Tucker Carlson Wins Iowa with Sharp Humor and Sharper Questions

Neil Munro16 Jul 2023

Tucker Carlson does not have the power to expose politicians’ hidden beliefs, but he can pressure politicians to briefly expose their hidden priorities.

“That’s not my concern,” former Vice President Mike Pence snapped when Carlson pressured him on growing aid for Ukraine as U.S. cities decline.

Tucker Carlson asks Pence why he is more concerned with supplying Ukraine with tanks than the wellbeing of American cities…

Pence’s response? “American cities aren’t my concern.”

“Tucker, I hope we’ll be able to talk about some issues,” former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson complained when Carlson asked him about the government policy of pushing troubled children into “transgender” sterility and loneliness.

“That’s a very difficult task to deport them all at one time,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) dodged when Carlson asked him about deporting Joe Biden’s new flood of several million job-seeking illegals. But he was very clear that illegals should not be allowed to get the citizenship status that enables them to vote on whether or not politicians keep their jobs.

Tucker asking Tim

Scott what he would do about illegals. He said it would be a “very difficult task to find them.” Really?

Most have Biden phones and the rest receive taxpayer benefits. Pretty sure we can find them and deport… IF YOU WANTED TOO!

Former President Donald Trump declined the opportunity to face Carlson, who has not always been complimentary about Trump’s ability to push popular reforms through the hostile D.C. swamp.

Trump’s exit left Carlson to dominate the July 14 Family Leadership Summit in Iowa.

But Carlson combined his tough questions with entertainment — because he’s spent decades watching his ratings rise and fall in various cable TV shows. So he wrapped the political drama in humor:

Tucker Carlson asks neocon Nikki Haley: "who blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline?"

She is speechless…

“Who blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline?” he asked former Gov. Nikki Haley.

“I don’t know … there are a lot of things strange with the Biden administration,” she replied.

“If they’re still classifying the JFK assassination docs 60 years later, they’re just mocking us, aren’t they?” he asked Haley.

“It’s the same thing with the UFOs,” she replied, adding:

They’re totally making everybody want to know what happened. You just need to release all of that. Release it all let us see it. There’s no reason to hold on to that. Now release it.

“What’s your guess on that?” Carlson asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when DeSantis denounced the government’s tepid investigation into the discovery of a bag of cocaine in a White House lobby.

Ron DeSantis: “Adult material does not belong in a 5th grade classroom. If you want to see the pornography, just check out Hunter’s laptop.”

Tucker Carlson: “Is that available in your schools?”

Carlson is free to ask difficult questions since he is not working for the establishment media. He lost his evening TV show because his populist questions prompted Fox’s establishment board to shut him down, despite the resulting huge loss of viewers.

In fact, Carlson has a pocketbook and a ratings incentive to keep the pressure on politicians. Millions of ordinary Americans have given up on the establishment’s media coverage of the establishment’s political priorities. That popularity was made clear the next day when Carlson spoke at the TPUSA Conference in Florida:

Tucker Carlson takes the stage at the @TPUSA Conference in West Palm Beach, FL to a standing ovation.

“I don’t think most unemployed people get a reception like that,” he joked.

So Carlson kept the questions lively at the Iowa summit by jumping from subject to subject.

But that liveliness also makes it harder for viewers to compare each candidate.

For example, he asked Scott a question that should be asked of all politicians: “What are the big issues on which you disagree with your donors?”

Scott evaded the question, but Florida’s DeSantis made a point of directly answering the question without being asked:

[Abortion and life] is a critical issue, and it is one that I’m happy to have done, and oh, by the way, this is an issue where I had a lot of supporters who were averse to me on this.

Several of the politicians stared daggers at Carlson — and the leading candidate refused to sit in the hot seat.

“I’m going to appoint Tucker Carlson as my bye-bye ambassador, to figure this out,” Scott responded when Carlson asked him about the government’s ability to deport migrants.

All the more reason for Carlson to keep asking questions that reveal the true nature of the GOP’s polished, protected, and sometimes pompous politicians.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/07/16/tucker-carlson-wins-iowa-with-sharp-humor-and-sharper-questions/

Pro-DeSantis Super PAC Door-Knocker Caught on Video Saying ‘Eat My Balls’

Kristina Wong16 Jul 2023

A pro-Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) super PAC staffer recently unleashed a string of profanities while knocking on doors in South Carolina, according to a video posted on social media.

The video, posted by a Trump campaign strategist, showed the Never Back Down staffer approaching a door and apparently talking on the phone to someone about knocking on doors.

“‘F-ck you, get off my f-cking lawn,’ then I’d be like, ‘Eat my balls honestly. Eat my big, hairy sack,'” the staffer is heard on video saying.

