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Russian regrouping in Kharkov will speed up Battle of Donbass

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The New York Times has disclosed that the US shared vital intelligence with the Ukrainian military and took part in the preparation of the latter’s current “counteroffensive” near Kharkov. No matter the Biden Administration’s motivations in publicising its role in what western media is celebrating as a success story — presumably, with an eye on domestic politics in America — it could be factually correct. The media leak puts the dramatic happenings in the past 3-4 days in proper perspective. 

There are two ways of looking at the surge by the Ukrainian military: one, Kiev has inflicted a heavy defeat on the Russians and forced them to retreat, or, the American intelligence finally got wind of the unobtrusive thinning out of the Russian frontline in Kharkov that had been going on in the recent weeks as part of a larger re-deployment of military formations, and shared the intelligence with Kiev, who of course gleefully acted on it. 

The New York Times report effectively confirms the latter reading of the situation, which has been the stuff of hearsay and whispers so far. 

Indeed, there has been hardly any fighting as such in Kharkov region during this Ukrainian surge, and the Russian focus was, unsurprisingly, to pull out the residual forces in the frontline under the cover of heavy artillery fire. The Russian operation ensured that there was no significant casualty. The new frontline that was being steadily put together in the recent weeks (or months) along the Oskol River has crystallised.
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Never Let A Good Crisis Go to Waste

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It is astonishing how many observers of war in Ukraine who should know better have been inclined to take at face value the assertions of “sources” that clearly originate among the various governments that are involved in the conflict. Those leaders who are engaged in the inexorable march by the US and its allies to turn the Ukraine crisis into World War 3 surely have learned the lesson that managing the narrative of what is taking place is the greatest weapon that the war hawks have in their possession. One recalls how post-9/11 and leading up to the Iraq War the George W. Bush White House and the neocons in the Pentagon lied about nearly everything to convince the public that Saddam Hussein was a terrorist supporting megalomaniac armed with weapons of mass destruction, inevitably describing him as a man in some ways comparable to Adolf Hitler. Nevertheless, many observers of what was occurring were not fooled and there were large scale demonstrations in a number of cities prior to the invasion in March 2003, which, of course, were rarely reported in the mainstream media in order to control the message.

Iraq in some ways was a learning experience for those in government and also for those in the media who did the heavy lifting by propagating the deception to a largely unsuspecting public. What we are seeing now relating to Ukraine and Russia, however, makes the Iraq experience look like child’s play in terms of the sheer audacity of the alleged information that makes it, or does not make it, into the news. I note particularly the recent terrorist car bombing of Russian activist journalist Darya Dugina by a Ukrainian assassin made the news for roughly forty-eight hours before disappearing, but not before the lie that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was responsible was firmly planted in a number of places in the mainstream media.
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Senator Mark Warner: Jan. 6th Protesters Like 9/11 Terrorists!

US Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said on Face the Nation yesterday that the Jan 6th protesters were insurrectionists who attacked "our democracy" just like the 9/11 attackers 21 years ago. Will the families of the 9/11 victims have something to say about this? Also today: Trump allies continue to be rounded up as Biden's DoJ declares war on half the country. But, never fear, The Biden Administration has decided to change hundreds of "racist" names of places around the country. Watch today's Liberty Report...
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Declassify the Documents From Trump’s Basement

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Whatever your feelings about former President Trump, there are reasons to be skeptical when government officials say it was necessary to raid his Florida home to recover classified documents that threatened national security.

Like the former president, I was once accused by the government of mishandling classified information connected to my representation of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. There was nothing in my client’s file that posed any danger to national security. My client was an innocent shopkeeper who was sold to the Americans back in 2003 when the US was paying bounties to corrupt Afghan warlords to turn in Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters, and then shipping those men 8,000 miles to our newly built prison camp in Cuba. The government decided to classify every document in the detainee files as “secret,” not to protect national security, but so it could lie with impunity and tell the American people that the prisoners at Gitmo were the “worst of the worst,” and “terrorists” captured on the battlefield. 

I never revealed any classified information. I got into trouble after writing an article criticizing the government’s practice of classifying certain evidence above the security clearance level of the detainee’s lawyer, making it impossible to challenge. Following a hearing at the Department of Justice, I was allowed to keep my security clearance long enough to see my client released back to his home and his family after 12 years of unjust imprisonment.

I was never in serious legal jeopardy. But the experience opened my eyes to the ways that our government abuses its power to classify information as “secret” to protect its own officials from embarrassment or criminal exposure. Since 9/11, the people most aggressively pursued for mishandling classified materials are whistleblowers, not traitors.
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Why Did US Torpedo The April Ukraine War Negotiated Settlement?

