Here is a link to the VladTepesBlog social media Mastodon Pod. Please feel free to check it out and sign up for an account if you are sufficiently annoyed with Twitter and Facebook to try something new.
Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.
This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.
So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.
This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.
The US Attorney in Utah has given the anti-vax movement in America the greatest gift ever
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-us-attorney-in-utah-has-given
1:30 Dear Leader didn’t acknowledge Catholics on Easter:
Lead Detective in Daniel Perry Case: Soros-Funded DA Removed 100 Pages of Evidence from Jury – DA’s Actions Went from Highly Unethical to Criminal Conduct
By Jim Hoft Apr. 10, 2023 7:45 am86 Comments
A Texas soldier was found guilty of murder on Friday after Soros-backed District Attorney Jose Garza sought murder charges for an act of self defense during the 2020 George Floyd riots.
Sgt. Daniel Perry, an army soldier who shot and killed an armed BLM-Antifa protester in Austin in July 2020 was indicted on a murder charge in 2021.
Perry’s lawyer, Clint Broden, argued his client, who was driving Uber when rioters mobbed his car, was acting in self-defense after the BLM activist, Garrett Foster pointed a gun at him.
A Travis County jury found Daniel Perry guilty of murder.
A video from that night shows that the victim aimed an AK-47 at Perry before he was shot dead.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/lead-detective-in-daniel-perry-case-soros-funded-da-removed-100-pages-of-evidence-from-jury-das-actions-went-from-highly-unethical-to-criminal-conduct/
zero hedge – DOJ Races To Find Source of Leaked Pentagon Documents
The US government is scrambling to identify who’s been publicly posting a growing trove of classified military and intelligence documents. Sources in and out of government tell Reuters that initial hunches center on the possibility it was leaked by an American.
“We have referred this matter to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation,” Department of Defense press secretary said in a Sunday statement.
NBC News reports that most of the documents it studied “appear to be briefing slides prepared by the U.S. military’s Joint Staff and refer to information gleaned from an array of U.S. intelligence agencies
The first batches of maps and documents pertained to the war in Ukraine. On Friday, a new collection hit public view, this time relating not only to Ukraine, but also China, Africa and the Middle East.
Among other things, Friday’s documents suggested Ukraines robust Soviet-era air defenses — which have thus far minimized the participation of Russian aircraft — could run out of ammunition in next several weeks.
Another document — a purported CIA intelligence update — claims Israel’s Mossad supported protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Supreme Court reform scheme. Netanyahu said the claim is “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever.”.
In an embarrassment to Washington, the documents suggest United States spying not only on Israel but ally South Korea, too. One report says internal discussions show that South Korean officials are wary of requests to hand over artillery shells to the United States to replenish American stockpiles, out of concern they’d end up in Ukraine.
The expanding breadth of subject matter has many suggesting a US source is responsible.
“The focus now is on this being a U.S. leak, as many of the documents were only in U.S. hands,” former Pentagon official Michael Mulroy told Reuters. As opposed to electronic downloads, it appears most or all of these leaks are in the form of photographs of paper documents.
“As many of these were pictures of documents, it appears that it was a deliberate leak done by someone that wished to damage the Ukraine, U.S., and NATO efforts,” Mulroy told the New York Times in a separate interview.
Many documents, such as those assessing the state of Russian military forces, cite electronic eavesdropping. Those disclosures could help the targets of American spying patch holes in their security.
While the classified documents began appearing in March on the Discord and 4Chan sites, it was only on Friday that the New York Times broke the story. The mass compromise of security is considered the most significant to hit the US government since Wikileaks published more than 700,000 documents and videos downloaded by US Army Private Bradley Manning.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/doj-races-find-source-leaked-pentagon-documents
========================================
Tom Cotton warns of ‘very damaging’ US intel docs leak
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., on leaked intel documents and showing financial and military support for Ukraine and Taiwan.
CBC – Leaked Pentagon documents reveal U.S. plan to beef up Ukraine’s military
More than 50 highly classified Pentagon documents that appeared online reveal how the U.S. and NATO planned to strengthen Ukraine’s military as it prepares for a counter-offensive against Russia this spring.
The leaks have forced Ukraine to amend some of its military plans, according to CNN.
DEUTSCHE PRAVDA – How damaging is leak of classified US intel on Ukraine War?
A tranche of classified US intelligence documents has appeared on the internet revealing details about the war in Ukraine.
Information includes the number of casualties suffered on both sides, vulnerabilities of the Ukrainian and Russian armies and strategic information regarding a spring offensive.
While Pentagon officials are quoted as saying the documents are real, there is speculation that some versions shared online may have been modified.
Let’s take a look in more detail.
The documents indicate that Ukraine could run out of air defense missiles within weeks and that Ukraine has suffered significant casualties, although fewer than Russia.
They also say a small contingent of NATO forces are operating within Ukraine.
Regarding Russia, the leaked intelligence suggests that the war is heading towards a stalemate and that Russia will not capture the Donbas region.
It also states US intelligence has penetrated Russia’s military and is warning Ukraine about attacks.
The documents also predict the Kremlin will launch a propaganda campaign against African leaders supporting Ukraine.
US secrets leaked in social media post containing Ukraine, Russia documents
CNN – How leaked Pentagon documents could affect our relationships with allies
Highly classified Pentagon documents leaked online in recent weeks have provided a rare window into how the US spies on allies and foes alike, deeply rattling US officials, who fear the revelations could jeopardize sensitive sources and compromise important foreign relationships. Retired US Army Major Mike Lyons joins CNN This Morning to discuss these implications
CNN – ‘We have to be worried’: Hear lawmaker’s concern over military doc leak
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-spying-zelensky-heres-whats-known-so-far-leaked-intelligence-files
POLITICO – France denies military presence in Ukraine
Leaked documents imply French soldiers are on the ground.
The French government denied on Saturday that French soldiers were on the ground in Ukraine, Le Monde reported.
“There are no French forces engaged in operations in Ukraine,” the team of Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu told the French outlet.
A trove of leaked documents detailing plans about Ukraine’s spring military offensive and circulating online reportedly imply that French soldiers are present on the battlefield in Ukraine.
According to the Guardian, “one slide suggested that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, America, Britain and Latvia were already active in Ukraine.”
[…]
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-denies-military-presence-in-ukraine
===================
yahoo – The Guardian: France denies its soldiers present in Ukraine
According to the Guardian, the French Defense Ministry denied the presence of its soldiers in Ukraine, responding to information from allegedly classified papers that were said to be leaked online earlier this week.
As reported by the Guardian, the so-called documents suggest that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, the U.S., the U.K., and Latvia were in Ukraine.
“There are no French forces engaged in operation in Ukraine. The documents cited do not come from the French armies. We do not comment on documents whose source is uncertain,” a French Defense Ministry spokesperson said, as quoted by the Guardian.
The Pentagon started an investigation after the New York Times reported that classified documents detailing U.S. and NATO plans for supplying arms to Ukraine for the upcoming counteroffensive were posted on Twitter and Telegram earlier this week.
Ukrainian military intelligence said that the documents leaked online were forged by Russia.
https://sports.yahoo.com/guardian-france-denies-soldiers-present-111540703.html
FRANCE PR4VD4- US searches for source of intelligence leak on Ukraine war plans
Showing war-sensitive details on Ukraine’s military defences as the embattled nation prepares to launch a counteroffensive against Russian forces, the documents drew international scrutiny while alarming the Pentagon.
MSNBC – Rep. Robert Garcia: Classified document leak ‘very concerning’
WaPo- Intelligence leak exposes U.S. spying on adversaries and allies
U.S. and European officials scrambled to understand how dozens of classified documents covering all manner of intelligence gathering had made their way online with little notice
On Saturday, as U.S. officials and their foreign allies scrambled to understand how dozens of classified intelligence documents had ended up on the internet, they were stunned — and occasionally infuriated — at the extraordinary range of detail the files exposed about how the United States spies on friends and foes alike.
The documents, which appear to have come at least in part from the Pentagon and are marked as highly classified, offer tactical information about the war in Ukraine, including the country’s combat capabilities. According to one defense official, many of the documents seem to have been prepared over the winter for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior military officials, but they were available to other U.S. personnel and contract employees with the requisite security clearances.
Other documents include analysis from U.S. intelligence agencies about Russia and several other countries, all based on information gleaned from classified sources.
The series of detailed briefings and summaries open a rare window on the inner workings of American espionage. Among other secrets, they appear to reveal where the CIA has recruited human agents privy to the closed-door conversations of world leaders; eavesdropping that shows a Russian mercenary outfit tried to acquire weapons from a NATO ally to use against Ukraine; and what kinds of satellite imagery the United States uses to track Russian forces, including an advanced technology that appears barely, if ever, to have been publicly identified.
Officials in several countries said that they were trying to assess the damage from the disclosures, and many were left wondering how they had gone unnoticed for so long. Photographs of at least several dozen pages of highly classified documents, which looked to have been printed and then folded together into a packet, were shared on Feb. 28 and March 2 on Discord, a chat platform popular with gamers. The documents were shared by a user to a server called “Wow Mao.”
Some of the documents appear to be detailed Ukraine battlefield assessments prepared over the winter for senior Pentagon leaders. But officials only became aware that the documents were sitting on a public server around the time that the New York Times first reported the leak, on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an unfolding investigation.
Senior Pentagon leadership restricted the flow of intelligence Friday in response to the revelations, two U.S. officials said. One described the clampdown as unusually strict and said it revealed a high level of panic among Pentagon leadership.
