According to a recent poll, if snap elections were called today, Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally party could win an outright majority in the French National Assembly. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled to the German Chancellery to consult Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the situation in Ukraine.
In other news, a liquefied petroleum gas tanker transiting the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen reported two explosions near the ship. It was the third merchant vessel attacked in the past two days.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Caroline Glick, DV, Insubria, LP, McN, Reader from Chicago, SS, Upananda Brahmachari, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
11-Year-Old Boy Dies Protecting Pregnant Mother From Knife-Wielding Ex-Boyfriend
An 11-year-old Chicago boy died this week while trying to save his pregnant mother from her knife-wielding ex-boyfriend. The ex-boyfriend, Crosetti Brand, 37, broke into the house of the victims in Edgewater, Illinois, after he was released from the prison, Stateville Correctional Center, a day earlier on parole.
Brand is accused of stabbing the boy, Jayden Perkins, in the chest and the 33-year-old woman. The Chicago Police Department re-arrested him. He was serving a 16-year sentence for home invasion and aggravated assault in prison.
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said Brand forced his way into his ex-girlfriend’s home and “brutally attacked” the family, according to a report by the New York Post. The 33-year-old mother of two was leaving with her children to take them to school when they were attacked.
11-year-old Jayden Perkins stepped in to shield his mother as she sustained a stab wound in the doorway of their home. His 5-year-old brother was present and witnessed the attack.
Cops arrived on the scene to find both mother and son stabbed “multiple times” and rushed them to the hospital where Perkins was declared dead upon arrival.
The mother was listed in critical condition but authorities told the New York Post that the mother and her baby are expected to survive.
| — Hat tip: DV | [Return to headlines] |
Alec Baldwin Was Offered Sweetheart Deal in ‘Rust’ Shooting
Alec Baldwin was originally offered a plea deal by prosecutors that would not require him to serve jail time for the manslaughter of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, according to a public filing reported by Variety.
The plea deal in question mirrored one accepted by Dave Halls, the first assistant director of “Rust,” who faced charges related to negligent handling of a deadly weapon. Halls avoided prison time and instead received six months of unsupervised probation, a $500 fine, 24 hours of community service, and mandatory firearm safety classes.
Baldwin was initially offered a similar deal last October. However, before he could decide whether or not to accept it, prosecutors withdrew the deal and instead informed Baldwin’s legal team that they would seek to indict him.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district is being described as looking like a Third World country, after video emerged showing trash covered streets overrun by migrants.
Footage captured by Queens resident Ramses Frias shows two streets in the neighborhoods of Corona, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst.
The video shows the streets of the area overflowing with trash, as migrants set up make shift flea markets flogging clothing items.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
On Saturday during an Ohio rally, former President Donald Trump said there would be a “bloodbath” in the automobile industry if President Joe Biden got reelected. Liberal media and influencers are jumping on the quote taking it out of context to suggest Trump was making violent threats.
Headlines from Politico, Mediaite, Independent, as well as a post from official Biden HQ campaign page suggested that Trump was making violent threats when he said, “It’s gonna be a bloodbath for the country,” in reference to the automobile industry.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Big Tech alliance Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFTC) research “partner” Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET) has published an article revisiting the pandemic, always, of course, in the context of “misinformation.”
GIFTC’s founding members are Microsoft, Facebook, X (Twitter), and YouTube (Google), while “general members” include these four and pretty much every tech company you’ve ever heard of, from Amazon and Airbnb to BitChute and Giphy.
GIFTC has previously come under criticism for censorship practices without oversight, whereas GIFTC now goes after “Covid misinformation” — including by conflating it with extremism, and is urging “interventions to address the spread of problematic content.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Before the cancellation of his partnership with the social media platform X, Don Lemon allegedly made extravagant demands during contract negotiations including hosting the first podcast in outer space via SpaceX, a Tesla Cybertruck, a $5 million advance payment of an $8 million salary, and equity in X.
The list of demands were in a document obtained by the New York Post. ALX also confirmed that the podcast in space in addition to the demands reported on by the outlet.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is being criticized for insisting that the city remains the “safest big city in America,” despite a recent subway shooting that shook residents’ sense of security.
The incident, which occurred on Thursday in a Brooklyn subway, saw a 36-year-old man shot in the head with his own gun during an altercation with another passenger. The victim, who was armed, reportedly provoked the altercation, leading to the violent outcome.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Gina Carano, the former star of the Disney+ series “The Mandalorian,” opened up about her public firing, the behind the scenes drama and the legal battle she is waging against Disney in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Carano, who has right-libertarian-leaning views, although she resists labeling her politics, faced public backlash that ultimately resulted in her firing by Disney, because of tweets and Instagram posts on highly sensitive and divisive topics like COVID-19 vaccines, masking, Black Lives Matter, the transgender rights movement and the results of the 2020 presidential election.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-MSNBC Host Tiffany Cross ‘Completely Down’ for Black People Being Exempt From Paying Taxes
On Monday, former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross claimed that black people should be exempt from paying taxes due to their ancestors being enslaved, a suggestion that would come in the form of reparations.
Cross entertained the idea on the “Native Land Podcast.” She appeared on an episode alongside former Democrat politician Andrew Gillum and progressive political activist Angela Rye. The two agreed with Cross that black people should be exempt, the New York Post reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Fairfax County Public Schools Deceives Taxpayers With Per-Pupil Spending and Legal Expenses
As Fairfax County Public Schools increases its budget to $3.8 billion, up 8.6% from fiscal 2024, taxpayers have been put on notice that they will be hit with more property tax increases. Fairfax County residents’ property tax bills are expected to increase again by an average of $524 per household in 2025.
Meanwhile, district administrators are gaslighting taxpayers about per-pupil spending. On March 6, they sent an email to parents complaining that Virginia’s public school districts receive less state funding than public schools in other states. That might be intended to distract us from the fact that per-pupil spending in Fairfax County is substantially higher than the national average. In the 2024 budget, the annual cost per K-12 public school pupil in Fairfax County was $19,795. The national per-pupil average the same year was $12,612.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The New York City Fire Department’s fire commissioner was booed and jeered at by protesters during a lively St. Patrick’s Day parade in the Big Apple.
“You suck,” one protester yelled at New York City Fire Department (FDNY) fire commissioner Laura Kavanaugh as she paraded by Trump Tower. “Firefighters are the hunters.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Harvard Honesty Professor Allegedly Tampered With Data and Should be Fired, According to Probe
Aprofessor at Harvard University who specialized in researching why people cheat reportedly tampered with data in her work, according to a university probe.
Professor Francesca Gino, considered a star behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School, allegedly tweaked observations in four of her studies to boost her hypothesis, according to a report from the New York Post.
“The committee concludes that Professor Gino has engaged in multiple instances of research misconduct, across all four studies at issue in these allegations,” the report states.
The report also alleges that many papers Gino had coauthored included “fraudulent data” between 2012 and 2020.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Judge Orders FBI to Provide Covenant Shooter’s Manifesto to News Outlet
A federal judge ordered the FBI to provide Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale’s manifesto and other documents for a private review as part of a lawsuit from Star News Digital Media Inc., the parent company of The Tennessee Star.
“The court’s order today is a significant victory for the public’s right to know about the motives of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who murdered six innocent Nashvillians at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023,” Tennessee Star Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy said.
Star News sued the FBI in May 2023, claiming the bureau had violated the First Amendment by rejecting multiple Freedom of Information Act requests for the manifesto. Hale’s March 2023 massacre targeted the Covenant School and resulted in the deaths of three students and three faculty members.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Latest Census Data Shows Over 80% of Illinois Counties Losing Population
(The Center Square) — The exodus from Illinois continues.
