Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s political career in 2015, “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) has been more than a slogan, and instead a concept that embodies a series of simple and easily understood principles about the problems facing America and the solutions to these problems. MAGA was never a specific series of policy proposals, as it was intended to be something bigger than any specific policy. It was a vision of a new America. While short on specifics, the vision was clear: the current establishment had wasted America’s wealth on foreign wars and domestic social engineering agendas that had hollowed out the nation. Though it was not theocratic or puritanical or otherwise moralizing, it was opposed to “weird stuff” which sought to undermine what were traditionally considered “American values,” and it was anti-immigration and anti-war. Again, it was never specific, but everyone definitely understood those three major cornerstones of the program. (It was also “anti-corruption,” though as no one is publicly “pro-corruption,” that is not a particularly meaningful position to take.)

During his first term, Trump failed to do much MAGA, but it was generally understood that he was trying to, but that the president simply doesn’t really have very much power in America. However, in these early months of his second term, Trump is not simply failing to live up to the ideals of MAGA, but is attempting to completely confuse the meaning of the term, attempting to convince his own followers that “MAGA” was never really what they thought it was.

In a series of statements reminiscent of Anthony Fauci’s infamous pronunciation that “I am The Science,” Trump has recently claimed “I am MAGA,” and that he is the decider of what is or isn’t MAGA, and whatever new policies he decides on do not necessarily need to have any relationship to what was previously understood to be the MAGA political platform.

What he is effectively saying is that his political movement was always just about him as a person, and that anyone who ever supported MAGA was supporting him as a person. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with his totally new series of policies he has developed in recent weeks, most of which are the opposite of how MAGA had previously been defined, is not actually a believer in MAGA, because MAGA was never a series of policies, but instead an expression of loyalty to Donald Trump personally, and a pledge to support whatever it is he decides to do at any moment.

This situation is most brightly highlighted in the way Trump has dealt with Congressman Thomas Massie, who is, I would argue, the standard-bearer of the MAGA platform as it was initially introduced by Trump in 2015. Trump has claimed Massie is a traitor and vowed to destroy him. It is very obvious to everyone that Massie has not changed any of his positions on anything.

In the most recent betrayal of the ideals that were sold as representing MAGA, Donald Trump has decided that he wants to continue the endless war in the Ukraine. While meeting with his handler and earthly master Bibi Netanyahu this week, Trump declared that there is no plan to cut any funding to the Ukraine, and he actually plans to increase weapons shipments.

Although it’s not totally clear what happened, it appears that last week, Pete Hegseth halted shipments of weapons to the Ukraine. During the questioning in front of his boss, Trump claimed he didn’t know who was responsible for canceling these weapons shipments, and asked the media to tell him who did it. (Hegseth was sitting directly to his left.) He then declared a planned increase in weapons.

Reporter: Who ordered the pause in weapons shipments to Ukraine?

Trump: “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

If Trump doesn’t know, who is running the country? pic.twitter.com/astMRRtVil

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 8, 2025

Following these statements, The Washington Post Editorial Board rushed to support Trump, publishing an op-ed praising his support for the Ukraine.

I would not suppose that anyone who voted for Trump in any of his three elections ever expected that the WaPo Editorial Board would become the standard bearer of MAGA, but that is apparently precisely what has taken place.

Trump had previously claimed that involving the US in Israel’s war with Iran actually was in-line with MAGA policy, which was explicitly anti-war, because he wasn’t really doing a war, he was just doing a bombing, not a war.

In another betrayal, Trump’s AG, Pam Bimbo, has claimed that there isn’t actually an Epstein client list. I don’t know what that means and no one has explained it, but the implication apparently is that Epstein did not have any clients, and either no women were trafficked, or they were trafficked to no one.

Remember when the Trump admin kept promising to release the Epstein files? No? We’ve got you. Watch this supercut.

And make sure to subscribe to Zeteo for more: https://t.co/X3GkKbDl2z pic.twitter.com/qdnIZsTLLP

— Zeteo (@zeteo_news) July 8, 2025

Though it is perhaps a slightly lesser offense to the MAGA agenda, which has never been particularly focused on fiscal responsibility, Trump has also this week moved to explode the national debt with the biggest spending bill in American history. What is most notable about this is that he vastly expanded military spending to the highest levels ever just weeks after claiming he was going to attempt to halve the military budget.

