FTC Warns Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe Over Political Debanking
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | March 29, 2026
Four companies that collectively control how most Americans buy and sell things received warning letters this week from FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, threatening enforcement action if they deny customers access to financial services based on political or religious beliefs. The targets are Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe.
The letters didn’t name a single specific violation, and they didn’t need to. The track record is already public. PayPal has frozen accounts of several political commentators.
Stripe cut off payment processing for President Trump’s campaign website after January 6, 2021. Both companies have spent years making unilateral decisions about who deserves access to the financial system, hiding behind vague terms of service that give compliance teams almost unlimited discretion.
“Full participation in commerce and public life necessarily requires that law-abiding individuals can access, and freely participate in, our financial system,” Chairman Ferguson wrote.
“It is inconsistent with American values to deny law-abiding individuals the ability to run their legitimate businesses and feed their families because they attracted the ire of rogue American officials, overzealous activists, or, more worryingly, foreign governments seeking to control public discourse,” he continued.
“That is why President Trump’s August 7, 2025, Executive Order on debanking makes clear that it is unacceptable to debank law-abiding citizens due to ‘political affiliations, religious beliefs, or lawful business activities.’”
Ferguson’s letters lean on Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.”
The logic is that if your terms promise equal access and you cut someone off for their politics, that’s deceptive. “As an American citizen, I abhor and condemn any efforts to debank or otherwise deny law-abiding consumers access,” Ferguson wrote, citing Trump’s August 2025 executive order on debanking.
He told Visa and Mastercard they’re responsible not just for their own conduct but for member banks on their networks. “Equally concerning is the conduct of payments providers and payment networks that turn a blind eye when their financial institution members debank consumers for these reasons,” he wrote.
PayPal declined to comment. Visa and Mastercard didn’t respond. Only Stripe pushed back: “At Stripe, we do not restrict access to our services based on political viewpoints or affiliation.”
Ferguson’s letters describe payment services as “essential for Americans’ participation in everyday commerce, and, directly or indirectly, for the exercise of core rights and freedoms.” It treats access to payment infrastructure not as a privilege companies can revoke at will, but as something closer to a necessity.
The real question is whether letters become action. The FTC opened no investigations and announced no penalties.
Pro-Palestinian French member of European Parliament denied entry to Canada
MEMO | March 29, 2026
Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament of Palestinian origin, said late Saturday she was denied entry to Canada hours before her scheduled flight, Anadolu reports.
“I was prevented from traveling to Canada: a troubling obstruction to parliamentary work and freedom of expression,” Hassan wrote on X.
Hassan is affiliated with France’s left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI).
The party said Hassan had been invited to speak at two conferences in Montreal and that her initial electronic travel authorization had been approved by Canadian authorities.
However, she was informed by email late Friday, on the eve of her departure, that her application was under review, the party said.
Hassan said Canadian authorities requested extensive personal records just hours before her flight to reassess her travel authorization, describing the move as a “disproportionate request” unrelated to the stated grounds.
According to LFI, the review cited an alleged failure to disclose a prior visa refusal or denial of entry to another country, as well as an alleged failure to report a criminal offense, arrest, formal investigation or conviction.
The party said these issues relate to matters “directly linked to her political engagement in support of the Palestinian people.”
It added that the concerns stem from a 2025 denial of entry to Israel involving an EU delegation that included Hassan, as well as complaints for “apology for terrorism” that did not result in charges.
LFI also claimed that pro-Israel lobbying organizations had been working in recent weeks to prevent Hassan’s visit to Canada.
“The revocation of her travel authorization is part of a concerning trend of restricting the freedom of expression and movement of political representatives, as well as part of a broader pattern of censorship targeting democratic debate,” the party said.
The statement added that representatives of LFI and Canada’s New Democratic Party strongly condemned the decision, calling it “a serious infringement on the exercise of a parliamentary mandate and on freedom of expression.”
Battle for Hungary: EU attacks on Orban are a sign of worse things to come
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | March 28, 2026
About a century ago – between those two World Wars which Europeans have generously given to the history of humanity – there was a joke about Hungary: It was a monarchy without a king and a landlocked country ruled by an admiral. It was funny because it was true.
Nowadays, though, we have proudly advanced. Now, we have a whole European Union, with 27 member states and 450 million people, run by an unelected German who really serves the US and has, a bit like Siegfried or Brunhilde, a special “shield” (about which more below) to protect a “democracy” administered and defined by an non-transparent, privileged, and aloof nomenklatura of equally unelected bureaucrats.
Contemporary Hungary, meanwhile, is, by the sober standards of reality, by no means a perfect but a perfectly normal country, that is, neither better nor worse than most of the rest. No longer a weird monarchy with a gaping hole at the top but a run-of-the-mill Western-style capitalist democracy, it has a feisty prime minister for a leader instead of an admiral without a coast. That prime minister, Viktor Orban, is a typical if especially canny and successful professional politician, who combines a knack for crowd appeal, demagoguery included, with deft political power plays.
It is true, if electoral districts need re-designing in Hungary, the party in power is likely to favor its own chances, just like they do in the EU’s big “daddy” the US, for instance. Likewise, if you are doing business in Hungary, being close to the party – or parties –in power tends to be better for your company. But that’s no different in, again, the US (with the caveat that there the current president and his extensive clan are now taking an extra large cut for themselves). Or, indeed, in Germany and France. The latter, as it happens, has just reached a new low in Transparency International’s annual corruption index.
Hungary may not have unbiased mass media, as its critics indignantly charge. But then, who does? Certainly not Germany, Britain, France, or, for that matter, the US. As a matter of fact, it is the EU and the German authorities which are currently obstinately misusing a sanctions regime designed for foreign policy purposes – and not working, but that’s another matter – to circumvent ordinary legal procedures, trample on civil and human rights, and punitively destroy the existence of individual dissidents and critical journalist.