A new report by the Illinois Policy Institute shows Illinois suffered population loss among all eight Illinois-based metro areas and 87 of Illinois’ 102 counties from July 2022 to July 2023.
Using the latest data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, IPI found that Chicago’s population loss accounted for approximately 50% of the state’s total decline of 41,000 residents in 2023. When calculating the total who moved out with 8,300 that moved in to Illinois, the net decline is nearly 33,000. In addition to Chicago, metro areas including Decatur, Springfield and Bloomington-Normal showed big declines relative to the size of their population.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New: Elon Musk Says ‘America is Doomed’ Without ‘Red Wave This November’
Elon Musk reacted to a post on X about the illegal immigration crisis in New York by writing on the platform, “There is either a red wave this November or America is doomed,” on Saturday.
In a video posted to the social media platform about illegal immigration in NYC, the entrepreneur and public figure responded with the sentiment about shifting the political landscape to the right.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Official Data Links 143,233% Cancer Surge to COVID Shots
Bombshell official government data has finally confirmed what many have long suspected — that Covid mRNA shots are responsible for skyrocketing cases of deadly cancers.
In the United States, cancer is the second leading cause of death.
The leading cause of death is heart disease, which has also spiked dramatically since Covid injections were rolled out for public use in 2021.
Now, new data shows that cancer has been on the rise as a result of the experimental Covid mRNA injections.
Official U.S. government data confirms the risk of developing cancer increases by a shocking 143,233% following Covid vaccination.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Philly’s Soros-Funded District Attorney Deceived Court to Get Murderer Off ‘Death Row’
Philadelphia’s Soros-funded district attorney, Larry Krasner, is well known for his radical left-wing criminal justice reform policies that have decimated one of the most historical cities in Western civilization. He has repeatedly prioritized his political agenda over the law. Krasner’s idealism has kept many criminals out of jail and on the street who have wreaked havoc and terrorism on innocent Philadelphians. It’s been his mission ever since he was elected. So, the recent revelation that his office misled a court while they were trying to overturn the death sentence of a convicted murderer should probably come as no surprise.
Yet, earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit acknowledged Krasner’s office had been less than truthful in a case from five years ago. They found that the Soros-funded district attorney deceived a court and “slanted the facts” in the case of Robert Wharton, a convicted murderer, when, in 2019, Krasner’s office sought to change Wharton’s sentence of death to life in prison, numerous sources reported.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Prosecutors Eye Criminal Charges Against Alleged Subway Maniac Shot With His Own Gun
Prosecutors are eyeing criminal charges against accused subway maniac Dajuan Robinson, but are waiting to see if he survives being shot four times with his own gun, sources told The Post Saturday.
Robinson pulled out his pistol on the A train in Brooklyn while fighting with dad-of-two Younece Obuad and an unknown woman on Thursday during the evening rush hour Thursday, sending straphangers scurrying.
Prosecutors decided not to charge Obuad, 32, with shooting Robinson, 36, who was transferred to New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center and remained in critical condition Saturday, officials said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Prosecutors Seek 40-Year Prison Term for Disgraced Tech Bro, Dem Donor Sam Bankman-Fried
On Friday, it was revealed that federal prosecutors are recommend disgraced Democrat Party mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried serve between 40 and 50 years in prison for his fraud conviction related to crypto company FTX.
According to court documents obtained by NBC, prosecutors said, “The scope, duration, nature, and sheer number of Bankman-Fried’s crimes, the resulting harm they have caused, the willful disregard of the rule of law, and the absence of countervailing mitigating circumstances render him exceptionally deserving of a sentence that is sufficiently severe to provide justice.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Proton Mail Officially Launches Desktop App
Proton has officially rolled out its end-to-end encrypted email service, Proton Mail as a dedicated desktop application, following its introduction in a beta version.
Despite the fact that since its inception Proton Mail has been accessible on the desktop platform, firstly via a web browser and more recently through a “bridge” enabling access via third-party desktop clients such as Apple Mail and Outlook, this recent release brings a dedicated MacOS and Windows application into the mix. This new iteration allows email caching and offline access, as well as convenient access to Proton Mail directly from the MacOS dock or Windows Start menu. The latest app also offers combined access to Proton’s encrypted Calendar service.
From a business perspective, Proton has made a decision to reserve the desktop app for premium subscribers.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
RFK Jr. Expected to Name Nicole Shanahan as Running Mate: Report
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to name attorney, entrepreneur, and Democratic donor Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, according to a report from Mediaite, just days after it was reported that former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers were on Kennedy’s vice presidential short list.
The ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Shanahan was partially responsible for the Kennedy 2024 Super Bowl ad last month. She told the New York Times she donated $4 million to American Values 2024, the super PAC supporting Kennedy’s candidacy, to help cover the $7 million cost and helped coordinate the production of the ad.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
On Saturday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Peter Schweizer — who is the president of the Government Accountability Institute, a Breitbart News senior contributor, and the New York Times bestselling author of Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans — stated that if the House TikTok bill passes, ByteDance will make a profit on the sale of TikTok, and the reason they oppose a sale “is they don’t want to give up the control and the access to our kids.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Speaker Johnson Suggests Move to Remove ‘Motion to Vacate’ Rule
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has opened the door to removing the “motion to vacate” rule that led to the historic ouster of his predecessor.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) agreed to lower the threshold to trigger a “motion to vacate” during his marathon battle for the speakership.
The battle saw conservatives withhold their votes in exchange for concessions empowering rank-and-file members.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Suspect Wanted in Fatal Shootings of 3 People Surrenders in New Jersey, Police Say
TRENTON, N.J. (CBS) — A 26-year-old suspect wanted in the shooting deaths of three of his relatives surrendered to authorities in Trenton, New Jersey, officials said Saturday evening. The shootings occurred Saturday morning at two separate homes in nearby Levittown, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.
Trenton police said Andre Gordon Jr. was taken into custody a couple blocks from the home where the standoff had been taking place. Police said he had left the house before the standoff, and officers spotted him.
[…]
SWAT teams had surrounded a home on Phillips Avenue in Trenton where they believed Gordon may be inside with hostages. Trenton police later said all residents who were inside the home had been safely evacuated.
| — Hat tip: LP | [Return to headlines] |
Suspect Who Killed Family Members in Pennsylvania Arrested in New Jersey After Standoff With SWAT
At least three fatalities occurred following two shootings in Falls Township, Pennsylvania, on Saturday morning, and the suspect has been arrested after being barricaded inside a home in New Jersey for hours, initially with hostages, officials say.
Falls Township police responded to a shooting at Viewpoint Lane shortly before 9 a.m. Andre Gordon, 26, broke into the house and shot and killed three family members, including his 52-year-old stepmother, Karen Gordon, and his 13-year-old sister, Kera Gordon, Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn confirmed to NBC News. Multiple others, including a minor, were inside the home and hiding. The suspect then went to a home on Edgewood Lane in Levittown and shot and killed a 25-year-old woman with whom he shares two children.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Target will limit self-checkout to 10 items, claiming the move will improve the customer experience and speed up the process.
The Minneapolis-based retailer joins dozens of other retail chains, including rival Walmart, that have limited or removed self-checkout kiosks amid complaints about clunky technology and concerns about rising theft.
The change will go into effect Sunday at most of the Minneapolis-based chain’s nearly 2,000 stores nationwide, the retail giant said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Vice President Harris Should ‘Step Aside’ for Good of the Country, Washington Post Columnist Says
Vice President Harris should “step aside,” Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker wrote on Friday, as she called the vice president’s performance “disappointing,” and warned she’s become a “burden to the Democratic ticket.”