Never Back Down’s National Field Director Kate Roberts told the Washington Post:

After learning of the incident, we investigated and terminated the individual…Our field program is having thousands and thousands of incredible conversations around the country every day. This individual’s behavior is counter to the standards taught in our training and is not tolerated.

The video is circulating on social media at a time when the DeSantis campaign is facing increasing scrutiny over whether or not it is facing solvency issues.

Those concerns were laid out in an NBC News report on Saturday.

NBC News reported:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tapped out top donors and burned through $7.9 million in his first six weeks as a presidential candidate, according to an NBC News analysis of his new campaign finance disclosure.

The numbers suggest, for the first time, that solvency could be a threat to DeSantis’ campaign, which has touted its fundraising ability as a key measure of viability. They reflect the broader reality that DeSantis stalled after his launch: polling ahead of the Republican primary pack but far behind former President Donald Trump.

In another sign of the financial strain on the campaign, DeSantis has fired a dozen staffers in what a source familiar with the move described as a cost-cutting measure, NBC News reported Saturday evening.

The report said DeSantis outpaced other candidates at first, but more than two-thirds of the money came from donors who gave the legal maximum and cannot donate again.

He finished the quarter in June with more than $12.2 million, but only $3 million can be used in the general election, while Trump’s campaign finished with $22.5 million on hand.

Before DeSantis fired staff, he had 92 people onboard, reportedly by far the biggest staff footprint.

The report noted, “DeSantis does have a financial edge no one else can match in the form of his super PAC, which can accept donations of unlimited size and has already taken in $130 million. But keeping a campaign humming on smaller donations can be a different matter entirely.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/07/16/pro-desantis-super-pac-door-knocker-caught-on-video-saying-eat-my-balls/

Friday Night Frights: Judge Rules Biden Administration Can Keep Censoring Americans for Now

Victoria Taft July 14, 2023

The Department of Justice (DOJ) successfully won a temporary court decision that apparently allows the Biden administration to continue censoring Americans on social media while it prepares to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the issue once and for all. The late Friday decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals gave a temporary advantage to the administrative state instead of American freedom of speech.

The DOJ argued in its appeal that the decision by Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana restricting the ability for government actors to work with social media companies, such as Twitter and Facebook, to censor posts by Americans would inhibit its ability to do its job and would put an undue burden on the Biden Administration.

Doughty, on the other hand, carved out multiple areas where the government could work with these same companies. He wrote it in English and everything.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the following actions are NOT prohibited by this Preliminary Injunction:

(1) informing social-media companies of postings involving criminal activity or criminal conspiracies;

(2) contacting and/or notifying social-media companies of national security threats, extortion, or other threats posted on its platform;

(3) contacting and/or notifying social-media companies about criminal efforts to suppress voting, to provide illegal campaign contributions, of cyber-attacks against election infrastructure, or foreign attempts to influence elections;

(4) informing social-media companies of threats that threaten the public safety or security of the United States;

(5) exercising permissible public government speech promoting government policies or views on matters of public concern;

(6) informing social-media companies of postings intending to mislead voters about voting requirements and procedures;

(7) informing or communicating with social-media companies in an effort to detect, prevent, or mitigate malicious cyber activity;

(8) communicating with social-media companies about deleting, removing, suppressing, or reducing posts on social-media platforms that are not protected free speech by the Free Speech Clause in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. [emphasis added]

In Doughty’s 155-page decision, he outlined precisely how bureaucracies with the CDC, NIH, DOJ, and FBI flexed on social media companies to unconstitutionally restrict Americans’ speech.

Among the information Doughty ruled had been illegally silenced was discussion of the “lab leak theory” as the source of the COVID-19 pandemic and the gain-of-function funding done through other organizations by Dr. Anthony Fauci. The FBI, the cybersecurity arm of the U.S. government, and other outlets of the U.S. government also used their positions under color of authority to deprive Americans of their free speech rights.

The judge noted what many citizens apparently don’t understand: the government cannot deprive people of free speech through proxies. Indeed, the government suggested to these companies — even as large as Google — that some speech was better left unsaid.

Now the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has given a temporary stay, allowing the U.S. government to keep doing what it has been doing until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in. Let’s be clear, in this temporary stay, the 5th Circuit gave deference to governmental agencies over the explicit individual right of an American to speak, which is explicitly noted in the U.S. Constitution as a God-given right.

In the next term, the nation’s highest court will hear the case of Loper Bright Enterprises Inc. v. Raimondo. That case calls into question the so-called Chevron deference in which government bureaucracies are given the nod, the advantage, to explain laws (to their advantage) when laws are unclear.

Though we don’t know all the issues involved in the government’s argument, all we can say is they’d better be damned compelling to silence Americans while we await a decision on whether we can speak or whether Elvis Chan, Tony Fauci, and all the people who worked against American free speech will win the day.

