Republicans launch attack on First Amendment…

November 11, 2023 (2 days ago)

The right is struggling with a censorship issue that’s escalating. Conservatives are increasingly focused on silencing those who critique Israel and Jewish folks. While it would be wonderful to live in a world where everyone loves one another and disagreements never happen, that’s not our reality.

“Hate speech,” like it or not, falls under the protection of the First Amendment. If the right fails to uphold this, how on earth can we credibly criticize the left for their draconian censorship tactics?

The Hill:

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) held up his new bill as a possible solution to antisemitism on college campuses, saying the debates in colleges and universities across the country are “not a free speech issue.”

Lawler, alongside Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Max Miller (R-Ohio) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), introduced the Antisemitism Awareness Act in late October, which they hope will enable universities and law enforcement to go after antisemitic speech, which he described as hate speech.

Let’s face it, many Republicans have stumbled into the left’s “hate speech” trap. They may not see it, but they’re effectively stifling free speech. As we’ve seen from Supreme Court rulings, “hate speech” isn’t a legally recognized category. The article from

The Hill goes on:

“We have seen a rapid rise in antisemitism on these college campuses, and we need to crack down on it,” Lawker said in a CNN interview Friday. “This is not a free speech issue. This is hate speech.”

The bill would force the Education Department to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism for use in enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws.

The IHRA definition, which is not currently universally accepted, includes anti-Zionism, a belief against the state of Israel, as a factor — which some contend is simply a political belief and has nothing to do with religious discrimination.

It’s not just random Republican congressmen pushingcensorship either, it’s the “f*g frauds” at Fox News, according to Glenn Greenwald.

This must be one of the reasons why Fox got rid of Tucker Carlson.

The right probably feels completely justified in their actions, firmly believing that their form of “censorship” is for the greater good. However, the left has the same convictions about their causes. That’s exactly why it’s crucial to take an unwavering stand on free speech. You’re either fully committed to it, including the stuff that offends you, or you’re not. And whether you like it or not, if the right is championing censorship, regardless of the cause, it puts us on the same level as the Marxists on the left.

(Do these people understand they keep on pushing anti semitism, the more people become anti semite’s?)

https://revolver.news/2023/11/republicans-launch-attack-on-first-amendment/

>>19904955 Tom Fitton: Federal Judge Totenberg issued an order on Nov. 10th denying the GA SoS/Election Board motion to dismiss the Curling v. Raffensperger ==PN

Georgia elections official downplays cybersecurity threats despite report

Timothy Pratt.Thu 29 Jun 2023

1/2

Georgia’s top election official is disregarding a recently released report that identifies serious vulnerabilities in Georgia’s computerized election system, instead siding with a conflicting report and claiming that scientific findings about cybersecurity threats are no more than conspiracy theories.

The Georgia secretary of state, BradRaffensperger, charged with overseeing elections, announced thatdespite the report’s findings, he will not update software to protect against the vulnerabilities before the 2024 presidential elections.

The dueling reports were released by a federal court as part of a lawsuit. One, a 96-page report prepared by J Alex Halderman, and Drew Springall, computer science professors at the University of Michigan and Auburn University, respectively, is based on tests of the equipment used in the increasingly important swing state. The report, which had been sealed for two years by the court, found “vulnerabilities in nearly every part of the system that is exposed to potential attackers” which could allow votes to be changed, potentially affecting election outcomes in Georgia, according to a summary by Halderman.

The other was prepared by Mitre, a research and development company, and paid for by Dominion Voting Systems, manufacturer of the state’s electronic voting system. Mitre did not have the same access to test Georgia’s voting equipment, and claimed the vulnerabilities are unlikely to be exploited on a wide scale.

In justifying his decision not to update the state’s voting system, Raffensperger pointed to the Mitre report, which says the potential attacks Halderman identifies are “operationally infeasible”.

Halderman called Raffensperger’s decision not to address the system’s vulnerabilities “irresponsible and wrong”. Raffensperger has made several statements in recent weeks calling the computer scientists’ conclusions “theoretical and imaginary”, and conflating their warnings with “Stop the Steal” efforts post-2020 – leading Halderman to label the state’s officials as “vulnerability deniers”. Computer scientists from many of the US’s leading universities signed a letter decrying the standoff, and urging Mitre to retract its report.

