Pro-Palestine rallies spread on US campuses despite heavy repression
The Cradle | April 23, 2024
Pro-Palestinian protests at major US universities continued to grow on 22 April despite arrests by police, suspensions by university administrators, and sabotage by pro-Israel lobby groups.
Columbia, a prestigious university in New York City, has been the epicenter of the student protests opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The protests have now spread to other universities, including Harvard, New York University, Yale, Arizona State, and California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt.
Police have arrested dozens at Columbia and Yale for refusing to leave protest encampments after administrators demanded it.
Columbia student and protester Grant Miner told the New Statesman that the protesters’ demands include “amnesty for students who had been suspended by the administration over earlier campus protests [he being one of them]; divestment from Israeli bonds and equity; financial transparency around how the university invests its $14 billion endowment.”
The protests made headlines in the US on Monday as new mass graves were discovered outside Nasser Hospital in Gaza with over 200 civilian bodies, including doctors and nurses still wearing scrubs, as well as women, men, and children, all killed by the Israeli army.
On Monday night, police cleared a protest encampment centered at New York University’s Gould Plaza at the university’s request. Faculty and students were arrested.
The Washington Post reported that videos on social media showed “dozens of officers in tense confrontations with protesters. Some officers tossed tents, and others grappled with demonstrators. Videos also showed police loading people, whose hands were zip-tied behind their backs, onto correctional buses.”
The confrontations began after university police blocked access to the plaza Monday morning, where about 50 protesters were demonstrating “without authorization,” NYU spokesman John Beckman said.
The barriers were breached early in the afternoon by additional protesters, “many of whom we believe were not affiliated with NYU,” who exhibited “disorderly, disruptive, and antagonizing behavior” and refused to leave when told the protests would be disbanded, he said. The university then requested assistance from the [New York Police Department] NYPD, he said, adding there were “several antisemitic incidents reported.”
Last week, over 100 students at Columbia were arrested amid accusations of violence and antisemitism among protesters. NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said: “The students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say.”
According to Grant Miner, a Jewish Columbia student, allegations of antisemitism are unfounded.
“I’m not sure what people would be referring to,” Miner said. “I myself am Jewish. The narrative is that … we’re a violent mob, and there’s been no violence here. The only anti-Jewish sentiments I’ve received are from hard-core Zionist Jews calling me a fake Jew. In fact, I got a fun email to my work email calling me, just a subject line, ‘Judenrat.’”
Journalist Max Blumenthal reported that pro-Israel lobby groups are offering “cash compensation” to young Zionists “willing to wear keffiyehs and walk in these demonstrations” as provocateurs to spread antisemitic slogans and issue threats against Jews.
On Monday, Republican Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley used alleged concerns about the safety of Jewish students to demand that President Joe Biden call in the National Guard to suppress the protests at Columbia.
Google fires more employees protesting giant deal with Israel
Press TV – April 23, 2024
Google has fired about 20 more employees over recent protests against a deal between the US technology giant and Israel.
The activist group No Tech for Apartheid said on Monday that the new layoffs bring to more than 50 the total number of Google workers dismissed in the past week.
“The corporation is attempting to quash dissent, silence its workers and reassert its power over them,” said Jane Chung, a spokesperson for No Tech for Apartheid.
Meanwhile, a Google spokesperson confirmed the company had sacked more employees after continuing its investigation into the April 16 anti-Israel demonstrations, which included sit-ins at offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California.
The protesters held posters reading, “No More Genocide For Profit,” “No cloud apartheid,” “We Stand with Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Googlers” and “Don’t be evil, stop retaliation”.
They denounced Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract awarded to Google and Amazon to supply the Israeli regime with cloud computing services.
The contract dates back to 2021. However, the protests followed a report in Time magazine earlier this month, citing an internal company document, that the Israeli ministry of military affairs is a Google Cloud customer.
No Tech for Apartheid said the report showed that Google had “built custom tools” for the Israeli ministry of military affairs and had “doubled down on contracting” with the regime’s army after the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip began.
Israel waged its brutal war on the besieged Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 34,183 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 77,143 others.
Since the start of the onslaught, the US, Israel’s most dedicated ally, has fast-tracked arms shipments to the occupying regime and blocked UN resolutions that called for a Gaza truce.
EU will be the biggest loser if it confiscates assets – Moscow
RT | April 23, 2024
Moscow has drafted a package of retaliatory measures in the event that Western countries seize Russian sovereign assets that have been frozen over the Ukraine conflict, senior senator Valentina Matvienko warned on Tuesday.
In an interview with Russian journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, the chairwoman of the Federation Council said that the EU’s potential move to confiscate Russian assets would be “unprecedented,” adding that it “would destroy the global economy.”
“Of course, it would be absolutely illegal, and everyone in Europe understands that they can’t do that,” the official stated.
