10 Sep, 2023 22:26

Ukrainian pensioner jailed for social media ‘likes’

An elderly woman was sentenced to five years behind bars over sharing posts about Russia’s actions

A woman in Ukraine’s northern Chernigov Region was slapped with a jail term of five years over simultaneously justifying, denying and glorifying Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine, the local media reported on Friday, citing a court decision. The woman was prosecuted over “liking” and sharing posts on a social media platform, which is popular in Russia.

According to the court’s documents, the defendant, whose identity was not made public, “liked” three posts on the ‘Odnoklassniki’ website. Banned in Ukraine, the platform is popular in Russia and some other former Soviet republics, particularly among the older population.

The posts in question included a social media post, a video published by Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and a “text and graphic material glorifying” the actions of the Russian forces in Ukraine. The woman also used a function that made all the posts she liked automatically reposted by her account, making them visible for her 178 social media friends, the court said.

At the court hearing, the defendant made a full confession and asked the judge not to punish her particularly harshly. She also said she was acting “under the influence of political shows”and did not understand in time that she was committing a crime.

The woman’s age was not revealed by the Ukrainian judicial authorities either. The court documents only state that she was an elderly person with no prior criminal records. Apart from sentencing her to a jail time, the judge also ordered confiscation of the woman’s mobile phone and a notebook and demanded she pay the court expenses amounting to 18,122 hryvnas ($491).

The sanctions against a number of Russian websites, such as Odnoklassniki, were imposed by Ukraine’s former president, Pyotr Poroshenko, in 2017. The ban was then extended by President Vladimir Zelensky. Prior to the ban, around 24 million people – more than half of the country’s population – used Russian sites.

In January 2022, roughly a month before the conflict between Kiev and Moscow broke out, a Ukrainian man was slapped with a fine amounting to $350 over liking a post calling for the overthrow of the government in Kiev. The Ukrainian prosecutors charged him with undermining national security.

Over the course of the ongoing conflict with Russia, Kiev has further tightened its grip on the media, internet, and politics, rolling out multiple highly-restrictive laws. In December 2022, it adopted its controversial, long-debated media law, which was slammed by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)as carrying “systemic problems for democracy.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/582726-ukrainian-pensioner-jailed-social-media/

Glenn Beck Interviews Former ATF Strike Force Member, John Dodson – “You Cannot Trust Your Government”

September 10, 2023 | Sundance |

What John Dodson outlines in this interview with Glenn Beck is strikingly similar to a long two-day conversation I had in Washington DC in the summer of 2020, as I outlined in “The Fourth Branch of Government.”

The statement by Dodson: “it is one thing to know what your government is capable of doing… It is another thing entirely to know what your government is willing to do to keep their capability”… is almost identical to the jaw-dropping shift in perspective that I also encountered in DC.

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Podcast,” Glenn talks with John Dodson, the whistleblower who revealed the ATF “gunwalking” scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious that led to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. John’s decision to speak up was extremely risky, and he tells Glenn why he was afraid to start his car every morning after his family left. John also talks about the chilling reality of what’s happening at the southern border. Why hasn’t the illegal immigration problem been solved? John jokes that “the Mexican drug cartels must be huge donors to the Democratic Party.” They also talk about the war in Ukraine and the dubious Nord Stream bombing. John’s expertise in Soviet war tactics leads him to believe that something just isn’t right. Yet nobody seems to be concerned about the obvious corruption. But it’s not just overseas. The CIA playbook is alive and at work — on American soil. Having done extensive undercover work in crowds, John saw all the signs in place on January 6: “If there’s a crowd, there are agents in it,” he reveals. And will the government ever solve the mystery of the pipe bomber? After having served in law enforcement for more than three decades, John reveals the truth about the powerful new role of the state: “Your government is not here to serve you any more.”