Let’s hope the Constitution wins the next round.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/07/14/friday-night-frights-judge-rules-biden-administration-can-keep-censoring-americans-for-now-n1710827

>>19194861

He’ll never finish it, the case will be closed out silently with no findings of crimes. Thats the way Barr set it up more than 3 years ago

>>19194794

He should never be trusted, smooth talkers are a dime a dozen, but billionaires lie for a living like Elon

>>19194776

Pence is only there for the money, he knows he will never win

17 Jul, 2023 12:58

Russian aircraft crashes into Azov sea

An Su-25 ground attack plane has crashed into the sea near the Russian town of Yeysk, local authorities say

A Russian Su-25 military aircraft crashed into the Sea of Azov on Monday, local officials have said. The pilot managed to eject to safety and was recovered by a search and rescue team. His condition was not immediately known.

Footage circulating online purports to show the plane crashing into the sea immediately offshore, with locals watching the incident from the beach. The plane appeared to steadily lose altitude, evidently having suffered engine failure, with its pilot ejecting moments before the aircraft plunged into the water.

Another video from the scene shows a search and rescue helicopter circling the crash site. The pilot was brought ashore by the rescuers. No official information on his condition was readily available.

The accident was acknowledged the Russian military, with the Southern Military District revealing it occurred during a training flight. Preliminary assessment indicated the crash had been caused by engine cutoff, the military stated.

https://www.rt.com/russia/579844-aircraft-crashes-azov-sea/

17 Jul, 2023 12:46

No mercy to terrorists – Medvedev

Those who organized the drone raid on the strategic Crimean Bridge “understand only the language of force,” the ex-Russian president has said

Terrorist attacks cannot be prevented with the help of negotiations, and only tough and decisive measures can guarantee success, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday.

His comments came after Moscow accused Ukraine of staging a drone attack on the Crimean Bridge, killing two people, and injuring a child.

Writing on Telegram, Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that experience had shown that it is impossible to fight terrorists with “international sanctions, intimidation, and lecturing.”

They [terrorists] understand only the language of force. Only personal and quite inhumane methods.

Against this backdrop, the ex-president suggested targeting the perpetrators in their own homes, and “searching and liquidating their accomplices” without much regard for legal proceedings.

“The main thing is to destroy the top leadership of terrorist groups, no matter in what cracks these insects hide,” he said, adding that such policies are difficult but still possible to implement.

Medvedev's fiery post was an apparent response to a Ukrainian maritime drone attack on Monday targeting the strategic Crimean Bridge, which damaged one of the roadways and claimed the lives of a married couple from Belgorod and injured their daughter, according to Russian officials.

Responding to the incident, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova labeled Ukraine a “terrorist regime,” adding that all of Kiev’s decisions are to a large extent controlled by US and British special services and policymakers.

Ukrainian officials did not claim responsibility for the attack but cheered the incident. Mikhail Podoliak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, said that “any illegal structures” used by Russia to supply its troops are “necessarily short-lived… regardless of the reasons for the destruction.”

In early February,Medvedev warned Ukraine that should it conduct a strike on Crimea, it would lead to the escalation of the conflict, while Kiev would face “inevitable retaliation using weapons of any kind.” He also said that such actions would preclude any possibility of talks with the Ukrainian government.

(This attack on Crimea, has initiated something brutal on Ukraine.)

https://www.rt.com/russia/579838-no-mercy-terrorists-ukraine-medvedev/

FBI Wants to Deny Catholic Advocacy Group Access to Spying Records

Lincoln Brown

Back in February, PJ Media told you about the FBI’s efforts to spy on traditional Catholics. The news broke after an agency memo from the Richmond, Va., field office was leaked to the public. The memo had the rather lengthy title of “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”

You can read the original memo published by UncoverDC.com here. One of the sources used in creating the memo was the Southern Poverty Law Center, which until very recently was not considered by the FBI to be credible.

CatholicVote, which is a political advocacy group, wanted to see the details of that investigation. According to the group’s website, it filed a FOIA request in March, which gave the FBI 20 days to respond. Citing “unusual circumstances,” the agency requested an additional 10 days. The information was never produced.

CatholicVote filed a lawsuit to which the FBI was legally obligated to respond. When the time on that clock ran out, the agency requested another 30 days. The judge granted the extra time over the objections of CatholicVote.Last Friday, the FBI stated that the group was not entitled to the information. A judge has set a briefing schedule for the two sides to meet and discuss what the next steps will be.

CatholicVote is accusing the FBI of hiding behind the provision that allows federal agencies to protect “sensitive documents.” It commented on its site:

NOT BACKING DOWN: CatholicVote and our lawyers at Judicial Watch are prepared to litigate this matter to the end. We’re willing to play the long game, too. We believe Americans — and especially Catholics — have every right to know what led to the decision to authorize spying on Catholics in church!