A European intelligence official worried that if Washington restricts allies’ access to future intelligence reports, it could leave them in the dark. Many of the leaked documents are labeled “NOFORN,” meaning they cannot be released to foreign nationals. But others were cleared to be shared with close U.S. allies, including the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. U.S. intelligence about British and Canadian activities is contained in some of the documents, suggesting that the fallout from the leaks will not be limited to the United States.
“We need to manage this well both internally and externally,” a second defense official said. “There are lot of institutions and agencies involved.”
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak. A spokeswoman for Discord, where the earliest known copies of the images were posted, declined to comment.
The full extent of the leak was unclear. The second defense official said that what had appeared online was likely the result of a single disclosure from one tranche of documents, but officials were not yet certain of that.
The 5o pages reviewed by The Washington Post involved nearly every corner of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The documents describe intelligence activities at the National Security Agency, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, law enforcement agencies and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) — arguably the most secretive intelligence agency in the government, responsible for a multibillion dollar constellation of spy satellites.
The documents primarily concern the war in Ukraine and demonstrate how the United States is making assessments about the state of the conflict and where it’s headed. That analysis informs major policy decisions by the Biden administration, including what weapons to provide Ukraine and how to respond to Russia’s battlefield strategy.
For instance, a Feb. 23 overview of fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas region forecasts a “grinding campaign of attrition” by Russia that “is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Moscow’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023.”
That confident statement, which is printed in boldface type, is supported by information obtained from “NRO-collected and commercial imagery,” a new generation of infrared satellites, signals intelligence and “liaison reporting,” a reference to intelligence from a friendly government, about the high rate of Russian artillery fire, mounting troop losses and the military’s inability to make significant territorial gains over the past seven months.
The fact that the United States bases its assessments on many sources is no secret. But U.S. officials said these more detailed disclosures could help Moscow thwart some avenues for collecting information. For example, the Feb. 23 battlefield document names one of its sources as “LAPIS time-series video.” Officials familiar with the technology described it as an advanced satellite system that allows for better imaging of objects on the ground and that could now be more susceptible to Russian jamming or interference. They indicated that LAPIS was among the more closely guarded capabilities in the U.S. intelligence arsenal.
The documents also demonstrate what has long been understood but never publicly spelled out this precisely: The U.S. intelligence community has penetrated the Russian military and its commanders so deeply that it can warn Ukraine in advance of attacks and reliably assess the strengths and weaknesses of Russian forces.
A single page in the leaked trove reveals that the U.S. intelligence community knew the Russian Ministry of Defense had transmitted plans to strike Ukrainian troop positions in two locations on a certain date in February and that Russian military planners were preparing strikes on a dozen energy facilities and an equal number of bridges in Ukraine.
The documents reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies are also aware of internal planning by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. One document describes the GRU planning a propaganda campaign in African countries with the goal of turning public support against leaders who support assistance to Ukraine and discrediting the United States and France, in particular. The Russian campaign, the report states, would try to plant stories in African media, including ones that tried to discredit Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
The documents point to numerous intelligence successes by the United States. But they also show how depleted Ukrainian forces have become after more than a year at war.
A senior Ukrainian official on Saturday said the leaks had angered Kyiv’s military and political leaders, who have sought to conceal from the Kremlin vulnerabilities related to ammunition shortages and other battlefield data. The official said he was also concerned that more revelations of classified military intelligence were forthcoming.
In the meantime, some of the now public intelligence could ignite diplomatic controversies.
The documents show that the United States has gained access to the internal plans of Russia’s notorious Wagner Group, a private military contractor that has supplied forces to Russia’s war effort, and that Wagner has sought to purchase arms from Turkey, a NATO ally.
In early February, Wagner personnel “met with Turkish contacts to purchase weapons and equipment from Turkey for Vagner’s efforts in Mali and Ukraine,” one report states, using a variation on the spelling of the group’s name. The report further states that Mali’s interim president, Assimi Goïta, “had confirmed that Mali could acquire weapons from Turkey on Vagner’s behalf.”
It’s unclear from the report what the Turkish government may have known about the efforts by Wagner or if they proved fruitful. But the revelation that a NATO ally may have been assisting Russia in its war on Ukraine could prove explosive, particularly as Turkey has sought to block the addition of Sweden into the ranks of the trans-Atlantic military alliance.
A spokesperson for the Turkish government declined to comment. Mali’s Embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Two other pages from the leaked intelligence file speak to Wagner’s plans for hiring Russian prisoners to fight in Ukraine and note that the Russian military has become dependent on the private soldiers. Like the report on meetings involving Turkey, these cite their sources as coming from “signals intelligence,” a reference to electronic eavesdropping and communications intercepts. Officials generally view those as among the most productive forms of intelligence-gathering, but they are potentially perishable if they are exposed.
Other intelligence reports among the leaked trove reflect on the geopolitical ramifications of the war in Ukraine. A summary of analysis from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review, a daily publication for senior policymakers, says that Beijing is likely to view attacks by Ukraine deep inside Russian territory as “an opportunity to cast NATO as the aggressor,” and that China could increase its support to Russia if it felt the attacks were “significant.”
U.S. and European officials have eyed warily the alliance between Moscow and Beijing. So far, officials have said there is no indication that China has granted Russia’s request for lethal military aid. However, a Ukrainian attack on Moscow using weapons provided by the United States or NATO would probably indicate to Beijing that “Washington was directly responsible for escalating the conflict” and provide possible justification for China to arm Russia, the analysis concludes.
The documents also show that Washington is keeping a close eye on Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. One briefing from February succinctly notes that in recent days Iran had conducted tests of short-range ballistic missiles. Another takes stock of a newly published report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s efforts to expand its facilities for enriching uranium.
Those reports appear offered as routine updates to policymakers. But another, which purports to derive from signals intelligence and “diplomatic reporting,” offers a dim assessment on behalf of the U.S. intelligence community of the IAEA’s ability to carry out its nuclear security mission.
Other reports provide updates on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, including missile tests. And in a reminder that the United States also spies on its allies, another document reports that South Korea’s National Security Council in early March “grappled” with a U.S. request that the country provide artillery ammunition to Ukraine, without unduly provoking Moscow. South Korea’s national security adviser suggested possibly selling the munitions to Poland, which controls the main weapons supply routes, since it was the U.S. goal to get the material to Ukraine quickly, the report said, citing signals intelligence.
The original source of the leak remains unclear. The Post identified the user that shared the images in February and March who, according to a review of previous social media posts, is based in southern California. A Twitter account using the same handle and avatar image as the Discord account wrote on Friday they had “found some info from a now banned server and passed it on.”
A man who answered the door at a house registered to the Discord user’s father on Friday evening declined to comment. “I’m not talking to anyone,” he said, closing the door of the family’s home at the edge of a cul-de-sac.
About three miles away, at a townhouse registered to the user’s mother, a knock at the door went unanswered. The parents did not respond to calls or messages.
On Wednesday, images showing some of the documents were also circulating on the anonymous online message board 4chan and made their way to at least two mainstream social media platforms, Telegram and Twitter. In at least one case, it appears a slide which initially circulated on Discord was doctored to make it look like fewer Russian soldiers have been killed in the war than the Pentagon assesses.
There was no indication that other documents, including those that dealt with countries besides Ukraine, had been altered.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/08/intelligence-leak-documents-ukraine-pentagon/?ref=kyivindependent.com
==============
TRT- What are the consequences of leaked top secret US documents?
Can Leaks Prevent More War in Ukraine or Taiwan? Ray McGovern
Classified US military documents leak prompts urgent investigation
+ comments on the yt page
Leaked Ukraine war documents trying to tell public ‘there’s a leadership failure’
Leak of classified documents and intelligence shakes U.S. Department of Defense
US Is Spying On Zelensky: Here’s What’s Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files
The highly classified Pentagon documents which were leaked online in recent weeks, but which began being confirmed and reported as authentic by The New York Times and others only in the past few days, contain some embarrassing revelations. This has sent DOJ and US intelligence officials scrambling to discover the source of the leaks.
CNN is confirming Monday based on one of the documents which appeared online that the US has been spying on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – a disclosure which has caused officials in Kiev to be “deeply frustrated”.
“One document reveals that the US has been spying on Zelensky,” CNN reports. “That is unsurprising, said the source close to Zelensky, but Ukrainian officials are deeply frustrated about the leak.”
The US intelligence document suggests that American officials have been worried about possible Zelensky decision-making to strike deep into Russian territory, which would escalate the war and potentially bring Russian and NATO into direct clashes:
The US intelligence report, which is sourced to signals intelligence, says that Zelensky in late February “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast” using unmanned aerial vehicles, since Ukraine does not have long-range weapons capable of reaching that far.
An additional possibility is that the US intelligence community might be monitoring the Ukrainian presidency’s office as part of efforts to oversee and account for how the tens of billions in aid sent to Kiev is being utilized.
The Washington Post details that “many of the documents seem to have been prepared over the winter for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior military officials, but they were available to other U.S. personnel and contract employees with the requisite security clearances.”
Leaked document has a legend of US/NATO special forces in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/Po0pRJ6gMx
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 7, 2023
Here are 14 more major revelations contained within the leaked intel document trove based on various media sources:
-Locations of CIA recruitment efforts focused on human agents which have access to closed-door conversations of world leaders
-Russia’s Wagner Group tried to obtain weapons from a NATO member: Turkey. Also, some of the internal future plans of Wagner are apparently known to US intelligence
-Details of sensitive satellite technology used to track Russian forces, namely the “LAPIS time-series video” – described as an advanced satellite system, which up until now has been a closely guarded secret
-Ukraine battlefield assessments prepared by the Pentagon
-The Guardian: “One slide suggested that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, America, Britain, and Latvia were already active in Ukraine.”
