16 was arrested on charges of “incitement” and “sedition.”
Engel was outside a polling location immediately after he had voted in that country’s elections. His lawyer, Jeroen Pols, immediately confirmed the arrest in a tweet, while Engel’s girlfriend captured the arrest on video.
Mainstream media reports, which described Engel as a “COVID denier,” reported he is “suspected of posting seditionist coronavirus-related statements on social media over an extended period,” quoting statements from the Public Prosecution Service (OM) of the Netherlands.
The OM in January announced that Engel was being investigated following a petition, signed by nearly 23,000 individuals, calling for him to be charged with sedition, spreading medical misinformation, fraud and making threats.
The petition was launched by an “activist,” Norbert Dikkeboom, in 2021.
The initial investigation into his actions led to Engel’s arrest, the OM said in a statement.
The investigation identified seven social media postings, made by Engel between June 2020 and June 2021, which “were considered to be incitement,” and which, according to the OM, “led to other people committing criminal offenses or incited them to do so.”
The OM did not name the specific social media posts or the alleged criminal offenses that the posts allegedly incited.
As stated by the OM, while freedom of speech is a “fundamental right” that is enshrined under Dutch law, “there are limits to that freedom.”
In January, Engel characterized the investigation as a “smear campaign” against him and proclaimed his innocence. “I try to keep the debate sharp but never cross the line,” Engel said. “I’ve never threatened anyone.” He went on to accuse Dikkeboom, the activist who launched the petition against him, of stalking him.
Engel’s lawyer, Jeroen Pols, called Engel’s arrest “a frontal attack on critics and opponents” of the “Rutte regime,” referring to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. He added in later statements that Engel’s arrest is part of an ongoing pattern of arresting individuals who “criticize the regime.”
“The Rutte regime is fully attacking critics and opposition,” Pols said. “Meanwhile, they have a big mouth about democracy in Russia.”
In turn, the group Viruswaarheid (Virus Truth) described the arrest as an instance when “the Dutch government crossed a new line in its war against unwanted opinions and expressions.” The group accused the OM of, along with Dutch police, actively assisting Dikkeboom in his petition against Engel.
Viruswaarheid claimed that, in the past year, more than 420 articles and media reports smeared Engel “with slanderous lies,” as a result of “[a]n unprecedented hate campaign from the entire written and spoken media” that contributed to the collection of the more than 22,000 signatures on the petition against Engel.
In a separate statement, Viruswaarheid wrote that Engel “had drawn attention to [the Dutch government’s] Corona policy with his ‘Virus Truth’ initiative and has successfully fought the government measures in court on several occasions.”
Viruswaarheid in April 2020 launched petitions and demonstrations against the Dutch government’s COVID restrictions.
The group also filed two successful lawsuits “against the illegal corona measures,” which led to the laws in question being amended, in an effort by the Dutch government to sidestep these legal defeats.
Following Engel’s arrest, a demonstration took place in Amsterdam on March 20 calling for his release.
Engel, who holds a master’s degree in biopharmacy and biotechnology and operates a dance school in Rotterdam, was released on March 30 after being detained for 14 days.
He faces two upcoming court cases. He spoke to The Defender about his experience and the charges he is now facing.
Engel told The Defender he was arrested “in front of the voting booth … right after I cast my vote, two thugs with masks handcuffed me and told me I am under arrest for sedition … this is in clear violation [of Dutch law] on so many angles.”
According to Engel, he was not informed about the specific social media posts that led to the charges against him. Instead, “they [the authorities] just named the offense.”
Engel described Dikkeboom, the organizer of the petition against him, as “a sad person that stalks me,” adding, “I have made multiple charges against him … as he is openly calling for violence against me.”
Engel said the OM “shared a lot of information” about his case with Dikkeboom, describing this as “crazy” in light of Dikkeboom’s alleged threats against him.
As a potential motive for his arrest, Engel points out that Viruswaarheid has filed “over 20 cases against the government and its institutions,” adding that “there is a spree of arrests, all [with] the same signature, people being accused of threatening violence or vandalism or sedition,” and who are facing “vague charges.”
According to Engel, “almost all of the arrests are against people who have a following and who vlog regularly about demonstrations and COVID.”
Engel said such arrests and crackdowns are “happening also in Germany and Canada and probably all western countries.” He described this as “clearly the next phase of oppression, trying to take out the resistance in preparation for the next COVID ‘wave’ set for September 2022.”
However, according to Engel, the authorities “got more than they bargained for” as a result of his arrest, pointing out that “lots of people were rallying … more than 10,000 physical postcards were sent to the prison [where he was held] … #Freewillem was trending on Twitter [on] multiple days.”
Engel said he now faces two separate court cases with the “same line of charges,” which he describes as “very vague.” Court hearings are scheduled on June 13 and June 20 in The Hague and Rotterdam, respectively.
Despite his ordeal, Engel said he is “in good health and the fight has just begun.”
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
Mutilated Yellow Vests march a week ahead of Macron’s re-election bid
By Ramin Mazaheri – Press TV – April 4, 2022
Paris – Exactly one week before the first round of the French election the embodiment of the past five years marched in Paris: Yellow Vests who were crippled, blinded and mutilated by police.
On every Saturday from November 2018 until June 2019 a national bloodletting took place on a scope which was unprecedented in recent Western history. The numbers are as staggering as the lack of Western condemnation for the French government: at least 11,000 arrests, 1,000 imprisoned, 5,000 protesters seriously hurt, 1,000 critically injured, scores maimed for life and 11 deaths.
