by | Jan 30, 2024 | Aggregate
All of a sudden, reports about Ukraine’s neighbors holding territorial ambitions over part of its territory have once again started to pop up in the press, in the wake of the failed Summer offensive, of the recapture of the initiative by Russia, and the interruption of major funding from the US and the EU.
But what is fact, what is just rumor and what is pure propaganda?
The first and most grave danger resides, of course, with the Russian Federation territorial ambitions, only partially satiated in the Special Military Operation, so far.
Russians now harbor maximalist objectives in Ukraine.
Besides the Crimean peninsula, Moscow has also annexed the Oblasts (regions) of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and – partially – Kherson, in a half moon-shaped territorial loss for Kiev equivalent to over 20% of the territory – including all of the Sea of Azov, and most Black Sea coastal areas.
As the war progressed, so did the maximalist Russian objectives that now may include northern Kharkov region and even southern Mykolaiv and Odessa – which would turn Ukraine into a land-locked country.
But, unfortunately for Kiev, Russia is far from the only country with unfulfilled territorial ambitions.
Romania’s Claudiu Târziu.
In Romania, the leader of AUR party, Claudiu Târziu, declared that he wants the annexation of some territories from Ukraine.
He would even be prepared Romania to leave NATO for that.
Newsweek Romania reported:
“Claudiu Târziu gave a triumphant speech in Iasi in which he says that he is ready to sacrifice Romania’s membership in NATO, by annexing territories from Ukraine – thus leaving us completely defenseless in the face of Russia’s military desires.”
Claudiu Târziu has also made overtures towards the Russians, assuring that he was ready to ‘join hands with them’, just a few days after the war broke.
“I think there is a need for the thawing of relations between Romania and Russia, I admit the need for a good collaboration between Romania and Russia, I am ready to support this, but only after Russia proves that it also wants all this.”
Târziu sees Romania ‘crushed between two empires’ – NATO and Russia – that violate their sovereignty.
Poland’s Lazlo Toroczkai.
In the very same day that Romanian ambitions came to light, another disturbing development came from Hungary, where another political party revealed plans to annex parts of the present Ukrainian territory.
Rightwing ‘Our Homeland’ party has reignited long-held claims to the Transcarpathia region, home to about 150,000 ethnic Hungarians.
Reuters reported:
“‘Our Homeland’ leader Laszlo Toroczkai made the remarks at a conference where the party, which has six lawmakers in the 199-strong Hungarian parliament, hosted far-right leaders from Germany’s AfD and the Dutch Forum for Democracy, among others.
‘Regarding the war in Ukraine, our message is very simple: immediate ceasefire, peace and a resolution through talks’, Toroczkai said in a video posted on his party’s website, calling for autonomy for ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine.
‘If this war ends up with Ukraine losing its statehood, because this is also on the cards, then as the only Hungarian party taking this position, let me signal that we lay claim to Transcarpathia’, he said, drawing applause from the crowd.”
In December, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ‘expressed support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity’, but Budapest has clashed non-stop with Kyiv over infringement on the rights of ethnic Hungarians to use their native tongue.
Zelensky in Poland with President Duda and their wives, April 2023.
As for Poland’s territorial ambitions, they are well established and not at all invented conspiracies, having to do with territory Poland lost during or after WW2.
TASS reported in October:
“Poland, having reached an agreement with Western countries, is trying to ‘quietly annex’ the western part of Ukraine, head of the Luhansk People’s Republic’s (LPR) mission in Moscow Rodion Miroshnik told TASS on Saturday.
‘Poland is quietly trying to annex Ukraine’s western part. And undoubtedly there is an agreement with the West with regards to this’, he said.
[…] Earlier, the diplomat asserted that Poland had already made plans and certain secret agreements on the future fate of Ukraine’s western part.”
Earlier in April, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergey Naryshkin said that, according to the agency’s data, Washington and Warsaw were working on plans of Poland establishing close military and political control over ‘its historic lands’ in Ukraine.
Also in April 2023, Polish Dziennik-Polityczny reported on Volodymyr Zelensky’s official visit to Warsaw that caused many speculations and rumors.
“There was a lot of rhetoric from the podium about friendship and the blurring of borders between our nations.
Zelensky touched on this topic in his speech, saying that in the future there will be no borders between Ukraine and Poland – neither political, economic nor historical.
This may serve as confirmation of our internal information that Ukraine is ready to hand over the Eastern Borderlands to Poland.”