The West has frozen around $300 billion in Russian central bank assets since the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Most of the funds are being held in the EU. Moscow has repeatedly denounced the seizure as “theft.”
Officials in several Western nations, notably the US and the UK, have insisted on the outright confiscation of Russian assets despite widespread concerns that this would have no legal basis. In contrast, the EU has been reluctant to do so, reportedly fearing Russian retaliation.
Matvienko stressed that Russia has “a prepared response” to a potential confiscation. “We have a bill that we are ready to consider immediately in response. And the Europeans will lose more than we will. Of course, they are afraid of this, especially given that their economy is collapsing.”
The senator argued that Washington has crushed the EU, both politically and economically. “In the defense and security area, it used to be a vassal… but now it has been simply squashed by the Americans. They now want to strangle it even more… to make it even less competitive,” she stated.
With this in mind, Matvienko suggested that the European business community should vehemently protest against the potential seizures, as they would be the primary target of Moscow’s retaliatory measures.
While the EU has been dragging its feet on confiscating Russian assets, it has been working on a plan to seize the profits generated by those funds in order to procure weapons for Ukraine and boost its defense production capabilities.
According to Politico, however, some members of the bloc have voiced serious misgivings about the initiative. Hungary and Slovakia have opposed the idea of sending weapons to Ukraine, while Malta and Luxembourg are reportedly unhappy that they were not consulted about the plan.
Sponsor of TikTok Ban & Iran-Palestine Sanctions Gets 1,400% Bump in AIPAC Donations
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 22.04.2024
The 21st Century Peace through Strength Act passed the US House of Representatives on Saturday, as part of a package of bills that also included military aid to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific.
US Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who sponsored the 21st Century Peace through Strength Act that passed the US House of Representatives, saw contributions to his campaign from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) increase an incredible 1,413% during the 2024 election cycle when compared to the 2022 cycle.
The 21st Century Peace through Strength Act includes the REPO Act, which enables Biden to seize Russian assets frozen in US banks and send them to Ukraine, a provision that will essentially ban TikTok from the US, and also contains sanctions against Palestinian resistance groups.
According to a statement released by McCaul when the bill was introduced, it will be “the most comprehensive sanctions against Iran [that] Congress has passed in years.” The legislation is expected to clear the Senate and be signed into law by US President Joe Biden this week.
While it is unclear if, how, or why AIPAC would push for the theft of Russian assets, the other major provisions of the bill are directly related to issues AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobbying groups advocate for.
The sanction provisions of the bill are self-evidently pro-Israel actions, designed explicitly to harm Israel’s adversaries in the region. The TikTok ban is slightly obscured, but the app has been blamed by politicians and Jewish groups alike for the rise in support among young people for the Palestinian cause.
In late October, US Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called the app a “purveyor of virulent antisemitic lies,” on Twitter.
Billionaire Bill Ackman, one of Israel’s most virulent supporters who gained infamy last year after publicly doxing Ivy League students who made pro-Palestinian statements, blamed the app directly for the support of Palestine among America’s youth. “TikTok is massively manipulating public opinion,” he wrote.
“Compare the generational differences on support for Hamas. 51% of the TikTok generation say that Hamas’ barbaric acts are justified,” Ackman wrote on Twitter/X while saying TikTok should “probably” be banned.
Ackman’s sentiments were reflected by McCaul himself in November, when he, too, blamed TikTok and China specifically for young people turning against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“China controls the algorithms on TikTok, so if you type in Israel or Palestine you are going to get a lot of pro-Palestinian, Hamas material and videos pop up and that’s primarily the source of education for our young people,” claimed McCaul.
It is not just politicians blaming TikTok for the rise in support for Palestinians, Jewish groups have as well.
In December, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt blamed TikTok for “intensifying antisemitism” and anti-Zionism.
“TikTok, if you will, is the 24/7 news channel of so many of our young people and it’s like Al Jazeera on steroids, amplifying and intensifying the antisemitism and the anti-Zion[ism] with no repercussions,” Greenblatt claimed on American television.
For years, McCaul was a non-entity for pro-Israel lobbying groups like AIPAC. Elected in 2004, McCaul received no contributions from pro-Israel groups until the 2020 cycle when another group, Pro-Israel America PAC contributed $32,600 to his campaign, his largest donor that year, according to Open Secrets.
The next cycle, McCaul received $7,900 from AIPAC itself in addition to another $6,000 from other pro-Israel groups. But, it was not until this year that McCaul became the Republican darling for AIPAC in the House of Representatives.
To date, McCaul has received $119,550 from AIPAC in 2024 alone, a 1,413% increase and by far his largest contributor, dwarfing the second place Axxess Technology Solutions which donated $16,600.