Those who suffered the most say they don’t want to be forgotten when voters go to the ballot box. The huge phalanx of armed police which still accompany the Yellow Vests every Saturday kept their distance, while the mainstream media was not present at the protest almost at all.
Over 75% of cases involving hurt protesters are immediately dropped, without any court case or even an investigation. Punishment of police for mistreating Yellow Vest anti-government protesters has been almost non-existent. The Yellow Vests are routinely credited with an approval rating of 75%, an unheard of score in a country where perceptions of political corruption are commonplace.
The state-sponsored police brutality, combined with the so called “anti-Yellow Vest laws”, scared many into no longer attending public protests. President Emmanuel Macron is expected to win a close re-election, but the damage to France’s international reputation cannot be estimated.
Accusations of Bucha massacre by Russian forces are fake news: Moscow
Samizdat | April 3, 2022
The Russian military has firmly denied accusations of mass killings of civilians in Bucha, a Ukrainian town northwest of Kiev. The claims have been raised by Ukraine itself, some Western media outlets and human rights groups, after Moscow had withdrawn its troops from the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital.
“All photographs and video materials published by the Kiev regime, allegedly showing some kind of “crimes” by Russian military personnel in the town of Bucha, Kiev region, are yet another provocation,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said Sunday.
Russian troops had been pulled out from the area on March 30, the military said, pointing out that “the so-called ‘evidence of crimes’ in Bucha appeared only on the fourth day” after the withdrawal, when Ukrainian intelligence and “representatives of Ukrainian television arrived in the town.”
“Moreover, on March 31 the mayor of Bucha, Anatoly Fedoruk, confirmed in his video address that there was no Russian military in the town, but did not even mention any local residents laying shot in the streets with their hands tied,” the Russian military also pointed out.
“It’s particularity concerning that all the bodies of people whose images were published by the Kiev regime, after at least four days, have not stiffened, do not have characteristic cadaveric spots, and have fresh blood in their wounds,” the military noted, adding that all these inconsistencies show that the whole Bucha affair “has been staged by the Kiev regime for Western media, as was the case with the [fake news from the] Mariupol maternity clinic.”
Graphic footage from Bucha shows multiple bodies in civilian clothing lying in the middle of a street. Some of the dead apparently had their hands tied, while others were white armbands, commonly used by Russian forces and civilians in areas under Russian control.
Kiev has blamed the Bucha killings on Moscow, with Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba claiming it was a “deliberate massacre” by Russian troops.
“The Bucha massacre was deliberate. Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kick them out. I demand new, devastating G7 sanctions NOW,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
Top Western politicians have backed Kiev’s assessment of Bucha, with some explicitly pinning the blame for the killings on Moscow as well. “Russian authorities will have to answer for these crimes,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.
A similar stance was voiced by the UK, with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss stating that such “indiscriminate attacks” on civilians should be probed as war crimes. “We will not allow Russia to cover up their involvement in these atrocities through cynical disinformation,” she said.
Moscow launched a large-scale offensive against its neighbor in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.
Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military alliance. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two rebel regions by force.
Red Alert: What seeing the war in Syria taught me about US/Western government and media propaganda
By Janice Kortkamp | Ron Paul Institute | March 29, 2022
The Syrian war was the first fully observed conflict on social-media and the ability to connect directly with Syrians real time as they were experiencing the crisis was unprecedented. This created a unique opportunity to get unfiltered information directly from all sides of the conflict to gain insights and understanding. The results have helped shake off the control by conventional news media over foreign events reporting and analysis. While this has created some chaos, valuable lessons have been (or should have been) learned.
I began researching Syria and the war there in late 2012, and have made seven extended journeys traveling around during the war from 2016 through 2019, meeting with hundreds of Syrians from different backgrounds, walks of life, and opinions as a 100 percent non-affiliated, unpaid, and self/crowd-funded, independent citizen-journalist.
It became clear that what’s been happening in Syria was not a spontaneous, organic, popular uprising against a tyrant, but a proxy regime-change attempt war in the works since the mid 2000’s against the quite popular Assad. This effort was spearheaded by the US, UK, France, and Israel, using Sunni violent fundamentalists and extremists (unpopular with the majority of Syria’s Sunni population as well as minority groups) armed and funded by the West and regional allies of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar to start the violence and do the dirty work. The basic character of the rebel groups was apparent from the beginning: Syrian and non-Syrian fighters most Westerners would call terrorists and be screaming for their government to crush if the same heavily armed groups had taken over their cities, towns, and suburbs by massacring, beheading, torturing, kidnapping, and raping.
Syrians often remarked to me that before the war their country was “almost a paradise.” The middle class was the largest economic sector and growing. Religious harmony was the norm and Christians there were doing well. International investment was increasing as were the tourists. Women were equal or outnumbering men in the universities and present in leadership roles in nearly all aspects of society. Syria had made the “Top 5” list of the world’s most personally safe countries. President Assad had brought the Internet into the country and kept it open throughout the war and the people there knew all that was being said in the West about the crisis.
This doesn’t mean Syria was perfect and Assad beloved by all Syrians. There were and are many problems there which are directly attributed to the government with corruption always being number one on the list of grievances. These internal issues have been exacerbated by the war.