Don’t forget, Attorney General Merrick Garland has repeatedly said he was “appalled” by this memo. And he promised Congress that there is “no bias” against Catholics whatsoever inside the Department of Justice.

The group also provided a video of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) taking FBI Director Christopher Wray to task over the memo. Actually, “dismantling” would be a better word.

Wray is playing the same game with Jordan that the FBI is playing with CatholicVote: we need more time to eventually tell you that what we learned is none of your business. But Jordan made it clear that the motivation for the investigation was politics. Jordan knows it, CatholicVote knows it, and the FBI knows it. And so do the rest of us.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2023/07/14/fbi-wants-to-deny-catholic-advocacy-group-access-to-spying-records-n1710674

‘Blustery Coward’: Tucker Carlson Rips Chris Christie For Refusing To Face Him One-On-One

Nicole SilverioJuly 16, 2023 5:51 PM

Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson called out Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie for refusing to face him one-on-one.

Christie accused Carlson of “always [being] wrong” about the war in Ukraine during a Sunday interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. The Daily Caller co-founder said he reached out to Christie to give the candidate the chance to “explain his views,” but Christie declined the offer.

“Sounds like this could be a longer conversation,” Carlson wrote in a Sunday tweet. “We just asked @GovChristie to sit down and explain his views on Ukraine. He refused. You hate to think that Chris Christie is a blustery coward who plays the tough guy with sycophants at ABC but won’t answer real questions, but who knows? We hope he reconsiders.”

https://dailycaller.com/2023/07/16/tucker-carlson-chris-christie-ukraine/

Biden’s New Official Overseeing Workplace Discrimination Has A Long History Of Supporting Discrimination

WILL KESSLER July 16, 2023

A NEW BIDEN-NOMINATED COMMISSIONER FOR THE EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION (EEOC) HAS A TRACK RECORD OF SUPPORTING LEFT-WING AND DISCRIMINATORY CAUSES.

Kalpana Kotagal, lawyer and newly confirmed EEOC commissioner, is the creator of the now widely used “inclusion rider” and has played a leading role in many large discrimination lawsuits as a partner at the left-wing activist firm Cohen Milstein. The now Democrat-controlled EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal laws involving discrimination in the workplace based on a number of protected identities, giving the Biden administration the opportunity to insert diversity, equity and inclusion policies into the workplace.

The EEOC describes its purpose as investigating complaints of workplace discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, disability, age (40 or older), or genetic information,” according to the EEOC website. The commission sues those who violate discrimination laws when the employer does not comply.

The Senate voted on Thursday 49-47 along party lines to confirm the Biden-nominated Kotagal, which gives Democrats a majority on the five-member panel, giving it the power to enforce left-wing workplace policies, according to Reuters.

Kotagal is the co-creator of the “inclusion rider,” which gained notoriety during the 2018 Oscars when actress Frances McDormand concluded her speech by mentioning the contract. An “inclusion rider” is an addendum in an actor or content creator’s contract that requires the larger project to follow diversity hiring practices, prioritizing certain minority groups.

“Kotagal’s confirmation gives Democrats a majority on the commission. Because under federal law the commissioners can file charges of discrimination and investigate and file or allow private lawsuits, they can affect the day-to-day practices in many businesses and organizations, affecting millions of Americans,” said Jack Park, lawyer and general counsel at the American Constitutional Rights Union, to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

One case in which Kotagal played a prominent role involved having insurance company Aetna expand coverage to include breast augmentations as a part of transgender sex-change surgeries, with the firm placing it under her “recent successes” on the law firm’s website.

Anita Hill, who accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991, co-wrote a 2017 op-ed with Kotagal in Variety that critiqued the number of women and minorities in the White House and Hollywood.

“It is a difficult time to be a woman in this country,” Hill and Kotagal said in the op-ed. “We just elected as president a man whose actions range from shocking disregard for women to brazen attacks on them. The number of women in Donald Trump’s cabinet is appallingly anemic. His repeated and nasty attacks on everyone from Alicia Machado to Elizabeth Warren, along with his and Congress’ regressive agenda, offer a preview of the coming threats to gender pay equity, reproductive rights, and protections from domestic violence and sexual assault, to name just a few.”

Dan Morenoff, lawyer and executive director at the American Civil Rights Project, told the DCNF he believes the most dangerous part of Kotagal’s confirmation is not her personal power but instead the resulting shift in the entire commission due to the new Democratic majority.