Open Secrets lists the “pro-Israel industry,” including AIPAC, as having contributed $372,468 to McCaul’s campaign overall in 2024, a 681% increase from the $47,673 in contributions he received from the “pro-Israel industry” in 2022.
This cycle, McCaul is AIPAC’s top Republican recipient in the House and is the sixth overall House recipient of AIPAC funds. Only Democratic Reps. Ritchie Torres (NY), Hakeem Jeffries (NY), Kathy Manning (NC), Josh Gottheimer (NJ) and Pete Aguilar (CA) sit above McCaul on the list. All of them voted for the bill.
Of the bill’s 10 co-sponsors, all Republicans, four of them list AIPAC as their top contributor for this year: Reps. Joe Wilson (SC), Mark Green (TN), Doug Lamborn (CO), and Dan Crenshaw (TX). Another co-sponsor, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA) lists AIPAC as his second-largest contributor. Only Delegate Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen from American Samoa, who does not have voting rights in the House, and US Rep. Maria Salazar (FL) co-sponsored the bill without taking campaign contributions from AIPAC or any other pro-Israel group.
Sputnik emailed McCaul’s campaign for comment on the increase in AIPAC contributions, but did not receive a response by press time.
US lawmaker demands ‘proof’ on CIA’s Russia scare
RT | April 22, 2024
After stoking fears of Russian expansionism to win congressional approval for more Ukraine aid, US intelligence agencies should provide proof of their justification for continuing to fund a “proxy war” that will inevitably end in defeat for Kiev, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) has argued.
Speaking on Monday in an interview with former White House aide Steve Bannon, Greene pushed back against claims that Russian forces will take Poland and continue “marching across Europe” if they’re allowed to defeat Ukraine. She noted that US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) only agreed to push through the $61 billion Ukraine aid bill, which was approved on Saturday, after hearing intelligence briefings hyping the Russian threat.
“If the American people are going to have to pay for it, then show us this proof that was shown to Mike Johnson in the SCIF [sensitive compartment information facility],” Greene said. “Why is this classified information? If this is a real threat to all of Europe, if this is a threat to America and our national security, then roll out the presentation.”
The second-term lawmaker said Johnson received no such classified briefings on the US border crisis, which poses a real threat to the American people. “They don’t care about that,” she said. “They care about continuing the business model built on blood and murder and war in foreign countries, the business model that continues funding the military-industrial complex in order, supposedly, to create American jobs and build up the American economy.”
“This is the most disgusting business model that anyone has ever seen, probably in the history of mankind.”
Greene reiterated her call to oust Johnson as speaker, saying Republican voters are so disgusted about the Ukraine bill that the party will lose control of the House in this year’s election if the current leadership remains in place. The White House’s emergency funding request for Kiev had been stalled since last fall because a majority of Republicans opposed it. Republican lawmakers voted against the legislation by a 112-101 margin on Saturday, but Johnson overrode his own party by allowing a vote and winning passage with unanimous Democrat support.
Johnson won praise from the Washington media for his reversal on Ukraine aid – CNN even likened him to Winston Churchill – while Greene came under attack for criticizing him. The New York Post put a picture of Greene on its Sunday cover with a Soviet ushanka superimposed on her head and a caption saying, “Nyet, Moscow Marjorie.”
Greene insisted that congressional Republicans can’t win in the November election without the support of ‘America First’ voters. She added that sending more aid to Ukraine will only cause more bloodshed without changing the outcome of the conflict.
“This just continues the war maybe a few more months, maybe to the end of the summer,” Greene said. “It doesn’t guarantee a Ukrainian victory because everyone knows they’re going to lose eventually. It just is a matter of when. But it does guarantee that more Ukrainian men will be slaughtered on the battlefield.”
Southeast Asia on Course to Ukraine-Style Crisis Amid US Militarization of Philippines
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 22.04.2024
US and Philippine troops kicked off the largest iteration of their annual Balikatan exercises in decades this week, with this year’s drills involving some 11,000 US and 5,000 Filipino military personnel, plus forces from Australia and France. Geopolitical analyst and former US Marine Brian Berletic explains why the drills are so dangerous.
Chinese diplomatic and military officials slammed Washington and Manila over the Balikatan drills on Monday, accusing participants of attempting to “flex” their “gunboat muscles,” stoking confrontation in the South China Sea and undermining regional security.
“Reality has shown that those who make deliberate provocations, stoke tensions, or support one side against another for selfish gains will ultimately only hurt themselves,” Chinese Central Military Commission Zhang Youxia said, warning that US-led attempts at “maritime containment, encirclement and island blockades will only plunge the world into a vortex of division and turbulence.”