Now, after 11 years of war, 90 percent of Syrians are poor, many are starving; the economy is shattered. Between the fighting, US/Western sanctions, loss of production capability (though an impressive number of factories have been rebuilt), shortages of electricity and fuel, the black market and smuggling, dearth of employment opportunities, Covid-19, and the economic meltdown in Lebanon, the situation seems destined to remain desperate for the foreseeable future. The pressure by the US and most allies continues including increased sanctions, and three on-going illegal occupations: US has seized control over 1/3 of the country (the part with the richest oil fields); Turkey holds much of the north; and Israel is still occupying the Golan while making routine air strikes in Syria with no condemnation. There are numerous terrorist groups including ISIS cells and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the al Qaeda affiliate) to get rid of in the northeast and Idlib.
As for Russia’s role in Syria, I’ve watched it closely – including observing some Russian military operations personally in Deir Ezzor, Homs, and Palmyra. Russia and Iran are in Syria legally, asked to join in the fight against ISIS and al Nusra by the Syrian government.
From 2011 through 2015 the situation was dire. In 2012 the US resolution at the UN called for President Assad to step down and both Russia and China vetoed it. The US and UK responded with “fury” according to The Guardian, while Syrians were out in the streets cheering. When Russian troops came in September of 2015, the priority was to put a stop to ISIS operations in the northeast. Massive ISIS oil convoys were taking the stolen oil up to Turkey, bringing the terrorist army equally massive amounts of money to use for their rampages while, according to a leaked, verified audio tape of John Kerry speaking with the Syrian opposition, the US was “watching ISIS grow” hoping the pressure would get Assad to negotiate. Instead, an appeal was made to Putin and answered. Within a few months, the ISIS oil convoys had been reduced significantly, cutting that cash flow.
By the end of 2016 total chaos had been replaced with more established battle lines and though violence was still occurring everywhere, there was some order. Palmyra was liberated from ISIS in the spring of 2016, after which the Russians and Syrians put on an orchestra concert to rededicate the spectacular archaeological site to culture; Western governments and media were not enthusiastic. It fell again to ISIS and many of the most important buildings were destroyed by the terrorists. The battles for Palmyra would have been the perfect opportunity to actually use chemical weapons – to protect that prized site and with ISIS forces isolated in the desert, however the fighting raged with conventional weapons and casualties were very high. In December 2016, Aleppo was freed from the terrorist groups that had been holding the eastern half of the city for years by the Syrian Army and its allies – with the ones fighting the terrorists being treated as though they were worse than ISIS in western media. The terrorist groups backed by the US and allies included the likes of Nour al din al Zenki that grabbed the young boy, Abdullah Issa, out of hospital with the IV still in his arm and beheaded him in the back of a truck on video while laughing. Al Zenki had received advanced weapons and other support by the US.
By October of 2017 when I was in Palmyra, Deir Ezzor and al Mayadeen, most of that area was freshly liberated from ISIS by the combined Syrian, Russian, Iranian, Iraqi, and Hezbollah forces. ISIS was still all around but its backbone of cities down the Euphrates had been severed. In Homs, I observed the transportation of armed groups twice from the Al-Waer suburb, overseen by the Russians. In addition, Russian de-mining efforts have insured relative safety for civilians returning to their homes after areas have been liberated.
To summarize, in my experience the Russians have indeed been effective in the fight against ISIS and al Qaeda while displaying professionalism, precision, and minimizing civilian casualties. The US has been using ISIS as a pretext for its own completely illegal occupation of the entire northeast third of Syrian lands, and has often been helping or working directly on behalf of the al Qaeda affiliate and similar terrorist groups.
However, the US/Western media is still saying the same things they’ve said since 2012, if anything entrenching deeper in the assertions of the US and other western governments. All major articles and stories are still about “the tyrant Assad killing his own people”; and the great majority of the Syrian people who supported their leader and army were made invisible. That support ranged from total devotion to begrudging acceptance because the alternative, Syria falling to the terrorists promoted by the West, was unthinkable. Anyone offering evidence and opinion different from that of the accepted narratives isn’t just ignored – they’re treated as enemies and attacked by the media.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is still in the early stages and although I’ve been tracking the situation since 2014, I certainly don’t to know all of what’s happening or will happen. To sort fact from fiction from all sides will be a painstakingly long process yet there is great urgency to avoid as much devastation as possible. War is painful, the most painful thing. It truly does hollow out souls as it lays waste to lands and lives and I hate it all, but I’ve seen the wall go up already which prohibits looking at the other side, hearing what their grievances and concerns are. That wall protects the easy to memorize, constantly repeated, approved talking points: “pre-meditated”, “unprovoked”, “unjustified” and that wall is already considerably taller, deeper, and wider than it’s been about Syria. For me, this is when the red light starts flashing, the alarm begins sounding, and I’m on full alert for more gross oversimplifications, exaggerations, unproven allegations, and outright falsehoods.
Copyright © 2022 by Ron Paul Institute
Mail Voting and Election Legitimacy
By Andrew E. Busch | Real Clear Politics | March 15, 2022
Although it had been a feature of elections in some parts of the United States for years, the phenomenon of mail-ballot voting exploded in the 2020 election. In the midst of the COVID pandemic, jurisdictions around the country expanded use of mail voting, sometimes sending ballots to every registered voter. Steps were taken to facilitate ease of mail voting, such as establishing drop boxes for returned ballots, relaxing rules regarding signature verification, and easing restrictions on “ballot harvesting,” the practice whereby paid political activists collect a large number of completed ballots and return them for counting. As a result, by some estimates, the proportion of ballots cast by mail nearly doubled from 2016 to 2020.