While she said she was pulling for Harris to succeed, Parker argued her performance “has been disappointing.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Violent Criminal Only Gets Probation After Stabbing 94-Year-Old Woman Several Times in San Francisco
On Friday, San Fransisco man Daniel Caulch was sentenced to just five years probation and a supervision program after being convicted of violently stabbing 94-year-old Chinese and Vietnamese immigrant Anh ‘Peng’ Taylor in June 2021.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Toronto Police Service (TPS) Constable Marco Ricciardi (pictured left) delivered the shocking message as car thefts have soared by 150 percent over six years in Canada ‘s largest city.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
WEF is Dictating Canada’s ‘Climate Change’ Policies, Documents Show
Newly revealed documents show that the globalist World Economic Forum (WEF) has been dictating Canada’s radical “climate change” policies.
Additionally, the docs show that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s far-left government has been paying the WEF with taxpayer money.
The documents were unsealed in response to an Order Paper Question sent by Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Climate Activists Block Roads in Germany — This Time Without Glue
The Last Generation activist group demonstrated again on Saturday with road blockades in several places in Germany in favour of more action on climate change, but unlike previous actions, the participants did not glue themselves to the ground.
Some 130 participants blocked a busy bridge linking Berlin’s Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg districts, the Warschauer Brücke, at midday, police reports said. They repeatedly stood and sat down in both lanes of the road.
In the Bavarian cities of Munich and Regensburg, the police counted 120 and 150 demonstrators respectively at reported and unreported gatherings. There were no major traffic problems in Munich, according to the local police.
Not far from the terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) on the Baltic Sea island of Rügen, 30 activists obstructed traffic on an access road to the Sassnitz ferry harbour, according to the police.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Czech & Slovak Representatives Urge Unity at Bratislava Gathering Amid Tense Bilateral Relations
A recent decision made by the Czech government to cancel intergovernmental negotiations with Slovakia, prompted by differences in approaches to the war in Ukraine—and subsequent accusations from both sides—has undoubtedly jeopardized the historical political proximity of the two neighbors.
These tense relations between the Czech Republic and Slovakia have sparked spirited discussions across both countries. But even amidst diplomatic instability, representatives of both countries found a way to come together at an unofficial diplomatic event organized by The Business Soirée with the support of the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic in the center of Bratislava on the evening of Thursday, March 14th.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
European Commission Reduces EU Environmental Standards
The European Commission has put forth legislative revisions aimed at significantly easing the environmental regulations within the Common Agricultural Policy, following protests from farmers.
In response to European farmers’ demands for reduced administrative burdens, the Commission seeks to maintain environmental and climate ambitions at a high level. Among the proposed measures is the transformation of the nine “good agricultural and environmental conditions” required for accessing agricultural subsidies into voluntary actions, incentivized by potential additional premiums.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Unknown Individuals Staged a Massacre Using Machetes at the Asian Market in Berlin
The evening before, a mass brawl occurred at the Dong Xuan market in the Berlin district of Lichtenberg.
As reported by BILD, two groups of people attacked each other with knives, machetes, and wooden sticks.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
More than 150 police officers participated in the operation. They apprehended dealers and drug users, and also conducted searches in nearby brothels, reports BILD.
The situation in the vicinity of Frankfurt’s train station has been increasingly tense in recent months: homeless people and drug users have been attacking passersby more frequently. American companies operating in Frankfurt even warned their employees to avoid the station and its surrounding area if possible.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
In the UK, the Number of Teenage Arrests Related to Terrorism Has Reached a Record High
Last year, a record number of children, 42 individuals under the age of 17, were arrested for terrorism-related offenses in the UK. This accounts for almost one-fifth of all terrorist arrests, marking a significant increase compared to previous years, reports The Telegraph.
Government advisor Jonathan Hall KC warns of a growing threat of online radicalization, especially among isolated teenagers in extremist online spaces.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Woman, 98, Has Two Pieces of WWII Bomb Removed From Leg
Lina Martelli has surgery in Mantua hospital
A 98-year-old woman had two pieces of shrapnel from a World War Two Allied bomb removed from leg this week after living with the metal fragments since 1944.
Lina Martelli, originally from Gabbiana di Castellucchio near Mantua, was operated on in a Mantua hospital.
“They tried to remove them back then but they couldn’t do it.
I’m better now.
For the rest, it will be as God wills,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Military Hazing in Italy a Thing of the Past — Prosecutor
No significant reports in the last year
Hazing in the Italian armed forces is a thing of the past, Military Prosecutor General Marco De Paolis said at the inauguration of the military judicial year on Friday.
The practice of ritual humiliation or abuse “has, fortunately, long ceased to affect our armed forces”, De Paolis said in his annual report.
“This year, too, no significant data (on hazing) has been reported in any of the Military Prosecution Offices,” he continued.
“This phenomenon, which was widespread in Italian barracks in the 1980s and 1990s, has now ceased to affect the armed forces,” said De Paolis.
Five years ago, in 2019, the prosecutor said the acts of bullying and violence that constitute so-called ‘hazing’ were now primarily against women soldiers.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Climate Activists Protest Against Shell and VDL Nedcar
Climate activists from Extinction Rebellion demonstrate at the access roads to Shell Pernis. They are standing at the intersection of Petroleumweg and Vondelingenweg and the intersection of Vondelingenweg and Botlekweg. A road parallel to the Petroleumweg is also blocked.
XR said it is taking action against Shell because it is “still planning to increase and expand production.” At the same time, Shell is letting the old rigs and pipelines in the North Sea rust away.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Occupy Brussels! Hungary’s Orban Calls for Protests in EU Capital Against War and Globalist Agenda
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has vowed to “occupy Brussels” in the lead-up to the European Parliament elections to protest against EU encroachment on national sovereignty and the push towards war with Russia.
Marking the anniversary of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution in the garden of the National Museum in Budapest on Friday, Prime Minister Orban addressed thousands of supporters, calling for them to join him in protesting the globalist agenda in Brussels.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
‘Open to Abuse’: Brexit’s Farage Sounds the Alarm on UK Govt Crackdown on Extremism
New rules to combat extremism are well-intentioned but extremely flawed and open to abuse, potentially stifling freedom of speech, warns Nigel Farage.
The UK government is introducing new rules to prevent extremists from associating with the government and state bodies, depriving them of funding and legitimacy. But freedom of speech advocates warn while the intentions are noble, the government handing itself a new set of powers risks creating a means for future governments to suppress other ideas in the future.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Polish Farmers Want to Block the Road at the Border With Slovakia Until the End of March
Polish farmers have announced a control blockade on one of the roads between Poland and Slovakia, which they intend to maintain until the end of March, RMF24 reports.
Farmers from nearby villages plan to inspect cargoes at the Slovakia-Poland border near the village of Hizhne and have applied for their protest to the commune in Jabloniec.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Polish Farmers Plan to Block the Border With Germany for Three Days
On Sunday, March 17, Polish farmers intend to block the A12 highway Berlin-Warsaw at the Swiecko border crossing at 13:00 local time and reopen it only at 22:00 on Wednesday evening, Bild writes.
Around 17,000 trucks travel daily along the A12 route between Germany and Poland. If the farmers’ plans are implemented, trucks will have to take a detour of several kilometers.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Record Whooping Cough Outbreak Hits Czech Republic: Over 3,000 Cases Reported
Record numbers of Czechs are falling victim to a widespread outbreak of whooping cough, with over 3,000 cases reported this year, marking the highest incidence since the 1960s, as reported by Insider Paper.