Hungary’s elections may suffer from that media slant and some sharp administrative practice, too. But that again, is at least equally true of all major states in Europe and of the US as well. Indeed, say what you will about voting under real-existing Orbanism, it has not featured the brutal, EU-driven manipulation we have recently seen in Romania and Moldova.
And there is also nothing comparable in Orban’s Hungary to the extremely suspicious (to say the least) manner in which the last German elections featured a statistically bizarre accumulation of “mistakes” that eliminated the New-Left BSW from parliament.
Since it seems likely that a correct – or clean – result would make Germany’s current ruling coalition impossible, the implications of this case of deeply flawed elections at the very center of the EU are most disturbing: at this point, Germany may have an electorally baseless government, the German parliament’s refusal to permit a clearly necessary recount is either more foul play or indistinguishable from it, and Berlin’s political course – domestically and abroad – would be principally different under a government that would have to rely on the correct election results.
And let’s not even mention minor details, such as that Hungary’s mixed election system (combining first-past-the-post districts and national party lists) is far more representative than that of that “cradle of parliamentary democracy” and police-state-for-Zionism Great Britain.
In view of the above, you would expect, if anything, Budapest going after Brussels as well as some other individual EU member states to demand better democratic behavior. But this is the alternative-reality world of the EU’s sectarian “elite,” where genocidal Israel is only defending itself, “Europe is the values of the Talmud” (perish the thought its history may have a little more to do with first Christian and then Enlightenment ideas), the US is a good and reliable ally, and four white, blonde women serving the same radical Centrism proudly constitute “diversity.”
Hence, in topsy-turvy land, it is, obviously, once again the EU that is charging Hungary with flunking the test of “democracy.” That, in and of itself, might not be important: words are cheap. The problem is that, as before in Romania and even Moldova – not even a member state – the EU Commission has long passed from mere talk, at which it excels, to mean action, which makes everything only worse. Indeed, the EU’s meddling in Hungary has recently escalated.
The catalyst for this escalation is the upcoming Hungarian election. To be held on April 12, domestically, back in Hungary, the outcome will merely decide if Orban can stay in power – which he has been without interruption since 2010 – or will be replaced by the opposition’s new hope, Peter Magyar, a former Orbanist himself. Yet there are good reasons Politico has called these “the EU’s most important elections” this year despite the fact that Hungary is a small country of less than 10 million citizens.
For one thing, Orban is the primus inter pares of a group of very inconvenient sovereigntist rebels inside the EU, which also includes Slovakia’s leader Robert Fico, the Czech Republic’s Andrej Babis and, occasionally but with special weight, Bart de Wever from Belgium, which is an EU founding member. Orban’s toppling would not only weaken this loose group of leaders that still remember that they are supposed to serve their countries first but also make for a chilling object lesson in what happens to those frustrating Brussels too much.
Especially, if they resist the Commission party line on three topics: the relationship with Russia, the Western – now entirely EU-financed – proxy war waged against Moscow by means of Ukraine, and, last but not least, money, in particular money to be wasted – or not – on Kiev’s Zelensky regime. In all three areas, Orban has been Brussel’s main irritant, consistently arguing for normalization with Russia through diplomacy, a quick negotiated end to the proxy war, and an end also to the pathological inter-dependence with Zelensky’s ultra-corrupt and extremely dangerous regime.
Recently, this Hungarian resistance has led to repeated clashes with both the EU establishment and Kiev. Zelensky has publicly threatened Orban with violence in the worst Mafia style; Budapest has taken action against extremely suspicious transports of tens of millions of euro and dollars as well as bullion to Kiev; Hungary and Ukraine have been sparring over Kiev’s attempts to block the Druzhba pipeline; Budapest has been blocking yet another massive “loan” (never to be paid back) for Zelensky and his crew, and, most recently, Orban has called on Kiev to immediately withdraw its agents and operatives from Hungary.
And, by the way, you may suspect Orban of seeking an electoral boost. But even if that is the case, it makes no difference to the fact that aggressive subversion is exactly what the Zelensky regime does. Ask the Germans how things with their pipelines went. The braver ones might dare answer.
As we live in modern, online times, the shape much of the escalating EU meddling on the side of Orban’s opponents in Budapest and Kiev has taken is a nasty combination of social media manipulation at scale, illicit surveillance and spying, and the targeted dissemination of what is meant to be compromising information.
A smelly affair features a Hungarian journalist who has produced a source-free report alleging massive Russian interference in the elections, while spending his free time facilitating an EU country’s intelligence service eavesdropping on Hungary’s foreign minister. Some interference indeed. The hypocrisy would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
In Brussels, meanwhile, under the overall umbrella of the “European Democracy Shield” (EDS) initiative and the Digital Services Act (DSA), a so-called Rapid Response mechanism has been activated to – so the official brief tells us – combat disinformation and foreign influence. Yet, in reality, this is a set of compulsory measures that permit the Commission’s dependent auxiliaries to police social media platforms, suppress content in favor of Orban and, thus, promote his rivals.
What makes all of this particularly dreadful is not simply that it is so almost comically Orwellian: The “European Democracy Shield” is really a shield to protect the EU’s unelected bureaucrat rulers and their ideologized technocrats from democracy as a recent report has correctly argued. Its tools, from so-called “fact-checking” to systematic denunciation by “trusted flaggers” to “prebunking” – that is AI-based preventative propaganda campaigns – amount to a box of horrors.
Yet what is even worse is that all of this is only a small part of a much larger and long-term strategy that has been gathering steam for a decade already. The “European Democracy Shield” and the DSA exist in a large, constantly pullulating eco-system of narrative control that also includes, for instance, a “Defense of Democracy Package,” a “European Democracy Action Plan,” and a Digital Markets Act. Attached to this weaponized spearhead for manufacturing Brussels consent is an extensive – and very expensive – train of so-called civil-society organizations and NGOs that provide both censorship assistance and indoctrination.