There is, of course, an ongoing debate over whether the turn to mail-ballot voting was necessary, given the pandemic circumstances, or a partisan maneuver to advance the prospects of Democrats, who seemed to reap most of the benefits electorally. Whether or not it was necessary, the development clearly contributed in two important ways to undermining confidence in the results – and is likely to continue doing so unless legislators and election officials take corrective measures.
First, mail-ballot voting is intrinsically less secure than in-person voting. Things might go awry at multiple points. The ballot might never be delivered, or it might be delivered to the wrong address, or to the right address but wrong person. Even if delivered into the right hands, it might ultimately be filled out by someone else or by the intended recipient under pressure; under these conditions, there is no guarantee that the secret ballot is preserved, a problem exacerbated by the activity of ballot harvesters. Once the ballot is completed, it can get lost in the mail, removed from a drop box, or otherwise compromised.
And this is without accounting for the potential for large-scale fraud. In 2020, an unnamed political operative in New Jersey described to the New York Post how he had developed and been using for years a system for replicating ballots and submitting them on behalf of his candidates. Despite the assurances of some that voter fraud is not an issue in the United States, a number of high-profile cases in the last quarter-century prove otherwise. Since 1997, mayoral elections in Miami and Paterson, New Jersey, as well as a congressional election in the Ninth District of North Carolina, have been vacated due to proven fraud. As John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky document in their 2021 book “Our Broken Elections,” these three cases are the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Fund and von Spakovsky note, most cases of large-scale fraud in recent years have involved mail ballots.
There is a reason France no longer uses mail-in ballots in its elections, and why the 2005 commission led by Republican James Baker and Democrat Jimmy Carter identified mail ballots as the least secure mode of voting (though in 2020 Carter rather weakly tried to walk back that conclusion).
Nearly a year and a half after the 2020 elections, a special counsel has charged that substantial voter fraud took place in more than 90 of Wisconsin’s nursing homes, where it appears that nursing home staff or administrators requested ballots for invalid patients, then filled out and returned those ballots, possibly forging the patients’ signatures. A private study (separate from the controversial Arizona “audit”) alleges that 200,000 mail ballots in Maricopa County were counted despite mismatched signatures.
Overall, one does not need to accept former President Trump’s expansive claims of national voter fraud – indeed, one should not, without a great deal more evidence than he has yet offered – in order to recognize that mail-ballot voting is vulnerable to a number of problems that make it chronically less reliable than in-person voting. Moreover, perhaps as importantly, many voters recognize this fact, and as a result will consistently question the validity of close results in elections using large-scale mail balloting, at least if their candidate loses.
Second, because of significant disparities in the political makeup of the mail-ballot electorate and the Election Day in-person electorate (in states that are not 100% mail ballot), the reporting of election results can become distorted. In the 2020 general election, we witnessed both a much-expected “red mirage” and a lesser-noted “blue mirage.” In a few states such as Texas and Ohio, mail-ballot votes were counted and reported first, leading to initial Democratic leads that were gradually wiped out through the night as Election Day votes were added to the tallies. In most major states, the reverse happened. Election Day votes were counted first, followed by mail-ballot votes. The predicted “red mirage” came to pass as President Trump took early leads in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin before surrendering them over the next few days as the mail ballots rolled in.
No one paid much attention to Texas and Ohio, which had their totals in relatively early, and in any case went the way they were expected to go. On the other hand, the “red mirage” states drew enormous scrutiny. They were already understood to be swing states that could go either way and would determine the election. Moreover, all had voted for Trump in 2016. Many Trump supporters went to bed on November 3 with their man seemingly headed to another surprise win, and found out on November 4 that it was slipping away in a process that was not completed for several days. That sensation, of having an election victory subsequently overridden, undoubtedly contributed to the willingness of many to embrace Trump’s “stolen election” narrative. That is an outcome we should hope to avoid in the future.
It is possible that the partisan makeup of mail-ballot versus Election Day voters depends on circumstances. In 2020, Democratic voters may have been more afraid of COVID and hence more likely to avoid voting lines, while Republican voters were urged by their president not to trust mail voting. Perhaps other circumstances will produce different tendencies. Unless both modes of voting are utilized equally by supporters of both candidates, the potential will exist that those who lose based on late-reporting mail results will wonder whether something nefarious happened.
The optimal solution would be to increase in-person early voting opportunities and the number of Election Day polling places, while strictly limiting mail voting to traditional absentee voting for reasons of illness, disability, or absence. However, many jurisdictions continue to be committed to widespread mail voting. It is a practice that is not going away anytime soon, so a key question is what can be done to reduce the damage that mail-ballot voting can do to confidence in electoral legitimacy.
The two problems outlined above – inadequate ballot security and delayed vote totals – require distinct measures.
The chief way to mitigate concerns around delayed vote totals is to enforce a strict Election Day deadline for the return of mail ballots and to require election officials to begin counting received mail ballots prior to Election Day. The other confidence-building measure would be to adopt Georgia’s new requirement that election officials must announce on Election Night the total number of votes received. This will prevent the perception that large batches of incoming votes are materializing out of thin air.
As for ballot security, some states have already taken steps that should be adopted more broadly. These include banning ballot harvesting and improving verification techniques (possibly using the last four digits of Social Security numbers instead of signatures). Not least, state and county election offices should take more seriously their obligation to keep their voter-registration rolls updated. If election officials want voters to be confident in the legitimacy of mail-ballot elections, they need to make sure that no household is getting five extra ballots for residents who haven’t lived there in years. Unfortunately, Democrats have widely condemned such measures as “voter suppression.”