The Chinese military plans to increase its naval and air patrols in the South China Sea amid the US-Philippines exercises, which will run until May 10, and include everything from maritime security and air defense operations to cyber and information warfare, and simulate the seizure of islands in the vicinity of Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Crucially, drilling will include naval exercises outside the Philippines’ internationally recognized territorial waters near the disputed South China Sea – parts of which are claimed by both Manila and Beijing.
Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte warned current President Bongbong Marcos Jr last week about the risks of cozying up with the US at the expense of balanced relations with China, accusing Washington of trying to provoke a war between the Philippines and China, and emphasizing that he doesn’t believe “America will die for us” if tensions grow into direct clashes.
“I would remove the bases. And I would tell the Americans, you have so many ships, so you do not need my island as a launching pad or a launching deck for you,” Duterte said.
Assuming office in 2022, the Marcos Jr. government moved to expand the Philippines’ Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States, nearly doubling the number of military bases in the country that the US gets access to from five to nine in 2023. Two of the facilities, the Antonio Bautista Air Base and the Balabac Island Air Base in the Palawan archipelago, border directly on contested waters in the South China Sea.
Echoes of Ukrainian Escalation
Filipinos are right to be concerned about US attempts to militarize their country, says former US Marine-turned author, journalist and independent geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic.
“The Philippines were previously a US colony gaining independence only in 1945. Since then, the US has attempted to reassert political control over the country as well as maintain a large US military presence on its shores. The goal is to militarize the country and use it as part of a wider united front against China,” Berletic told Sputnik.
“Exercises like Balikatan give the US an opportunity to shape the Philippines’ armed forces into a suitable proxy for a potential conflict with China,” the observer warned.
The creeping militarization of the island nation is not unlike processes witnessed in the aftermath of the Euromaidan coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, which were followed by joint military exercises involving US and Ukrainian troops, Berletic recalled.
These processes ultimately culminated in the 2022 escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown NATO-Russia proxy war.
“Washington’s primary objective in the Asia-Pacific region is to encircle and contain China. To do this, the US is attempting to compromise the governments of nations along China’s periphery including the Philippines, establish a US military presence within their borders, and militarize these countries against China,” the observer explained.
In addition to allowing the US to move its military assets “dangerously close to Chinese territory,” including in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and off the shores of the breakaway Chinese island province of Taiwan, US activities in the Philippines are designed to take advantage of and artificially inflame outstanding regional maritime disputes.
This enables Washington to “both justify a larger US military presence in the region, and turn nations in the region against China,” Berletic said.
“This will result in a similar crisis as seen in Europe where the US not only used Ukraine in a highly destructive proxy war against Russia, but also decimated Europe’s economy, socio-political stability, and placed the entire region on the precipice of a US-driven war,” Berletic fears.
South China Sea Dispute
The dispute between China, the Philippines and other nations over the strategic, energy and fishing resource-rich waters of the South China Sea dates back to the immediate post-WWII period, with Beijing staking claims on the basis of imperial dynasties’ near total control over waters in the area prior to the arrival of the Europeans and Americans in the region.
China has been exploring a regional dispute mechanism with its South China Sea neighbors since 2002, and has called on Washington – which has no claims to the region, to butt out. The US has gradually ramped up its military presence in the region since the early 2010s, when Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the South China Sea a matter of US “national interest.” In addition to shoring up a network of alliances and undermining Chinese negotiating efforts, the US has deployed Navy and Coast Guard ships into the South China Sea on so-called ‘freedom of navigation’ missions to challenge Chinese sovereignty claims. These missions have resulted in a series of close calls between Chinese, US and US-allied warships and military aircraft.
America’s “national interest” in the South China Sea is also inexorably tied in part to a strategy of containing China through the so-called ‘Island Chain Strategy’, which envisions a broad network of US bases and bilateral pacts with regional powers to prevent the Chinese Navy from being able to mount operations beyond its home waters.
Ukraine: US doubles down, Russia is cool
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 22, 2024
Russia’s free running in the Ukraine war in the most recent months is about to end this week as the Biden Administration has met with success in the US Congress on the long-stalled Ukraine aid bill. The aid approved by the House on Saturday would send $60.8 billion to Ukraine.
Senate approval is expected as soon a Tuesday this week. President Biden has promised, “I will immediately sign this law to send a signal to the whole world: we support our friends and will not allow Iran or Russia to succeed,”
To be sure, the US is doubling down to forestall an outright Russian military victory in Ukraine through this year. Unsurprisingly, Washington’s transatlantic allies are also rallying, which is the message coming out of the virtual meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council at the level of Allied Defence Ministers chaired by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at Brussels on Saturday.
The sense of relief in Kiev is palpable with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling NBC, “I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine, and we will have a chance for victory.” He said the US lawmakers moved to keep “history on the right track.”