Hungary, put simply, is a harbinger of more and even worse to come, of what Brussels wants for our future. The EU ‘elites’ are displaying an unbroken will to power over what we are allowed to think, say, and vote for. That is why – whether you like or dislike Viktor Orban – and I heartily dislike him because of his outrageous siding with genocidal Israel – you should certainly greatly dislike and resist the methods that the EU is fielding to stop him. Because they are coming for all of us.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
German journalist threatened with homelessness as German court upholds EU sanctions in landmark free speech case
‘Socio-economic death sentence’
Remix News – March 27, 2026
The Frankfurt am Main District Court in Germany has recently upheld a German bank’s decision to maintain the suspension of accounts belonging to Berlin-based journalist Hüseyin Doğru, who is known for his pro-Palestinian news coverage. The ruling rejected an urgent application by the journalist, who is currently facing the threat of homelessness due to EU sanctions. The court’s decision means Dogru remains without the necessary funds for rent or basic daily needs.
The legal battle surrounding Hüseyin Doğru has sparked intense political debate in Germany, with critics describing the case as a “socio-economic death sentence” and a dangerous precedent for press freedom. Certainly, these EU sanctions, which can freeze bank accounts, can be used to effectively target dissident journalists across the EU in the coming years.
According to the German court order, there was no right that would entitle Doğru, who has a Turkish background but also has German citizenship, to continue using his bank account while under sanctions. Berliner Zeitung reported that the judge determined that the situation lacked the “prerequisite for intervention in the urgent procedure” because “Doğru has no enforceable right to have the bank release the transfers it has requested.”
The impact of this ruling on Doğru’s personal life is severe. Expressing his concern for his family’s future, Doğru stated, “The risk of ending up on the streets with three children is a concrete threat.”
The paper notes that his “authorized €506 per month makes it impossible to support a family of five. Moreover, he cannot freely dispose of even that amount. The situation could become existential.”
While German law technically allows for a monthly subsistence allowance — cited in late 2025 as €506 — Doğru’s lawyers have had to repeatedly sue banks just to gain access to this minimum amount. His attorney, Alexander Gorski, described these tactics as a “war of attrition” designed to make social and economic participation “factually impossible.”
He also noted the extreme difficulty of maintaining a normal life under these conditions, remarking that “paying bills is practically impossible for me.”
Doğru has been on an EU sanctions list since May 2025, with Brussels arguing that his pro-Palestinian journalistic work incites “ethnic, political, and religious discord” and therefore, he allegedly supports “destabilizing activities by Russia.” Notably, he filmed a number of the occupations of Berlin universities by pro-Palestinian activists.
Doğru has denied these allegations, pointing out that he ended his previous employment with a Russian-funded outlet following the invasion of Ukraine and has publicly criticized the conflict.
Remix News already covered developments in this story at the end of January of this year.
At the time, Doğru, a left-wing journalist, said: “Not only I, but also my wife and my three children are effectively being sanctioned.”
“The sanctions themselves stipulate that I am entitled to access to essential funds. The fact that my bank is nevertheless blocking these funds violates applicable law in my view,” he continued.
The basis for the sanctions was his alleged connections to Russia, but the Berliner Zeitung indicated that so far, no proof has been presented to confirm this accusation, and more importantly, there was no trial or evidence provided to support this accusation.
“Brussels justifies the measures by saying that he is using his pro-Palestinian journalistic work to stir up ‘ethnic, political and religious discord’ and thus allegedly ‘destabilizing activities that support Russia.’ The EU has not yet publicly provided any concrete evidence of a connection to Moscow,” wrote the paper at the time.
There are now fears that the extraordinary case may be a sign of where the future is headed, where an authoritarian EU can censor and financially ruin dissidents and journalists with no oversight or judicial review. Notably, similar sanctions could also be deployed against others, such as Roger Köppel, the Swiss editor-in-chief of the weekly Die Weltwoche.
In a formal inquiry from the newspaper Junge Welt, the German Ministry of Economic Affairs clarified the severity of the “provision ban.” They stated that a sanctioned individual may receive “no economic benefit whatsoever,” including wages. This interpretation effectively bars any German company from hiring Doğru, as paying him would constitute a criminal offense.
An MP of the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD) Macit Karaahmetoğlu, defended the government’s position in the case and the sanctions, noting it was established to target those undermining “the security, stability, independence and integrity” of the EU. He emphasized that the German government “actively worked to establish and strengthen” this specific regime to counter hybrid threats.
Legal experts and journalists, however, have compared Doğru’s situation to “internal exile.” Since he is a German citizen, he cannot be deported, but the sanctions have stripped him of his identity card and barred him from all forms of employment.
Even friends and family who would like to donate money to Doğru could be targeted with criminal charges.
Hamas official rejects Mladenov Plan linking disarmament to Gaza reconstruction
Palestinian Information Center – March 27, 2026
GAZA – Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim has firmly rejected proposals by former UN envoy Nikolay Mladenov that link resistance weapons in Gaza to administrative and security arrangements, including the deployment of international forces and reconstruction efforts.
Naim said the plan reflects bias toward Israel and contradicts previous agreements and international resolutions, accusing Mladenov of attempting to reshape the framework in line with Israeli interests while ignoring ceasefire violations and the lack of guarantees for implementation.
He warned that tying humanitarian needs such as reconstruction and easing the blockade to disarmament is unacceptable, stressing that such proposals come at the expense of Palestinian rights.
According to Naim, ongoing Israeli violations since the ceasefire have killed more than 750 Palestinians and injured around 1,800, while reconstruction materials remain restricted and crossings largely closed.
A leaked document outlining the proposal suggests a step-by-step approach linking disarmament to humanitarian progress, alongside a transitional governance plan based on a single authority and a single weapon framework.
Naim argued the plan imposes significant obligations on Palestinian factions without ensuring reciprocal commitments, raising concerns over expanded international intervention in Gaza.
The remarks come as the Israeli attacks on Gaza continue to cause massive casualties, displacement, and widespread destruction across the territory.