Read more:
Institute for the Study of War: Ukraine on Strategic Defense – Russians on the Offensive, Gain Ground in 3 Main Directions
The post BROKEN UKRAINE: Russia, Poland, Romania, and Hungary Reportedly Have Territorial Ambitions in the War-Torn Country appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
by | Jan 30, 2024 | Aggregate
Former Celtics and Lakers star Rajon Rondo was arrested over the weekend.
WDRB reported Rondo was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia.
Indiana State Police pulled Rondo over in Jackon County and searched Rondo after smelling a strong odor of marijuana stemming from Rondo’s vehicle.
Rondo was not allowed to possess a firearm due to a previous no-contact order filed against him.
According to ESPN, the previous protective order filed against alleged Rondo threatened a woman with a gun and had a track record of displaying “volatile, erratic and explosive behavior” in front of the woman’s children.
Former NBA champion Rajon Rondo arrested on gun, drug charges https://t.co/8hf2SbthTd pic.twitter.com/CoGrVroGgo
— New York Post (@nypost) January 30, 2024
Per ESPN:
Former NBA point guard Rajon Rondo was arrested over the weekend for unlawful possession of a firearm, drug paraphernalia and marijuana, all misdemeanor charges, WDRB-TV reported on Monday night, citing court records and a spokesperson for the Indiana State Police.
Rondo, 37, was pulled over in Indiana’s Jackson County on Sunday afternoon because of a traffic violation when a trooper smelled marijuana, ISP spokesperson Sgt. Stephen Wheeles told the TV station.
Wheeles told the outlet that a search found a gun and drug paraphernalia. He said Rondo was taken to a jail in Jackson County, where he posted bond. Rondo was not allowed to possess a firearm because he had a no-contact order against him, WDRB reported.
In 2022, Rondo had an emergency protective order filed by a woman dismissed after the “parties reached an agreement,” according to a document obtained by ESPN.
NBA’s Rajon Rondo Arrested, Booked On Weed & Gun Charges | Click to read more https://t.co/5FwiNyOSHx
— TMZ (@TMZ) January 30, 2024
The post Former NBA Star Rajon Rondo Arrested on Drug and Gun Charges appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
by | Jan 30, 2024 | Aggregate
President Trump and the men who worked to lie, cheat, and overthrow his administration.
In a recent pair of articles on Racket News, “Twitter Files” reporter Matt Taibbi revealed the left’s plan to prevent the election of Donald J. Trump in 2024, and to usurp the power of the people.
Taibbi explains how the Marxist left and their Trump-hating cohorts are using the “Transition Integrity Project” (TIP) plans to keep President Trump from office in 2025.
The Gateway Pundit discussed this secretive group numerous times. Contributor Joe Hoft wrote about the group in September 2020.
We first heard about the Transition “Integrity” Project after the 2016 election. Joshua Klein at Brietbart writes:
Shortly after President Donald Trump’s 2016 inauguration, a co-founder of the Transition Integrity Project (TIP), a group that recently “war-gamed” potential outcomes of the 2020 elections and transition, outlined varying ways to oust Trump including declaring him mentally unfit and carrying out a military coup.
Garnering lots of media attention in recent days, TIP co-founder Rosa Brooks has written numerous op-eds summarizing TIP’s 22-page report, which concluded that anything less than a Biden-Harris landslide will spark catastrophe, including “violence in the streets” and a “constitutional impasse.”
Despite the group’s official non-partisan claim, Brooks’ presence implies otherwise.
Just days after President Trump’s inauguration, Brooks penned an article advocating for his swift removal from office, even going so far as to suggest the military not follow orders.
We learned from Breitbart that the group is full of Trump haters from the Democrat and Republican Parties:
TIP was formed in late 2019 and comprises over 100 leading experts and officials, mostly Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans, including former RNC chair Michael Steele, Bill Kristol, former Clinton aide John Podesta, and former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile.
A post at the American Thinker by Donald Finley adds more to the list of haters at the Group:
The characters in the play are all familiar names: George Soros; Bill and Melinda Gates; traitorous NeverTrumps like John Kasich, Bill Kristol, and Michael Steele; and the Clinton Cabal, including John Podesta and Donna Brazile. The list is defined by those who lost the most when Trump won. And don’t forget which country lost the most — China — so the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is well represented. Nils Gilman, vice president of programs at the Berggruen Institute, is the co-founder of TIP, and among his programs are partnerships with Chinese government–run entities like the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Association of Artificial Intelligence. The institute’s 21st-Century Council membership includes such familiar names as Jack Dorsey, Lawrence Summers, and Arianna Huffington, among a long list of China’s Who’s Who.