On the other hand, the Russian reaction has been rather polemical — The foreign ministry spokesperson said in Moscow, “White House is no longer banking on an ephemeral victory by the Kiev regime under its control. All it wants is for the Ukrainian armed forces to hold out at least until the November voting without damaging Biden’s image… we confirm that Washington’s actions as an active party to the conflict will be rebuffed unconditionally and decisively, and its increasingly deeper plunge into the hybrid war against Russia will end up in a fiasco for the United States as scandalous and humiliating as in Vietnam and Afghanistan.”
What seems to perturb Moscow most in the US aid bill is its provision for confiscating frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine, which, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov singled out “because this is essentially the destruction of all the foundations of the economic system. This is an encroachment on state property, on state assets and on private property. By no means should this be perceived as legal action — it is illegal. And accordingly, it will be subject to retaliatory actions and legal proceedings,”
Of course, the Russian military moves going forward will be keenly watched. In such fluid circumstances, actions speak better than words. At any rate, an inflection point has come since, evidently with an eye on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forthcoming visit to Beijing, the Biden Administration is also shifting gear to explicitly threaten China for allegedly supporting the Russian defence industry. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is paying a 3-day visit to China on Wednesday.
Taken together, what emerges is that the Biden Administration is doubling down on the Ukraine war, contrary to earlier prognosis that war fatigue is setting in. Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder has disclosed to Politico in a statement that the Biden Administration is considering sending additional military advisers to Ukraine, since “security conditions have evolved.”
The additional personnel “would not be in a combat role, but rather would advise and support the Ukrainian government and military.” The specific numbers of personnel remain confidential “for operational security and force protection reasons.” They will support logistics and oversight efforts for the weapons the US is sending Ukraine and “new contingent will also help the Ukrainian military with weapons maintenance.”
Indeed, the fact remains that even in a non-combat role, what is in the cards is an expansion of the US military presence in Ukraine, notwithstanding Biden’s repeated assertions that US troops wouldn’t participate in the war on Ukraine’s behalf, as doing so would increase the risk of a direct Russian-American military confrontation.
Citing sources, Politico further reported that “One of the tasks the advisers will tackle is helping the Ukrainians plan sustainment of complex equipment donated by the US as the summer fighting is expected to ramp up.”
Interestingly, it has been reported on Saturday that French troops are already on the ground in Odessa numbering 1,000 and another contingent is expected shortly. This was forecast a few weeks ago by the Russian foreign intelligence but Paris flatly denied it.
How does the new US $60.75 billion aid package add up? It includes $23.2 billion intended to replenish US weapons stocks; $13.8 billion for the purchase of advanced weapons systems for Ukraine; and another $11.3 billion for “ongoing US military operations in the region.”
That is to say, in effect, the direct military assistance to Ukraine will actually amount to about $13.8 billion till end-2024. The Russian experts estimate that this allocation rules out another Ukrainian “counteroffensive.” Besides, while the increased flow of US weaponry will beef up the Ukrainian military capability to withstand the Russian offensive, it cannot fundamentally change the balance of forces at the front.
From a military angle, the cutting edge of the bill lies in the fact that it opens the gateway for the transfer to Ukraine of tactical missile systems [ATACMS] capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 300 km, which brings Crimea within its range. President Putin is on record that the ATACMS “are not at all able to change the situation on the line of contact… [but are] “certainly damaging and pose an additional threat.”
Put differently, the aid package aims on the one hand to avoid a catastrophic military situation arising at the front in the coming months, which could be politically damaging for Biden’s re-election bid, while on the other hand, the bulk of funds actually goes to the US arms manufacturers in some key “swing states” and will surely gratify the influential military-industrial complex and the Deep State.
Biden told Wall Street Journal, “We will send military equipment from our own stocks, and then use the money authorised by Congress to replenish these stocks by buying them from American suppliers. This includes Patriot missiles made in Arizona, Javelin missiles made in Alabama, and artillery shells made in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.”
To be sure, the triumphalist narrative of the Ukraine war by the US state department is on a comeback trail. Equally, it appears that Donald Trump has shed his ambivalence and decided to be supportive of the bill. The meeting between Trump and the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson in the run-up to the vote in the House on Saturday would suggest that the latter will not be ousted by his far-right House Republican colleagues.
Final Nail in America’s Coffin?
By Ron Paul | April 22, 2024
When future historians go searching for the final nail in the US coffin, they may well settle on the date April 20, 2024.
On that day Congress passed legislation to fund two and a half wars, hand what’s left of our privacy over to the CIA and NSA, and give the US president the power to shut down whatever part of the Internet he disagrees with.
The nearly $100 billion grossly misnamed “National Security Supplemental” guarantees that Ukrainians will continue to die in that country’s unwinnable war with Russia, that Palestinian civilians will continue to be slaughtered in Gaza with US weapons, and that the neocons will continue to push us toward a war with China.