Israel systematically torturing Palestinians in custody: UN special rapporteur Albanese
Press TV | March 22, 2026
A UN expert says that the Israeli regime systematically tortures Palestinians on a scale “that suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent.”
In a report released on Friday, Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said that since October 7, 2023, when the Israeli regime began a genocidal war on Gaza, Palestinians in custody “have been subjected to exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse.”
Entitled “Torture and genocide”, the report “examines Israel’s systematic use of torture against Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory since October 7, 2023.”
“Torture in detention has been used on an unprecedented scale as punitive collective vengeance,” the report said.
Brutal beatings, sexual violence, rape, lethal mistreatment, starvation, and the systematic deprivation of the most basic human conditions have inflicted profound and lasting scars on the bodies and minds of tens of thousands of Palestinians and their loved ones,” the report stated.
Torture has become integral to the domination of and punishment inflicted on men, women and children, both through custodial abuse and through a relentless campaign of forced displacement, mass killings, deprivation and destruction of all means of life to inflict long-term collective pain and suffering, it warned.
Since October 2023, abduction of Palestinians in the occupied territory had “escalated dramatically,” with more than 18,500 people arrested, including at least 1,500 children, the report added.
About 9,000 Palestinians were still in detention, while more than 4,000 have been subjected to enforced disappearance, it said.
Israel’s detention system “has descended into a regime of systemic and widespread humiliation, coercion, and terror,” according to the report.
Albanese demanded Israel “immediately cease all acts of torture and ill-treatment of the Palestinian people as part of its ongoing genocide” and urged all countries “to do everything in their power to stop the destruction of what remains of Palestine” as every delay “worsens irreversible harm and further entrenches a system of cruelty.”
She urged the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to request arrest warrants for hawkish Israeli ministers Israel Katz, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
She said she had gathered written submissions about these atrocities, including at least 300 testimonies, and is due to present her report to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) on Monday.
Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli regime has killed at least 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than 172,000 others, most of them women and children.
How the US-Israeli aggression against Iran is affecting the war in Ukraine
By Dmitri Kovalevich | Al Mayadeen | March 22, 2026
In the second half of March, the US and Israeli aggression against Iran is taking its toll on Ukraine. Retail stores are updating their prices daily, while the government is unable to keep gasoline prices in check through threats against sellers, as operators simply hide their product, creating artificial shortages.
Following the rapid deindustrialization that accompanied ‘independent’ Ukraine’s secession from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the only remaining productive industry in the country is agriculture, specifically, the production of grain and corn for export. Ukrainian authorities now face a harsh choice: supply fuel to agrarians at the start of this year’s planting season, or divert dwindling fuel supplies to meet the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal, supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine remains the priority, in order that the proxy war by Western powers against the Russian Federation may continue.
He stated on March 1: “The war in Iran has triggered a global fuel crisis. Our key task is to supply the army. Sowing is the second priority. After that come businesses and people.”
European fuel suppliers have reduced their supplies to Ukraine in order to meet demand in their own markets. Fuel shipments from Poland have been suspended for one week, while Romania and Moldova have also temporarily halted fuel exports. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán already halted sales of diesel fuel and gasoline to Ukraine in February due to Ukraine’s disruption of the Druzhba pipeline from Russia.
As a result, Ukraine may be forced to seek fuel in more distant markets… and pay much higher prices for it. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Western imperialist powers cannot sustain two wars at once—one against Russia, the other against Iran.
Danylo Getmantsev, head of Ukraine’s legislative committee on tax policy, says that Ukraine could face serious fuel shortages as early as April if the war with Iran drags on. “According to analysts of the Ukrainian fuel market, the situation with a shortage of fuel and lubricants may arise in our country in April,” he said in early March. To counter this, Getmantsev proposes exploring opportunities to establish a strategic reserve of petroleum products in partner countries.
Andriy Gerus, head of the energy committee of the Ukrainian legislature, noted earlier in March that due to Russia’s shelling of oil depots, Ukraine has no remaining strategic fuel reserves. “Everything is operating on a just-in-time basis; there are no remaining stocks of cheaper resources, so any price change in Europe quickly translates into a price change in Ukraine.” He explains that fuel in Ukraine will always be more expensive than in Europe.
Legislator Oleksandr Dubinsky, currently in jail accused of treason, believes that due to the war against Iran, the economic situation in Ukraine has become critical, much like it was in February 2022 at the start of the war. “Society and the army are exhausted. Exchange rates, energy costs, and prices have risen. The budget deficit is widening. At the same time, uncertainty is growing,” Dubinsky explains.
Nevertheless, according to Dubinsky, officials in Kiev believe that Ukraine is seen as too important in the global game to be allowed to fail, so money for its survival as a Western vassal will be found regardless of the widespread corruption that has further overwhelmed the Ukrainian economy beginning in 2022.
Legislator Yuriy Boyko says that if oil reaches $200 per barrel, everyone will feel the impact. “In that case, the planting season will be at risk, and prices for goods will rise sharply. Ukrainians aren’t well-off to begin with, so we can’t let that happen,” the lawmaker says.
Another legislator, Mykhailo Tsymbaliuk, has stated that high gasoline prices are already affecting the country’s military capabilities. According to him, the fuel being allocated by the Ministry of Defense is insufficient for the armed forces, causing grave problems. Even evacuations of wounded soldiers are being compromised. “The skyrocketing price of gasoline has become a serious warning sign for the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the lawmaker warns.
Ukraine’s European supporters will continue for some time to divert fuel resources away from their own needs in order to supply the Ukrainian Armed Forces with gasoline, even at the expense of their own citizens. However, with every passing week and month that the war with Iran continues, the cost of such assistance will rise sharply for them.
In March, Ukrainian lawmakers told Ukrainian media that European governments are urging them to assure Ukraine keeps fighting Russia for another year-and-a-half to two years. “The Europeans have told us ‘Keep fighting for another year and a half to two years; we’ll provide the money you need’”, reports the publication Zerkalo Nedeli on March 12.