Health officials note that teenagers are the most affected demographic. This week alone, doctors have documented 810 new cases. Despite recovering from the illness himself, Prague’s 80-year-old mayor, Bohuslav Svoboda, faced backlash after attending a political gathering without wearing a face mask, leading to a criminal complaint filed against him by the Green Party for potentially spreading the disease.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A previously private poll found that in the event of a dissolution of the French parliament and snap elections were called, Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally party could win an outright majority in the National Assembly.
In yet another demonstration of the growing popularity of the populist right in France, a survey commissioned by the centrist Les Républicains (LR) in December found that the National Rally (RN) of former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen could win between 243 and 305 seats in the National Assembly in the event snap elections were called.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Since Brexit, More Belgians Have Been Moving to the UK Each Year
Between 2021 and 2023, the United Kingdom ascended to third place among the countries hosting the most Belgians abroad, as per data disclosed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday.
Surpassing Spain, which held the third position from 2017 to 2021, Belgium’s affinity for its neighboring countries remains evident, with France maintaining its lead in the rankings for the past five years (2017-2023), closely trailed by the Netherlands.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Erik Kalinak is a 33-year-old member of the National Council of the Slovak Republic and the vice-chairman of Direct—Slovak Social Democracy (SMER), the party of Prime Minister Robert Fico.
In this interview with Voice of Europe, Kalinak discusses SMER’s recent suspension from The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) European parliamentary grouping, forming new alliances after the upcoming European parliamentary elections, the challenges faced by social democratic parties globally, the evolving political landscape, and the influence of globalist institutions and NGOs in Slovakian politics.
He touches upon bilateral relations with the Czech Republic and the media landscape in Slovakia, highlighting concerns about foreign interests funding mainstream media outlets.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
This was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, Antonio Tajani, according to the Anadolu Agency.
Tajani expressed his view that NATO should refrain from entering Ukraine, considering it a mistake with potential consequences for global conflict.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The European Commission Has Allocated 500 Million Euros to Increase Ammunition Production
The European Commission has announced the allocation of 500 million euros to European companies to expand ammunition production capacities under a scheme that will increase shell deliveries to Ukraine and replenish the stocks of EU countries, according to a statement from the European Commission.
It is expected that with the support of the Ammunition Production Support Act (ASAP) by the end of 2025, Europe will achieve an annual production volume of 2 million units of ammunition.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Scotland Yard Plans to Reduce 60 Murder Detectives in London to Address Budget Deficit
Scotland Yard intends to cut 60 murder detectives from its ranks across London to save millions of pounds, despite the capital’s consistently high murder rate, The Telegraph reports.
Each of the Metropolitan Police’s 20 homicide investigation units will lose three detective constables, reducing the team size from 18 to 15. The aim of this move is to trim £4.2 million, or 10%, from the annual murder department budget, as the police force grapples with a £400 million budget deficit.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A display BYD electric vehicle accelerated, colliding with a glass railing before reversing into a Myer store at Westfield Liverpool Shopping Centre on Saturday.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Protesters campaigning against the controversial Ulez scheme have accused the police of heavy-handedness.
A small protest is taking place against the expansion to the scheme in Enfield in North London.
However, despite the limited numbers to the demonstration, there were five police officers in attendance at the event.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
‘Weimar Triangle’ Looks to Global Market for Arms-Depleted Ukraine
With Ukraine’s military strapped for weapons and manpower and close to crumbling in the face of the Russian onslaught, the leaders of Germany, France, and Poland held a crisis meeting in Berlin on Friday to determine how best to continue lending the country much-needed military aid.
At German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s last-minute invitation, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled to the German Chancellery.
The three major European powers make up the so-called ‘Weimar Triangle,’ a regional alliance created in 1991 in the German city of Weimar following the break-up of the Soviet Union. Strained relations with the previous Polish government, under the Rightist Law and Justice party, had led to the format lying relatively dormant for a few years.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Once a thriving holiday destination on the Irish sea, Blackpool has become yet another struggling coastal community
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Israel’s Strategic Game of Survival
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s obscene call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ouster from power on the Senate floor on Thursday was the latest sign that Hamas’s strategy is working. On the “Caroline Glick Show” this week, U.S. Military Academy professor Col. John Spencer, who chairs West Point’s Urban Warfare Studies Program, explained that the terrorist organization’s goal for victory is a concerted political-military strategy.
Hamas, he said, knew that Israeli Defense Forces would respond with force to its Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel. “They wanted Israel’s counterattack, and then they wanted to hold in the tunnels and use the hostages just to buy time for the international community—namely, the United States—to stop the IDF in their operations.”
“Their only goal is to survive. … It’s all about time. They want to survive Israel’s attack against them, which gives them immense political power. If they survive in any way, they have strategically won the war,” said Spencer.
Hamas didn’t invent this strategy. This has been the Palestinians’ strategy for defeating Israel since at least the 1982 war in Lebanon. In that war, the PLO relied on the United States to force Israel to permit the PLO to survive to fight another day, by evacuating to Tunisia.
The Palestinians clearly identified Israel’s greatest strategic vulnerabilities and built their strategy around them. Its first vulnerability is its Jewishness. Israel is the Jew of the international community. As such, it is continuously scapegoated, just as Jews have been scapegoated throughout history. The United States is the only powerful nation that has ever been willing to stand up to international bigotry against the Jewish state. So the only thing needed to collapse Israel’s international position is for America to turn against Israel.
This goes double for military capabilities. Since 1973, Israel’s ability to maintain its war effort militarily has dependent on the U.S. resupply of arms during the course of war. By the Palestinians’ line of reasoning, if their many friends could convince Washington not to supply Israel with weapons in wartime, then they will survive.
Since all the Palestinians need to do to win is survive, their strategic aces in the hole are antisemitism and time.
Today, all aspects of U.S. policy regarding the Hamas war against Israel in Gaza and the larger Iranian-directed war to destroy the Jewish state are aligned with the Palestinian strategy…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Tanker in Red Sea Attacked, 2 Explosions Reported, Security Firm Says
CAIRO — A Marshall Islands-flagged liquefied petroleum gas tanker reported two explosions near the ship as it traveled off the coast of Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah, the third merchant vessel attack of the past 48 hours, British security firm Ambrey said Friday.
The master of a merchant vessel located in a similar area reported an explosion a distance off the vessel’s starboard beam, according to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. Reuters was not immediately able to verify whether the same ship was the subject of the two reports.
Iran-aligned Houthi militants in Yemen have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against international commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since mid-November in professed solidarity with Palestinians against Israel’s war in Gaza.
| — Hat tip: McN | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Reports Multiple Attacks From Ukraine During Presidential Election
(AP) — Ukrainian shelling of the Russian city of Belgorod killed two people, officials said Saturday, while Russia claimed to have thwarted a new attempt by saboteurs to cross the border.
Saturday’s attacks occurred as Russians entered the second day of voting in a presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s rule by another six years after he crushed dissent.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Armenia to Sign New Cooperation Document With European Union
Armenia is developing a new document for cooperation with the European Union, with plans for its signing in July. This was announced by Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannisyan, as quoted by the Armenpress agency.
He explained that new areas of cooperation and programs are currently being developed following an exploratory mission conducted in November of last year.
Additionally, the Deputy Minister stated that the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement between Armenia and the EU is being implemented.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Uma Das | HENB | Dhaka | March 15, 2024:: Jihadi miscreants attacked a Hindu restaurant in front of Osmani Medical College Hospital in the city of Sylhet situated in north-eastern Bangladesh. Besides vandalizing the restaurant, they also beat and fatally injured the owner of the restaurant, Rajeev Kumar De Raju.
On Friday (March 15) evening, just before Iftar, the attack took place at ‘Tinbai Restaurant’ in front of gate number one of Osmani Hospital. Raju, who was injured in the attack, was admitted to Osmani Hospital. Witnesses said the fanatic Muslim assailants hit him on the head with sharp weapons, causing profuse bleeding. Sources said, 18 stitches had to be given to the head of Raju.