The scenario lands Georgia in a situation where top computer scientists and Trump-aligned election deniers appear to be sharing the same or similar concerns, even while one relies on groundbreaking research, while the other has been discredited by courts and election officials alike.

US district judge Amy Totenberg had sealed the Halderman report since 2021 because of cybersecurity concerns, as part of a lawsuit that started before the most recent presidential election and rise of election deniers. But an agreement was reached earlier this month to release a redacted version, together with the Mitre report.

Halderman, who has researched digital elections equipment for decades, said court-ordered access to Georgia’s election equipment, manufactured by Dominion, allowed them to do “the first study in more than 10 years to comprehensively and independently assess the security of a widely deployed US voting machine, as well as the first-ever comprehensive security review of a widely deployed ballot marking device”.

“The most critical problem we found,” Halderman wrote, is a “vulnerability that can be exploited to spread malware from a county’s central election management system to every ballot-marking device in the jurisdiction. This makes it possible to attack the ballot-marking devices at scale, over a wide area, without needing physical access to any of them.”

Mitre’s countering report not only lacks any testing of voting machines, it also relies on a key premise, stated in a footnote on the first page: that no one besides election workers have access to the state’s voting hardware and software….

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/29/georgia-brad-raffensperger-election-cybersecurity

>>19905728

2/2

But records obtained by the Coalition for Good Governance – the group behind the ongoing lawsuit against Georgia’s election system – show that people associated with the effort to deny the 2020 election results visited rural Coffee county’s election department in early 2021, and the Trump attorney Sidney Powell was able to copy Dominion software and other data. These records, including surveillance video, were reported by the Washington Postand are now under investigation by the Georgia bureau of investigation (GBI).

The Coffee county security breach and other issues led a group of 29 computer scientists from MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Georgia Tech and other US universities to write a letter last week urging Mitre to retract its report, calling the company’s conclusions a “dangerously misleading analysis”.

“Mitre embarrassed themselves,” Richard DeMillo, a computer science professor at Georgia Tech and one of the letter’s signers, told the Guardian. The report is “based on representations from the secretary of state about physical security, when right before our eyes, we can see video of people marching into Coffee county’s election department”.

Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for Raffensperger, pointed to the GBI investigation when asked about the Coffee county incident and whether people other than election workers can access voting equipment.

Hassinger also said that the “vulnerabilities identified in a lab are not real vulnerabilities, and do not pose risks” to the state’s election system. But DeMillo, who has worked in cybersecurity at Hewlett-Packard and the US Department of Defense, said: “If Alex Halderman can discover the system’s vulnerabilities, then nation states like North Korea and Russia can as well.”

DeMillo has testified as part of the lawsuit, now in its sixth year. In 2019, the Coalition for Good Governance’s efforts led Judge Totenberg to order the state to scrap its previous statewide computer election system, made by Diebold Election Systems, due to vulnerabilities – a first in election integrity court cases. Diebold no longer makes voting machines, and coalition plaintiffs have continued their efforts to force the state to use paper ballots filled out by hand for voting instead of touchscreens, as is done by nearly 70% of voters across the US, with computers available for people with disabilities.

“Ballots filled out by pen and paper are non-hackable,” said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the coalition. Georgia’s current system prints out a ballot after voters use touchscreens, and the ballot has a barcode that scanners read to record each voter’s choices.

In the months leading up to Georgia’s 2019 decision to change its election system to Dominion’s machines, a committee formed to advise the state on the decision ignored the recommendations of its lone computer scientist, Georgia Tech’s Wenke Lee, who urged the state to move to paper ballots marked by hand.

But the state ignored the recommendations and purchased machines from Dominion, another digital system, instead. “You can see that pattern of negligent, vulnerability denialism – of not facing facts,” Halderman said.

In a statement released on 20 June, Raffensperger said that “critics of Georgia’s election security” are probably either “election-denying conspiracy theorists or litigants in the long-running … lawsuit. These two groups make ever-shifting but always baseless assertions that Georgia’s election system is at risk because bad actors might hack the system and change the result of an election.”