-Descriptions of intelligence collection activities by the CIA, NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, law enforcement agencies and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
-One Feb. 23 review of the battlefield situation in Ukraine’s Donbas forecasts a “grinding campaign of attrition” by Russia that “is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Moscow’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023.”
-WaPo: “The U.S. intelligence community has penetrated the Russian military and its commanders so deeply that it can warn Ukraine in advance of attacks and reliably assess the strengths and weaknesses of Russian forces.”
-WaPo: “A single page in the leaked trove reveals that the U.S. intelligence community knew the Russian Ministry of Defense had transmitted plans to strike Ukrainian troop positions in two locations on a certain date in February and that Russian military planners were preparing strikes on a dozen energy facilities and an equal number of bridges in Ukraine.”
-WaPo: A summary of analysis from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review, a daily publication for senior policymakers, says that Beijing is likely to view attacks by Ukraine deep inside Russian territory as “an opportunity to cast NATO as the aggressor,” and that China could increase its support to Russia if it felt the attacks were “significant.”
-Ukraine’s robust Soviet-era air defenses — which have thus far minimized the participation of Russian aircraft – could run out of ammunition in next several weeks.
-A purported CIA intelligence update — claims Israel’s Mossad supported protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Supreme Court reform scheme.
-One report says internal discussions show that South Korean officials are wary of requests to hand over artillery shells to the United States to replenish American stockpiles, out of concern they’d end up in Ukraine.
-Another report says that Ukrainian Air Defense is in peril if it’s not reinforced by Western allies
-Meanwhile, the expanding breadth of subject matter has many suggesting a US source is responsible. It’s being called “a nightmare for the Five Eyes” – and could damage intelligence-sharing relationships between the US and its partner countries.
One aspect of the Pentagon leak not being discussed on state TV is the indication of how deeply Russia’s security and intel services have been penetrated by the US
But former spook Leonid Reshetnikov brought it up today, prompting Olga Skabeyeva to change subject very unsubtly pic.twitter.com/zbiupkuoA9
— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) April 10, 2023
The breach could also prove embarrassing for Russia as it deals with the claims that US intelligence has deeply penetrated some key areas of government, such as the Defense Ministry.
“The focus now is on this being a U.S. leak, as many of the documents were only in U.S. hands,” former Pentagon official Michael Mulroy told Reuters. As opposed to electronic downloads, it appears most or all of these leaks are in the form of photographs of paper documents.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-spying-zelensky-heres-whats-known-so-far-leaked-intelligence-files
America’s Jews Are Driving U.S. Wars
Shouldn’t they recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East?
By Philip Giraldi
UPDATE: September 25, 2017 – On the morning of September 21st Phil Giraldi was fired over the phone by The American Conservative, where he had been a regular contributor for fourteen years. He was told that “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars” was unacceptable. The TAC management and board appear to have forgotten that the magazine was launched with an article by founder Pat Buchanan entitled “Whose War?” which largely made the same claims that Giraldi made about the Jewish push for another war, in that case with Iraq. Buchanan was vilified and denounced as an anti-Semite by many of the same people who are now similarly attacking Giraldi.
September 19, 2017 “Information Clearing House” – I spoke recently at a conference on America’s war party where afterwards an elderly gentleman came up to me and asked, “Why doesn’t anyone ever speak honestly about the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? Nobody has mentioned Israel in this conference and we all know it’s American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for Netanyahu? Shouldn’t we start calling them out and not letting them get away with it?”
It was a question combined with a comment that I have heard many times before and my answer is always the same: any organization that aspires to be heard on foreign policy knows that to touch the live wire of Israel and American Jews guarantees a quick trip to obscurity. Jewish groups and deep pocket individual donors not only control the politicians, they own and run the media and entertainment industries, meaning that no one will hear about or from the offending party ever again. They are particularly sensitive on the issue of so-called “dual loyalty,” particularly as the expression itself is a bit of a sham since it is pretty clear that some of them only have real loyalty to Israel.
Most recently, some pundits, including myself, have been warning of an impending war with Iran. To be sure, the urging to strike Iran comes from many quarters, to include generals in the Administration who always think first in terms of settling problems through force, from a Saudi government obsessed with fear over Iranian hegemony, and, of course, from Israel itself. But what makes the war engine run is provided by American Jews who have taken upon themselves the onerous task of starting a war with a country that does not conceivably threaten the United States. They have been very successful at faking the Iranian threat, so much so that nearly all Republican and most Democratic congressmen as well as much of the media seem to be convinced that Iran needs to be dealt with firmly, most definitely by using the U.S. military, and the sooner the better.
And while they are doing it, the issue that nearly all the Iran haters are Jewish has somehow fallen out of sight, as if it does not matter. But it should matter. A recent article in the New Yorker on stopping the impending war with Iran strangely suggests that the current generation “Iran hawks” might be a force of moderation regarding policy options given the lessons learned from Iraq. The article cites as hardliners on Iran David Frum, Max Boot, Bill Kristol and Bret Stephens.
Daniel Larison over at The American Conservative has a good review of the New Yorker piece entitled “Yes, Iran Hawks Want Conflict with Iran,” which identifies the four above cited hawks by name before describing them as “…a Who’s Who of consistently lousy foreign policy thinking. If they have been right about any major foreign policy issue in the last twenty years, it would be news to the entire world. Every single one of them hates the nuclear deal with Iran with a passion, and they have argued in favor of military action against Iran at one point or another. There is zero evidence that any of them would oppose attacking Iran.”
And I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum; John Podhoretz of Commentary magazine; Elliot Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations; Meyrav Wurmser of the Middle East Media Research Institute; Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War; and Frederick Kagan, Danielle Pletka and David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute. And you can also throw into the hopper entire organizations like The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Hudson Institute. And yep, they’re all Jewish, plus most of them would self-describe as neo-conservatives. And I might add that only one of the named individuals has ever served in any branch of the American military – David Wurmser was once in the Navy reserve. These individuals largely constitute a cabal of sanctimonious chairborne warriors who prefer to do the heavy thinking while they let others do the fighting and dying.
So it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran comes from Israel and from American Jews. Indeed, I would opine that most of the fury from Congress re Iran comes from the same source, with AIPAC showering our Solons on the Potomac with “fact sheets” explaining how Iran is worthy of annihilation because it has pledged to “destroy Israel,” which is both a lie and an impossibility as Tehran does not have the resources to carry out such a task. The AIPAC lies are then picked up and replayed by an obliging media, where nearly every “expert” who speaks about the Middle East on television and radio or who is interviewed for newspaper stories is Jewish.
One might also add that neocons as a group were founded by Jews and are largely Jewish, hence their universal attachment to the state of Israel. They first rose into prominence when they obtained a number of national security positions during the Reagan Administration and their ascendancy was completed when they staffed senior positions in the Pentagon and White House under George W. Bush. Recall for a moment Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Scooter Libby. Yes, all Jewish and all conduits for the false information that led to a war that has spread and effectively destroyed much of the Middle East. Except for Israel, of course. Philip Zelikow, also Jewish, in a moment of candor, admitted that the Iraq War, in his opinion, was fought for Israel.
Add to the folly a Jewish U.S. Ambassador to Israel who identifies with the most right-wing Israeli settler elements, a White House appointed chief negotiator who is Jewish and a Jewish son-in-law who is also involved in formulating Middle East policy. Is anyone providing an alternative viewpoint to eternal and uncritical support for Benjamin Netanyahu and his kleptocratic regime of racist thugs? I think not.
There are a couple of simple fixes for the dominant involvement of American Jews in foreign policy issues where they have a personal interest due to their ethnicity or family ties. First of all, don’t put them into national security positions involving the Middle East, where they will potentially be conflicted. Let them worry instead about North Korea, which does not have a Jewish minority and which was not involved in the holocaust. This type of solution was, in fact, somewhat of a policy regarding the U.S. Ambassador position in Israel. No Jew was appointed to avoid any conflict of interest prior to 1995, an understanding that was violated by Bill Clinton (wouldn’t you know it!) who named Martin Indyk to the post. Indyk was not even an American citizen at the time and had to be naturalized quickly prior to being approved by congress.
Those American Jews who are strongly attached to Israel and somehow find themselves in senior policy making positions involving the Middle East and who actually possess any integrity on the issue should recuse themselves, just as any judge would do if he were presiding over a case in which he had a personal interest. Any American should be free to exercise first amendment rights to debate possible options regarding policy, up to and including embracing positions that damage the United States and benefit a foreign nation. But if he or she is in a position to actually create those policies, he or she should butt out and leave the policy generation to those who have no personal baggage.
For those American Jews who lack any shred of integrity, the media should be required to label them at the bottom of the television screen whenever they pop up, e.g. Bill Kristol is “Jewish and an outspoken supporter of the state of Israel.” That would be kind-of-like a warning label on a bottle of rat poison – translating roughly as “ingest even the tiniest little dosage of the nonsense spewed by Bill Kristol at your own peril.”
As none of the above is likely to happen, the only alternative is for American citizens who are tired of having their country’s national security interests hijacked by a group that is in thrall to a foreign government to become more assertive about what is happening. Shine a little light into the darkness and recognize who is being diddled and by whom. Call it like it is. And if someone’s feelings are hurt, too bad. We don’t need a war with Iran because Israel wants one and some rich and powerful American Jews are happy to deliver. Seriously, we don’t need it.
