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Award-winning American journalist, 50, is shot dead by Russian troops in Kyiv suburb and his wounded colleague is hospitalized

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10608037/New-York-Times-journalist-51-shot-dead-Russian-troops-Ukraine.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailus

An American freelance filmmaker has been shot dead by Russian troops while filming refugees in Irpin, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.  

Brent Renaud, 50, was in a car with other journalists in Irpin, near Kyiv, when Russian troops opened fire. He was shot dead and one of his colleagues was injured.

Initially, he was thought to have been on assignment for The New York Times because he was carrying a press badge that listed the newspaper as his publication but it has since emerged he was working on a global film about refugees.

Renaud’s death was announced by Andrey Nebitov, the head of Kyiv’s police department, who said in a Facebook post that he paid ‘with his life for trying to highlight the aggressor’s ingenuity, cruelty and ruthlessness.’ He also shared a video, taken by a police officer at the scene, who said a third journalist was wounded.

Another US journalist who survived the attack spoke to a reporter for Italian paper Internazionale from the hospital.

Juan Arredondo said Renaud had been shot in the neck and ‘had to be left behind’.

‘We had crossed the first bridge in Irpin. We were going to film other refugees leaving we got into a car. Somebody offered to take us to the other bridge. We crossed a checkpoint and they started shooting at us. The driver turned around, there were two of us. My friend is Brent Renaud. He has been shot and left behind. I saw he has been shot in the neck. We got split,’ he said.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, HISTORY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ukraine-Russia Is Grayscale, Not Black and White Perhaps the BRICs are the last line of defense against the New World Order Bill Hennessy

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://www.hennessysview.com/p/ukraine-russia-is-grayscale-not-black?token=

We’ve been hearing about the New World Order since 1991. President George H. W. Bush declared the purpose of Desert Storm was to implement that new world order. He did not provide details.

Klaus Schwab did. “By 2030, you will own nothing and be happy about it.”

The New World Order is about surrendering your life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness to experts. You won’t have to worry about a thing. There will be no wars because the New World Order won’t allow wars. There won’t be crime because no one will have anything to steal. There won’t be rape because there won’t be sex because the drugs and surgeries will make us all sterile and frigid. Where will babies come from in the New World Order? That’s not your concern—now, go back to your Instagram feed like a good little boy.

Sometimes I wonder if a few of the world’s countries are trying opt out of that New World Order. A few countries like the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China.) Together, those four countries represent about half of humanity. Throw in chunks of Africa, and they’re the majority.

Yet, China, Russia, Brazil, and India hardly share a common worldview. They’re very different in the ways the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Sweden are the same. What we call the “Western World” is really the remnants of the Catholic World. Though all the countries of the Western World are now semi-officially atheist and anti-Christian, their historical cultures, their legal systems, their protocols, their languages all derive directly from the Church.

These formerly Christian countries were, by and large, the ones responsible for the New World Order and all its precursors: the League of Nations, the United Nations, NATO, and, even, the UN. Some of us suspect the New World Order is really just the Medieval Church world minus God. Or, rather, that ancient world, but with the creature in charge instead of the Creator. And that’s terrifying. Man without God is nothing but a predatory animal with nuclear weapons. We’d be better off letting dogs run the place.

[Aside: the Catholic Church’s hierarchy is more New World Order than Old World Order these days, too. If forced to choose between the Social Kingship of Christ and Klaus Schwab’s worldwide ant farm, the pope and his department heads would take the first flight to Davos.]

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

There is no climate crisis If there were, the IPCC wouldn’t be quietly turning the dial towards one: Rupert Darwall

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/ipcc-there-is-no-climate-crisis/

“No climate crisis” is, of course, not the spin the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is putting on its new 3,676-page report released last month. “The choices we make in the next decade will determine our future,” the IPCC says. “Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”

It could hardly be plainer. The report is political advocacy barely masquerading as science.

The IPCC Working Group II report is not meant to be about policy; that’s the job of Working Group III, which has yet to produce its contribution to the sixth assessment report. “The focus of our new report is on solutions,” the IPCC says of the Working Group II report. “It highlights the importance of fundamental changes in society.” The solution to climate change, the IPCC claims, is renewable energy, circular economies, healthy diets, universal health coverage and social protection. The only surprise is that the IPCC didn’t include abolishing the Second Amendment in its climate catechism.

“Scientific evidence shows that addressing the risks and impacts of climate change successfully involves a more a diverse set of actors than previously thought” and involves partnerships with “traditionally marginalized groups, including women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, local communities and ethnic minorities (high confidence).” How on earth did the IPCC exclude the LBGTQ+ community? “Different interests, values and worldviews can be reconciled if everyone works together,” the IPCC says. This isn’t science. It’s climate kumbaya.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“Why Are His Killers Still Out?”: Persecution of Christians, January 2022- Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18325/persecution-of-christians-january

On Jan. 3, Muslims, including some from neighboring Somalia, murdered six Christians; most were burned alive in their homes. — Morning Star News, January 7, 2022, Kenya.