The statement conflates conspiracists like Cyber Ninjas – the now-defunct company that performed discredited “audits” in Arizona after the 2020 presidential election – with cybersecurity experts who have decades of research to their names at leading universities. Asked about the researchers’ claims, Hassinger dismissed the line of inquiry as an “appeal to authority fallacy” and said in an email that “election denialism comes in many forms”, again conflating researchers with conspiracists.

Halderman told the Guardian he found Raffensperger’s 20 June statement “offensive”.

“Can they actually not tell the difference?” he asked. “Are they so incompetent?Scientists can’t sit quietly while a state like Georgia continues to ignore these issues.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/29/georgia-brad-raffensperger-election-cybersecurity

>>19905728

Look at the date of the order from the court, before the 2020 election. Raffensberger ignored the order. This group knew the State would rig the election

Curling et al v. Raffensperger et al, No. 1:2017cv02989 - Document 918 (N.D. Ga. 2020)

Court Description: Opinion and Order: The Court GRANTS the Coalition Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Injunction 800 . The narrowly tailored relief ordered directs that theState Defendants provide at least a modicum of the voting backup plan tools essential t o protecting voters constitutionally protected abilityand right to cast a ballot that is counted and given the same weight as any other on this coming November 3rd general election day and thereafter. It is not too late for Defendants to take the se reasonable concrete measures to mitigate the real potential harms that would otherwise likely transpire at precinct polling locations grappling with the boiling brew created by the combination of new voting equipment issues and old voter data system deficiencies. Signed by Judge Amy Totenberg on9/28/20(rlb)

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/georgia/gandce/1:2017cv02989/240678/918/

>>19905761

Here is the court Listener of this case, its 10 freakin pages Raffensberger has been fighting this.Last Court Decision attached.

Curling v. Raffensperger (1:17-cv-02989)

District Court, N.D. Georgia

Last Updated: Nov. 12, 2023, 4:38 p.m.

Assigned To: Amy Mil Totenberg

Citation: Curling v. Raffensperger, 1:17-cv-02989, (N.D. Ga.)

Date Filed: Aug. 8, 2017

Date Terminated: Oct. 26, 2018

Date of Last Known Filing: Nov. 10, 2023

Cause: 28:1443(1)Removal from State Court - Civil Rights

Nature of Suit: Civil Rights: Other

Jury Demand: Plaintiff

Jurisdiction Type: Federal Question

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6139924/curling-v-raffensperger/

>>19905798

Case 1:17-cv-02989-AT Document 1590.1/2anons Clarity voting records included in the end;

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA ATLANTA DIVISION

DONNA CURLING, et al., Plaintiffs, v. 1:17-cv-2989-AT BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, et al., Defendants.

DECLARATION OF MARILYN MARKS

MARILYN MARKS declares under penalty of perjury, pursuant to 28. U.S.C. § 1746, that the following is true and correct:

1. I have personal knowledge of the facts stated in this declaration, and if called to testify, I could and would testify

competently thereto.

1. I am the Executive Director of Coalition for Good Governance

(“CGG”).

1. In the ordinary course of CGG’s work, CGG obtains records from members, voters, government agencies, experts, and others in the field of election security and governance, and makes many of those records available to interested parties. These records include government reports, responses to Open Records Act requests, academic and scientific studies, emails, correspondence, and other records. Attached to this declaration are true and correct copies of documents that CGG obtained and maintained in the regular course of its work.

1. Exhibit 1 is a true and correct copy of an October 11, 2022 email from Dr. J. Alex Halderman to Director of Elections Blake Evans, of the Secretary of State’s office, which email encloses Dr. Halderman’s October 10, 2022 paper entitled “Vulnerbility Disclosure: Privacy Flaw Affecting Dominion ICP and ICE Tabulators.” Dr. Halderman sent this email to me in response to my request.

1. Exhibit 2 is a true and correct copy of a paper by Dr. Halderman and others entitled, “ Unclear Ballot: Automated Ballot Image Manipulation.” I obtained this paper from Dr. Halderman’s website at

https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/unclear-evoteid19.pdf

1. Exhibit 3 is a true and correct copy of the Georgia Secretary of State’s Power Point training presentation on Emergency Back Up Procedures and Provisional Ballots that CGG obtained in response to an records request.