Phil Giraldi is a former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer who spent twenty years overseas in Europe and the Middle East working terrorism cases. He holds a BA with honors from the University of Chicago and an MA and PhD in Modern History from the University of London.
This article was first published by The Unz Review –
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47843.htm
==============================================
Leaked Pentagon documents – Now What? – w Phil Giraldi
twitter @bennyjohnson
John Kirby basically tells the press they shouldn’t be reporting on leaked Pentagon documents:
“This is information that has no business in the public domain…It has no business…on the front pages of newspapers or on television.”
+ 19 sec video
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1645506135389097985
===================================
global news – US investigating who’s to blame for Ukraine intel leak: White House
Biden Administration Concerned Over Leaked Documents; Questions their Validity
Kirby says the Biden Administration and intelligence Community are very concerned about the leaked apparently classified U.S. intelligence documents to social media.
Kirby indicated the possibility the documents may not be authentic.
CBS News – White House says it doesn’t know if Pentagon documents leak is contained
…. telling reporters “we don’t know, we truly don’t know,” when asked if the leak had been contained.
the conservative tree house – Sunday Talks, Intel Commitee Member Rep. Brad Wenstrup Discusses Recent Classified Information Leaks
The classification statement of NOFORN (meaning “no foreign nationals “) is applied to any information that may not be released to any non-U.S. citizen.
The classified documents, as released in the recent NYT/White House/Pentagon storyline, carried the NOFORN designation. That means the source documents describing U.S. geopolitical and intelligence strategies were contained inside U.S. compartmented intelligence silos, prior to their surfacing in the social media platforms as discussed. Keep this in mind.
First, the story surfaces from the New York Times. What does that tell us? It tells us the stakeholders in a background narrative surrounding the issue as constructed are domestic intelligence interests. If there was a State Dept stakeholder interest, the story would have been presented by CNN. If there was a U.S. foreign intelligence operation stakeholder interest, the story would have surfaced in the Washington Post.
The story surfaces in the New York Times indicating a U.S. domestic intelligence interest, and the story is sourced directly to the White House via “senior Biden administration officials.” What does that mean? It means the narrative that flows from the story has a direction to shape opinion from the perspective of U.S. government domestic public relations. It means the narrative is intended to sway a domestic audience with a motive toward something else.
Secondly, and in full alignment with the first point, the centerpiece of the story is focused on a leak that surfaces in “social media.” This fits perfectly with the domestic intelligence stakeholders (DHS, National Security Council, etc). We know domestic intelligence operates in the backbone of social media platforms. An example is DHS and domestic Intelligence Community (IC) work as outlined in the Twitter files.
Put them together; a domestic IC product surfaced (being called leaked) into social media platforms containing portals controlled by domestic IC.
The domestic IC then report on the leaks to the outlet used by the domestic IC. See how these fit?
If you follow the bouncing ball, what you immediately suspect is the domestic IC planted the ‘classified information’ in the platforms they can access, then turn around and report on the leak of the classified information to media they use for domestic narrative engineering.
========================
– Motive – But why would the IC plant classified information, then turn around and report on the classified information they planted? This is where we remind ourselves how the motives work, against a bigger picture.
The leak (planted information) and then the telling of the leak (NYT story) creates an opportunity for the domestic IC to frame a Russian dis/mis/mal-information narrative.
But why would the IC want to immediately stir up a misinformation or disinformation narrative against Russia?
– Answer: Just before the leak/story construct. Two Russian gremlins, perhaps state sponsored, or perhaps just state aligned, tricked former French President Francois Hollande into admitting the U.S. government and western alliance were behind all of the events in Ukraine after 2014, with the expressed intention to construct a proxy war against Russia using Ukraine.
Russian Pranksters Vovan and Lexus, posing as former Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, got French ex-President Francois Hollande to admit the Minsk Accords were a NATO ruse to militarize Ukraine, and Western nations overthrew Ukraine’s democratically-elected government in 2014. (Full YouTube Conversation)
As noted by Gonzalo Lira, “François Hollande, former President of France, confirms that the 2014 coup d’etat in Ukraine was part of a long-term plan to have Ukraine fight a proxy war against Russia. The Americans have been preparing this war since the Obama administration—it is now confirmed beyond doubt.”
The admission by Hollande aligns with every element of the U.S. effort to use Russia as a bad guy, including the use of Russia against Donald J. Trump. A proxy war against Russia was in the works going all the way back to the Euromaidan efforts, the color revolution in Ukraine, as constructed by the U.S. State Department, and facilitated by U.S. allies in Europe.
This is the most explosive dose of geopolitical sunlight in years, and obviously these statements by Hollande were a serious issue for the White House and U.S. Intelligence Community.
Hollande was tricked by two Russian pranksters into spilling the real story about Ukraine and U.S. involvement therein.
Now do you see the need? The Hollande admission is an urgent problem.
Less than one news cycle later, the IC dropped the Ukraine counteroffensive strategy in the platforms the IC has access to (a purposeful leak). Then the IC tells the story of the classified strategy leak to the New York Times and begins framing a Russian mis/disinformation campaign. All issues, including the Hollande story, now fall under the same claims of Russian mis/disinformation.
As the narrative is pushed by the compliant media, all of the geopolitical stories are now filtered through the prism of Russian mis/disinformation. Ergo, all of the potentially damaging information, even if accurate and true, is attributed to Russian misinformation operations and subsequently disregarded.
The leak of classified intelligence, and the attribution to Russian misinformation, is like a brushback pitch toward the heads of the media on the explosive Francois Hollande story. It works.
That’s how the control agents operate. Deflection and adverse information removal is what IC operations are intended to control. This ‘leak’ looks like a successful IC operation.
Once you see the strings on the DC marionettes, you can never return to that moment in the performance when you did not see them.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/04/09/sunday-talks-intel-commitee-member-rep-brad-wenstrup-discusses-recent-classified-information-leaks/
CNN – Highly classified Pentagon documents leaked, rattling US officials
CBC – Highly classified U.S. intelligence documents leaked online
Stephanie Carvin, an associate professor at Carleton University who specializes in intelligence and national security, says the leaked U.S. intelligence documents put lives at risk.
CNN – Ex-intelligence chief says Pentagon doc leak isn’t as serious as Snowden leaks
Reporter OUTWITS State Dept. Spokesman on Leaked Classified Document Validity
BBC -What does the leak of Ukraine war documents tell us?
The US Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leaking of dozens of classified American Defence Department documents on social media.
It is the biggest leak of secret American information on the war in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion 14 months ago.
The maps, charts and photographs – some of them marked “top secret” – paint a detailed picture of the war in Ukraine.
The documents also reveal of details of Washington’s other allies, from Israel to South Korea, including internal debates those countries are having about Ukraine and other sensitive issues.
Pentagon officials are quoted as saying the documents are real.
graphic – Ukraine – April 10 2023
UK – THE SUNDAY TIMES – Is this Ukraine’s last chance to drive back Putin?
Morale is high among President Zelensky’s troops, but growing doubts about western support could make his spring offensive make or break
Those who know where it will happen and when are not saying. Those who speculate don’t know. But from the top of the military apparatus to the men and women on the front lines, everyone says a Ukrainian counteroffensive is coming. President Zelensky wants to capitalise on high morale after his army’s successes of late last year and exploit western enthusiasm to send arms.
Across the long front lines of the war, the guns are starting to fall silent. But that does not mean there is peace. “The pace of shelling has lowered dramatically over the last two months,” said Lieutenant Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army’s southern command. “They are down to 200 to 300 shells per day from 2,000 to 3,000,
For both sides, with the strange and violent exception of the endless battle for Bakhmut, the military emphasis is now on preserving ammunition without showing signs of weakness or giving away the big secret of fresh force. Western military planners believe that the Ukrainian army now has enough ammunition for one big push this year — so long as it is used wisely and not according to the old “firewall tactics” of the Soviet era: continuous, intensive bombardment.
If the push does not work, they say there will be enough to resume the defensive posture the Ukrainian side has taken since last year’s two major breakthroughs, when it recaptured southern Kharkiv province in September and Kherson city in November.
But there will not be enough for a second push and it is an open question whether there will be a further major round of rearmament by Ukraine’s western allies. Western Europe, its armies under-resourced and under-funded in recent decades, is running out of supplies. The Biden administration has competing priorities — in the Far East and, above all, in fighting the 2024 presidential election against a resurgent Donald Trump.
That gives the counteroffensive, whenever it comes, a make-or-break feel. Those in Europe and the United States who have held off urging fresh negotiations, almost certainly involving land for peace, will begin to speak up again if another stalemate looms.
Land for peace is precisely the offer rejected by President Zelensky. “Do you suggest that we give up our territory?” Oleksiy Danilov, his national security adviser, told an interviewer. Too many Ukrainians have died to make compromise acceptable. That territory is covered with the blood of our heroes.”
Everything therefore depends on where the thrust comes and how it is executed. It is expected later this month or next, according to the defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, though Danilov pointed out that this statement could be intended to mislead.
The most likely starting point, though this could have also been indicated by way of deception, is between Kherson and the industrial city of Zaporizhzhia, where Ukrainian forces are positioned on the east side of the Dnipro River, but before the killing grounds of the Donbas start.