“To the extent her fellow Democratic appointees agree to pursue her apparent agenda, her confirmation threatens a sea-change in the Commission’s understanding and application of American non-discrimination laws,” Morenoff said about Kotagal. “Specifically, employers should beware that the new majority may well advance positions on Title VII’s meaning: (a) for race-balancing employment decisions, at odds with the implications of the Supreme Court’s recent SFFA decision; and (b) for the provision of single-sex facilities for employees.”

https://dailycaller.com/2023/07/16/biden-new-official-overseeing-workplace-discrimination-long-history-supporting-discrimination/

Supreme Court Could End Up Deciding The Fate Of Child Sex Change Bans

Katelynn RichardsonJuly 16, 2023

The Sixth Circuit’s decision to allow Tennessee’s ban on sex change procedures for minors to take effect last week signals the issue could soon be heading to the Supreme Court.

If another circuit court comes to a different conclusion than the Sixth Circuit in one of the many pending lawsuits against such bans, “it would go up to the Supreme Court on a petition for emergency appeal,” Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed lawsuits over child sex change bans in multiple states, including Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kentucky.

A federal appeals court’s decision to allow Tennessee’s child sex change ban to take effect could mean the Supreme Court will soon be asked to weigh in on the issue.

After midnight on July 8th, the Sixth Circuit paused a lower court’s injunction on Tennessee’s ban on providing children with sex change surgeries, puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and “any drug or device” intended for the same purposes. With lawsuits challenging similar bans popping up throughout the country and multiple cases now being appealed in the circuit courts, Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation “there’s no question” the issue will end up before the Supreme Court.

“These are emergency motions where these judges are having to determine whether a state’s interest in protecting the welfare of children outweighs a parents’ interest in getting experimental medical treatment,” Perry explained. (RELATED: Federal Court Allows Red State Ban On Child Sex Changes To Take Effect)

If another circuit court determines, contrary to what the Sixth Circuit just found, that a parent has a right to “experimental medical care” for their children, Perry said “it would go up to the Supreme Court on a petition for emergency appeal.”

The Supreme Court, she noted, has “never held that there is an unfettered right to get experimental medical treatment for one’s children.”

Gene Hamilton, general counsel and vice president at America First Legal (AFL), told the DCNF AFL is “optimistic that other courts will follow the Sixth Circuit’s lead in rejecting attempts by the radical left to accomplish through the courts what they cannot achieve legislatively.”

“[T]he [Sixth Circuit] Court rightly held that the plaintiffs were not likely to prevail on their due process and equal protection claims — which were novel and rooted in political activism rather than the Constitution,” Hamilton said. “The Supreme Court has not extended either area of law to cover procedures and treatments that amount to genital mutilation or chemical castration of children, and we suspect that it will not do so absent an unprecedented court-packing by the Biden regime.”

The ACLU has filed lawsuits over child sex change bans in Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kentucky. Florida’s ban was also challenged by four families backed by multiple LGBT activist groups.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti issued this statement after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted Tennessee’s emergency motion for a stay of the preliminary injunction in L.W. v. Skrmetti. pic.twitter.com/MFNrGrQ9Zv

— TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) July 8, 2023

Obama-appointed Eastern District of Arkansas Judge Jay Moody struck down Arkansas’ law in June. Northern District of Florida Judge Robert L. Hinkle, a Clinton-appointee, also granted a preliminary injunction in June preventing Florida’s ban from being enforced against the plaintiffs who sued, asserting in his opinion that “gender identity is real.”

The case against Florida’s law will soon be appealed in the 11th Circuit, Perry told the DCNF.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuits often argue “gender-affirming care” is “medically necessary” to prevent mental health problems like anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide.

Contrary to the opinions issued by the Florida and Tennessee trial courts, Perry said there is “no data to support the fact that this is life saving care.”

“In fact, suicidal idealation likely to remain after these particular hormone or surgical interventions,” Perry told the DCNF. “That is, behind all of this, one of the great tragedies in this push towards gender-altering treatments that we’re seeing in these federal trial courts across the country.”

https://dailycaller.com/2023/07/16/supreme-court-could-end-up-deciding-the-fate-of-child-sex-change-bans/

>>19195065

He really is a blustering really fat coward. Its not worth it because he is irrelevant. He has 4 supporters

>>19194983

Use your own mind and brain, Trump is not right about everyone. Be an anon

>>19194957

It’s not going to be predictable for sure

>>19194938

So ADL are admitting jews are all those classes of terrorists, interesting they confirm what many think

>>19194927

Wow so jews are admitting all over the place they are child traffickers

Ukraine Front Line is “Horror. Genocide. Slaughter”, Says Irish “Rambo” Who Is Leaving after 17 Months

By Richard Abelson Jul. 17, 2023

Sky News international correspondent John Sparks spoke to an Irish volunteer, Rhys Byrne, who has been fighting on the frontline in the east of Ukraine for 17 months and is now leaving Ukraine “due to witnessing atrocities,” Sparks reports. Byrne called the fighting he witnessed “horrific.”