None of these steps would prevent a nominally responsible eligible voter from casting a vote by mail, but they can help bolster confidence in our elections. If we have to learn to live with mail-ballot voting, we should be able – no, eager – to answer legitimate concerns rather than pretend that they don’t exist.
Cheerleader of NATO wars spotted in Ukraine
By Rachel Marsdon | Samizdat | March 17, 2022
French intellectual and philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy (“BHL”), has an odd propensity for appearing alongside western proxy fighters in war zones. And new reports now place him on the ground amid the conflict in Ukraine.
The day after the February 24 launch of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, France 2, the main state-owned television network, hosted a debate featuring, on one side, former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, perhaps best known worldwide for his role during the run up to the Iraq war in 2003. Back then, he served as the foreign minister and represented France’s opposition to the American efforts under then president Jacques Chirac at the United Nations Security Council.
After then US Secretary of State Colin Powell made his now infamous speech imploring the international community to back an invasion of Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein’s use of weapons of mass destruction, De Villepin argued in favor of inspections.
“Given this context, the use of force is not justified at this time. There is an alternative to war: Disarming Iraq via inspections. Moreover, premature recourse to the military option would be fraught with risks,” he said.
History has now proven him correct in his assessment.
De Villepin’s call for prudence and avoidance of military escalation in Ukraine was loaded with historical lessons learned. “Military interventions never yield the expected results,” recalled the former French prime minister. “History has taught us this in Libya, Iraq and the Sahel.”
On the other side of the France 2 debate table was BHL, who has a rather interesting relationship to some of the conflicts evoked by De Villepin. “[Russian President Vladimir Putin] launched this crazy war, without reason, against a people who had done nothing to him,” replied the philosopher.
It seems that in BHL’s world, wars start like magic with a need to protect completely innocent parties that just happen to be on NATO’s side, and not because of covert shenanigans that predate them — something that BHL should certainly know about.
During the NATO-backed war in Yugoslavia — the war in Europe that those commenting on the current situation in Ukraine seem to forget — BHL, who just happened to be hanging out in the region, overtly backed the NATO proxy, then Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović, who, his opponents believed, was a Muslim fundmentalist. Izetbegović was allegedly used by western forces to helm Islamist fighters against Serbia and ultimately carve out a zone of influence and military control in the Balkans. Later, in a 2019 tweet, BHL referred to the al-Qaeda-linked Izetbegović as “one of the great, luminous figures of the 20th century.”
Then, in March 2011, ahead of the NATO invasion of Libya, which led to an overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi that October, BHL was spotted in Libya meeting with “Libyan rebels,” footage of which can be seen in BHL’s documentary, “The Oath of Tobruk.” It would be easy to chalk up Levy’s presence among the western-backed proxy fighters ahead of Gaddafi’s ultimate demise at their hands as just journalistic interest or intellectual curiosity. But that theory is betrayed by French reports of an activist role at the highest level of the French government.
BHL succeeded in bringing three members of the future Libyan government in waiting to meet with then French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysée Palace on March 10, 2011 — seven months before Gaddafi’s demise, according to Le Figaro. The newspaper also reported that BHL, who met with then US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, at a Paris hotel and noted an American disinterest in military intervention, subsequently took to French airwaves to pressure Sarkozy into having the French take the lead in the invasion by telling the French audience that, “If Gaddafi takes Benghazi, the huge French flag flying on the Corniche will literally be spattered with the blood of the massacred Libyans.” Four days after the media appearance, NATO began its military intervention in Libya.
In 2012, as the NATO-led invasion of yet another country, Syria, raged in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad with “Syrian rebels” backed by CIA and Pentagon covert programs, BHL took to the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival with both Libyan and Syrian rebels, to symbolize “the passing of the torch of Liberty,” according to Le Point magazine. Just a few months later, BHL was calling for France to also send weapons to the western’s proxy “rebels” to fight the Syrian army, specifically, “cannons, anti-aircraft missiles, defensive weapons, for Aleppo, Homs and the rest of Free Syria.”
Then, in February 2013, BHL wrote on his blog, “La Règle du Jeu,” praising then French president Francois Hollande for launching French military operations in Mali, which were ultimately an unsurprising result of the destabilization of Libya caused by the earlier French-led, NATO-backed invasion cheered by BHL himself. “For the first time, in Mali and Libya, force was put at the explicit service of freedom and justice; for the first time – since Valmy! – there is a desired link … between the exercise by France of its power and the defense of values that go beyond it.” In defense of the “values” of leaving countries in tatters for years after hopelessly destabilizing them because their leaders refuse to kowtow to the agenda of Washington and its allies, apparently.
And now, BHL — symbolic of a certain caviar leftist that sells wars and invasions of benefit to the military industrial complex from the lofty perch of humanitarianism — wants action in Ukraine. And after calling for it prominently via French mainstream media, he is hanging out in Odessa — coincidentally, just in time for the launch of the new “Ukraine fighters”, once again doing NATO’s dirty work, but this time comprised of foreign and domestic western-armed warriors, both regular troops and irregular combatants, cheered from the sidelines by the west against Russian troops.
A regular and welcome fixture all over English and foreign western establishment media from America to Europe, BHL tends to appear wherever there’s armed conflict between interests of the western establishment intent on clinging to the current unipolar world order, against those more representative of a more competitive multipolar alternative. His very presence in Odessa should give pause to anyone who still honestly believes that NATO isn’t a directly involved player, using Ukraine as a platform for its ongoing fight against an new and emerging world order over which it risks losing control.