A drive south that is as successful as the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives last year could conceivably reach the Black Sea at or near the city of Melitopol and cut the Russian occupation territory in two. It would also cut off the land route to Crimea, in Russia’s view the most important of its annexed conquests. Whether an assault on the heavily defended peninsula would follow is another matter, but it would be a substantial bargaining chip if Ukraine decided to offer negotiations on its own terms.
The theory of the Zaporizhzhia attack is convincing. But no one thinks the Kharkiv offensive, when some of the weaker units of the Russian army were isolated and fled, can be repeated.
“There are lots of enemy troops and they are well dug in,” said Vanya, 26, a sergeant from an intelligence unit. Vanya — who spoke using only his first name, in accordance with standard practice for lower-ranking soldiers — was insistent that many of the widely held conclusions about Russian military weaknesses, derived from recent defeats, were overly optimistic.
There has been much talk among western analysts of Russia’s dependence on old-fashioned Soviet training manuals, compared to the more sophisticated training Ukrainian officers have received from the West in the past eight years. Even now, senior Ukrainian officers are in Germany being instructed in Nato’s view of how best to deploy their western battle tanks — Challenger 2 tanks from Britain, Abrams from the US and Leopards from continental Europe. This should not be according to the Second World War system of mass tank warfare but as spearheads.
But Vanya said “Soviet” was neither necessarily bad nor the only option the Russians had available. “Everyone says they all use Soviet manuals but they aren’t necessarily wrong to do so,” he said, speaking from personal experience. “They are based on previous successes. We are certainly fighting a well-trained army.”
The image of the Russian army as being in thrall to old-fashioned hierarchies, subject to the whims of far-off generals, was also only partially correct, he said. As someone with access to radio intercepts of Russian junior officers, he said they were just as capable of taking independent decisions as their Ukrainian counterparts, particularly if they were not in a high-profile battle with political oversight, such as the current Bakhmut “meat-grinder”.
“Russia actually does train on Nato manuals,” he said. “There are a number of nerds here who translate Nato manuals into Ukrainian. The Russians then take them and translate them into Russian. So they are using them.
“The Russians are not fools. They have mid-ranking officers and brigade commanders who are not afraid to take their own decisions by themselves. The Russians fight better when it is not a political imperative, when there’s no direct vertical.” The same is true of the Ukrainians to some extent, he said.
Ukrainians believe that in the coming offensive they have the advantage in intelligence — already seen in that the Russian artillery now regularly fires from further behind the lines. Ukrainians, fighting on their own land, say they still have informers behind Russian lines giving them targeting co-ordinates.
Russia, though, has the advantage that Ukraine has had in the winter fighting — being dug in, defending.
Again, the western military advisers are issuing warnings: it might be better, some say, to hold off until the Ukrainians have more experience with their new weapons and can add an element of surprise currently lacking.
Zelensky seems determined to press ahead, however. Soldiers on the ground say they are confident but are also insistent that whatever happens, the war will go on. “This counteroffensive is going to be among the most important military operations in history,” Vanya said. “But is it a turning point? Maybe it doesn’t work like that.
“Of course everyone wants a quick victory. But we have to understand that a third of our territory is occupied and we have to be prepared for a long game. We are going to have a lot of turning points.”
https://archive.ph/UCAEa
===============================
DEUTSCHE PRAVDA – Hodges: ‘Ukraine will liberate Crimea by the end of August IF…>/b>
UK – THE SUNDAY TIMES -APRIL 09 2023
‘I’m a sniper. And I’m pregnant’: meet Ukraine’s frontline lovers
Unlikely romances have blossomed in the muddy trenches and urban battlegrounds of the war. Christina Lamb meets the couples who fell for each other against the odds
Anya and Sasha
On his few breaks from fighting Russians, he drives under fire to bring her avocados to the front line — she is a vegan. Once he drove 40 miles to get her a bunch of flowers. On his birthday, she ordered him a heart-shaped cake from Dnipro that he ate in the trenches. On her day off to fetch groceries, she managed to buy a sofa bed and convince some bemused soldiers to take it on an army pick-up to the base for them to sleep on. Such is love in a time of war.
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Anya Seledkova, 36, was a teacher with a sideline in making sustainable bags and clothes. Sasha Khaustov, 35, divided his time between running a small trucking company and spearfishing. On February 24 last year, the day of the invasion, like many they volunteered — he to fight, she to be a paramedic.
They met in the trenches of the eastern front last July when she came to tend the wounded. “I immediately liked her,” Sasha says, smiling. “I was impressed by how strong and fearless she was. She ignored me to start with but I was persistent. I tried to find any excuse to see her. I’d say, ‘I don’t feel well, give me vitamin C.’ ” Anya was taken by his “upbeat manner” and the small gifts he brought her, such as a carabiner — useful for clipping things to her pack.
The first time Sasha told Anya “I love you” was about a month after they met. They were under intense shelling that left several of their group dead or wounded. As Anya tried to help one man who had lost an arm, Sasha shielded her with his body.
Squelching through muddy trenches under mortar fire may seem far from romantic, but war forges intense bonds quickly — something noticed early on by Khrystyna Biliakovska, a 28-year-old communications manager who came up with the idea of collecting wartime love stories as a way of boosting morale and preserving memories. Along with three friends she set up a website called You, Me, War — 100 Love Stories, and recruited 20 volunteers to help gather heroic tales of romance, like that of Anya and Sasha.
The couple can barely stop nuzzling each other as they speak on the sofa at their base. When they are apart, they use the battalion walkie-talkies to communicate. “On New Year’s Eve at exactly midnight I called her from the trench,” he tells me.
“He loves my crazy schemes,” she says. Once she came up with the idea of catching stray goats in an evacuated village and taking them to the green zone, to the delight of the displaced children and their parents. Sasha willingly complied. “Not everyone will catch goats,” Anya says.
“Now we serve and go on duty together whenever we can,” she adds. “We have a saying, ‘Together in fire and in water.’ ”
When she leaves for the front, he helps her put on her bulletproof vest. When he goes, she worries about him. “There is a big difference when your loved one leaves for work in a place where Russian soldiers are only 250 metres away,” she says. “Every time he comes back, it’s special.”
In September they had a rare week off and travelled west to meet each other’s children — both divorced, he has a son of 10 and she two daughters of 8 and 11. “We dream about our future life together,” Anya says. “We will have a farm in Dnipro with chickens and want a big, big family.”
In the meantime they buy each other “Love Is …” chewing gums that come wrapped in little slogans. “We write our own quotes, like ‘Love I s … Chasing Goats’,” she says, pointing to a wall behind them plastered with wrappers. “I don’t know what the next soldiers to come here will think,” she laughs. “But it can be very dark and depressing in war, so we need little things to remind us of normal life.”
Yevhenia and Zhenya
Yevhenia Emerald, 32, was an entrepreneur running a successful jewellery business before the Russians invaded. She volunteered immediately, leaving her ten-year-old daughter with her grandparents, and became a sniper with the Safari regiment. Dubbed the Ukrainian Joan of Arc after her call sign, she soon attracted media attention. Zhenya Stypaniuk, a 32-year-old volunteer machinegunner, read an Instagram post about her and spotted they had a mutual friend. He reached out.
Yevhenia says there was an immediate connection and when she got time off, she agreed to meet Zhenya in Kyiv. “He met me off the train with a bouquet of flowers and we spent three days together,” she says. “The first date in a restaurant I wore a dress for the first time in the war … And that was it. Then I went to the front again.”
Yevhenia gave him a chain with a charm bearing their photo and their details inscribed on the back, keeping an identical one for herself. “He was always close to my heart — and I was close to his,” she says.
https://archive.ph/BcaxU/1fdaaf64951f7ad37c54c055d4053c95e9904712.jpg
Her commander allowed Zhenya to visit their base in Zaporizhia and he arrived with T-shirts for everyone and meat for their barbecues, winning him friends. “The boys immediately agreed to ‘give me away’,” she laughs. Two weeks after they first met, Zhenya proposed. “Everything is fast,” Yevhenia says. “We do not postpone anything for tomorrow, because tomorrow may never come.”
Setting a wedding date was not easy. Yevhenia came back from the front line in mid-September, but Zhenya had to stay there. Eventually she said, “Let me come to you. Screw it — let’s make it happen!”
The pair were married in October, an army general officiating. Unbeknown to Zhenya, Yevhenia was pregnant with his child. “I cried so much when I found out,” she says. “I called my friend and said, ‘Shit, what should I do? I’m a sniper! They will say that she got pregnant in those trenches.’ ”
Eventually she told her commander and was sent back to Kyiv. Zhenya was delighted. Their baby girl is due any day.
Irina and Petro
It was Petro Nezhalkivskyi’s blue eyes that won over Iryna Sampan — against her judgment. “I’d just had a painful divorce two years ago from a soldier, so the last thing I was looking for was a relationship, particularly with another military guy,” says the 28-year-old war correspondent over a coffee in Kyiv as the air raid sirens start up. “At the start of the war I couldn’t write. I needed to do something tangible, physical.”
Iryna had taken her mother and four-year-old son to Georgia for safety — and returned with nine Georgian fighters who wanted to join Ukraine’s foreign legion. She’d started working at its co-ordination centre, organising volunteers and raising money for ammunition and cars — driving them from Germany and Poland to Ukraine herself, often through shelling.
She began delivering ammunition to the front line. On one trip to the Donbas last March, she stayed the night in a hospital near Kramatorsk that was serving as a base. While eating with the commander she noticed she was being watched by a soldier, Petro, who had just come from the front. He was lying exhausted on a cot, half-sleeping, one eye looking at her. “I immediately noticed his blue eyes,” she says. The commander spotted their exchange of glances. “I see you together,” he predicted.