It was a total victory for the war party.
The huge spending bill is all about politics for Biden, yet so many Republicans simply went along with it. The last thing the people running Biden’s White House want to see as a close election approaches are ads blaming Biden for “losing Ukraine.”
The US and its allies have already sent over $300 billion to Ukraine and the country is still losing its war with Russia. Nobody believes another $60 billion will pull a victory from the jaws of defeat. But this additional money is meant to keep up appearances until November at the expense of Americans who are forced to pay for it and Ukrainians who are forced to die for it.
Speaker Johnson could not have passed these monstrosities without the full support of House Democrats, as the majority of Republicans voted against more money for Ukraine. So in the worst example of “bipartisanship,” Johnson reached across the aisle, stiffed the Republican majority that elected him Speaker, and pushed through a massive gift to the warfare/(corporate) welfare state.
After the House voted to send another $60 billion to notoriously corrupt Ukraine, Members waved Ukrainian flags on the House Floor and chanted “Ukraine, Ukraine.” While I find it distasteful and disgusting, in some way it seemed fitting. After all, they may as well chant the name of a foreign country because they certainly don’t care about this country!
Along with sending $100 billion that we don’t have to fund more overseas war, Speaker Johnson threw in another version of the Tik Tok ban, which gives Joe Biden and future presidents the power to shut down websites at will by simply declaring them to be “foreign adversary controlled.”
Not to be outdone, the US Senate on that same day passed the extension of Section 702 of the FISA Act, which not only allowed the government to continue spying on us without a warrant, but also contained new language massively expanding how they can spy on us.
Many conservative voters are asking what the point of Republican control of the House is if the agenda is determined by Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is even reported to have bragged to his colleagues about how easily Speaker Johnson gave Democrats everything they wanted and asked for nothing in return.
What is the silver lining in all this bad news? Most Republicans in the House voted against continuing the Ukraine war. That’s a good start. Our ideas are growing, not only across the country but even in the DC swamp. Take courage and don’t give up! Work for peace!
Human Rights Experts and Activists: UNHRC Is Lending Support to US Regime Change Plans for Nicaragua
Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition | Alliance for Global Justice | April 18, 2024
Masaya, Nicaragua – Human rights experts and activists are expressing concern over a flawed and seriously unbalanced report of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), released by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on February 24, 2024.
The UNHRC, says the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, is lending itself to the U.S. regime-change strategy against Nicaragua by highlighting only evidence supplied by opponents of Nicaragua’s government, while omitting highly pertinent information submitted to the GHREN by a number of individuals and groups.
An open letter has been sent to the President of the UNHRC, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Secretary General, pointing this out. Former UN Independent Expert on International Order, Alfred de Zayas, described the GHREN as set up for the purpose of “naming and shaming” the Nicaraguan government, not for objective investigation. Signed by leading human rights experts, 49 organizations and more than 300 individuals, the letter says that the GHREN’s report should never have been published.
Coordinator of the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, Barbara Larcom, said:
“The work of the UN’s so-called group of experts is a disservice to the Nicaraguan people. It has deliberately ignored considerable evidence sent to it which contests its findings. This unprofessional report should immediately be withdrawn by the UN Human Rights Council and the group disbanded.”
The Coalition, which represents individuals and organizations across Nicaragua, other Latin American countries, the US and Europe, notes that April 18, 2024, marks the sixth anniversary of an attempted coup in Nicaragua. According to considerable evidence, this was financed by US agencies intent on regime change. Since the failed coup, the US has continued to apply pressure via other methods, including the GHREN report, using these to justify sanctions against Nicaragua’s economy and society.
Link to open letter, online version (Spanish): https://bit.ly/NicaCartaONU2024
Link to open letter, online version (English): https://bit.ly/NicaLetterUN2024
See full list of signatories: https://bit.ly/NicaUN2024Signers
The Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition is an international coalition of organizations and individuals in solidarity with Nicaragua, supporting its sovereignty and affirming its achievements. We are not affiliated with any governmental entity of any nation. We provide accurate, verifiable information and other resources about Nicaragua, and we work to counter misinformation about the country disseminated by the media, public events, and other sources.
Email: johnperry4321@gmail.com
NicaSolidarity.net
NicaraguaSolidarityCoalition@gmail.com
World Military Expenditure Reaches All-Time High of $2,443Bln in 2023 – SIPRI
Sputnik – 22.04.2024
Global military expenditure increased by 6.8% in 2023 year-over-year and reached a new record high of $2,443 billion, with the three largest spenders being the US, China and Russia, according to new data published on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
“World military expenditure rose for the ninth consecutive year to an all-time high of $2,443 billion,” SIPRI said.
Moreover, military expenditure increased in all five of the geographical regions defined by SIPRI, the institute added.