That’s not all. The other co-founder is Rosa Brooks, a former Clinton-ite and Obama-ite, who wrote in Foreign Policy ten days after Trump’s inauguration, “Three Ways to Get Rid of President Trump before 2020.” She and Gilman, throughout this plan, use the contradictory language of good intentions to be delivered by evil acts. In a footnote, there is this: “TIP recognizes and shares the view that the Electoral College is profoundly anti-democratic[.]” But there is also this: “TIP takes no position on how Americans should cast their votes … however, the administration of President Donald Trump has steadily undermined core norms of democracy and the rule of law[.]” That should sum up all the “abouts” you’ll need, but don’t forget the bibliography at the end. All references are notoriously left-leaning.
Raheem Kassam and Natalie Winters at the National Pulse offered more on the leaders of this project whose purpose is to remove President Trump from office, no matter what. They also tie the group to Obama, George Soros, and China, but they include connections to Hunter Biden as well:
The critical connection comes through President Obama’s former associate White House Counsel, Ian Bassin, who heads the anti-Trump litigation efforts Protect Democracy Project and United to Protect Democracy.
Bassin previously headed the far-left Avaaz network, founded in turn by the leftist MoveOn.org group, as well as the Truman National Security Project, which has featured lead Joe Biden policy advisor Jake Sullivan and Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden on its board.
The revelations destroy the Transition Integrity Project’s central tenet: that it is a non-partisan and independent organization that simply seeks to secure the fair results of the upcoming election.
Now, it appears they are back in working to undo the will of the people and prevent democracy by preventing President Trump from assuming office in 2025.
“Twitter Files” Reporter Matt Taibbi Uncovers Plot to Stop Trump, Democracy Be Damned https://t.co/CnQ3KNj6ak
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) January 30, 2024
Shane Harris at the Association of Mature American Citizens reported:
Taibbi describes, we’ve seen this same sort of effort before. As he relays and as many major news outlets reported in the months leading up to the 2020 election, a group called the “Transition Integrity Project” (TIP) – comprised of top power players in Democrat circles like current Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, as well as nominal “conservatives” who had become anti-Trump fanatics – had gathered to “wargame” contested election scenarios.
TIP participants were ostensibly concerned about Trump refusing to leave office if Biden won. But as Taibbi writes, the final TIP report on the election, published on August 3, 2020, “read like a year by year synopsis” of every Democrat effort to overturn Trump’s 2016 election victory, undermine his presidency, and now prevent his return to the White House.
For instance, TIP participants feared that Trump would “launch investigations into opponents” – which is exactly what Biden and Democrats are doing now to Trump. The TIP report also alleged that Trump would “use Department of Justice and/or the intelligence agencies to cast doubt on election results or discredit his opponents” – exactly what the Clinton campaign and the Democrat establishment attempted to do in 2016 with the infamous Steele Dossier and Russia Collusion Hoax.
One TIP simulation even predicted “that Trump would contrive to label Biden supporters guilty of ‘insurrection’ for protesting a ‘clear Trump win.’” Now, of course, we’ve seen a direct reversal of that prediction as Biden and Democrats have labeled Trump and every one of his supporters “insurrectionists” and made “protecting democracy” the main theme of their 2024 campaign.
TIP participants allege that all their 2020 scheming was just an effort to be prepared for anything, rather than an explicit plot to prevent a second Trump term even in the event of a clear Trump victory. (It’s worth noting here that none of the TIP “wargames” or scenarios were ever intended to be made public – it was only after a series of embarrassing leaks that the group decided to release their full report in an attempt to save face that largely backfired.)
But as Taibbi argues, even if one accepts these supposedly well-intentioned motivations, the fact that these high-profile power players on the left even felt the need to form a group like TIP provides an alarming look into the psyche of the modern Democrat Party. It is an indication of the fact that the left feels completely justified usurping the democratic will of the American people in order to “save democracy.”
The post “Transition Integrity Project” of Rabid Leftists and Unhinged Trump-Haters Is Back – Undemocratic Group Hopes to Prevent Trump from Entering Office Again appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
by | Jan 30, 2024 | Aggregate
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal probe of Democrat Rep. Cori Bush (MO).
According to PunchBowl News, the DOJ subpoenaed the House Sergeant at Arms for records relating to the misspending of federal money.
BREAKING NEWS — THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT is conducting a criminal probe into @CoriBush, according to six sources familiar with the investigation.
The Justice Department subpoenaed the House Sergeant at Arms for records relating to the misspending of federal security money.…
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 30, 2024
Biden’s Justice Department on Monday served the House Sergeant at Arms a grand jury subpoena for documents.