A friend of Raju who was engaged in the restaurant told HENB, considering the Hindu patients and their relatives who came to the hospital, Raju kept the restaurant open even during the day in the month of Ramadan. However, to avoid any inconvenience to the Muslims doing Roza, they used to sell food to Hindu customers only by covering it with a curtain.
On the behalf of the victim it is complained that some Muslim people of the locality came to the restaurant two days ago to keep it open during the day and harassed him and demanded money. But he did not agree to pay the subscription. Then on Friday evening they came back to the restaurant. At that time Raju was selling some iftar food items.
When the frenzy Muslim mob came, they said that iftar items cannot be sold in Hindu hotels. When I objected to their words, there was an argument. At one stage they attacked the Restaurant owner and his employees. The mob vandalized the Hindu restaurant with lethal weapons. When Raju tried to stop them, they beat him and the restaurant employees.
The attack was carried out under the leadership of a local named Sohel Hasan, a person connected with Tableeg e Jamat, as reported. An injured Raju said, “They broke my cash box and took money.”
In this regard, Kotwali Model Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Mohammad Mainuddin Shipon said that the police visited the scene after receiving information about the attack. However, it is not known what caused the incident. “The restaurant authorities have not filed any complaint so far”, Shipon added.
The condition of Raju is now stable. Such, Islamist upsurge during Ramadan in Bangladesh has been condemned by various rights organisations in the country.
Bangladesh is shaping fast as a Sharia State depriving the religious rights of the minorities in the Constitutionally ‘Islamic State’.
Attack on Hindus and other religious minorities is a routine work to frighten them from driving out from Bangladesh. The Administration, Police. Judiciary, Political parties…. all are reluctant to protect the minority rights in Islamic Bangladesh, even under shocking persecution on them.
Muslims are the most intolerant creature against peaceful co-existence.
| — Hat tip: Upananda Brahmachari | [Return to headlines] |
Researchers from Australia and Arizona used a risk analysis tool to determine the chances that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was of ‘unnatural’ origin.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Climate Protestors Arrested During Melbourne CBD Blockade
Climate change protesters have been arrested in Melbourne’s CBD after staging a sit-in blockade of Flinders Street Station.
A week of protests on Melbourne’s streets culminated with a march this afternoon, with the group demanding the federal government declare a climate emergency.
There was a strong police presence as a group of protestors sat in a circle in the middle of the tram tracks around 4pm.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A plunge in home approvals has cast serious doubt over the federal government’s ambitious plan to build 1.2million homes in five years.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
23 Migrants From Ocean Viking Land at Catania
Twenty-three migrants from the Sos Medtirranee rescue NGO Ocean Viking were disembarked in Catania as a precautionary measure and the ship continued on to Ancona, the port initially assigned, with on board 359 shipwrecked migrants.
They were saved during four rescues carried out by the humanitarian ship of the NGO: 265 men, 31 women, 20 accompanied minors with their families and 43 unaccompanied minors.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Alireza Panahi, 23, peered from his vantage point on the White Cliffs of Dover as he plotted how to escape Britain and its broken asylum system.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
DeSantis Strengthens Penalties for Illegal Immigrants Caught Living in Florida
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed two major bills into law on Friday that strengthen penalties for illegal immigrants caught living in Florida if they are convicted of other crimes.
The new laws extend the possible prison sentences and punishments for illegal immigrants who are caught driving without a license and immigrants convicted of felonies after having been previously deported from the country for illegal entry.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A New York nurse who was battered by a patient has slammed the city’s ‘soft on crime’ policies after learning that the suspect is an illegal migrant who has 65 arrests to his name.
Edward Johnson, 57, was granted supervised release two days after assaulting nurse Chelsea Mora, 32, in a series of attacks on female medical staff dating back to 2019.
She was left with bleeding in her eye and PTSD after he launched himself at her in January while she was taking his blood pressure at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New: Leader of Human Smuggling Ring Admits to Bringing Over 1,000 Illegal Immigrants Into Phoenix
The leader of a human trafficking ring who was sentenced to prison has confessed to smuggling over 1,000 illegal immigrants across the southern border into Phoenix, Arizona, highlighting the ongoing crisis of illegal immigration plaguing states along the southern border.
Martin Garcia-Velazquez, also known as “Tucan,” was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal aliens for profit, according to the US District Attorney’s office in Arizona. In addition to his prison term, the Mexican national was sentenced to 35 months of supervised release and ordered to pay a mandatory special assessment of $5,000.
During his admission, Garcia-Velazquez revealed that he orchestrated the transportation of illegal immigrants from the Mexico border to various houses in and around Phoenix, implicating himself as a key player in the illicit human trafficking operation.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
NYC Receives $106 Million in Federal Tax Dollars to Cover Migrant Costs
New York City has just received $106 million in federal taxpayer money as a “reimbursement” for soaring illegal migrant costs.
The massive payout was announced by Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in a post on X.
“NYC will receive a fresh $106M from feds to reimbursement for migrant costs,” Schumer wrote.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands of Migrants Are Entering Germany Through Greece
German authorities intend to tighten measures against illegal migrants and the growing number of asylum seekers. At the same time, an increasing number of refugees are entering the territory of the FRG through Greece thanks to a legal loophole.
Experts refer to this scheme as the “Greek trick”: migrants, upon reaching Greece, apply for asylum there, after which they receive a document from the Greek authorities allowing them to freely travel within the Schengen area for 90 days. Subsequently, refugees legally arrive in Germany (a one-way ticket from Athens to Berlin on EasyJet costs from 68 euros) and apply for asylum here.
According to BILD data, by mid-March this year, more than 3,100 refugees (mostly from Afghanistan) had been registered at German airports arriving from Greece.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Former President Trump visited Ohio on Saturday, where he barnstormed for businessman Bernie Moreno, a Republican seeking to win his state’s primary to run against Democrat Sherrod Brown for U.S. Senate.
During his rally in Dayton, Trump repeatedly mentioned illegal migrants surging across the border, violent migrant crime, and the death of University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A woman from Alaska had her gym membership canceled after encountering a queer man shaving in the female bathroom at Planet Fitness.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
How a Handful of Billionaires Created the Transgender ‘Movement’: An Interview With Jennifer Bilek
Ifirst came across investigative journalist Jennifer Bilek’s work in 2020, when her essay “The Billionaires Behind the LGBT Movement” was published in First Things. It was a stunning piece—there are several journalists committed to exposing the transgender ‘movement’ (or industry, as Bilek calls it), but nobody has peeled away the façade of civil rights, pink-and-blue flags, and ‘trans kids’ like Bilek. If we had a mainstream press truly committed to uncovering and reporting the truth about the forces driving our culture today, her work would be cited by them across the board.
Bilek is an artist, activist, and investigative journalist based out of New York City, and her work has been published in Tablet Magazine, The Federalist, The Post Millennial, and elsewhere. Bilek spent her life on the Left, but now she says that she is in the “political wilderness,” reporting on the biggest cultural story of our day while progressives ignore it or cover it up. Bilek also runs the Substack Jennifer’s Newsletter and the blog The 11th Hour, where she explains her focus:
I write at the intersection of humanity, technology, and runaway capitalism. At this intersection stands transgenderism, what I believe is a glamorous ad campaign generated by elites, invested in tech and pharma, to normalize the changing of human biology.