Russian forces double down to complete operation
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MARCH 15, 2022
After substantially degrading Ukraine’s military capabilities, Russia is poised to escalate the special operation leading to the victory lap. Moscow has given signals in this direction.
The most significant signal came from the Kremlin spokesmen Dmitry Medvedev, who said on Monday, “Russia has a sufficient potential for conducting the special military operation in Ukraine. The operation is proceeding in accordance with the original plan and will be completed on time and in full.”
As I had written more than once previously, Russian military strategy is on course, contrary to what the hyped up western disinformation has conveyed, namely, that the special operation has “failed”. Peskov hinted that there is no question of stopping the operation prematurely. He spoke amidst western calls for “ceasefire.”
Peskov disclosed that President Vladimir Putin had specifically ordered the armed forces to refrain from an immediate assault on the cities, including Kiev, so as to prevent heavy civilian casualty. The operation, therefore, took into account the ground reality that the extremist Neo-Nazi groups had deployed weapons in densely-populated residential areas.
This meant that the tactic narrowed down to “working with modern high-precision weapons, hitting only military and information infrastructure facilities.” Clearly, this also explained the slow pace and low intensity of the operations interspersed with lulls in the fighting and the tactic of encircling large settlements instead of attacking them frontally.
However, Peskov said, now that the large settlements have been surrounded, the military forces “do not exclude” taking Ukrainian cities under their “full control.” By the way, Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday, “Overall, 3,736 facilities of Ukrainian military infrastructure have been disabled, 100 aircraft and 139 UAVs were destroyed, as well as 1,234 tanks and other armoured vehicles, 122 multiple-launch rocket systems, 452 weapons of field artillery and mortars, and 1,013 units of special military hardware.
Peskov of course denied the western propaganda reports, also denied by Beijing, that Moscow requested Chinese military assistance. Considering that the US-led coalition of 177,194 troops backed by massive airpower took over forty days to take Iraq in 2003, Russians have drawn up a brilliant strategy.
Even Russia’s worst detractors in the West would admit that the Russian force level in Ukraine is much less and also that Saddam Hussein’s army was systematically degraded by the US through a period of one decade before the invasion took place in 2003.
From the Ukrainian perspective, the really hard part is just about to begin. The southern port city of Mariupol cannot hold out any longer. Practically all fire emplacements the neo-Nazis had created in Mariupol’s suburbs have been destroyed. Russian special forces have eliminated the neo-Nazis’ main forces entrenched in the residential areas of the city’s perimeters.
The fall of Mariupol will be a turning point. It will release the Russian forces to drive on to Zaporizhya City and Dnipro, the lynchpin on the Dnieper river that controls the southern approaches to Kiev. Equally, Russian attacks from Kherson toward Mykolayiv may resume in the south with a view to surround Odessa, the jewel in the crown on the Black Sea coast.
Meanwhile, the western mercenaries got a taste of what is to come during the pre-dawn cruise missile attack Sunday at a Ukrainian military base less than 20 kms from the Polish border. (Russian account said 180 foreign mercenaries were killed.
The Russian MOD spokesman Maj-Gen. Konashenkov said later, “We know all locations of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine. More surgical strikes will continue to be delivered against them.” The western countries, especially the US, which embarked on this misadventure to despatch mercenaries, may have second thoughts.
Suffice to say, all this adds up as a growing realisation in the Western capitals, including Washington, that the Russian operation can no longer be thwarted and is destined to run its course. This is evident from the latest remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron on French TV on Monday:
“Europe cannot be safe if it doesn’t engage in a dialogue with Russia. This is our history, our geography. Therefore I intend to talk with President Putin in the upcoming hours… It is necessary to prepare conditions for peace now already, because the war will end when everybody sits down at the table and time will come to determine who is ready to promise what. Therefore, in order to be ready, we must get ready now already.”
Succinctly put, Macron is looking ahead at the scenario after the Russian operations conclude “when everybody sits down at the table… to determine who is ready to promise what.” Significantly, Macron was speaking a few hours after a phone call from the US president Joe Biden.
Even more significantly, Bloomberg has reported that the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has sought a call with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev, one of Putin’s closest political associates in the Kremlin. This is the first such high-level contact by Washington since the Russian operation began on February 24.
Ukraine faces defeat
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MARCH 8, 2022
Belying the predictions of western media, Russia’s special operation in Ukraine is entering a successful endgame on the political and diplomatic track much sooner than one would have thought.
A close reading of the outcome of the 3rd round of peace talks in Belarus last night is that the Ukrainian negotiators have sought some more time to come up with a full response to the Russian terms for ceasefire.
Ukraine has signalled willingness to be a neutral country ruling out NATO membership. The main sticking points narrow down to: a) recognition of Crimea as part of Russia; and, b) sovereignty of Lugansk and Donetsk.
They are non-negotiable demands. But they are a bitter pill for the Ukrainian leadership to swallow. The Ukrainian stance is that these demands are “practically” impossible.
But, as Vladimir Medinsky, leader of the Russian team, told RT, “In my opinion, there is a big difference between impossible and ‘practically impossible’… I hope that eventually we will find a solution.”
The Russian side feels encouraged albeit yesterday’s talks produced no tangible results. They are in no hurry to rush into major military offensives.
Indeed, the pattern throughout has been that the Russian generals would apply coercive military power to create synergy to kickstart a parallel political / diplomatic track to attain Moscow’s objective (which is not about territorial conquest.)