1. Exhibit 4 is a true and correct copy of the Cobb County Emergency Action Plan provided to Cobb County Poll Workers and obtained by CGG in response to an open records request.

1. Exhibit 5 is a true and correct copy of The Carter Center’s report entitled Performance Review Board Report on Fulton County Elections conducted

for the State Election Board. I obtained the report from the Secretary of State’s website: https://sos.ga.gov/sites/default/files/forms/Performance%20Review%20Board%20 Report%20on%20Fulton%20County%20Elections%20%281-13-23%29.pdf

1. Exhibit 6 is a true and correct copy of The Carter Center’s report entitled 2022 General Election Observation: Fulton County, Georgia. I obtained the report from The Carter Center’s website: https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/peace/democracy/u_s_elections/fulton -county-election-observation-report.pdf. CGG also obtained a copy of this report from Fulton County in response to an open records request.

1. Exhibit 7 is a true and correct copy of training materials for Georgia’s county election officials regarding post-election audits, which I obtained from the Cobb County Elections Office in response to an open records request.

1. Exhibit 8 is a true and correct copy of certification statements for the Dominion Voting System as located on the Georgia Secretary of State’s website https://sos.ga.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/2020_seb.pdf (specifically March 11, 2020 meeting transcript Exhibit 2.)

1. Exhibit 9 is a true and correct copy of the Secretary of State’s online publication A Guide for Registered Voters, An Overview of Georgia’s Absentee Voting Process available at https://sos.ga.gov/sites/default/files/forms/Absentee_Voting_In_Georgia_Rev_3- 30-22.pdf

1. Exhibit 10 is a true and correct copy of an October 3, 2020 letter sent by CGG’s counsel Bruce Brown to counsel for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections.

>>19905867

1. Exhibit 11 is a true and correct copy of the DeKalb County Voter Registration & Elections Board material for the July 14,2022 meeting regarding the May 24, 2022 Commissioner District 2 Election Analysis, excerpted from the complete board book available at https://www.dekalbcountyga.gov/sites/default/files/users/user3597/Board%20Mate rials%202022-07-14.pdf

1. Exhibit 12 is a true and correct copy of a June 3, 2022 press release entitled “Georgia Election System Ensures Accuracy of DeKalb Results” posted on the Georgia Secretary of State’s website at https://sos.ga.gov/news/georgia- election-system-ensures-accuracy-dekalb-results .

1. Exhibit 13 is a true and correct copy of a June 7, 2022 e-mail I received from Dr. Alex Halderman concerning a ballot image in the May 24, 2022 DeKalb election.

1. Exhibit 14 is a true and correct copy of a July 12, 2022 press release entitled Secretary of State Trains Local Officials on New Voter Registration System.

https://sos.ga.gov/news/secretary-state-trains-local-officials-new-voter- registration-system

1. Exhibit 15 is a true and correct copy of a ballot image from the Barrow County November 3, 2020 election produced by the State Defendants in the discovery process in this case.

1. Exhibit 16 is a photograph of a document included in the mail ballot packet that Fulton County Elections Office sent to voters in connection with the June 6, 2020. Exhibit 16 was sent to me by Dr. Richard DeMillo who stated it was included in his mail ballot packet. It is identical to other notices that CGG received from other Georgia voters with questions about the instruction.

1. Exhibit 17 is a true and correct copy of email exchanges on which I was copied between CGG counsel, State Defendant’s counsel, and Cobb County counsel regarding the retention and production of Cobb County ballot images for the November 2020 election.

1. Exhibit 18 is a true and correct copy of the Election Assistance Commission (“EAC”) publication, “Ten Things to Know About Selecting a Voting System” available on the EAC website at

https://www.eac.gov/documents/2017/10/14/ten-things-know-about-selecting- voting-system.

1. Exhibit 19 is a true and correct copy of the transcript of Georgia’s State Election Board meeting of September 28, 2022 posted on the Secretary of State’s website at

https://sos.ga.gov/sites/default/files/forms/2022%20Transcripts_3.pdf

1. Exhibit 20 is a screenshot I made of the list of elections for which the Secretary of State’s Office has published results on its website for the period January 28, 2020 through January 31, 2023.

https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/

Executed on this date, February 4, 2023

Marilyn Marks

>>19905882

These people have never given up, NEVER

>>19905796

I’d be so humiliated I’d quit and go to EU to mess with their elections, thats what McCarthy could do.but he’s trying to reduce the narrow republican majoritythats how patriotic he is!