Under such pressure, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy has tasked the political leadership in the national legislature to continue functioning for several more years without an electoral mandate. The last national election Ukraine took place in April 2019, with a five-year mandate. It featured the banning of political parties deemed to be sympathetic to dialogue and good relations with Russia, a feature of the system that took power in February 2014 following a violent coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi paramilitaries.
To so many Ukrainians, the urgings and hidden threats by the leaders of ‘civilized Europe’ mean they will continue to be abducted from their own streets for two more years by the recruiters of Kiev’s compulsory military service.
None of the possible scenarios cited by Ukrainian military experts envisage a Russian defeat or the recapture of territories lost by Ukraine. In other words, the sole result of scenarios for continued war being urged is continued destruction of the Ukrainian population, all politely funded by European/NATO-member governments.
This approach speaks volumes about the overall strategy of Kiev and its Western allies. Theirs is a ‘strategy’ of holding out for a while longer without any long-term expectation of peace, hoping for some ‘black swan’ event (‘extremely rare and unpredictable’) that will drastically change the geopolitical situation. In other words, Western imperialism and its Ukrainian stooges are pinning their hopes on a miracle that might save them all.
Ukraine’s European ‘allies’, in truth, currently lack the funds to continue the war in Ukraine. They are negotiating a €90 billion loan for the country, but as mentioned above, European Union member Hungary is currently blocking this proposal.
Meanwhile, on March 18, Ukrainian media, citing a US State Department report, reported that USAID auditors have uncovered irregularities in the oversight of the more than $30 billion in direct budget support to Kiev since February 2022. There are a great many corruption scandals festering in Ukraine, but none have acted as grounds for refusing further loans and financial aid, despite the evidence that much of that could be embezzled.
Zelenskyy told the BBC during a visit to Britain on March 17 (which included a warm welcome by the British monarchy) that the war in Iran raises ominous forebodings about Ukraine’s future. Yet as Ukrainian media has noted, Zelensky is a firm supporter of that war.
In a speech to the annual Munich Security Conference on February 14, Zelensky called for measures to “immediately stop” Iran, without any delay. “Regimes like the one in Iran must not be given time. When they have time, they only kill more. They must be stopped immediately.”
Then, on February 27, he told an interview with Sky News that he supported an operation to depose the Iranian leadership.
Ukraine’s European allies are currently concerned with how to win back Donald Trump’s favor and persuade him to continue funding the Zelensky-led government in Kiev. Finnish President Alexander Stubb fears that negotiations on Ukraine are approaching a “moment of truth” that could force Kiev to formally cede territory in the Donbass region to Moscow. (Populations there voted in 2022 and before that to secede from coup Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.)
Europe, Stubb says, finds itself in a difficult position due to reductions in direct US aid to Ukraine. He proposes an odd trade-off to resolve this dilemma, namely, an ‘exchange’ of military assistance by Ukraine to the US and “Israel” in the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for continued assistance to Kiev’s war. That includes a proposal that the European Union agree to provide the US with military assistance to unblock the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for increases in direct US supplies to Ukraine.
But this is wishful thinking. The European Union member-countries of NATO lack the military capabilities required to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. They do have experience (gained during the Ukrainian crisis) in buying time and ‘bogging down’ the crisis in the Middle East through numerous rounds of fruitless negotiations with Iran. The essence of the EU approach would see the Iranian side fulfilling certain conditions in the here and now, while the West and its allies promise to ‘do something’ to normalize relations, but at a later time.
During the war in Ukraine, we witnessed endless negotiations in this vein under the ‘Minsk-1’ and ‘Minsk-2’ agreements in 2014 and early 2015. Then there was the ‘grain deal’ of July 2022, whereby the Russian navy would allow Ukraine to export grain from Black Sea ports. In all these cases, Ukraine and the West failed to fulfill their part of the commitments.
Oleg Yasinsky, a Ukrainian political analyst now living in Chile, commented on March 19 about the resistance of the Iranian people to aggression and the tradition of deception to which the West has consistently resorted during negotiations following military failures. “Once upon a time, the ancestors of today’s democratic world leaders negotiated with Indigenous peoples as they plundered and conquered them. At peace-signing ceremonies with the indigenous peoples of Patagonia, poison-laced whale carcasses were served at the table, while in the cold mountains of North America, smallpox-infected blankets and clothing were given as gifts to original peoples.
“Today, from Minsk for Russia to Geneva for Iran, the peacemaking traditions of the ‘civilized world’ have not changed one bit in all this time. Therefore and unfortunately,” he concludes, “missiles are the only real negotiators today.”
Zelensky is now desperately traveling around the world seeking to regain attention for his government as Iran becomes the main topic of global media. He is ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ of war against Iran in efforts to render some valuable service to Western imperialism and prove his continued usefulness. He has offered Ukrainian troops to guard “Israel” and Western military bases in the Gulf and in Cyprus. Alas for him, Trump has dismissed his obsequious ‘servant,’ going so far as to say that “Zelensky is the last person from whom we would need help.”
According to Odessa-based anarchist Vyacheslav Azarov, Ukraine is scrambling to align itself with the dominant theme in international politics and position itself as a useful part of the crisis exploding in the Middle East. Demands for additional support to Kiev are being delivered from this new vantage point. However, in the end, Kiev may simply end up with “additional airstrikes accompanied by the friendly shrieking of minor allies who have no real influence” and a large, new adversary in the form of Iran.”
Zelensky’s humiliating traveling and messaging does not go unnoticed in Ukraine. But the pompous president, who sees himself as a sage colonialist in the style of Winston Churchill and is continuously applauded by the governments of European countries, turns out to be a frightened servant, fearing that his ‘masters’ may abandon him. The war waged by Western imperialism against the Iranian people has once again underscored the weakness and dubious value of Zelensky’s government, whose image the West has artificially inflated for years through its media.