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/09/10/glenn-beck-interviews-former-atf-strike-force-member-john-dodson-you-cannot-trust-your-government/

https://youtu.be/gtAXCTfDHYU

Zelensky Demands More Weapons, Saying Russia’s Air Force ‘Stopping’ Ukrainian Counteroffensive

Oliver JJ Lane10 Sep 2023

Ukraine needs “powerful and long-range weapons” — fighter jets, in other words — because Russia’s air superiority over the battlefield has allowed them to “stop our counteroffensive”, President Zelensky said.

Russia is denying air superiority to Ukraine and using that to “stop” the counteroffensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday, the latest in a line of remarks addressing the difficulty the Western-armed Ukrainian army has had this year turning back the tide of the Russian occupation.

Speaking at a conference in Kyiv on Friday, Zelensky said Ukraine needed “powerful and long-range” because: “We are not in the sky and Russia is, they stop us from the sky. They stop our counteroffensive”, reports Le Figaro.

Zelensky also accused Western powers of hypocrisy in their urging Ukraine to fight faster, when they themselves— in his view — acted too slowly to support the invaded nation. He continued: ” They stop our counteroffensive. The war is complicated, some processes are complicated, and many things have been slowed down. When some allies say: ‘What about the counter-offensive? When will the next step be?’. My answer is that today, our steps are coming faster than [the West’s] new sanctions packages.”

Western support to Ukraine, including the deliveries of weapons and new sanctions against Russia, is becoming more “complicated and slower”, he said, and this was having an impact on the conflict itself. He said on Friday:“The war is slowing down. This is true, we recognise this.All the processes are becoming harder and slowing down: from sanctions to the delivery of weapons.”

The comments are not the first of their sort for Zelensky, who has made several — sometimes testy — remarks on the state of the counter-offensive. In June, the President acknowledged things were going “slower than desired” and blamed a diet of Hollywood war movies for some in the West for unrealistic expectations of how fast a war could be won. The tone of these remarks was picked up just this month by the Ukrainian foreign secretary who told critics of the nation’s execution of the counteroffensive to “shut up” and see if they could do better.

These remarks have often been accompanied by repeated calls for further military equipment, particularly the American-made F-16 jet fighters Ukraine believe will be able to sweep the Russian airforce from the sky.

Training of Ukrainian pilots to fly the machines has now actually begun, with dozens of aircraft promised by a group of three European nations. Yet this is not enough, Kyiv says, with advisor to President Zelensky’s Presidential OfficeMykhailo Podolyak saying other allies should also hand over their inventories to demonstrate their dedication to “international law, democracy and justice”, achieved through the defeat of Russia.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/09/10/zelensky-demands-more-weapons-as-russias-air-force-stopping-ukrainian-counteroffensiverussias-air-force-is-stopping-the-counteroffensive-says-zelensky/

Mike Lee Calls for ‘New Leadership’ as Mitch McConnell Plans to Ram Ukraine Aid Down ‘House’s Throat’

Sean Moran9 Sep 2023

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) on Friday night called for new Senate Republican leadership, citing a story that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) plans to ram Ukraine aid down the “House’s throat.”

Citing a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Kimberly Strassel that discussed howMcConnell will help Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) force the House to agree to $24 billion in aid to Ukraine.

“Mitch Mc­Connell has been mak­ing daily floor speeches on the need for more Ukraine fund­ing, wor­ried Mr. Mc­Carthy can’t get this cru­cial aid past House GOP spend­ing hard-lin­ers. So Mr. Mc­Connell is … sign­ing up to help Mr. Schumer ram the whole pack­age down the House’s throat,” Strassel wrote.

Lee contended thatRepublicans have become increasingly frustrated with Senate Republican leadership passing legislationthat divides Republicans yet has strong support from Democrats.

He wrote,“With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?We need new leadership. Republicans nationwide have grown tired of Senate Republican leadership supporting bills that unite Democrats (because they’re full of Democratic priorities) while sharply dividing Republicans.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/09/09/mike-lee-calls-for-new-leadership-as-mitch-mcconnell-plans-to-ram-ukraine-aid-down-houses-throat/