>>19905796

NO never VP

THE REAL PRESIDENT IN THE BUILDING!!!🇺🇸🥳🥳🥳

00:53

https://rumble.com/embed/v3spegw/?pub=4

>>19905916

Trump greeted Jared Leto

>>19905950

REAL LOVE FOR THE REAL PRESIDENT!!!🇺🇸

00:14

https://rumble.com/embed/v3sp9by/?pub=4

BOOOM!!!🔥🔥🔥

He looks so happy that an entire stadium (except 1) loves him! Must be uplifting considering the reverse he gets!

00:09

https://rumble.com/embed/v3spbvm/?pub=4

this is how you know Elon Musk is over the target…

Elon Musk has ‘cut off the good guys, empowered the bad guys’ on X, says Stanford’s Alex Stamos

Alex Stamos,KrebsStamos Group partner, Stanford Internet Observatory director and former Facebook chief security officer, joins ‘Squawk Box’ to discuss X, formerly known as Twitter, slashing its disinformation and election integrity team ahead of the 2024 election, the potential implications for next year’s presidential election, and more.

THU, OCT 5 2023AT 8:56 EDT

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/10/05/elon-musk-has-cut-off-the-good-guys-empowered-the-bad-guys-on-x-says-stanfords-alex-stamos.html

Stephen Miller: Trump will implement ‘spectacular migration crackdown’

Story by Nick Robertson • 1d

Former President Trump’s immigration advisor Stephen Miller predicted that a second Trump term would include more strict policies against immigration, calling for a “spectacular migration crackdown.”

“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Miller told The New York Times. “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”

Miller served as a speechwriter for the former president and led the Trump administration’s immigration policy, which included a massive uptick in deportations and constructing parts of a promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Trump administration relied mostly on executive orders to implement immigration policy, especially crackdowns on so-called “sanctuary cities” and the limiting or total suspension of legal immigration from a number of mostly-Muslim countries.

The Times reported that in a possible second term, the Trump team plans to double down on those actions, including unprecedented roundups of undocumented immigrants already inside the U.S.

Those roundups would include the construction of massive detainment camps to keep undocumented immigrants and expedited legal hearings, funded by the military budget in order to get around Congressional approval, the Times reported.

Trump has previously lauded President Eisenhower’s 1954 deportation scheme dubbed “Operation Wetback,” now generally considered as a racist program which indiscriminately targeted Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the U.S., and pledged to base his policies on it.

The former president and some allies have also endorsed ending the concept of birthright citizenship, which constitutional scholars have argued is unequivocally enshrined in the 14th Amendment.

Immigration and criminal justice advocate Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, said the Trump’s plans rely on “xenophobic demagoguery” that appeals to the former president’s most conservative and most anti-immigration voter base.

“Americans should understand these policy proposals are an authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip apart nearly every aspect of American life — tanking the economy, violating the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-born Americans alike,” Schulte told The Times.

Immigration has remained a key issue of political importance since Trump left office in 2021, and is expected to remain a priority on the 2024 presidential campaign trail.

Following a drop in border crossings due to the COVID-19 pandemic, illegal crossings have since increased drastically in the last year. Border Patrol made about 220,000 encounters along the southern border in September, according to department data, a 15 percent increase from the previous month.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/stephen-miller-trump-will-implement-spectacular-migration-crackdown/ar-AA1jLvaz

>>19906173

I wonder if Miller is scaring them so they self-deport?

>>19906169

I doubt she cares about the climate, she’s an attention whore

>>19906182

Clintons started it to distract from Monica, so they shattered Serbia and put them in constant war

>>19906160

A snickers bar would be appropriate for you right now

>>19906158

No hes not, but he does some right things, no one is deceived by him

Golly he’s a desperado at this point

12 Nov, 2023 23:02

Ukraine hoping for Trump-Zelensky call – media

Former US president has already rejected one meeting invitation from the Ukrainian leader

Ukrainian President VladimirZelensky is eager to negotiate with former US President Donald Trumpdirectlyjust in casethe Republican frontrunner retakes the White House in 2024, an insider source in Kiev told Ukrainian outlet Strana on Sunday.