“On ‘Zero Line’ it’s horror. It’s horror. There is just a genocide. It’s slaughter”, says Rhys Byrne, codename ‘Rambo’, a 28-year-old from Dublin. Byrne fought for the 59th brigade in the Ukrainian territorial army, where he operated a heavy machine gun, Sparks reports.

“There are dead people everywhere. Russians dead. Ukrainian people dead…. the biggest problem we get when we’re going into trenches is stepping over all the dead bodies that are already there from the last people [who] went in – that kind of stuff really haunts you.”

Byrne and a fellow volunteer had decided to leave Ukraine after experiencing “the final straw” that nearly got him killed: an encounter with a Russian tank.

“We were told there was a Russian trench line and our job is to go into the trenches and clear them out and hold them until the auxiliary units come and then we go back.” Byrne said his unit, consisting of 40 Ukrainians,Americans and Britons, were taken to an area near the front or ‘Zero Line’ with no air cover or drones. A pair of Ukrainian tanks withdrew, leaving them with no support.

When they saw another tank approaching, they assumed it was friendly – but it was a Russian tank, which opened fire on their position. “Those who survived took cover in the woods,” Sparks reports. The dramatic footage recorded of the Irishman’s body camera documents the incident.

The volunteers were rescued by a Ukranian Humvee pick-up under fire as the enemy tank began to chase them. “Now we have the tank literally coming out, starting to chase us. And that’s terrifying when you see a big T-72 coming for you and you’re in a Humvee pick-up. Yeah, it’s like a hot knife through butter. You’re finished. So, again, all of us are screaming, drive the Humvee, drive the Humvee. I was going mental.”

Byrne saw a Russian shell sail over their heads. “We are not supposed to be alive. I mean, we were closer than close to death, it was closer than close… it was really f* up.”

Sparks spoke to Byrne at a shelter for international volunteers run by New Zealander Pastor Owen Panoma, who called the shelter “a source of some sort of support, you know, to sit there, where are you from? You got kids? You know, basically to take their mind off the war.”

Many of the volunteers are haunted by what they have been through, Panoma says: “They sleep talk. They scream. At night-time you come out to go to the toilet, ‘you guys alright?’ and the guys wake up. You know, they don’t realize what they’re doing. They may not be aware of what they’re actually doing because it’s quiet here, out there it’s not.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/ukraine-front-line-is-horror-genocide-slaughter-says/

https://youtu.be/bbNUZS7rdco

A Bridge Too Far: As the Ukraine Grain Deal Runs Out, a Water Drone Attack Damages Crimea Bridge Killing 2 Civilians and Wounding a Child – Russian Officials Call for Hard Retaliations

By Paul Serran Jul. 17, 2023

At 3am Moscow time of this Monday, a suspected surface water drone filled with explosives hit the Crimea bridge. The ’emergency’ led to the closing of the passage.

Eyewitnesses report on the Russian Telegram channels that, at the time of the attack, the sounds of explosions were heard. Powerful explosions thundered at 3:04 and 3:20. At the same time, the movement of cars stopped. Footage shows the drivers leaving the vehicles.

The Ministry of Transport of Russia stated that from the side of the Republic of Crimea there is damage to the roadway on the spans of the Crimean bridge.

One span of roadbed is known to have been destroyed

The span structures themselves are on their supports . The survey of the condition of the bridge is ongoing.

The Ukrainian commander of the ground forces of the Armed Forces,Oleksandr Syrsky, hinted in advance to the attack on the Crimean bridge.

A post appeared on his Telegram channel the day before,which said that a ‘lullaby’ was being prepared for the ‘occupiers’.

The strike hit a civilian infrastructure seems to be a diversion of the attention from the defeats at the front, both in the Kupyansky and Zaporozhye directions, where events for the Armed Forces of Ukraine are going badly.

The Ministry of Health of the Krasnodar Territory confirmed that as a result of an emergency on the Crimean bridge, two people died and a minor girl was injured

A 14-year old girl is hospitalized in a critical condition and both her parents are dead. The father was a truck driver and the mother was a council worker from Belgorod.

Russians immediately started demanding retaliation online.

Ukrainian lawmaker Alexey Goncharuk called the attack a ‘victory for Ukraine’, and seeks to award everyone involved in the terror attack.

Russia’s NAC (National Anti-Terrorism Committee) qualified the incident as a terrorist attack, where two Ukrainian surface drones damaged the motorway part of the bridge.

The railway line was not affected by the attack.

This is the second attack on the Crimean bridge: last October, Ukrainian security services staged an explosion on the bridge, collapsing two spans and killing four civilians.

The deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has reacted to the explosion on the Crimean bridge:

“The world and our own experience show that terrorists cannot be fought with international sanctions, intimidation or exhortation. They only understand the language of force. Only personal and totally inhuman methods.