An elderly great-grandmother, locally known as Mama Fide, was burned alive during the raid: “Grandma was unable to escape when the attack took place because she was very old and blind.” — Morning Star News, January 30, 2022, Nigeria.

Because Nigerian and Western mainstream media insist that Fulani herdsmen raids on Christians are not ideologically driven, but are rather for resources and land, one Twitter user wrote, “After [Joel’s experiences, including being asked if he’s Christian or Muslim], some people will come and say there’s no jihad agenda,” to which Joel replied, “Well, they clearly have an agenda and it’s clearly working and they are so proud of it, telling me no one can stop them.” — International Christian Concern, persecution.org, January 16, 2022, Nigeria.

On Jan. 3, a Muslim judge changed the life sentence that a Christian man convicted of “blasphemy” had been carrying out in prison, to a death sentence. Zafar Bhatti, 56, who had been languishing in jail since 2012 after being accused of sending blasphemous text messages, was sentenced to life in prison in 2017, under Section 295-C of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws against defaming Islam’s prophet, Muhammad. The change in sentencing came after one of his lawyers sought bail. — Morning Star News, January 10, 2022, Pakistan.

On Jan. 10, a Christian politician was arrested for a tweet that was deemed offensive to Islam. He is facing up to 10 years imprisonment. — ucanews.com, January 11, 2022, Indonesia.

[T]he church walls collapsed even as, ironically, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi was visiting the Coptic Pope during Christmas Mass to congratulate the Christians of his nation and speak of Christian/Muslim solidarity. — copticsolidarity.org, January 15, 2022, Egypt.

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Putin and His One-Man War by Amir Taheri

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18324/putin-one-man-war

It is hard to know what went on in Putin’s mind. But the past two weeks have shown that he has planned his war according to KGB rules rather than classical military strategy. He has relied on massive and indiscriminate use of force, and where Gerasimov and the professional military are concerned about losses among their men, he has been focused on wreaking as much havoc as he can.

His model is Ivan the Awe-Inspiring (Grozny). He wants to terrorize people into abject submission, as his forces did in parts of Syria where he and his allies hang on to an illusion of power.

In a classical war, the immediate aim is formulated with three words: conquer, cleanse, control. Putin’s idiosyncratic style of war, however, measures success by the size of debris created and the piles of civilian dead left behind.

Even the aero-naval bases that Putin has secured on the Syrian coast of the Mediterranean remain vulnerable.

No war is won by one side unless the opposite side admits defeat, at least as the best of all bad options. This is, perhaps, why since 1945, no one has really won a war on a once-and-for-all basis.

But what Putin cannot do is to rebuild Ukraine as he pleases. Over 2,000 years ago, historian Tacitus quoted the Celtic resistance leader fighting Roman invaders as saying: They make a desert and call it peace!

When he launched his invasion of Ukraine over two weeks ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared like a man who knew what he was doing. In his televised session with the High Council of National Security, he gave the impression that he had a precise war plan with clear objectives.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

It’s Time to Decolonize Anti-Semitic Jewish Studies Programs Funds were bestowed to learn about different cultures and promote mutual respect—not blame all evil on Jews. By Scott Shay

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/12/its-time-to-decolonize-anti-semitic-jewish-stu

When I was an undergraduate at Northwestern, I took a class in Jewish Studies primarily because I thought it would be easier for me since I had gone to Jewish Day School. In addition, my other classes had reputations for being tough that quarter. I also thought it might be interesting. It was neither. The class, in part, dissected the Bible according to its many supposed authors and their political proclivities. It was mostly based on the hypotheses of German Protestant scholars. The fact that the Bible has long been read by Jews and Christians as a source of wisdom, and by social leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as a source of inspiration over millennia, was apparently irrelevant.  

Ironically, this example shows how Jewish Studies Departments have been colonized. Jewish Studies have always examined Jewish culture and history through the prism of Western thought (using whatever narrative had come to dominate academia at a given time), though it obscures this bias and its antisemitic effect. Most other “studies” departments tend to extoll the identity of their subjects. In contrast, American taxpayers and Jewish donors unwittingly continue to pay for degrading and even demonizing—Jews. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Slow Joe, Bad Vlad Vladimir Putin is certainly worthy of condemnation. But that does not mean Donald Trump was wrong when he observed it would be “a good thing, not a bad thing” if America got on well with Russia. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/12/slow-joe-bad-vlad/

Proverbial sayings seem to have seasons just as fruits and flowers do. Here’s one misattributed to Mark Twain that’s in season now: “If you don’t read the news, you are uninformed. If you do, you are misinformed.” I don’t know how many times I have encountered that one recently. It’s probably always relevant, but it seems especially so now that “the fog of war” has rolled in everywhere following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February. 