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Most Americans are unaware how close Russia and Ukraine came to ending the current war in April.

Last March 27, Ukraine president Zelensky told his people "Our goal is obvious – peace and the restoration of normal life in our native state as soon as possible."

He was hinting at what went unsaid: Ukraine and Russia, brokered by NATO member Turkey, reached a tentative fifteen-point peace plan to end the month old war.

Key points were Russia withdraw from all Ukraine except for breakaway Donbas and Crimea. Ukraine would pass on future NATO membership, pledging neutrality between Russia and NATO. Donbas and Crimea would undergo political transition based on self-determination to be recognized by both combatants. Ukraine security would be guaranteed by neighboring countries but no foreign troops would enter Ukraine.
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Europe Commits Suicide-by-Sanctions

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A Swiss billboard is making the rounds on social media depicting a young woman on the telephone. The caption reads, "Does the neighbor heat the apartment to over 19 degrees (66F)? Please inform us." While the Swiss government has dismissed the poster as a fake, the penalties Swiss citizens face for daring to warm their homes are very real. According to the Swiss newspaper Blick, those who violate the 66 degree heating limit could face as many as three years in prison!
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Prosecuting Trump

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What would you do if you were Merrick Garland? Would you prosecute Trump? Or would you walk away, concerned about accusations you and the FBI were playing politics?
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Pray for Ukraine?

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The latest empty cliché that one hears out of the mouth of Christians is “Pray for Ukraine.” But do Christians who utter this pious platitude even know what they mean when they say it?

I suppose that it is supposed to mean that we should pray for the people of Ukraine who are suffering because of the unjustified Russian invasion of their country. If only things were that simple.

Some observations are in order.

This appeal is based on the overly simplistic yet false and evil notion of Ukraine, good; Russia, bad.

This trite expression in the form of a prayer request is virtue signaling at its worst.

I think we are at the point now where someone saying “Pray for Ukraine” is the verbal equivalent of someone wearing a face mask.
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It’s Even Later than You Thought

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Allow me to say at the outset how pleased and not a little surprised I was to be invited to address this seminar for the second year in a row. Pleased, because I can’t think of a better place than the Ron Paul Scholars Seminar to encounter bright young people who can afford even the most cranky old Boomer like myself grounds for hope. Surprised, because as I recall following last year’s presentation the organizers were constrained to confiscate your predecessors’ belts and shoelaces and place them under 24-hour protective watch. As I asked them last year: “How do I tell you that, in the layman’s terms, your lives will probably suck? At least in the near future. But there is hope. I will return to that.”

My talk last year was called “It’s Later than you Think,” and of course now it’s even later still. On the off-chance that none of you has memorized that text, I will give a brief summary of what I said then – which as I noted even then ended with a dim glimmer of sunlight – and then review how the past year has, I believe, confirmed my assessment then and, somewhat paradoxically, made that glimmer shine just a bit brighter. All in all, I think we have grounds to be cautiously pessimistic.

In brief, my thesis last year was that the gathering clouds were not just those of a political crisis (presumably one that would be amenable to change through political means – “Vote harder next time! Vote harder, boy!") or just an economic and financial crisis (is two quarters of negative GDP growth by definition really a recession, or not – ah, the rollercoaster of the business cycle!). No, it was something more fundamental. Rather, the America we oldsters had grown up with, and which had been declining for decades, had fundamentally ceased to exist.
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Dancing with the Politicians

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If the non-stop dancing duo Biden and Blinken is seriously seeking to validate its view that the United States of America is and should be the world’s hegemon, they are going about it the wrong way. They should be taking their lead from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky by turning their press conferences into entertainments with dancing bears and scantily clad chanteuses pirouetting and singing across the stage. They would benefit from recalling how Zelensky rose to power through his performances of comedy routines in which he would be prancing around on high heels with three colleagues who appeared to be mocking what might be construed as gay mannerisms to amuse the audience? Or perhaps the rather more outreperformance where Zelensky would play a piano with his penis

If one can remember all that it would most definitely help to understand the foreign policy that is somehow playing out in Ukraine, where Zelensky has transitioned into a serious, unsmiling guy who is adept at solicitations for money and weapons. His pleading has become a shameless full-time endeavor as he now appears on thousands of screens via video link all over the world, saturating the airwaves and dropping in on both major and minor gatherings. 

Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone recalls how he has appeared on “the Grammy Awards, the Cannes Film Festival, the World Economic Forum and probably the Bilderberg group as well, [while also] having meetings with celebrities like Ben Stiller, Sean Penn, and Bono and the Edge from U2. It’s as busy a PR tour as he could possibly have without having a discussion about the strategic importance of long-range artillery with Elmo on Sesame Street.”
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