That is why it is necessary to blow up their own homes and those of their relatives. To search for and liquidate their accomplices, to abandon the mundane idea of their trial. But the main thing is to destroy the top leadership of terrorist formations, wherever these insects hide.

It is difficult, but it is possible.”

Sputnik reported:

“Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on the Crimean Bridge terror attack:

▪The Kremlin has no illusions about the West’s possible involvement in the terrorist attack on the bridge;

▪The attack on Crimean Bridge didn’t affect the grain deal’s extension;

▪The Kremlin knows who is behind the attack, and is aware of Kiev’s insidious nature;

▪President Putin handed down instructions to start repairs and restoration work on the Crimean Bridge;

▪The response to the Crimean Bridge terror attack will be the fulfillment of all the objectives of the special operation still in progress

▪Vladimir Putin will hold a video conference around 19:00 (Moscow time) to discuss the Crimean Bridge terror incident. The Crimean government will report on the situation from the scene;

▪Russia does not seek to develop relations with the West but maintains channels of dialogue because they are necessary;

▪As far as tourism security in Crimea goes, authorities must remain vigilant and take all necessary measures”

Russian lawmaker Volodin: the Crimean Bridge terrorist attack may have been carried out using the safe passage of the now defunct Black Sea grain corridor.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/bridge-too-far-as-ukraine-grain-deal-runs/

CIA Leaking Like a Sieve As It Blames Ukraine for Impending Debacle

by Larry Johnson Jul. 17, 2023 7:00

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I want to thank one of my readers, Paul S., for flagging this remarkable and hilarious Newsweek article, written by Bill Arkin, that is a classic example of the CIA throwing Ukraine under the bus and eschewing blame for the military disaster looming on the horizon. I will start by quoting the conclusion of the piece:

In response, the senior U.S. defense intelligence official stressed the delicate balance the Agency must maintain in its many roles, saying: “I hesitate to say that the CIA has failed.” But the official said sabotage attacks and cross border fighting created a whole new complication and continuing Ukrainian sabotage “could have disastrous consequences.”

https://www.newsweek.com/2023/07/21/exclusive-cias-blind-spot-about-ukraine-war-1810355.htmlnone

Ok. I will say it. The CIA has failed and it is blaming Ukraine. Arkin’s piece would not be possible without a flood of leaks about the broad range of CIA activities in and around Ukraine. The CIA officers ponying up the secrets are keen to get the word out that they are doing a really fantastic, swell, marvelous job. The problem is the damn Ukrainians and these CIA officers, while claiming to have robust means to collect intelligence, admit that Zelensky and his crowd are giving the United States the mushroom treatment — keeping them in the dark and covered with shit.

The article starts with the tired, false meme that Russia is in trouble:

“Putin’s back is really against the wall” a senior defense intelligence official tells Newsweek, warning that while the CIA fully grasps how much Russia is stuck in Ukraine, it is very much in the dark with regard to what Putin might do about it. With talk of Russian nuclear weapons possibly being deployed to Belarus, and in light of Prigozhin’s public exposure of the terrible costs of fighting, something that Moscow has suppressed, the official says that it is a particularly delicate moment. “What is happening off the battlefield is now most important,” says the official, who was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly. “Both sides pledge to limit their actions, but it falls to the United States to enforce those pledges. This all hinges on the quality of our intelligence.

https://www.newsweek.com/2023/07/21/exclusive-cias-blind-spot-about-ukraine-war-1810355.htmlnone

Oh? The United States’ role in Ukraine is to function as a soccer referee? Really? How exactly is the CIA acting as the enforcer of pledges? By providing “quality” intelligence. Except, what you learn as you wade through Arkin’s piece, the CIA keeps being surprised by Ukrainian attacks in Russia. You can’t have it both ways Bill. Mr. Arkin wants you to believe that the CIA in Ukraine and the surrounding countries is the Leonard Bernstein of spies — masterfully conducting an orchestra of competing countries. I ask again, REALLY?

All of the credible experts and officials Newsweek spoke to agreed that the CIA has been successful in discreetly playing its part in dealing with Kyiv and Moscow, in moving mountains of information and materiel and in dealing with a diverse set of other countries, some of whom are quietly helping while also trying to stay out of Russia’s crosshairs. And they didn’t dispute that on the CIA’s main task—knowing what’s going on in the minds of the leaders of Russia and Ukraine—the Agency has had to struggle.

https://www.newsweek.com/2023/07/21/exclusive-cias-blind-spot-about-ukraine-war-1810355.htmlnone

There we have it. The central mission of the CIA — i.e., to get the inside skinny on what Putin and Zelensky are thinking and planning — is a “struggle.” But hey, morale at the CIA, now under the leadership of Dementia Joe and Billy Burns, is FABULOUS!