Bilek is doing something that journalists used to do instinctively: following the money. What she has uncovered is a bombshell that reveals the extent to which the transgender phenomenon has been created by super-wealthy LGBT donors who have a dark and sinister agenda. Her journalism supplies the missing pieces needed to complete the picture of how and why the transgender movement so swiftly achieved cultural dominance. Bilek kindly agreed to an interview in which she shared what she has uncovered thus far.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Londoners Slam Latest Woke Sculpture: ‘Hideous Political Trash’
The latest “contemporary” sculpture to be unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square has sparked an uproar, with critics slamming the cartoonish figure as “hideous political trash.”
The square has been home to many art installations over the decades, with the Fourth Plinth featuring a rotating cast of artworks every few years since 1999. Detractors aren’t surprised that the sculpture has been changed, but that the latest replacement doesn’t appear to represent native Londoners.
Lady in Blue is a sculpture of a black woman with abstract proportions, including strangely long arms and very pronounced buttocks and legs. Artist Tschabalala Self said the piece pays “homage to a young, metropolitan woman of color” in a statement obtained by the Art Newspaper.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The list of supporters and promoters of the implementation of digital IDs, strongly criticized by privacy and security advocates, quite unsurprisingly includes the likes of the World Bank and Verizon.
What is interesting is the way they are explaining the push, and also how they propose to make mass, worldwide adoption of digital IDs a reality. There’s also a corporate-speak cliche-in-the-making for all this: “digital transformation journey.”
The pairing that is the World Bank and Verizon makes sense because in order to have people’s identities and financial assets centralized in the way proposed by various digital ID schemes, they need to first have access to the internet.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Doctors across the globe are sounding the alarm over the epidemic of young people being diagnosed with cancers more commonly associated with the elderly.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
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This is no reply to the News Feed – this is a standalone contribution
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Sunday Chronicle by Karl-Olov Arnstberg
Ukrainian nationalism
Published on 17 March, 2024
When the Pope said on 10 March this year that Ukraine should have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate to save lives, Ukrainian social media was filled with outraged protests. A rector in Kiev asked if the Pope was just ignorant or a cynical coup plotter. Mr Zelensky thanked Ukrainian military chaplains for assisting the army with both prayers and concrete actions.
Ukraine is fighting bravely for its survival and has the support of the entire Western world. In the fight between David and Goliath, Goliath must not win.
Media propaganda portrays Ukraine as a country that, while not yet fully meeting the requirements of NATO and the EU, was well on its way when Russia invaded the country just over two years ago.
The war is portrayed as a struggle between Ukraine, which wants to become a modern European country, and an imperialist Russia that would rather destroy Ukraine than let it join the EU and NATO.
* * * * * * * *
I would like to tell a different story about Ukraine, based on the French anthropologist and historian Emmanuel Todd’s painful book “La défaite de L’occident”
(The Defeat of the West; thanks Ingvar for the translation into Swedish!). He sees the war in Ukraine as the result of a failed Ukrainian nationalisation.
Twenty years ago we could read one of Todd’s books in Swedish: Låtsasimperiet. On the disintegration of the American system.
In it, he argues that instead of being a global role model, the US is staging a theatrical militarism to scare the world into obedience. Although he doesn’t time it, in that book he also predicts the US financial crisis of 2008.
Probably I should start in 1917 when a short-lived Ukrainian People’s Republic was formed, but only five years later it became a Soviet republic.
Ukrainian nationalism, which burst into full bloom after the 2014 Maidan coup, has its roots in Nazism. Its biggest name is Stephen Bandera. His OUN party collaborated with Nazi Germany and, after the invasion of Poland, participated in the persecution of Jews, ethnic cleansing and pogroms. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Bandera declared an independent Ukrainian state. This was too much for the Germans and the Gestapo arrested him. He was imprisoned when his party took part in the massacre of Poles. Up to 60 000 unarmed men, women and children were killed in Volynia in the spring and summer of 1943.
Bandera and his party dreamed of an ethnically pure Ukraine with a single ruling party. Jews, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Roma and other minorities would not be allowed to exist in Bandera’s Ukraine. In 1959 he was murdered in Munich by KGB agents.
Every year, on New Year’s Day, Ukrainian nationalists march and celebrate their idol. For the centenary of Bandera’s birth in 2009, a stamp was printed with his portrait. The following year, Bandera was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine by then President Viktor Yushchenko. It was controversial. In Russian-speaking eastern and southern Ukraine, Bandera is seen not as a liberation hero but as the fascist leader and Nazi collaborator he was, guilty of the mass murder of Poles and Jews during World War II.
When Zelensky ran for president of Ukraine in 2019, he said in a radio interview that Bandera was a hero.
He said the same thing three years later about the 25-year-old battalion commander known as Da Vinci. He was the hero of Ukraine.
Da Vinci had a pet wolf and liked to joke with visiting reporters that his soldiers feed it the bones of Russian-speaking children. When Da Vinci was killed in the Battle of Bakhmut, he was honoured with a state funeral.
AlsoFinnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin attended the funeral of this right-wing extremist and Nazi. She probably did not know who he was. Knowing what you are doing is not a high priority among top Nordic politicians.
Western Ukraine has its historical roots in Austria-Hungary and Poland. In the west is the fertile black soil and the majority are farmers. Lviv (German Lemberg) is its largest urban centre, with an ultra-nationalist elite. They were forced into the Soviet Union when the borders were redrawn after World War II. Ukraine got its current borders in the mid-1950s when Crimea became part of the country. This was not an important border change because Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The reason I mention it at all is because it created a country in which two major ethnic groups have gradually become increasingly antagonistic – the Ukrainians and the Russians.
to be continued
Bandera is in no way connected with that Ukraine, which was quite organically connected with the Russian Empire and the USSR.
Are you aware that most of the USSR Politburo came from Ukraine? If you read Russian classics from the times of the Russian Empire, you will notice that Ukrainians were treated very kindly. They were loved, they had what the Russians lacked – soft melodiousness.
Bandera – refers to that part of the Ukrainian people that was under the control of Poland. The Poles squeamishly considered Ukrainians “rural cattle.”
And then Bandera was imposed on Eastern Ukrainians as part of their identity…
Part 2
The end of the Soviet Union was followed by a decade of disaster for both Russia and Ukraine. When Putin came to power in 1999, Russia began to recover.
Ukraine fared worse. The country was dominated by oligarchs and corruption reached extreme levels. Todd highlights that Ukraine became the promised land of cheap surrogacy. Everything seemed to be for sale.
Between 1991 and 2021, Ukraine lost about 20 per cent of its population. This was partly due to Ukraine’s very low birth rate, but emigration played a larger role. The demographic pattern is that Russians moved to Russia and ethnic Ukrainians to the west. Jews, who formed a significant part of the middle class, moved to Israel. Their higher level of education is based on a religion that has always considered education to be of crucial importance. In Ukraine, Jews spoke Russian and Yiddish. Ukrainian was the language of the peasants. In 1970 there were about 800 000 Jews in Ukraine. In 2010 there were about 70 000.
It is not known how many citizens remain in Ukraine today, nor how many have died and been injured in the war. Another fateful question is how many people want to stay and rebuild the country after the war. With between twelve and nineteen banned political parties, Ukraine is now not even an embryo of liberal democracy. The state budget is no longer tax-funded but is subsidised by the West. Ukraine is what the academic literature calls a failed state. The Western media’s uncritical praise of Ukraine has no basis in reality.
The existence of a Russian and a Ukrainian Ukraine can be seen with astonishing clarity in the distribution of votes in the 2010 elections. Western and central Ukraine voted Ukrainian, for Poroshenko. In the south and east, residents voted Russian, for Yanukovych, with a vote of around 90 per cent, lowest in Crimea where he received 78.24 per cent. In the western provinces of Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk, Yanukovych received an average of only 8 per cent of the vote. Despite the fact that the oligarchs who owned the TV channels correctly claimed that Yanukovych was both corrupt and megalomaniacal, he became president.