Back in Kyiv a few days later, Iryna noticed a missed call from an unknown number. “Who is it?” she texted. A selfie came back. It was Petro. “Do you remember me?” he asked. “Of course,” she replied. “Your blue eyes …”
They started texting every day, “about life, work, relationships”, and ten days later she went back. “I saw a different man,” she says. “So serious. He’d been promoted to major, so we celebrated and he told me, ‘You are the woman I’d like to spend the rest of my life with.’ ” Iryna was unsure. “My previous relationship was so painful that I said, ‘Petro — no, I can’t, I’m not ready.’ ”
“I’m ready to wait,” he replied.
They met a few times and on April 6 last year he proposed near Bakhmut, better known for bitter combat than romance. Yet somehow he produced a ring, red tulips and patriotic yellow and blue balloons. “And I said yes, thinking OMG, you’re so stupid.” They married a few weeks later in a village near the front. The only guests were Petro’s commander, now nicknamed “Wizard” because he’d seen their future, his fellow fighters and a family of local refugees.
This time, Petro conjured up a wedding cake and flowers. He also had a white wedding suit made for her but Iryna felt white was not appropriate, so wore khaki trousers and a T-shirt — like him.
On December 6, Ukraine’s Armed Forces Day, and almost six months after their wedding, they went on their first real date. “We went to an Italian restaurant, dressed up and drank expensive champagne,” she says. “I guess war has made us do everything backwards.”
Anastasia and Roman
Kyiv police officers Anastasia, 25, and Roman Romaschenko, 28, were already engaged when the invasion began. They had met in 2021 when Roman, who worked in a different district, was sent to help Anastasia’s patrol one night — they needed someone who could drive a manual vehicle.
It had not started well. “You’re going with the redhead,” he was told by his commander. “She’s crazy.” In the early hours they found themselves having to break up a crowd of drunken men who had beaten someone up so badly he needed an ambulance. They ended up making four arrests, which made Roman look at Anastasia with new eyes. They began texting. By the time of their third patrol together they were holding hands as he drove. “It’s forbidden but no one could see,” he laughs.
He asked her to be his girlfriend and soon moved in with her at her apartment in Hostomel, a suburb north of Kyiv, along with her black cat and pet rat. On New Year’s Eve in 2021, he proposed. They set the date for August 12, 2022. But in February, while Roman was on a training course, war arrived. The first explosions came at about 5am on February 24.
“Our commanders were shocked,” he says. “They told us to call our relatives and friends and say goodbye. We didn’t know what was going on. I was sent out on a patrol with three others and we got information that there was a group of Russians in the centre of Kyiv planning an attack on our area. We were in Khreshchatyk [the capital’s famous main street] looking for Russians, and then came a message over the radio that an attack was likely on our headquarters and for all to come to defend it — so we were driving at 100km an hour and I had my automatic and was preparing to fire.”
Meanwhile, Anastasia was in a bunker at the headquarters with about a hundred scared cadets and the children of police officers — and just one gun. “I began to have hysterics,” she says. She called Roman to say, “I’m alone, I have only 28 rounds and lots of children.”
“I can’t do anything,” he apologised. “I am in the centre of Kyiv.”
In the background Anastasia could hear explosions and her heart skipped a beat. “At that moment I understood that I was no longer worried about myself and the children, but about him.”
As soon as Roman got to the base he ran to the shelter to find her, grabbed her and said: “Let’s get married!”
“But we are getting married,” she replied.
“No. Now!” he said.
It wasn’t so easy. Martial law had given military commanders authority to conduct weddings, but not police commanders. Eventually the interior ministry passed a law authorising it and on March 6, Roman’s commander — who had sent him on that first patrol with the “crazy redhead” — married them in the bunker of the police station. Both wore their uniform and there was a small toast to the couple. “We will do a proper ceremony after our victory,” they smile. Their only gift was a sleeping bag —invaluable for staying warm in the bunker.
At the end of March the Russians were driven out and on April 5 the couple returned home. “There were bodies on the street. When we got to our apartment, it was awful. Russians had forced the door open and all our stuff was in a jumble.” They found Anastasia’s cat cowering under the bath. The occupiers had smashed their laptops and TV and stolen many of Anastasia’s clothes — dresses, knickers and bras — plus a watch that Roman had been awarded for saving lives. “It was very precious to me,” he says. “Then I saw it in a photo on a body in Kharkiv. I didn’t ask for it back as we have a tradition not to take things from dead bodies.”
Anton and Nastya
https://archive.ph/BcaxU/577efc765e86d4eae7d50728e459ab06571eabc2.jpg
This being a war in which many thousands have lost their lives, not all love stories have happy endings. There have also been some narrow escapes. Anton Solokov, 39, a dentist, and 34-year-old Nastya Gracheva, an oncology nurse, both from Kharkiv, started dating in March 2021. She moved into his home shortly afterwards. He had never wanted to marry in the past. “But the invasion changed us a lot,” he says. “The war made me feel, yes, I want to be with this person.” A month after the invasion he gave her a ring to symbolise his commitment but still insisted he did not want marriage.
The northeastern city, less than 30 miles from the Russian border, was one of the first targets of the invasion. It was pounded with shells, sending thousands of residents underground into the metro stations.
“After the first wave of shock passed we both started volunteering,” Nastya says. “On the second or third day, Anton and I wrote on Instagram that we could provide medical help to people in our area. People started calling us and we drove to them. Anton provided dental care and I inserted drips, gave injections and bandages.”
Pharmacies in Kharkiv were closed during the first days of the invasion and friends of the couple had set up a volunteer group at a restaurant to source medicines from other cities and abroad. They had plenty of paracetamol, ibuprofen and bandages but not enough medication for diabetes, hypertension and other conditions. “We were overwhelmed with orders we could not fulfil,” Anton says. “I recorded a video asking for specific medicine and posted it on Instagram, and was amazed by the response.”
This gave Nastya an idea. “I decided to be clever and use the war,” she smiles. “I told him, let’s have a big, epic wedding that gets lots of attention so we can raise funds and bring attention to what’s happening in Kharkiv.” It would be held amid the rubble, with the reception taking place in a metro station. The couple invited all their friends, the mayor — anyone with media contacts.
“Whenever I saw people in press jackets I invited them,” Anton says. “We ended up with more than 50 photographers and TV cameras aimed at us.”
It was bitterly cold and Nastya was in a leather jacket and a “DIY” white wedding dress, made from two second-hand dresses and some bedsheets. A fellow volunteer was a florist. Her apartment was hit by a rocket the day before the wedding, yet she still managed to produce a bouquet and a headdress. Instead of champagne for the toast, they brought out some Jägermeister.
“It seems that the whole world saw our wedding,” Nastya says. “Photos appeared in Germany, Australia, Italy, Spain and Poland. We did an interview with Japanese TV and we were broadcast in Albania. Even a Chinese newspaper ran our photo and a Danish company made a documentary.”
They raised about €7,000 and plenty of attention for their besieged city. “Despite the war, I was beyond happy,” Nastya says.
But two weeks after their wedding, that joy came to a sudden halt. On April 17 Anton was caught up in a Russian Grad rocket attack as he queued outside a pharmacy for medical provisions. Nastya was waiting for him nearby in the car.
“I saw lights and at first thought it looked like fireworks, so beautiful, which was stupid,” Nastya says. “Then I realised it was something bad.”
“I felt something wrong with my leg — a warm feeling,” Anton says. “Then I saw a lot of blood and tried to get to the car.” Nastya quickly went into crisis mode and produced a tourniquet. “I was very clear and focused, but it was hard to get to the hospital because of all the shelling. It only hit me a few hours later that he could lose his leg.”
A 3mm fragment of the rocket was embedded under his left knee, cutting into an artery. The operation took four to five hours but after a couple of weeks it was clear there were complications, the blood clogging and starting to turn his foot black.
Nastya’s mother found a clinic in Munich that would operate on him for free and they managed to get him there. They were able to save his foot — he is now in rehabilitation at a hospital in Saxony and the couple are living there until he is well enough to return home.
“I still can’t believe we did this,” Nastya laughs as she looks back at the pictures of her in a wedding dress amid the rubble.
https://archive.ph/BcaxU
==============================
DEUTSCHE PRAVDA – Zelenskyy honors Ukraine’s Muslim soldiers at Ramadan Iftar dinner
At a Ramadan Iftar dinner outside Kyyiev, Zeleeenskyyyii handed out medals, and vowed to liberate Crimea-
UK – The Economist – Ukraine’s gay soldiers fight Russia—and for their rights
War changes everything, including attitudes to gay people
When pasha lagoyda joined the Ukrainian army in 2021, he didn’t tell anyone he was gay. In his first weeks his room-mates at training camp found some “spicy texts”, as he puts it, and he was bullied. “There was aggression. They called me a faggot—all that stuff.”
As his fellow recruits got to know him better, the intimidation died down. Now Mr Lagoyda is serving on the front line and all the 180 people in his unit know he’s gay. He posts selfies looking fit in his camo fatigues with washboard abs and immaculate stubble. He is also a member of lgbtiqMilitary, an Instagram account that features lgbt people in military service. It even has a link to buy merch: mugs and cloth patches depicting an armoured unicorn breathing fire. “Wherever I serve,” says Mr Lagoyda, “everyone tells me: ‘Because you are here at war, in principle I have no right to call you gay or a faggot; you are just a person who is protecting us on an equal footing’.”