An individual close to Zelensky’s office reasoned that Trump, as the de facto 2024 presidential nominee for the Republican Party, effectively controls the flow of foreign aid to Ukraine, since Republicans hold the majority in the House of Representatives and the House has been responsible for blocking the White House’s efforts to continue funding the Ukrainian conflict.

Zelensky’s cabinet “understands this, andtherefore is trying to organize a direct conversation between Trump and Zelensky,”the source told Strana.KEK

Trump publicly turned down a previous invitation from Zelensky to visit Kiev earlier this month, explaining that he was concerned it would be “inappropriate” to go to Ukraine as Zelensky was currently “dealing with” Trump’s successor and 2024 rival, President Joe Biden, and Trump “would not want to create a conflict of interest.”

The Ukrainian president hadissued the invitation publicly as a challenge to Trumpregarding the latter’s boast that he could end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in just 24 hours if reelected president in 2024. Zelensky in turn declared that if Trump would just come to Kiev, he would need just 24 minutes to convince the American that “he can’t manage this war. He can’t bring peace because of the [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”

While Zelensky at the time praised Biden for coming to visit, the Democrat’s reelection in 2024 is anything but certain, with polls showing Trump pulling further and further ahead of his rival despite the Republican’s legal troubles. Dozens of felony charges against Trump could potentially put him behind bars for six lifetimes – a fact he has not hesitated to use for fundraising purposes.

After sending over $75 billion to Ukraine over the last two years, the US has nearly exhausted the funds it set aside for the conflict, and a growing faction in Congress is eager to draw the line at any further aid to Kiev.

Biden’s proposed $100 billion national security package – which included $61.4 billion earmarked for Ukraine – flopped in Congress last month when House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded separate bills to fund the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel.

(He as a cocaine addict, should at least knownot to insult the incoming president!This guy, never learns.)

https://www.rt.com/news/587141-zelensky-trump-direct-conversation/

12 Nov, 2023 15:51

KEK

The EU praises Ukraine’s ‘achievements,’ but in reality they are laughable

Teacher’s pet Kiev gets kudos for approaching Brussels’ acceptance standards, but those successes are ground-level at best

1/2Rachel Marsden

The European Commission just released a report card for countries seeking to join the European Union. And while Türkiye has been waiting on the sidelines for years, it now finds itself criticized and moving further away from accession for its unwillingness to drink on command the Kool-Aid that Brussels doles out.

Meanwhile,Ukraine is getting kudos for achieving the political equivalent of basic potty training– and even those achievements are debatable. “Ukraine has completed … well over 90% of the necessary steps that we set out last year in our report,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. What kind of dodgy bell curve grading is that?

There’s a term for what the EU is doing here.It’s called stringing someone along– in this case, with a participation trophy for effort. Ukraine and other countries, like Moldova and Georgia, want into the bloc. But the EU can barely afford to run what it has now, particularly with Germany and France – its economic engines – struggling from the EU’s own anti-Russian sanctions blowback on industry. Forget committing outright to taking on any more clown acts. So the European Commission is now issuing these condescending report cards, saying that Ukraine has met four of the seven pre-conditions, not for joining the bloc, but for just opening negotiations.

Kiev still needs to de-corrupt, presumably to be more aligned with the rest of the EU’s corruption level, it’s being told – which let’s face it, is a pretty low bar. It also needs to de-oligarchize (because Europe only has one Queen, and that’s Ursula herself). It also needs to learn to play nice with minorities and respect their basic rights – like a preschooler needs to be told to do.

So what did Kiev do right, according to Brussels? It has “established a transparent pre-selection system for the Constitutional Court judges and reformed the judicial governance bodies,” the report says. But just last month,Reuters reported that Kiev was on a hiring spree of 2,000 judges amid a “huge shortfall” and EU pressure. Doesn’t sound like the situation is too stable, or resolved. Sounds instead like it’s cramming for an exam or rushing to be able to just tick a box.