Bahrain admits US Patriot missile hit residential area, injured dozens
Al Mayadeen | March 21, 2026
Bahrain’s government has admitted that a US Patriot air defense system was involved in the March 9 interception over the Sitra residential area that left dozens of civilians injured, Reuters reported.
This admission directly refutes the account offered by US Central Command, which had attributed the casualties to an Iranian drone strike.
In a statement to Reuters, a Bahraini government spokesperson said the Patriot system intercepted an Iranian drone, insisting that the operation “prevented a drone strike and saved lives.”
CENTCOM had previously maintained that an Iranian drone directly struck a residential neighbourhood. Bahrain’s admission that a Patriot missile was involved now places both accounts in open contradiction with the footage and with each other.
Video published by Drop Site News shows an air-defense interceptor descending following a failed interception attempt, with an impact occurring off-camera shortly afterward. The images strongly suggest it was the interceptor, not an Iranian drone, that struck the residential area, injuring 32 civilians, including children, with four reported in critical condition.
Whose lives were being saved?
The Iranian missiles and drones at issue were directed at US military bases in Bahrain, installations that a significant portion of the Bahraini population regards as an occupying presence, which secures the authoritarian order and is complicit in the genocide in Gaza and the war waged on Iran and Lebanon.
Had those bases not existed on Bahraini soil, no Iranian missile would have targeted Bahrain, and no Bahraini civilian in Sitra would have been injured. The only lives the Patriot system could plausibly claim to have saved were those inside the bases themselves, the very presence most Bahrainis have long demanded be ended.
Death penalty for documenting the damage
Rather than launching an independent inquiry into how a US missile system came to strike a residential neighbourhood, Bahraini authorities have moved to prosecute those who documented the aftermath.
The kingdom’s Public Prosecution is seeking the death penalty for several citizens charged with photographing locations where photography is allegedly prohibited, in what prosecutors framed as “high betrayal”.
During court proceedings, they described the situation as “brutal Iranian aggression” and called for “maximum penalties, without the slightest mercy,” specifying that this meant capital punishment.
162 arrested, crackdown still ongoing
According to the Prisoners Affairs Authority in Bahrain, 162 citizens, including men and women, have been detained since the onset of the US-Israeli war on Iran, with only five released as of March 18.
Detentions have targeted citizens who filmed Iranian strikes on US military bases in the region, individuals who publicly expressed solidarity with those operations, as well as citizens who participated in peaceful protests denouncing the war and the assassination of martyred Iranian Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei.
The Prisoners’ Affairs Authority warned that the documented figure almost certainly undercounts the actual number of arrests, as raids and detention operations were still ongoing at the time of reporting.
Angela Lipps Spent 108 Days in Jail Because a Facial Recognition Algorithm Was Wrong
By Regina Morrison | Reclaim The Net | March 20, 2026
Angela Lipps spent nearly six months in jail because an algorithm looked at surveillance footage and decided she matched the suspect. She had never been to North Dakota. She had never been on a plane. A facial recognition system said otherwise, and police took that as enough.
Lipps, a 50-year-old mother and grandmother from north-central Tennessee, was arrested at her home in July while babysitting four children. US marshals arrived with guns drawn. She was booked as a fugitive from justice.
“I’ve never been to North Dakota, I don’t know anyone from North Dakota,” she told WDAY News.
The case began with bank fraud in Fargo.
Between April and May 2025, someone used a fake US Army military ID to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars from banks across the city. Detectives pulled surveillance footage of a woman at the counters. They fed that footage into facial recognition software. The software returned a name: Angela Lipps.
A detective wrote in court documents that Lipps appeared to match the suspect based on facial features, body type, and hairstyle.
That assessment, made by software and rubber-stamped in a report, was treated as sufficient cause for arrest. Nobody from the Fargo police called Lipps before the marshals showed up at her door.
She sat in a Tennessee county jail for 108 days waiting for North Dakota to arrange her transport. No bail. Four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information. Four counts of theft. The algorithm had spoken.
Her attorney, Jay Greenwood, told InForum: “If the only thing you have is facial recognition, I might want to dig a little deeper.”
Fargo police did not dig deeper. What eventually cleared Lipps was her bank records, which showed she had been more than 1,200 miles away in Tennessee during every transaction investigators said she committed in North Dakota. Greenwood obtained those records and brought them to the investigators. Lipps was released on Christmas Eve.
The story didn’t end there. While locked up and unable to pay bills, Lipps lost her home, her car, and her dog. When Fargo police released her, they didn’t arrange her trip back to Tennessee. Defense attorneys helped cover a hotel room and food over Christmas. A local nonprofit, the F5 Project, got her home.
As of the reporting from InForum, nobody from the Fargo police department had apologized.
This is how facial recognition operates: it generates a match, law enforcement acts on it, and the burden of disproving a computer’s guess falls entirely on the person whose life gets upended.
Lipps had to produce documentary evidence of her own location to escape charges based on software that was simply wrong.
The Lipps case is not unusual. Last October, an AI system at a Baltimore school identified a bag of Doritos as a firearm and notified police.
Officers arrived armed at Kenwood High School, forced student Taki Allen to his knees, handcuffed him, and searched him. They found nothing.
In the UK, Shaun Thompson, 39, had just finished a volunteer shift with Street Fathers, a group dedicated to steering young people away from knife crime, when the Metropolitan Police’s live facial recognition cameras flagged him outside London Bridge station.
Officers detained him for nearly half an hour, demanded his fingerprints, and threatened arrest, even as he produced multiple forms of ID proving he wasn’t the person they were looking for. “They were telling me I was a wanted man, trying to get my fingerprints and trying to scare me with arrest, even though I knew and they knew the computer had got it wrong,” he said.
Thompson is now bringing the first legal challenge of its kind against the Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition. The man the algorithm flagged as a criminal was spending his evening trying to prevent crime. The technology made no distinction.