It has been amusing to see the beautiful people exchange their Black Lives Matter yard signs and lapel pins for stylized images of the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag. A couple of summers ago, I had to reach for the Dramamine when I started getting emails from various corporate concerns declaring their solidarity with George Floyd and their staunch opposition to “white supremacy” and “systemic racism.” The same emporia are now emitting bulletins announcing their brave support of Ukraine and its media-savvy president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

There have been some dissenting voices. U.S. Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), for example, just described Zelenskyy as a “thug” and the Ukrainian government as “incredibly evil.” He was harshly criticized for those comments. “Let’s be clear,” sniffed one lawmaker, “the thug is Putin.” You have probably noticed that “pro-Putin” has replaced “white supremacist” as this week’s epithet of choice. It doesn’t matter that Cawthorn also observed, “The actions of Putin and Russia are disgusting. But leaders, including Zelensky [sic], should NOT push misinformation on America.”

Two points. First, it won’t matter what Cawthorn says about Putin’s invasion. He has dared to attack a sacred cow. He has arrayed himself on the side of the goats. He must be vilified. 

Second, a more general point. Two different things can be true at the same time. Vladimir Putin can be a murderous thug and Ukraine can be a corrupt country beholden to various left-wing interests. 

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Rich Higgins: The Unsung White House Official Who Warned President Trump in 2017 that the Deep State Was Trying to Prematurely End his Presidency By John Dale Dunn

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/03/the_unsung_white_house_official_who_warned_president_trump_in_2017_that_the_deep_state_was_trying_to_prematurely_end_his_presidency_.html

No President of The United States ever before faced anything comparable to the organized effort of officials within his administration to sabotage Donald J. Trump’s presidency and drive him from office.  The Memo by Rich Higgins [216 pp, Kindle 9.99 Hard Copy 22.34 ISBN-0999705938 Washington D.C. Calamo Press 2020] is a first and only book by an American soldier and patriot who exposes the deep state and the anti-Trump coup activities.

Rich Higgins earned his early reputation as an ordnance (explosives) expert in Iraq during and after the War for Iraqi Freedom of 2002 and 2003.  Higgins went from being an ordnance man to becoming an expert on insurgency warfare, since explosives were the favored weapons of insurgents.  They are usually outgunned and out manned so they retreat to asymmetric (guerilla) warfare heavily dependent on hit and run and explosives, which demoralize and disrupt the efforts of the larger force. 

It was Higgins’s job to deter explosive disruptions planted and detonated by the opposition and that meant he developed an understanding of insurgents — their motives, strategies, limits, patterns of behavior. His depth of understanding was very valuable in Iraq and the Middle East but also at home. He transferred to the White House to provide security. He also developed a high level of expertise on IEDs and how to track and neutralize the insurgent efforts. 

Higgins was convinced that George W. Bush and those military and State Department officials who parroted his position were colossally ignorant when they asserted that Islam is a Religion of Peace.  Higgins was well informed about Islam and Islamist fanatics, and he knew that the adherents of Islam were committed to conquest and terror — obliged by their religion to wage war against the infidel and to enable by force and political action the worldwide Caliphate.

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How to Launch a Revolution . . . and Lose it Too John O’Sullivan

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2022/03/how-to-launch-a-revolution-and-lose-it-too/

“The ledger of ruinous edicts enshrined as public policy made no distinction between dying ‘with’ or dying ‘of’ COVID. Next came the suppression of medical information at variance with orthodoxy, censoring dissenting scientists and constant, taxpayer-funded ad campaigns ‘nudging’ the populace to accept lockdowns, curfews, closed borders and social exclusion as rational, essential and never, ever to be questioned.”

The last time I checked, there had been recent mass protests against governments and their anti-Covid regulations in cities in France, Germany, Austria, New Zealand, Italy, Australia, the United States and most influentially in Canada where a “Freedom Convoy” of Canadian and US truckers had snarled up the parliamentary district of its capital city, Ottawa, by parking in force and hooting their horns.

I had previously thought that the height of Covid policy silliness had been reached in Melbourne when a policeman entered a friend’s garden where he was digging responsibly alone and threatened him with a fine unless he put on a mask. But no. The flame that torched the truckers’ protest in Canada was the mandate from the Canadian government that truckers must be vaccinated before driving their long and lonely way along the vast interstates of North America. 

Why was the mandate both an overreach and a serious political error?

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Dividing the Kingdom: Britain’s Game of Thrones David Martin Jones

Posted By on March 13th, 2022

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2022/03/dividing-the-kingdom-britains-game-of-

“There is disunion and distraction in Downing Street as the Prime Minister struggles to explain his cavalier attitude to lock-down rules. Meanwhile, amid growing divisions at home and absent efforts to broaden and deepen ties beyond Britain’s shores, the Commonwealth faces the prospect of dissolution. The unavoidable surmise is that policy-makers and bureaucrats are either asleep at the wheel or actively hostile.”

After Brexit, government policy-making was supposed to focus on securing the national interest. Those who supported leaving the European Union assumed the United Kingdom would resume control of its territorial borders, reassert parliamentary sovereignty and return to its historic role as an independent sovereign state with a commitment to a rule-governed international trading order.

Indeed, the Johnson government embarked upon a desultory effort to re-establish the UK’s economic and political links with the world beyond Western Europe. It forged “bespoke” free-trade agreements with Australia, New Zealand and Japan and has applied for membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).