Granted, there has been a corruption crackdown documented by the mainstream media over the past several months, including the dismissal of the Supreme Court Chief Justice, but when corruption is so systemic and public trust in the judiciary is estimated to be in the single to low double digits, where’s the concrete proof that the new players are a substantial improvement over the old ones?You’d think that the EU might want to at least wait for an improvement in the public sentimentamong Ukrainians before giving its stamp of approval.

“Ukraine has taken positive steps in a wider and systemic effort to address the influence of oligarchs,” the report concludes. But is that really the result of a deliberate cleanup – or just due to circumstances? The Wilson Center has detailed how “war was making an impact on the Ukrainian oligarchy by physically destroying the oligarch-owned industrial complexes.” Some oligarchs have fled Ukraine for places like the South of France, as Le Monde has reported.

Does it count for Brussels as “de-oligarchization” efforts if Ukrainian oligarchs have fled to Europewith their considerable assets? Seems like perhaps Kiev is pulling the escalator up by the handrail on this particular “achievement” attributed to it.

Ukraine “has also demonstrated its capacity to make progressin aligning with the EU acquis, even during wartime,” the commission says, meaning compliance with basic EU rights and obligations.Not sure howUkrainian President VladimirZelensky’s recent decision to cancel elections jibes with basic EU and democratic imperatives. No other candidate country could shrug off elections while demanding immediate EU ascension, as Zelensky has. But there seems to be a different standard for Ukraine when it comes to EU expectations.

https://www.rt.com/news/587003-eu-praises-ukraines-achievements/

>>19906333

2/2

Ukraine’s entire report card is riddled with “but Russia” or “but war” typesof statements in what comes across as an effort to absolve Kiev of responsibility for its own shortcomings. No functional market economy? Blame Russia. As though there weren’t already problems before the conflict popped off, as suggested by Kiev’s ranking at the top of corruption lists.

Problems with Ukraine’s respect for fundamental rights?Just gratuitously gripe about the “numerous violations by Russia.” How about freedom of expression? “Despite the context of a full-scale war, Ukraine is in between some and moderate preparation in the area of freedom of expression,” according to the report. Except thateven Ukrainian journalists have reported being blocked from covering the conflictwith government officials revoking journalist credentials, The Intercept reported in June 2023. Not that the EU itself is in any position to assess any other country’s media freedom, with its own habit of censoring dissenting voices, and using the pretext of the Ukraine conflict to slap a blanket ban on those distributed through Russian-based platforms from the very outset.

“Past enlargements have shown the enormous benefits both for the accession countries and the EU. We all win,” said von der Leyen. Know who doesn’t win? The taxpayers of EU nations paying for all this as net donors. Besides, it’s still better for theEU elites to keep these chancer countries on the hook, never sealing the deal, while exploiting whatever resources they have. Getting the milk without buying the cow. So there’s still no engagement date on the horizon. That’s probably a good thing, since I was just comparing Kiev to a toddler a few paragraphs ago.

And speaking of stunted maturity, Ukrainian officials are going all Fatal Attraction on Brussels, talking about how hard they’re trying to please – always the sign of a healthy relationship – andhow much Brussels needs Kiev. “Our country should be in the EU.Ukrainians deserve this for their protection of European values and the fact that even during a full-scale war, we keep our word by developing state institutions,” Zelensky said.

Still, Ukraine needs to go work on itself, according to this humbling report card. For how long? Who knows. Accession talks could begin on December 12, if the entire bloc’s leaders agree. Which they may not. At least not without trying to squeeze out some concessions first, as Poland seems to be looking to do by demanding the exhumation of Poles killed by Ukrainian Nazis in the 1940s.

So with all the stumbling blocks that still remain for Kiev as a bossy child en route to the altar with Brussels, despite the rhetoric suggesting otherwise, there’s also the risk that Poland and others may ultimately want some kind of a kiss or concessions from Brussels in order to not be the guy who stands up at the wedding and objects to the union. And with Washington cooling on support and interest in Ukraine amid Israel’s conflict in the Middle East, the EU may be Ukraine’s only hope to keep funding the war against Russia – and likely only to a frozen state on Europe’s own border, at best.The whole sordid relationship between Brussels and Kiev is a folie à deux that risks ending in tears.