He is not alone. Thousands of gay people are serving in the Ukrainian armed forces, often sporting a rainbow badge next to the Ukrainian blue and yellow on their uniform. lgbt groups have also been at the forefront of humanitarian volunteering. Their visibility has led to a sea-change in Ukrainian society.
Homosexual sex was decriminalised after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, but when Kyiv’s first Gay Pride parade was held in 2013 only a few dozen people were brave enough to ignore the threat of skinhead violence. Even after Ukraine’s revolution of 2014 and the reforms that followed, legislation protecting gay rights lagged behind. Despite years of campaigning, for example, parliament has still not amended Ukraine’s hate-crime laws to include acts against gay people.
War changes everything. Last summer, the parliament finally ratified the Council of Europe’s Istanbul convention on violence against women, after a decade-long delay, caused by the objections of church groups to the use of “gender” in the text. It is now drafting a bill that would give same-sex couples the right to register civil partnerships, something that was unimaginable even a year ago.
Inna Sovsun, the mp who introduced the bill, says she was encouraged when a petition last summer calling for same-sex marriage to be legalised was signed by over 25,000 people, meeting the threshold for presidential consideration. Polls have shown that more than half of Ukrainians think gay and bisexual people should enjoy equal rights. Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelensky, has signalled support for a civil-partnership law, but his government has yet to make it a priority.
Protecting the rights of gay people in the military gives a big push for the bill. Civil partnerships would let same-sex couples make medical decisions if a partner is wounded; if one is killed, the survivor would be able to bury him or her according to their wishes, inherit with the same tax advantages that marital spouses have, and receive state compensation for the loss. “It’s something many people dream about,” says Mr Lagoyda. “If something happens to me, God forbid, I want my boyfriend to be able come to the intensive care or take my body away.”
Sofiia Lapina, head of Ukraine Pride, an activist group, argues that the shift in attitudes on gay issues partly reflects Ukrainian aspirations to be culturally and politically closer to Europe. It is also a way, she adds, for Ukrainians to oppose Vladimir Putin’s repressive Russia, which has outlawed “homosexual propaganda” and characterises the war in Ukraine as an existential battle against the West’s supposed promotion of gay marriage, rampant paedophilia and gender-neutral pronouns.
Ukrainian lgbt groups have documented how lesbian and gay people in Russian-occupied territories have been hunted down, raped, detained and humiliated. Tattoos of gay symbols are as much a red flag to Russian troops as Ukrainian tridents. Transgender people there are afraid to go out into the streets. Ms Lapina says “Ukrainians have begun to see more clearly that hate in any form—racism, homophobia—is basically Russian propaganda.”
https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/04/05/ukraines-gay-soldiers-fight-russia-and-for-their-rights
=========================
Sarah Ashton-Cirillo say “VLADIMIR PUTIN YOU ARE MONSTER”
VOA – Former US Journalist?Joins?Ukraine’s Military Medic Unit
A transgender woman, she is now a military medic in Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
Tatiana Vorozhko met with her in Washington in early December, when she came to brief U.S. lawmakers and experts on developments on the front lines.
Europe v. U.S. /Zelenskyy demands Crimea Retake/ AOC v. Clarence Thomas
35 min Douglas Macgregor:
What a mess:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-searches-source-highly-classified-intel-leak-2023-04-09/
They say Washington DC is a pot that leaks from the top. It should be no mystery. The Biden family clearly sold classified materials to the enemy just as Hillary Clinton and Obama did. The source of the leak is the Biden family.
What is the significance, if any, of this happening at a bank, at this time?
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/5-dead-6-injured-bank-mass-shooting-downtown-louisville
Based on very inadequate evidence right now the best guess is that the bank for closed on a home loan and the person who lost the house went postal.
Is this right? I don’t know.
Next exploration someone is made a statement against capitalism.
Nothing new
DEVELOPING: Mass Shooting in Louisville, Kentucky – Multiple Casualties Reported – UPDATE: Five People Killed, Shooter is Also Deceased
By Cullen Linebarger Apr. 10, 2023 9:04 am617 Comments
Louisville, Kentucky – A mass shooting occurred in Louisville this morning.
The Louisville Metro Police Department announced the incident occurred in the 300 block of East Main and there are multiple casualties.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/developing-mass-shooting-in-louisville-kentucky-multiple-casualties-reported-photos/
Louisville shooting leaves at least 4 dead and 8 others wounded, police say
At least one “very close friend” of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear was among the victims of gunfire that also left shooter dead.
David K. Li, Andrew Blankstein and Jonathan Dienst
A gunman opened fire at a bank in downtown Louisville on Monday, leaving four dead — including at least two friends of Gov. Andy Beshear — and wounding eight others, authorities said.
The shooter, described as a current or former employee of Old National Bank, also wounded two responding police officers, one critically, officials said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/shooting-reported-louisville-police-confirm-multiple-casualties-rcna78933
NEWSAlleged Shooter identified as 25-year-old National bank employee, Connor Sturgeon
Incident reported at Old National Bank
– At least 5 dead, 6 injured
The Louisville shooter is 25 years old named Connor Sturgeon. FOX3 was told he was an employee at the Old National Bank.
According to the Louisville Metro Police Department, an active shooting occurred on Monday morning in Louisville, Kentucky, resulting in “multiple casualties.”
According to Humphrey, eight individuals, including two officers, have been transported to University Hospital for medical care, with one officer reportedly in critical condition.
The lone suspect involved in the shooting has died, and police believe the person had a connection to the bank under investigation.
https://www.fox3now.com/alleged-shooter-identified-as-25-year-old-national-bank-employee-connor-sturgeon-5-killed-6-injured-in-downtown-louisville-near-slugger-field/
BREAKING: Police Confirm ANOTHER Louisville Shooting Outside Jefferson Community & Technical College…Only Blocks From Mass Shooting Inside Louisville Bank
Louisville Metro Police have now confirmed ANOTHER shooting has taken place in Louisville, only blocks from the mass shooting inside the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, reportedly outside of Jefferson Community & Technical College just blocks from the mass shooting scene.
According to the latest update by ABC News Live, the shooting took place on the first floor of the bank in the conference, calling it a “classic case of workplace violence.”
https://100percentfedup.com/breaking-police-confirm-another-louisville-shooting-outside-jefferson-community-techincal-college-only-blocks-from-mass-shooting-inside-louisville-bank/
Woke Bud Light Executive Behind Dylan Mulvaney Marketing Campaign Trashes Bud Light and Its Customers During Interview – Gets Buried on Social Media by Catturd and Others (VIDEO)
By Cullen Linebarger Apr. 10, 2023 8:45 am1233 Comments
Bud Light Vice-President of Marketing Alissa Heinerscheid recently went on a podcast where she ripped her company and its traditional customer base while pushing the left’s woke agenda.
Many people point out Heinerscheid is the “brainchild” behind the Dylan Mulvaney marketing campaign at the company.
None of this should come as a surprise considering her background. According to the Daily Mail, Heinerscheid went to the $60,000-per-year Groton School in Massachusetts before going on to Harvard where she studied English literature. She then attended business school at Wharton where she took a master’s degree in marketing.
Talk about being out of touch with the American heartland.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/woke-bud-light-executive-behind-dylan-mulvaney-marketing-campaign-trashes-bud-light-and-its-customers-during-interview-gets-buried-on-social-media-by-catturd-and-others-video/
Attorney Marina Medvin – What the Media Is Not Telling You About the Government Charges Against the J6 Defendants – MUST SEE INTERVIEW
By Jim Hoft Apr. 10, 2023 8:00 am168 Comments
January 6 Defense Attorney Marina Medvin joined The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft to discuss her work with the January 6 defendants.
This was an amazing interview. Gateway Pundit readers know how much we support and report on the plight of the January 6 defendants and political prisoners. But Marina Medvin had so much to say about the J6 prisoners and DC courts that was completely new to us.
Flab
Marina accused the government of selective prosecution in January 6 cases. The government is charging individuals who attended the January 6 protests with broad array of charges that they have ignored at previous protests in the nation’s capital.
** Maria recommended donations to RightDefense.org to help the J6 defendants. The donations from the organization go directly to cover the legal bill of the J6 defendants. The organization is linked to the Coolidge-Reagan Foundation.
Transcript clips to our discussion are posted below
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/attorney-marina-medvin-on-what-the-media-is-not-telling-you-about-the-government-charges-against-the-j6-defendants-must-see-interview/
Bruckner Romantic Symphony No 4 – Celibidache Münchner Philharmoniker – 1983
( 1 h 21 min )
Report: FBI Is Now Flagging Online Terms “Red Pill”, “Based”, and “Chad” as Extremist Terms
By Anthony Scott Apr. 10, 2023 8:30 am414 Comments
The FBI on Monday released new documents that reveal common words used on the internet are being flagged by FBI agents as extremism.
The new documents were released by the FBI after the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project filed a FOIA request.
The documents are titled “Involuntary Celibate Violent Extremism” and in them, they contained a glossary of several words that the FBI claimed were used by “incel” extremists.
The terms “red pill”, “Chad”, and “based” were all considered to be extremist rhetoric.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/report-fbi-is-now-flagging-online-terms-red-pill-based-and-chad-as-extremist-terms/
Charles III at an Impasse With Church of England Over His Coronation – Wants Participation of Non-Christian Clerics in Defiance of Tradition – Globalist King Previously Accused of Secretly Being a Muslim
By Paul Serran Apr. 10, 2023 7:15 am368 Comments
With four weeks to go until the ceremony of Coronation of Britain’s King Charles III, the final preparations are still in a flux, as the Globalist Monarch ‘has been at loggerheads with Church of England leaders over the role other faiths should play in his Coronation.’