The US remained the world’s biggest military spender with a 37% share of the world total and $916 billion spent in 2023. It is followed by China with a 12% share and an estimated $296 billion spent on the military and Russia with a 4.5% share and an estimated $109 billion spent on defense last year, which represents a 24% increase compared to 2022.
Ukraine, the eighth largest spender in 2023, increased its military spending by 51% year-over-year to $64.8 billion, which is 58% of the country’s total government spending.
The Middle East has seen a 9% surge in military spending, with Israel’s spending growing by 24% to $27.5 billion amid its operation in the Gaza Strip, the institute added.
Georgia Fight Against US Subversion & its Implications Worldwide
By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – 22.04.2024
Throughout the 21st century, the United States has invaded and occupied multiple nations, including Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, and Syria in 2014. It has also led to military interventions rendering once prosperous nations into failed states, including Libya from 2011 onward.
Beyond this more destructive and direct approach, the US has also admittedly interfered in the internal political affairs of other nations, attempting to overthrow elected governments and install client regimes in their place.
In a 2004 Guardian article titled, “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” it admitted (emphasis added):
… the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.
Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.
Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.
Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko…
This startling admission exposes the US government as deeply involved in interfering in and subverting the political independence of not one, but multiple, nations in Eastern Europe.
The same article admits that the US government achieves this through funds distributed by the National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) many subsidiaries, including the International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Freedom House. It also mentions adjacent private foundations like George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.
The admitted interference aimed at regime change and the political capture of targeted nations – where roles reversed, and it was the US or its allies targeted by such interference by say Russia or China – would elicit an immediate and severe response. Already, the collective West possesses some of the strictest laws regulating foreign interference.
The United States maintains the Foreign Agents Registration Act, established all the way back in 1938, requiring foreign-funded organizations to register with the US government and disclose their funding or face severe penalties including lengthy jail terms.
It is no surprise that many other nations around the globe have adopted similar legislation. After all, a nation’s political independence is guaranteed under the United Nations Charter, as is a nation’s right to defend it.
Other nations who have failed to pass such legislation have found themselves overwhelmed by US and European-funded organizations and opposition groups who are able to block or push agendas, including legislation, suiting Western interests at the explicit expense of the targeted nation.
The temptation of these nations to pass long-overdue legislation to put in check Western interference the West itself would never tolerate within its own borders, is high, and several nations have attempted to do so in recent years.
Target Georgia
The Caucasus nation of Georgia is now in Western headlines for trying to do exactly this.
Having already suffered immensely from both US and European interference but also political capture and use by the West in a disastrous but short proxy war with neighboring Russia in 2008, some in the capital of Tbilisi are eager to finally close loopholes that have allowed foreign-fuelled subversion to flourish.
CNN in its recent article, “Georgia presses on with Putin-style ‘foreign agent’ bill despite huge protests,” ironically attempts to conflate Georgia’s legitimate desire to root out foreign interference with a nebulous inference of “Russian” interference instead. Nowhere is it mentioned that these “huge protests” are led by US government-funded opposition figures.
The article claims that Georgia’s law mirrors Russia’s own foreign agent law, failing to point out that both pieces of legislation closely mirror the United States’ own Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Other articles like Eurasianet’s, “Far from FARA? Georgia’s foreign agent law controversy,” attempt to claim Georgia’s bill is different from the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, claiming that:
One crucial difference is that FARA does not require registration simply on grounds of foreign funding. Rather, one must be an agent of a foreign principal, including if one acts at the direction and control of a foreign government.
And that:
While the U.S. law focuses on political lobbying, the Georgia law will primarily affect the nation’s vibrant civil society that donors have nurtured for decades.
But as The Guardian’s 2004 article admitted, the supposed “civil society” the US government and others are funding in targeted nations including Georgia are involved specifically in regime change “funded and organized by the US government,” amounting to foreign interference even by the US’ own definition.
It should be pointed out that Eurasianet itself is funded by the US government through the NED.
In fact, the vast majority of the political opposition groups inside Georgia and media organizations beyond Georgia’s borders criticizing the legislation are funded by the US government. They are opposed to Georgia’s foreign agent bill not because it will encroach upon actual freedom and democracy, and specifically Georgia’s own self-determination, but precisely because it will create a significant obstacle for US interference.
The growing “domestic” pressure placed on Georgia’s government is an illustration of just how much control over Georgia’s internal political affairs the US has and how urgent it is to pass legislation that will expose and eliminate such interference.
Not Just Georgia
Other nations have gone through a similar process. Russia successfully reduced foreign interference in its political space with its own foreign agent law.
The Southeast Asian Kingdom of Thailand attempted to pass a similar law in 2021. Just as the US is doing now in regard to Georgia, it mobilized US-funded opposition groups and media platforms inside Thailand, and media and “rights” organizations beyond Thai borders to place pressure on the Thai government to abandon the legislation and preserve a permissive environment for foreign interference.