Between Ukrainian and Russian Ukraine is a central Ukraine, including the capital Kiev. According to Todd, this is not a place for state-building but the place where central power collapses. This is where the economic and political manipulations of the oligarchs took place before the war. It was here that the Orange Revolution and the Maidan coup took place. Todd describes central Ukraine as anarchist.
The 2014 Maidan coup witnessed the true birth of the Ukrainian nation, targeting the Russophile part of the country.
Russia responded by taking back Crimea. A civil war broke out in Donbas between separatists, backed by Russia, and hardline Ukrainian nationalists, with openly Nazi elements. The conflict evolved into trench warfare.
By February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, some 14 000 people had lost their lives: 6 500 pro-Russian separatists, 4 400 Ukrainian soldiers and 3 400 civilians on both sides of the front line.
In those seven years, between the Maidan coup and the Russian invasion, Ukraine, with US and NATO assistance, built up an army of over half a million soldiers and officers. They were trained by NATO and the CIA and equipped with modern weapons.
It was clear that Ukraine wanted to recapture Crimea and the Donbas, but also that they wanted to get rid of everything Russian in Ukraine. The choice for ethnic Russians was between being nationalised as Ukrainians and leaving the country.
In Ukraine, it was the Russians and Jews who were well-educated, urban and high culture. The real urban centres are in the east. Besides Kiev, the largest cities in Ukraine at the time of independence were Odessa, Dnipro, Donetsk and Kharkiv, all in the southern and eastern regions, which are also the regions with the largest Russian-speaking population.
At the highest levels of society and administration, Russian was the dominant language. Russian was also the cultural language of Ukraine, on the same level as German, French or English. Ukrainian as a cultural language is more comparable to Flemish.
Zelensky’s government, which was originally Russian-speaking, is constantly escalating the culture war. In recent years, it has adopted increasingly harsh nationalising laws. Since 2022 and the start of the war, it is forbidden to study Russian writers in school, academics who use Russian in their teaching can be fired. Officials who are almost obliged to use Russian risk being fined. On the initiative of Mr Zelensky, the parliament has just introduced a law requiring Ukrainian civil servants to be proficient in English. But not Russian.
–
Today, eastern and southern Ukraine has been abandoned by its middle class and, where the country is not occupied by the Russian army, it is a society that no longer functions.
Todd describes it as anomic, that is, a society without rules and without norms. He argues that it is hardly surprising that nationalisation failed. The birth of a nation state requires a common culture and a common language. It is not enough to have farmers and an activist power elite; a middle class concentrated in the cities is necessary. This is what connects the
ruling elite to the people.
Todd writes:
In the history of human societies, the middle class, together with other groups, forms an urban network. It is thanks to a concrete urban hierarchy, populated by an educated and differentiated middle class, that the state, the nervous system of the nation, can emerge.
Moscow asked for three things to cancel the invasion. Firstly, the retention of Crimea, which is strategically important for the security of its navy and even its existence in the Black Sea; secondly, an acceptable situation for the Russian population in the Donbas; and thirdly, neutral status for Ukraine.
A Ukrainian nation that was certain of its existence and destiny in Western Europe would have accepted these conditions. More than that, it would even be grateful to be rid of Crimea and the Donbas.
Ukraine could have let the Russian regions break away from the country and concentrated on building a Ukrainian nation-state, recognised by all. Instead, they continue the war to recapture Crimea and Donbas.
This is strange. Nationalisation is about getting rid of everything Russian! But instead of letting go of the Russian Ukraine, which they don’t want and would rather belong to Russia, Ukraine chooses to commit suicide.
Todd’s explanation is that the Ukrainians really want to remain tied to Russia. Recapturing the Donbas and Crimea is, in a way, continuing to be Russian.
To support his surprising hypothesis, Todd cites the former East Germany and Hungary. In East Germany, some nostalgia for communism is still evident among a minority of the population, and support for Ukraine is weaker than elsewhere in the Federal Republic.
Hungary, under the leadership of Viktor Orbán, is hostile to the EU’s pro-Ukrainian stance and intends to continue cooperating with Russia. Yet it is these two countries that more than any others fought against Russia during the period of Soviet domination: in 1953 in East Germany with massive strikes; in 1956 in Hungary with a revolution that the Red Army drowned in blood.
When the East Germans fled the GDR, they were helped by Hungary, which had opened its border with Austria. Thus, Russian domination of the sphere was over. It is puzzling that these two regions or countries are now the least hostile to Russia.
It’s an interesting line of thought, but to me the most likely explanation for Ukraine even criminalising negotiations with Russia is that the US says no.
Ukraine is governed by a military and police organisation financed by Washington and the US vassal states – including Sweden – and the EU.
If they withdraw their financial support, Ukraine will go bankrupt within a few weeks.
What will happen next, no one knows. And Zelensky knows it.
Karl-Olov Arnstberg
***
from Swedish by LN
All texts are © on this blog. It is allowed to distribute the texts provided that you always link to the source here on the blog.
https://morklaggning.wordpress.com/2024/03/17/sondagskronika-ukrainsk-nationalism/
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Afterword, in Swedish
Professor Karl-Olov Arnstberg’s response to the elite’s warmongering
debate article in SvD – (SE Left Daily).
https://swebbtube.se/w/2UMD2DW18Bz3ujG1syZSqL
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VERITAS?
The Swedish professor:
I was fired from Harvard for criticizing the compulsory vaccine
Published March 15, 2024 in Fria Tider
The Swedish epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University since 2003, now states that he “got fired” from the prestigious institution. The reason is said to be that he criticized the vaccination compulsion and the protracted lockdown policy during the pandemic.
“I am no longer a professor of medicine at Harvard,” writes Martin Kulldorff in a long article in the City Journal.
“Harvard’s motto is veritas, Latin for truth. But what I discovered is that the truth can get you fired,” he notes.
Kulldorff was a prominent opponent of forced vaccination and school closures during the corona pandemic. Along with other professors, he released the so-called Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, which argued for age-focused protection instead of universal shutdowns. The focus would be on protecting the elderly while younger people would be allowed to live their lives almost as usual.
This led to him making many enemies. He and the other professors were attacked for refusing to agree that the restrictions were a science-based measure, according to Kulldorff.
“The declaration made it clear that there was no scientific consensus for closing schools and many other lockdown measures. In response, however, the attacks intensified – and even became defamatory,” writes the professor in the City Journal.
In fact, these measures taken were “unscientific and unethical”, according to Martin Kulldorff, who instead advocates natural immunity against covid-19 and other diseases.
“The beauty of our immune system is that those who recover from an infection have protection if and when they are re-exposed,” he explains.
Kulldorff concludes that while most of Harvard’s staff still “diligently pursue truth in a variety of fields,” truth “has not been the guiding principle of Harvard’s management.”
“Nor have academic freedom, intellectual curiosity, independence from outside forces, or concern for ordinary people guided their decisions,” he adds.
The Swedish professor states that Harvard must return to “academic freedom” and stop the “cancellation culture” if it wishes to “earn and regain public trust.”
“When scholars have differing opinions on topics of public importance, universities should organize open and civilized debates in pursuit of the truth,” he writes.
“Harvard could have done it—and they still can, if they want to.”
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This is no reply to the News Feed – this is a standalone contribution
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ISLAM AND WIND POWER – equally hostile to life,
equally destructive, neither belongs in the human
environment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Study shows: Wind turbines can be major environmental offenders
Published 2024-03-16 in Samnytt
Wind power is marketed as the climate and environmentally friendly energy option. However, there is a growing body of evidence that this is a truth with major modifications. A new study has now been published which, in addition to what is already known, indicates that wind power is associated with pollution in the form of high levels of hazardous substances around wind farms.