What these cases share is a common architecture. A system makes an identification, human oversight treats that identification as reliable, and the person flagged has no recourse until significant damage has already been done.
Israeli Journalist Demands Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens Be Placed in WWII-Style Internment Camps
The Talmudic mask comes off
José Niño Unfiltered | March 17, 2026
The landscape of American free speech has entered treacherous new terrain. On February 27, 2026, an Israeli historian and journalist named Yair Kleinbaum published an editorial in JFeed demanding that the United States government arrest and detain Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, Cenk Uygur, Jackson Hinkle, and other prominent commentators who have opposed American military action against Iran. The model he proposed for their imprisonment was the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.
“It’s time to put Fuentes, Owens, Carlson and Uygur inside a WWII-Style internment camp,” Kleinbaum wrote. “We have reached a point where there is no choice but to take decisive action and arrest them.”
Kleinbaum’s argument rested on the claim that these commentators had crossed from protected speech into criminal incitement by allegedly encouraging soldiers to defy orders and discouraging enlistment. He explicitly compared them to Japanese Americans during World War II, though he distinguished the cases by asserting that unlike those who were “unjustly profiled,” the targeted influencers had “proven that their loyalty is with anti-American forces.”
“Just as the Japanese-American population was suspected of loyalty to a murderous Japanese regime that had declared war on America during World War II, these figures, including Jackson Hinkle and others, have, unlike most those Japanese who were unjustly profiled, proven that their loyalty is with anti-American forces,” Kleinbaum wrote. “Hence their call for mutiny.”
Kleinbaum himself is a graduate student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Department of History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry. He also served as a research assistant in the Jewish Peoplehood department at The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, now Reichman University. His academic work focuses on the history of the Israeli political left between 1967 and 1973.
For perspective, JFeed is an English language news platform founded in 2023 and led by CEO Yarit Elbaz and Editor in Chief Eli Gotthelf, who previously worked at Kikar HaShabbat, an Israeli Haredi news outlet. The platform describes itself as “proudly unfiltered, proudly Jewish, and proudly committed to conservative values,” with the stated mission of becoming “the leading English-language news source for global Jewry.” Kleinbaum serves as one of the platform’s most prolific writers, covering breaking news on the Iran conflict, antisemitism analysis, and U.S. Israel relations.
Kleinbaum’s call for internment is not a fringe view among the American Jewish community. Multiple surveys reveal a community deeply divided on these questions. A CHIP50 survey in 2024 found that 39 percent of American Jews supported restrictions “prohibiting speech that opposes Israel’s existence as a Jewish state” on college campuses, compared to only 21 percent of non-Jews.
A Forward-CHIP50 poll in 2024 found 31 percent of Jews supported “prohibiting certain political speech” on campus, while 47 percent were opposed. Separately, 44 percent supported banning statements of support for Hamas, and 58 percent supported using law enforcement to police campus demonstrations.
The Japanese American internment that Kleinbaum cited as his model represents one of the most egregious violations of civil liberties in American history. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced removal of approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. The majority were American citizens. They were imprisoned in remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, losing their homes, businesses, and livelihoods.
Decades later, the United States government formally apologized for this injustice. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which acknowledged that the internment was based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” The government paid reparations to surviving internees.
An even more insidious aspect of the Japanese internment that is often overlooked by court historians is how Jewish individuals benefited from the Roosevelt administration’s internment policy. Gus Russo’s 2006 book Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America’s Hidden Power Brokers contains a chapter that directly addresses the seizure and sale of Japanese American properties during WWII.
Russo’s book details how the Office of Alien Property Custodian (OAP), headed by David L. Bazelon—a well-connected Chicago attorney and son of Russian-Jewish immigrants—oversaw the liquidation of seized Japanese American (and German-owned) properties after the war. According to Russo, Bazelon sold many of these properties to associates linked to Chicago mob lawyer Sidney Korshak—also of Jewish extraction—and members of the Pritzker family for pennies on the dollar. Russo identifies David Bazelon as running the OAP and controlling the disposition of properties collectively worth an estimated $400 million in 1942 dollars (billions today), including half a million acres of California farmland and some 1,265 small Japanese-owned hotels.
Jay Pritzker — patriarch of the Hyatt hotel fortune — was hired as an assistant attorney at the OAP under Bazelon and allegedly profited from the fire-sale liquidations. The broader network Russo calls the “Supermob” — a cadre of mostly Chicago-connected figures with ties to organized crime — acquired California land, hotels, and urban parcels through these OAP sales.
Back to Kleinbaum, his demand for the state detention of Israel’s vocal critics reflects a deepening panic within the Jewish community following the October 7 conflict. The graphic, public nature of those events triggered a global realization, driving millions to critically examine the extent and nature of Jewish influence in their own nations. This shift signifies that the traditional methods of social control—specifically the use of guilt-based Holocaust tropes to silence dissent—have lost their efficacy. As Jewry’s reliance on soft power through propaganda falters, they are increasingly turning to the hard power of state-sanctioned speech suppression.
What appears as the reactionary outburst of a single, traumatized Jewish intellectual may signal a shift toward a broader, more aggressive strategy intended to crush the burgeoning opposition to Jewish hegemony across the West. These efforts to institutionalize censorship are a testament to the fragility of a crumbling Judeo-American order. The truth is no longer a hidden secret, and the attempt to force it back into the shadows is a battle that world Jewry is poised to lose once gentiles wake up from their slumber.
Brussels wants ‘our sons to die for Ukraine’ – Orban
RT | March 16, 2026
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Brussels of dragging the EU into a direct war with Russia through potential troop deployments to Ukraine.
Speaking at the ‘Peace March’ in Budapest on Sunday, which drew tens of thousands of supporters, Orban said Brussels had taken “the war upon itself” and was pursuing a wartime economic policy.