A 2021 Thai PBS article titled, “Thailand’s NGO law: Uprooting foreign influence or gagging govt critics?,” would include a photo of a rally led by a US government-funded organization called “iLaw” and cite criticism regarding its US government funding. The organization was attempting to petition for a complete rewrite of Thailand’s constitution. Despite the obvious gravity of a foreign-funded organization attempting to rewrite Thailand’s most central and sensitive document, Thai PBS attempted to brush off the concern behind the NGO law as “paranoia.”
Thai PBS, despite being funded by the Thai government itself, has a disproportionate number of employees educated in and sympathetic to the US and Europe. Many employees are drawn from or move on to the Western media or organizations funded by the US government. It is another illustration of just how dangerous foreign interference actually is, and how far off course it can push a nation from protecting its own best interests, including its own sovereignty and political independence.
Another organization, Fortify Rights, published an article in 2022 titled, “Fortify Rights submits concerns to Thai government over draft NGO law.” Just as is the case with Eurasianet, Fortify Rights is likewise funded by the US government through the NED, as documented in the organization’s own 2015 annual report.
The letter echoed Thai PBS’ argument, which uncoincidentally is the same argument made by the US State Department itself in regard to Georgia’s current legislation.
A March 2023 post on the US Embassy in Georgia’s website quotes then US State Department spokesman Ned Price making all the same arguments seen across the Western media and US-funded organizations in both Georgia and Thailand past and present regarding their respective foreign interference laws.
Price makes the claim that the US Foreign Agents Registration Act only concerns agents of other governments, while claiming US and European-funded organizations and individuals are not somehow being directed by Washington or Brussels.
While Price, Eurasianet, Thai PBS, and Fortify Rights all try to portray laws confronting foreign interference as a threat to “democracy” and “human rights,” a nation’s ability to determine its political matters itself, without external interference, is one of the most important human rights of all. The foundation of genuine human freedom is self-determination.
For Thailand, the collective pressure of US-funded groups inside Thai borders and beyond them succeeded in forcing the Thai government at the time to abandon the NGO law. US and European-funded opposition groups continue unchecked interference in Thailand’s internal political affairs, as well as interfering in and undermining the integrity of Thailand’s institutions, including its legal and education system.
Washington and its proxies’ attempts to vilify a nation for protecting its freedom to decide its internal political affairs itself, including how it decides to protect its political independence, is itself evidence of just how extensive and dangerous US interference is abroad and how important it is for nations to defend against it with foreign agent bills and foreign-funded NGO laws.
Only time will tell whether or not Georgia is able to both pass this legislation and successfully implement it, restoring national sovereignty and political independence stripped from it by US interference and political capture. Should Georgia succeed where Thailand failed, perhaps it will encourage other nations to follow suit, including nations that have already tried but failed to do so in recent years, including Thailand.
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The Garlic Book — 2026
Lies are Unbekoming | November 5, 2026
What The Garlic Book shows
The book is in four parts.
Part One, The Record, treats the history of garlic as evidence. From the clay garlic bulb placed in an Egyptian grave nearly six thousand years ago, through the Ebers Papyrus, through Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen, the Arab physicians under Avicenna, the medieval herbals, Culpeper, and the plague years, to the last era in which Western physicians prescribed garlic as a matter of course, which ran from 1850 to 1945. It closes with the living traditions that never stopped using it, and with the folklore of charms, vampires and the evil eye.
Part Two, The Chemistry and the Evidence, sets out what is known about why a clove has no smell until it is cut, and why the order of crush, rest and heat changes the medicine. It then reads the clinical evidence against the historical record — bacteria, blood and vessels, cancer epidemiology, metals and fatigue — and names the trials that went against garlic as directly as the trials that went for it, including the 2007 Stanford trial funded by the US National Institutes of Health which found that raw garlic, garlic powder and aged garlic extract moved LDL cholesterol no more than placebo did. It then turns to onion, garlic’s closest relative, and reads the newer evidence published since 2015, before closing with the whole of the record through the terrain lens.
Part Three, Why Medicine Set It Aside, asks the question directly. One chapter contrasts the pharmaceutical model of isolating a single active compound with the folk model of combining whole plants, and reports what the garlic evidence says about which model works better. One chapter examines the economics of research on a plant that cannot be patented. One chapter — Fire Cider — tells the story of a folk preparation whose name was taken into a United States trademark by a Massachusetts company in 2012, and won back by three herbalists in 2014 who documented forty years of prior use through Rosemary Gladstar and her students into the older tradition.
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At the back: two appendices (a traditional list of uses, and a preparation quick-reference), a full bibliography, and a live index.
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