“House of Representatives Sergeant at Arms William McFarland announced his office was served a grand jury subpoena by the Justice Department, sparking a wave of theories on social media Monday afternoon,” Newsweek reported.
“McFarland formally notified House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, of a subpoena on Monday,” according to Newsweek.
“This is to notify you formally pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the House of Representatives that the office of the sergeant at arms for the House of Representatives has been served with a grand jury subpoena for documents issued by the U.S. Department of Justice,” House Reading Clerk Susan Cole said on Monday.
WATCH:
“This is to notify you formally pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the House of Representatives that the office of the sergeant at arms for the House of Representatives has been served with a grand jury subpoena for documents issued by the U.S. Department of Justice” pic.twitter.com/Qct7SsGuRi
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 29, 2024
Fox News previously reported Cori Bush spent nearly $500,000 in campaign funds on private security despite calls to defund the police.
“Bush’s campaign paid out over $100,000 for “security services” throughout the third quarter of 2022, according to Federal Election Commission records. Her campaign paid $71,201.06 to Peace Security, a St. Louis-based private security company. Most of the remaining $30,000 for “security services” went to Cortney Merrits and Nathaniel Davis, whose reported address in the filings is the same as Bush’s campaign headquarters.” Fox News reported.
“Bush has now directed over $490,000 into private security for the 2022 election cycle as she remains one of the last Democrats to openly call for the defunding of the police.” the outlet reported.
The post BREAKING: Justice Department Conducting Criminal Probe of Democrat Rep. Cori Bush appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
by | Jan 30, 2024 | Aggregate
The societal turmoil is widespread in the western societies, and the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, is a clear example of that.
Known for its pot-selling ‘coffee-shops’ and the ‘liberal’ Red-Light district, Amsterdam may take yet another step towards pushing its society to the very forefront of drug liberalization.
In a somewhat stunning turn of events, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema has called for ‘the regulation of the sale and use of cocaine’ to ‘undermine the economics of criminal enterprises that she said are racking up billions in profit’.
Bloomberg reported:
“The mayor, who has also sought to curtail drug-seeking vacationers from visiting the Dutch capital city, has organized a public debate on the matter on Jan. 26 in Amsterdam.
‘Let us conclude that hundreds of years of discouragement and repression have achieved very little’, Halsema said in an interview with Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad. ‘Apparently people have a need for stimulants. There is a market for that’.
Cocaine seizures in the Netherlands rose last year with Dutch custom authorities seizing nearly 60 metric tons of cocaine in 2023, up from 51 tons in 2022. The largest quantities were found in the ports of Rotterdam and Vlissingen and trafficking also increased at airports, the Dutch government revealed last week.”
Cocaine seizures are on the rise in the Netherlands.
Back in December, the Netherlands launched its trial to regulate the cultivation of cannabis.
Dutch News reported:
“The international struggle to defeat the drugs trade – the so-called war on drugs – is both ‘perverse and counterproductive’, Halsema told the paper ahead of a one-day conference on drug-related crime in the capital.
The time has come, she said, to ‘regulate and manage’ rather than try to end the trade. ‘We have handed the market to unscrupulous criminals. They earn billions. And in the meantime, the war on drugs is disrupting entire countries, causing countless victims and strengthening the criminal business model’.”
Earlier this month Halsema said she feared the Netherlands may become a ‘narco state’.
“’Amsterdam, as an international financial hub, now serves as a marketplace where the demand for drugs is being determined, and negotiations and payments are being made from all over the world’, the mayor wrote. ‘If this continues… our economy will be inundated with criminal money and violence will reach an all-time high’.”
The mayor says she does not take a ‘moral position’ on the widespread use of ‘recreational drugs’ in the capital.
“’The widespread use of drugs is integrated into society’, she said. ‘The market is enormous. But there are risks to public health and then you should not leave the market to criminals’. Instead, she said, there should be a ‘pragmatic approach’ to the problem.”
The mayor’s position does reverse her track record, since as recently as April ’22 she was pushing repeatedly to block visitors from buying marijuana from coffee shops.
And in July of that same year, Halsema vowed to ‘shift the economic balance between residents and tourists, and rethink Amsterdam’s free-wheeling image as a magnet for sex- and drug-seeking vacationers’.
Read more:
Copenhagen Mayor Begs Tourists Not To Buy Pot at Christiania Freetown, After Deadly Shooting – The Problem? Half a Million of Them Visit Every Year for Exactly That
The post SPEED AMSTERDAM: Dutch Mayor Wants to Decriminalize and Regulate Sale and Use of Cocaine, Calls War on Drugs ‘Perverse and Counterproductive’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