The western analysts who expected the Russian generals to behave like Patton or MacArthur with a massive attack on Kiev instead witnessed a confusing Russian strategy — slow, halting operations, without excessive force and with a distinct preference to avoid fighting by encircling and bypassing pockets of resistance, and avoiding set battles.
Putin revealed yesterday that “conscripts aren’t and won’t be taking part in hostilities, and there will be no additional call-up of reservists from the reserve… Missions are carried out only by professional troops.”
The Ukrainian side realises that the Russian strategy is winning, as Russian forces are encircling Kiev from the northwest, west and east, Black Sea ports are no longer accessible, and the forces in the east are entrapped. Yesterday, Zelensky acknowledged the grim situation.
After the third round in Belarus, he hastened to assure that talks will continue until a settlement! In his words,
“Today the third round of negotiations took place in Belarus, and I would like to say ‘the third and final one,’ but we are realists. Therefore, we will talk, we will insist on negotiations until we find a way to tell our people, ‘this is how we will come to peace.’”
Russians are in no tearing hurry. They eschew triumphalism, and instead allow enough space for the Ukrainian side to take some really hard decisions on surrender — while military pressure is kept up on Kiev. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said yesterday, “We keep the door open to diplomatic options. As soon as there are corresponding signals, we will be acting on them.”
Importantly, the two sides have agreed on a roadmap for creating humanitarian corridors and Russian side has announced a ceasefire. Also, these corridors will be operated in close coordination through a hotline.
The Russian statement says that a “continuous communication link shall be established between the Russian and Ukrainian sides for mutual exchange of information about the preparation and implementation of the evacuation of civilians and foreign citizens.”
The Russian side since conveyed all relevant details to foreign embassies, appropriate UN and OSCE agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other concerned international organisations. The humanitarian corridors will be:
- from Kiev and adjacent regions to Gomel (Belarus);
- from Sumy along two routes to Poltava (central Ukraine) and to Russia;
- from Kharkov to Russia or to Lvov, Uzhgorod and Ivano-Frankovsk (all three in western Ukraine); and,
- from Mariupol along two routes to Russia and Zaporozhe (on the Dnieper river in southeastern Ukraine.)
This joint work and the lull in fighting sets the stage for the crucial meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Kuleba in the Turkish resort of Antalya on Thursday. The very fact the talks have been elevated to foreign minister level signals hope that a critical mass may be accruing.
Thoroughly disillusioned with the betrayal by the US and NATO, Zelensky is inching toward an agreement with Moscow. It is futile to pre-judge the outcome, but there is a game changer. The major European countries — UK, France, Germany, Netherlands — have rebuffed Washington’s hawkish proposal to impose sanctions on Russia’s oil exports.
Oil exports are Russia’s principal source of income, therefore, this is a strong rejection of Washington’s efforts to isolate Russia. French President Macron captured the zephyr in his remark yesterday:
“It is impossible to build a lasting peace if Russia doesn’t participate in building a comprehensive security architecture on our continent, because history and geography mandate this. Our responsibility is to preserve all the ties that we can preserve. We must continue to talk with the Russian and Belarusian peoples. We need to do this with help from representatives of the world of culture, the scientific and technical community, non-governmental organisations.”
On Sunday, in an op-ed in the New York Times, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also wrote: “We have no hostility toward the Russian people, and we have no desire to impugn a great nation and a world power. Ukraine had no serious prospect of NATO membership in the near future. This is not a NATO conflict, and it will not become one.”
Meanwhile, major European countries, especially Germany, are ruling out EU membership for Ukraine, either — which, ironically, was the issue that had precipitated the US-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 triggering the catastrophic slide toward conflict involving Russia.
Moscow explains how it’ll do business with firms from ‘unfriendly states’
The Ministry of Finance has set up a special subcommittee to control foreign investment
RT | March 7, 2022
Russian companies wishing to work with firms from countries which oppose Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine will have to receive government permission for the deals, the press service of Russia’s Ministry of Finance said on Monday. Permission will be granted by the Government Commission for the Control of Foreign Investments. It includes representatives from Russia’s Central Bank (Bank of Russia) and the presidential administration.
According to the resolution establishing the procedure, which was signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, a Russian resident company or foreign company from an “unfriendly state” must apply for permission for any business deal.
“[The application] should contain comprehensive information about the applicant, including information on the beneficial owners of the company. Based on the analysis of the documents received and the nature of the future agreement, a decision will be made to approve or refuse to implement it,” the press service said, stressing that “the main goal of this work is to ensure the country’s financial stability in the face of external sanctions pressure.”
The government on Monday also unveiled an updated list of countries which have been deemed “unfriendly states” for their positions on the Ukraine conflict. It includes the United States and Canada, the countries of the EU bloc, the UK (including Jersey, Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, and Gibraltar), Ukraine, Montenegro, Switzerland, Albania, Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, North Macedonia, and also Japan, South Korea, Australia, Micronesia, New Zealand, Singapore, and China’s self-ruled territory of Taiwan.
The countries and territories were added to the list after they imposed or joined the sanctions against Russia in connection with the ongoing military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine.
According to the government decree, Russian citizens and companies, the state itself and its regions and municipalities will now also have to pay for obligations to foreign creditors from countries on the list in rubles. The new temporary procedure applies to payments exceeding 10 million rubles per month, or a corresponding amount in foreign currency.