Daily Mail reports:
“Church sources say the monarch has been told that his desire for a ‘diverse’ ceremony, including participation by non-Christians, risks clashing with centuries- old canon law, which bars Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and other faith leaders from reading out prayers during the service.”
Charles has long held the desire to be a ‘Defender of all Faiths’, and wants to make a statement about it on his Coronation, but Church leaders resist him, ‘given that it is an Anglican ceremony, as well as a constitutional event’.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/charles-iii-at-an-impasse-with-church-of-england-over-his-coronation-wants-participation-of-non-christian-clerics-in-defiance-of-tradition-globalist-king-previously-accused-of-secretly-being-a-mus/
EXCLUSIVE: Biden’s Northern Border Deal With Trudeau Has Major Loophole, Memo Shows
https://newrightnetwork.com/2023/04/exclusive-bidens-northern-border-deal-with-trudeau-has-major-loophole-memo-shows.html
Baseball Players Are Hitting More Home Runs—And Climate Change Is Helping
As atmospheric temperatures rise with climate change, baseballs can travel farther through the air, allowing for more home runs
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/baseball-players-are-hitting-more-home-runs-and-climate-change-is-helping/
Two statues to celebrate ‘Motherhood’: guess which one is from Russia and which one is from the UK
https://i.redd.it/597jd808v4ta1.jpg
“BREAKING: CESIUM-137 IN THE VAX!! — Todd Callender & Dr. Lee Vliet” LeeVlietMD – 13 hours ago
https://rumble.com/v2haxqq-breaking-cesium-137-in-the-vax-todd-callender-and-dr.-lee-vliet.html
Sean mentioned the three brothers.
1. Big Politics, 2. Big Healthcare & 3. Big Media – LeeVlietMD
1. Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Ambassador to Japan
FCCJchannel – November 20, 2022
2. CBmE Global Ethics Lecture by Dr Ezekiel Emanuel
NUS CBmE – March 16, 2023
3. The David Rubenstein Show: Ariel Emanuel
David Rubenstein – August 12, 2022
George Soros’ Son Set To Takeover His Dad’s War Chest, Do Even More Damage [VIDEO]
https://www.redvoicemedia.com/video/2023/04/george-soros-son-set-to-takeover-his-dads-war-chest-do-even-more-damage/ref/30/
I quietly gaze into the depth of the forest
And see nothing save beauty and peace.
Birdsong fills my ears.
A gentle breeze brushes against my cheek.
Seeing from inside the seeing.
I drink the dark riches of the woods.
Would it be that every day
I could see my own face so clearly
in these still waters,
And meet the emptiness—-which is also
my very own heart—-
That is carried in the boughs of pines
and in the gentle music of crickets.
Cass Adams
Video: Lamar High student punches teacher in face after heated exchange
An altercation over a phone rose to violence, witnesses say.
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/houston-student-punches-teacher-17884162.php
On Wednesday, a top member of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), FEC Commissioner James E. “Trey” Trainor, sided with 45th President and leading 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump over far-left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) frivolous indictment against Trump.
Trainor compared Bragg’s persecution of Trump to “trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole.”
A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict President Trump over a $130,000 payment to adult film “star” Stormy Daniels made by his former lawyer and now-convicted liar, Michael Cohen.
Trainor said the Stormy case “is not a campaign finance violation. It’s not a reporting violation of any kind.”
https://dcenquirer.com/in-a-victory-for-trump-fec-commissioner-mocks-bragg-says-stormy-payment-not-a-campaign-finance-violation/
redacted – James O’ Keefe: This is MASSIVE fraud by Democrats caught on VIDEO
john campbell – Swiss vaccination
BREAKING: Bombshell Report Shows Biden White House Involved With Trump Mar-a-Lago Raid
On Monday, America First Legal (AFL) published various documents that showcased that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) obtained records pertaining to the raid on Mar-a-Lago that took place last August via the White House.
“[N]ew [National Archives and Records Administration] records obtained through America First Legal’s investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Mar-a-Lago raid further confirmed that the FBI obtained access to these records through a ‘special access request’ from the Biden White House on behalf of the Department of Justice (DOJ),” AFL wrote in a press release.
“It appears that the Biden White House and DOJ coordinated to obtain the Trump records and perhaps create a pretext for the law enforcement raid by way of a ‘special access request,’” the legal foundation revealed.
https://dcenquirer.com/breaking-bombshell-report-shows-biden-white-house-involved-with-trump-mar-a-lago-raid/
There are new revelations coming to light about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s unprecedented raid against former President Donald Trump prior to the 2022 midterm elections.
As reported by America First Legal, a judicial watchdog, “records obtained from our investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Mar-a-Lago raid further confirm that the FBI obtained access to these records through a ‘special access request’ from the Biden White House on behalf of the DOJ.”
The details, themselves, are shocking, as AFL noted in its press release:
On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted an unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago on the ground that potentially classified records existed there. According to press reports, Biden Administration aides were “stunned” to hear of this development.
However, new NARA records obtained through America First Legal’s investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Mar-a-Lago raid further confirmed that the FBI obtained access to these records through a “special access request” from the Biden White House on behalf of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
It appears that the Biden White House and DOJ coordinated to obtain the Trump records and perhaps create a pretext for the law enforcement raid by way of a “special access request.”
https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/new-records-knab/
CV NEWS FEED // The FBI used at least one undercover agent to develop plans to cultivate “sources” in Catholic churches, according to internal documents obtained by the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
“Based on the limited information produced by the FBI to the Committee, we now know that the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis,” wrote Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-OH, in a Monday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray. The FBI further “proposed that its agents engage in outreach to Catholic parishes to develop sources among the clergy and church leadership to inform on Americans practicing their faith.”
https://newrightnetwork.com/2023/04/new-docs-reveal-fbi-has-sought-to-develop-sources-in-catholic-churches.html
Jim Jordan: FBI Is Infiltrating Catholic Parishes – Agents Engaging in Outreach with Catholic Clergy to Inform on Americans Practicing Christian Faith
By Jim Hoft Apr. 10, 2023 3:00 pm614 Comments
This changes everything. This is what happens in China not the US!
Chris Wray’s FBI is now infiltrating Catholic parishes.
The FBI agents are engaging in outreach to Catholic leaders to spy on Americans practicing their Christian faith.
This is an earth-shattering development in the US intelligence community. We already knew the FBI-DOJ was targeting traditional Catholics. Now we have evidence they are infiltrating Catholic parishes.
Chris Wray’s FBI sent out a memo warning agents of the dangerous ‘radical traditionalist Catholic ideology’ that was gaining popularity in the country. The memo was posted at UncoverDC.com by former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin.
Seraphin last year was suspended indefinitely from the FBI without pay after stepping forward as a whistleblower and alleging that the FBI is trying to hide how many man-hours they used on the Jan 6th investigation. Seraphin had worked at the FBI’s Richmond office for six years.
Now the FBI is infiltrating Catholic parishes!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/jim-jordan-fbi-is-infiltrating-catholic-parishes-agents-engaging-in-outreach-with-catholic-clergy-to-inform-on-americans-practicing-christian-faith/
Man arrested after break-in at Montreal mosque amid morning prayers
Markham mosque members vow they will not ‘be intimated’ after attack
Members of a Markham mosque say they refuse to live in fear and that “we will not be intimidated” after an attack last week.
An assailant spewed anti-Muslim threats and tried to ram members of the Islamic Society of Markham (ISM) mosque — on Denison St. and Middlefield Rd. — with a pick-up truck last Thursday, according to York Regional Police
“This will not stop us coming to the mosque and we are not going to be intimidated,” vowed ISM President Qasir Nasir Khan on Monday.
Those in attendance at Thursday morning’s prayer session tackled the man and waited for police to arrive.
Security will be stepped up at the mosque as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan comes to an end.
“He threatened to burn down our mosque. He uttered slurs about the Prophet — ‘may peace be upon him.’ And he uttered slurs about terrorism,” said Khan, who was joined by police officers and Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti, as he spoke in the front foyer of the mosque.
“More concerning, he tried to ram congregants with his vehicle.”
Khan added the attacker tore out pages of the Qur’an and then got in his pick-up truck and tried to run down people attending prayers before 7 a.m.
He called on the Ontario government to pass legislation designed to fight Islamophobia and to create a provincial hate crimes watchdog.
As he waited for afternoon prayers on Monday, Ali Abubhar said he was in the parking lot Thursday morning and recalled a man getting into an altercation with a member and trying to hit him with his truck.
Sharan Karunakaran, 28, is charged with uttering threats, assault with a weapon and dangerous driving.
“I’m going to screw up your whole mosque,” Abubhar quoted the attacker as saying.
Police said they apprehended a suspect just after midnight the next day at a residence in Scarborough.
Sharan Karunakaran, 28, of Toronto, faces charges, including assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, and uttering a threat to cause death or bodily harm. He was scheduled to appear in court in Newmarket on Tuesday morning.
Insp. Chuck Byham said police are also investigating allegations the suspect had gone to a mosque at Lawrence Ave. E. and Markham Rd.
[…]
https://torontosun.com/news/crime/markham-mosque-members-vow-they-will-not-be-intimated-after-attack
================================
Calls for action after suspected hate crime at Markham Mosque
The Islamic Society of Markham speaks out after hate crime