For the CIA, its major role in the war in Ukraine has provided a boost in morale after the sour relationship between former President Donald Trump and his spy chiefs. The second official says that while some in the Agency want to speak more openly about its renewed significance, that is not likely to happen.

https://www.newsweek.com/2023/07/21/exclusive-cias-blind-spot-about-ukraine-war-1810355.htmlnone

You want evidence of dysfunction and inadequacy? Some CIA officials are begging to talk openly about their importance with respect to Ukraine. If you are carrying out a covert operation that is a smashing success you do not have to brag about it. As the old saying goes, “the proof is in the pudding.” In the case of Ukraine the pudding is inedible.

The next couple of paragraphs strongly suggests that William Burns (or one of his horse handlers) is a key source in this story by Arkin. Did you know that Burns is a “global trouble shooter?” When it comes to shooting, Burns is a poor marksman…

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/cia-leaking-like-sieve-as-it-blames-ukraine/

>>19195370

2/2

At the beginning of his administration, Biden tapped director William Burns as his global trouble shooter—a clandestine operator able to communicate with foreign leaders outside normal channels, someone who could occupy important geopolitical space between overt and covert, and an official who could organize work in the arena that exists between what is strictly military and what is strictly civilian.

As former Ambassador to Russia, Burns has been particularly influential with regard to Ukraine. The CIA had been monitoring Russia’s buildup and in November 2021, three months before the invasion, Biden dispatched Burns to Moscow to warn the Kremlin of the consequences of any attack.

https://www.newsweek.com/2023/07/21/exclusive-cias-blind-spot-about-ukraine-war-1810355.htmlnone

Yep, let’s ignore context. According to the Arkin fable, Russia was building up for an invasion of Ukraine for no good reason. In fact, Arkin makes no attempt to explain how U.S. and NATO actions, such as the deployment of two Aegis missile batteries in Poland and Romania, was viewed as a very serious threat by Moscow because those weapons can carry nuclear warheads. So the influential Mr. Burns warned Putin about what the U.S. would do if Russia invaded Ukraine and Russia ignored him. I don’t think Arkin understands the meaning of the word, “influential.”

Arkin then proceeds to let a variety of cats — domestic and feral — out of the bag. Poland is the center for U.S. military and intelligence operations to fight the proxy war with Russia:

Poland officially became the center of NATO’s response, first in handling hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the battle, and then as the logistical hub for arms flowing back into Ukraine. The country also became the center of the overt military response. A forward headquarters for the Army V Corps (5th Corps) has been established in Poland. Additional supplies and ammunition for U.S. use are stored in Poland. A permanent Army garrison has been activated, the first ever to be located on NATO’s eastern flank, and today there are now about 10,000 American troops in Poland.

https://www.newsweek.com/2023/07/21/exclusive-cias-blind-spot-about-ukraine-war-1810355.htmlnone

Can you imagine the reaction in the United States if Russia established a forward military headquarters in Mexico with 10,000 troops? Yet Biden and his team of dullards do this in Poland without any regard for Russia’s reaction to a military build-up on its Western border.

The last part of the article reflects the desperation of the spooks talking to Arkin. The Ukrainians are responsible for all of the nefarious terrorist attacks inside Russia. The CIA folks are getting their story out that they don’t know nothing about no terrorist attacks on Russia. It is all the fault of Zelensky and his crazy generals. The following paragraph illustrates the central contradiction of Arkin’s attempt to exonerate the CIA — we were told early on in his piece that the CIA was doing a terrific job of gathering intelligence except it totally failed to gathering any advance warning about Ukraine’s terrorist attacks on the Kerch Bridge and Engels Airbase. Which is it Bill?

The Kerch bridge attack was followed by an even longer-range strike on the Engels Russian bomber base, almost 700 miles from Kyiv. The CIA did not know about any of these attacks beforehand, according to a senior U.S. official, but rumors started to circulate that the Agency was, through some mysterious third party, directing others to strike Russia. The Agency delivered a strong and unusual on-the-record denial.

https://www.newsweek.com/2023/07/21/exclusive-cias-blind-spot-about-ukraine-war-1810355.htmlnone

I’m guessing that the CIA guys and gals talking to Arkin are a different crowd from those talking to Sy Hersh. Let me make this simple — if Ukraine, thanks to CIA help, was kicking the stuffing out of the Russians and the CIA was confident of an impending Ukrainian victory, then this piece would never have been written. This smacks of major “ass covering” and blame shifting. CIA people only do these types of leaks when they learn that reservations are being made for seats on the helicopters that will be landing on the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Kiev when evacuation day comes. We did it before in Saigon and Kabul. By God, we can do it again.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/cia-leaking-like-sieve-as-it-blames-ukraine/