The measures have been introduced by Moscow to support the Russian economy after Western states placed Russia under heavy sanctions over the past 10 days. A number of Russia’s largest banks have been cut off from SWIFT and had their foreign assets frozen, restrictions were placed on certain Russian exports and imports, and a growing number of companies from all sectors have been shutting down operations in the country.
France openly declares that “Russian people will suffer”
By Paul Antonopoulos | March 2, 2022
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire declared an “all-out economic and financial war” against Russia for launching its military operation against Kiev last week. It is hoped that such an economic war will ‘punish’ Russia – but shortly after making his comment, Le Maire was quick to change his rhetoric after probably being given a stern warning from within the Champs-Élysées to not make bombastic comments that intensify tensions and could actually lead to war between Russia and NATO.
Responding to Moscow’s decision to go to war with Ukraine, Washington and its closest allies have imposed a string of sanctions aimed against Russia’s central bank, government officials (including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov), and barred some Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments system.
When describing the sanctions, Le Maire said they are proving to be “extremely effective.” However, it was his next comments that raised eyebrows as he told France Info radio that: “We’re waging an all-out economic and financial war on Russia. We will cause the collapse of the Russian economy. The Russian people will also pay the price.”
This of course is extremely alarming as he effectively revealed the intention to impoverish more than 140 million Russian citizens without considering that Moscow has its own retaliatory measures that will also hurt the average European citizen. Le Maire later clarified to AFP that he had misspoken and that the term “war” was not compatible with France’s efforts to de-escalate tensions surrounding the Ukraine conflict, adding: “We are not in a battle against the Russian people.”
This ‘clarification’ was of course made after former Russian Prime Minister and President, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy Chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, chillingly tweeted: “Watch your tongue, gentlemen! And don’t forget that in human history, economic wars quite often turned into real ones.”
For this reason, the Kremlin said on Tuesday that it was placing temporary curbs on foreigners seeking to remove their investments from the country, thus stopping an investor exodus driven by the sanctions which are aimed at shutting out major banks from the international payments system and capital controls choking off money flows.
What the Europeans do not realize is that Moscow sees this current crisis as an existential battle for survival. When Putin announced on TV his “special military operation,” he warned: “To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside – if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history.”
Recirculating in western media after this statement was Putin’s comment in a 2018 documentary: “… if someone decides to annihilate Russia, we have the legal right to respond. Yes, it will be a catastrophe for humanity and for the world. But I’m a citizen of Russia and its head of state. Why do we need a world without Russia in it?”
Returning to the situation in Ukraine, Putin said at a meeting with businessmen that there was no reason to destroy a system which they live in, unless Russia were to be excluded from it. If the Europeans wanted to destroy the Russian economy and impoverish millions of Russian citizens, it cannot be excluded that Moscow with a touch of a button can turn off the gas supplies and bring the entire continent’s industry and economy to a halt – while civilians freeze.
This of course would completely destroy the Russian economy at the same time, but from Moscow’s perspective, why would they continue providing energy to a bloc that has already declared an “all-out economic and financial war.” It is extremely curious that the EU believes that Moscow would not make any retaliatory measures, measures that would spell bad news for European citizens. This is especially critical as it seemingly appears that European leaders and decisionmakers are completely naïve to the responses and retaliations that Russia can make.
For now, gas to Europe from Russia via Ukraine is flowing at full capacity. This accounts for at least $1 billion a day to the Russian economy, and threatening to end this will likely be considered a casus belli. With Russia’s nuclear forces already on alert, it remains to be seen whether the EU will pursue an “all-out economic and financial war” against Russia.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
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The Great Recycling Scam
By Dr. Vernon Coleman – 21st Century Wire – September 2, 2022
Recycling was introduced, worldwide, as a tool to teach citizens to become compliant.
Forcing citizens to sort their rubbish into up to nine separate bags or boxes every week had absolutely nothing to do with ‘saving the planet’ and everything to do with teaching citizens (through a mixture of fines and shame) to behave ‘responsibly’ i.e. to do as they were told without looking too closely at the rationale of what they were being told to do.
The recycling never had anything to do with protecting the planet, of course. Most of the rubbish sorted, washed and collected in the UK was taken abroad, by lorry or ship or train, and burnt or dumped. It was, quite simply, impractical and not cost effective to recycle the material that had been collected. And, of course, collecting the sorted rubbish involved massive costs in terms of cash and pollution.
Today, the recycling business has reached an apogee of lunacy. Councils introduce ever more complex rules and fees. They refuse to take away much of the waste that is collected. And those wanting to take their rubbish to a ‘recycling’ centre will probably have to make an appointment and answer a host of questions.
It is no surprise that fly-tipping has become a major problem. The biggest causes of plastic in the sea are dumped fishing gear and plastic waste (much of it officially designated as recycled) which has been dumped by ships.
The good news, however, is that in Britain, recycling rates are falling. More and more people have become aware that the whole recycling movement was just another piece of manipulative trickery.
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Lithuania plans universal conscription
- Lies, Damn Lies, and Ukraine News
- Financial Times rejects Nordic demands to correct Putin call story – media
- The Case for Less Unity in Europe
- Ukraine expands minority rights under EU pressure – but Russians remain excluded
- Albania takes anti-riot crackdown cue from France
- The interest of the House of Rothschild in Ukraine
- Pentagon fires top military planner
- Three tankers hit mines on unauthorized Hormuz route: IRGC Navy
- Iran is (probably) collecting tolls, and why Asia stopped buying oil from the US
- If Americans Knew
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
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- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