The yet-to-be-published study almost didn’t see the light of day. Strong political and economic forces do not want the image of wind power as the environmentally and climate-friendly alternative to produce electricity to be tarnished by further negative publicity.
As a result, pressure was applied to withdraw funding for the study. However, the researchers at the Universities of Gothenburg and Linköping managed to find money elsewhere and the study is now complete. And its contents reveal why some were prepared to go to great lengths to stop it.
The list of disadvantages of wind power is long
Wildlife damage has been reported in the past; birds – including protected eagles – are decapitated by rotor blades. Marine life is disturbed by offshore wind turbines.
Worn-out rotor blades cannot be recycled and accumulate in large scrap yards without anyone knowing how to dispose of them. Nature and recreational values are destroyed in the vicinity of wind farms, so that the tourism industry is affected and other outdoor activities cannot be practised.
The local environment is destroyed for residents by the noise of the wind turbines. Those trying to move away find that the market value of their houses has dropped dramatically. And so on.
In addition, wind turbines have low reliability and only produce electricity when the wind is blowing. When there is too much wind, they produce too much electricity instead, which is also a problem, and wind operators are then offered tax money to switch off turbines. Storing wind-generated electricity is not possible today or in the foreseeable future.
Now the list of poisoning of flora and fauna is expanding
The new study adds new disadvantages to the list. They are also of an uncomfortable nature, as they involve the pollution and poisoning of nature on land and in waterways, pollutants that can find their way into the food chains of animals and humans.
The findings are so serious and numerous that the researchers behind the study wonder why this has not been investigated before. The answer may lie in the fact that neither the wind power industry nor the various players in the green political movement have wanted to find out what the situation is.
The researchers have found that dangerous particles from wind turbine blades are probably an environmental problem that other researchers and authorities have chosen to underestimate. Helen Karlsson is an adjunct assistant professor of occupational and environmental medicine at Linköping University and one of the initiators of the study.
She says that she became interested in the issue of erosion from wind turbine blades when she realised that there were discrepancies between the wind power industry’s figures and other calculations. Initially, she and her colleagues did not believe that they would find as many rotor blade fragments as they did.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency tried to stop the critical study
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency is an authority that is officially supposed to be neutral but often acts as a party in climate and environment-related political debates. It is clearly in favour of wind power and reports accordingly. It has distributed a lot of money to research projects that support the agency’s line, but the application for money for the current and potentially uncomfortable study was flatly rejected and it also tried to discredit the well-reputed researchers in the field as frivolous.
In this context, the Authority’s website states that the “few existing measurements and scientific studies do not show that wind turbines are an important source of microplastic emissions”. While the wording should be perceived as reassuring, on slower reading it recognises both that almost no studies have been carried out and that the extent of the emissions is not known at all.
In addition to Helen Karlsson, the research team also includes physicist Karin Mattsson and Professor Joachim Sturve. Both are active at the University of Gothenburg.
continuation follows
Part 2
More toxins and microplastics than expected
The trio say they were surprised by the amount of erosion fragments found when they investigated the area around one of Sweden’s largest wind farms. This is contrary to the information available so far, which the researchers find strange and give the authorities a failing grade, considering the size of the budget for wind power research.
The trio of researchers have found no less than 50 different chemicals in the particles collected from soil, water and plants around the large wind farm. The likelihood is high that they originate from the wind turbines and this needs to be better substantiated, the researchers say, given the aggressive further expansion of wind power that is planned.
Inconvenient wind power study suppressed
This is information and concerns that the climate movement does not want to reach the general public. They are already struggling with increasing wind power scepticism among the electorate and if it increases further, it may result in further changes to energy policy at the ballot box. The current Tidö government has already altered the balance of the energy mix by opening the door to re-investment in nuclear power.
Within the climate movement, there are several previous examples of attempts to suppress research results that have not turned out as hoped. The green organisation Vindval chose to lock up a study in 2017 that demonstrated major disruptions to reindeer husbandry by reindeer fleeing areas with wind turbines instead of publishing it. It was eventually leaked anyway after a complaint to the Ombudsman. There are more examples.
Want to conduct a follow-up in-depth study
The researchers behind the current study on toxic and dangerous emissions from wind turbines state that they want to follow it up with in-depth analyses to determine the extent of the environmental problem. In 2019, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency produced a report on the release of microplastics into the environment. It chose to look at a number of potential sources but refrained from looking at whether wind farms could be one of them.
This oversight has been criticised by Madeleine Staaf Kura, an enthusiastic member of the association Motvind Sverige, which organises an increasing number of Swedes who are tired of land and water being filled with ever larger and more densely placed volumes of propellers on pillars.
Staaf has proposed that all rotor blades should be weighed when they are new and then again when they are worn out. This would give a fairly good estimate of how much material has been loosened and worn away and ended up in the environment. The call has so far fallen on deaf ears.
Banned toxins in rotor blades
The importance of finding out about this is reinforced by the fact that the now banned endocrine disrupting PFAS substances have been found in some rotor blades, mainly of older models. Large quantities of such rotor blades are stored in various locations, waiting for the problem of how to safely destroy them to be resolved. Toxic bisphenol A is another substance that has been found in rotor blades, although not in huge quantities.
The Swedish Chemicals Agency (Kemikalieinspektionen) recognises that there are major gaps in knowledge about the nature and quantity of hazardous substances in wind turbine rotor blades and how much of this ends up in nature and the food chain. However, it chooses to believe that this is not a major problem rather than apply the precautionary principle and advise against further massive expansion of wind power until more is known.
video
https://youtu.be/wk9URPZ-BOk
Author of the text
Mats Dagerlind
https://samnytt.nu/studie-visar-vindkraftverk-kan-vara-stora-miljobovar
Re: “According to a recent poll, if snap elections were called today, Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally party could win an outright majority in the French National Assembly.”
Elections no longer matter. That is the message being sent by the ruling class to ordinary people not just in Europe, but across the West.
Geert Wilders won election as Prime Minister of Holland, in part on a nationalist, populist and anti-globalist platform, and he is not being allowed to assume office. One barrier after another is being thrown into his way. And if/when he finally makes it into the office, he will not be allowed to government;they will stymie him there as well.
The template is the same as that which will be used to derail Marine Le Pen, plus or minus a few modifications here-and-there.
As Conan Doyle’s great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes would say, “The plot thickens..”
“Elections no longer matter. That is the message being sent by the ruling class to ordinary people not just in Europe, but across the West.”
“When disparate groups within a civilization no longer share a foundational understanding of what constitutes morality, chaos and decline become unavoidable. This, for the first time since the foundation of the United States of America, is where we are today.” —posted to fb (Nov 2018)
“Prediction: I believe there’s an international movement—which may become violent—that’s quietly intensifying AGAINST commie-toddlerism (aka socialism, fascism, Marxism, et al) and its practitioners (aka elites, sophisticates, the leftist ruling classes, et al). I believe my previous predictions of a Bosnian-style civil war in the US may’ve been too myopic, therefore missing the wider (i.e., global) scope of swelling outrage.” —posted to fb (Sept 2022)
Just sayin’…again.
The amount of ethnic cleansing will make Bosnia look like childs play in comparison. You can bet the farm on it. There is a movement in the shadows plotting, planning and watching as all our western countries turn to merde. These are the hard ruthless strong men the left is absolutely terrified of, and they waiting for the right moment to unleash hell.
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March 11TH, ANNO DOMINO 2024
Election day in Russia, Putte was re-elected with 87%,
the EU’s new AI rules and the force of change that will
prepare Trump to take power…