“They do not want to keep trouble at a distance – they want to march into it: more money, more weapons, more soldiers. We do not know the day or the hour when the first soldier from Brussels will step onto Ukrainian soil, but it will happen. They can hardly wait for soldiers bearing EU insignia to be sent,” he said.
He stressed the importance of renewing “the anti-war alliance” forged by his government, pledging to “preserve Hungary as an island of security and calm.”
“Our sons will not die for Ukraine; they will live for Hungary,” Orban said. “We will protect support for mothers, we will protect our children, and we will not allow our national colors to be replaced with Ukrainian or rainbow flags.”
Orban also claimed that “enormous forces” are trying to pressure Hungary politically and economically to “push the country off its own path” by blocking funding and affordable energy supplies. He accused Brussels of trying to turn Hungarians into “debt servants” to fund the war effort, “using Ukraine as a pretext,” and seeking a change of government in Budapest because his administration refuses to hand over “the keys to the treasury.”
The Orban government has long opposed the EU’s policy of arming and funding Ukraine against Russia, as well as Kyiv’s bid to join the bloc. Tensions between Budapest and Kyiv have escalated in recent months after Ukraine suspended Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia via a Soviet-built pipeline, while Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has also issued personal threats against Orban.
Palestinian family displaced after settlers violently attack them in Humsa, Jordan Valley
International Solidarity Movement | March 13, 2026
On Friday, March 13, at 1:20am, around 30 masked Israeli settlers invaded a Palestinian property in Humsa, north of Jordan Valley, where a family of 12 people live. The family decided to leave their land after this latest attack.
The settlers first stormed a tent where one of the Palestinian men was asleep and Portuguese and US international activists were staying. The settlers attacked and blindfolded the man and activists and took them into another tent where they brought three other men and five children from the family. The settlers tied the hands and ankles of the Palestinian men and the activists, dragged them by the hair and ankles, beat them with sticks and kicked their faces. The settlers exerted extreme violence toward the Palestinian men and beat the eldest man with rocks.
The settlers told the family and activists to leave, stating: “We are Jewish, this is our land”. When asked by an activist what they wanted, they responded: “We want to kill you”. The settlers also took rings from the activists, asking them if they wanted their fingers cut off.
As the family’s children were crying while forced to witness the violence, the settlers told them to shut up.
The settlers opened the family’s sheep pen and let loose around 350 sheep. They stole the activists’ passports, phones, money, as well as one of their backpacks, and cut one of their jackets. They then cut the men and activists’ ties, rolled one of the activists on top of a Palestinian man, and left.
The Palestinian men and the activists were taken in ambulances to receive medical treatment.
Israeli settler attacks in the north Jordan Valley have increased sharply in the past few weeks as the Israeli government begins building a 500km apartheid wall and military road in the region. At the end of February, Israeli forces have also issued demolition orders for 10 farms and a vegetable store in the area.
These coordinated efforts are accelerating the ethnic cleansing of communities in the Jordan Valley at alarming rates. Families have left the villages of Hammamat Al Maleh, Al Miteh and Al Burj, Khirbet Yarza, and Humsa during the last month alone. Hammamat Al Burj is now completely empty, while the two remaining families in Hammamat al Maleh were badly attacked yesterday.
Since Israel-USA attack on Iran, settlers have also killed six Palestinians in the West Bank.
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Truth, History and Integrity
By Gilad Atzmon | March 13, 2010
… As devastating as it may be, at a certain moment in time, a horrible chapter was given an exceptionally meta-historical status. Its ‘factuality’ was sealed by draconian laws and its reasoning was secured by social and political settings. The Holocaust became the new Western religion. Unfortunately, it is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, no nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse. … Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Iran moved to change the US-Iran equation yesterday
- Former Israeli soldier: I left the Gaza war with shame and regret
- The UK Government Will Persecute Those Vocal about Israel, But Not War Criminals
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- EU pushing Armenia to expel Russian Orthodox Church – intel service
- From Evo Morales to Rodrigo Paz: Bolivia’s Dramatic Shift Toward Israel
- Iran rejects US assassination claim, says Washington trying to whitewash its own crimes against Iranians
- The Iran War has destroyed fertilizer markets and farmers everywhere, almost
- Capitulate or Die: The Gaza ‘peace process’ and Western propaganda
- FSB Blows Lid on Western Plot to Hack Russian Officials’ Phones — But Here’s the Shocker
- If Americans Knew
- The Faustian Bargain of Journalists Embedding with the Israeli Military in Gaza
- AIPAC: Defending the Indefensible
- “You Either Leave Right Now or You Die”—Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of a Village in Lebanon
- Selling American dead bodies to the US Navy for Israeli military training?
- AIPAC affiliate has funded lavish trips to Israel for dozens of Congress members since 7 October, filings reveal
- Trump called Netanyahu crazy, stopped Israel attack on Beirut: three articles
- ISRAELI MEDIA: Israel’s Education System Isn’t Broken. It’s Doing Exactly What It Was Built to Do
- UN experts alarmed by escalating settler terror and displacement in West Bank
- Israeli soldiers halt Catholic festival preparations in West Bank Christian village
- Congress Is Quietly Making Israel a Permanent Pillar of U.S. Military Modernization
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
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- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
- European “Expert Commission” Urges COVID-19-Like Global Climate State Of Energency!
- Real-World Observations Do Not Support The Position That Climate Change Is Human-Caused
- Germany’s AfD Party Calls Debunked Climate Scenarios “Greatest Fraud In Human History”
- Researchers Find Rapid Global Warming Phase At End Of Last Ice Age (Ca.18,000 Years Ago)
- Even The DNA Of Single-Celled Plankton Can Upend Alarmist Arctic Sea Ice Melt Claims
- Scandal: Although Climate Panic Is Canceled By IPCC, Europe’s Policymakers Continue With Their Crushing Policies
- How Once Hardcore Climate Alarmist Lucy Biggers Realized It Was All A Scam, Brainwashing
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