Trump said he would slash military spending, but just a few months into his second term, he proudly announced a one trillion dollar Pentagon budget.@ggreenwald on the Trump admin’s gift to the defense industry: pic.twitter.com/1lFMErnARb

— System Update (@SystemUpdate_) July 1, 2025

While “fiscal responsibility” might be slightly beyond the intellectual scope of MAGA, which has never been particularly sophisticated, “we’re going to stop wasting money on foreign wars and spend that money here at home where our country is falling apart” is definitely something we all understood to be core to the MAGA doctrine. Now, because MAGA has been redefined from a series of principles about how America should be run into “whatever Donald Trump says at whichever time he happens to be speaking,” the continuation of the Ukraine war, bombing countries for Israel, and spending the most money ever on war, all fall under the definition of “MAGA.”

A Test of the Limits of “Political Loyalty”

“Loyalty” is a quality that should be explicitly reserved for personal relationships. A man should be loyal to his family. Loyalty to a political figure or a political movement should not be possible, as it serves no purpose.

To be loyal to someone means that you will stick by them whether they are right or wrong. The reason we are loyal to our families is that we need them to be loyal to us, because this is how humans survive. If people abandoned family members because they were wrong about something, we would all be completely alone. We have to take the good and the bad with family members, because we need them.

Loyalty also makes sense in military units. It could make sense in the context of various business relationships. And there are, I’m certain, other examples of where the behavioral quality of loyalty would or could be appropriate.

One place where loyalty is not appropriate is in politics. Being “loyal” to a political figure is nonsensical. The only reason any person would support any political figure is that that political figure is doing political things they agree with and that help them and their personal agenda. There is no place at all for loyalty to a political figure, as you do not personally know the political figure, therefore do no owe the personal allegiance. There is no mutuality at all. Either the political figure is promoting an agenda you agree with, and therefore you rally for them and defend them because you benefit, or they are doing something different, which you do not benefit from, in which case you owe them nothing.

What Trump has done with intention is form a kind of personality cult, where people feel that they know him, and therefore owe him some kind of personal loyalty outside of his role as a policy maker. This is something that is only really possible in the age of electronic media. Most people see Donald Trump speaking nearly every day, and their subconscious mind, which is not familiar with the nature of video screens, registers him as someone they know personally, and are regularly hanging out with socially. Such a person would be the kind of person you would owe a personal loyalty to, and whose mistakes you would overlook, at least until they point where they got completely out of control.

We are going to see the limits of the “loyalty” personality cult tested.

Clearly, the personality cult is not considered ironclad, in the way it would be with someone like Jim Jones, as there is understood to be a need for distractions. This week, Trump is covering up the series of betrayals with a romanesque “cruelty circus,” sending immigrants to cages in an alligator swamp. The media that supports Trump will say “yeah so, I guess there never was an Epstein list, and yeah we’re just going to keep doing that Ukraine war forever apparently – now let’s go back to the scene of the alligator pit, where your tribal enemies, the immigrants, are going to be fed to large, nasty lizards.”

They will keep the circus distractions coming, I’m sure. But ultimately, there is going to be a strict math equation regarding how many people are willing to ignore the fact that Trump is abandoning most of the core of his platform, not only failing to do the things he promised to do, but telling people he never really cared about those things anyway.

It’s worth mentioning that people will continue supporting a political figure that fails if they feel he is trying his best, which is why Trump remained so popular after not doing very much the first time he was president. But this time, it seems he is attempting to completely shift his stated priorities. This week he said “we have to defend the Ukraine.” This is very much the diametric opposite of what he campaigned on when he said “it’s not our responsibility to defend the Ukraine.” That is different than “sorry, I can’t figure out how to get Congress to stop funding the Ukraine” or “I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do to end this war, this whole thing is really confusing and I don’t know what to do.” What I mean to say is: failure is different than betrayal, and while failure is tolerable, betrayal should not be tolerable.

In the case of “actually, there never was an Epstein client list,” that is just obvious lying, which would fall under the “betrayal” category. Unless a person is stupid enough to believe that Gislaine Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking underage girls to no one, which some Trump supporters are probably stupid enough to believe, though I can’t say for certain.

Unfortunately: Democracy

Fortunately for Donald Trump and his cadre, and unfortunately for all the people in America, we live in a democracy, and therefore it is possible for zero people to support Donald Trump, and for him to remain president, and continue to do whatever it is he feels like doing at any given time.

There are probably some reasons that political support is important in a democracy, but I can’t think of what they might be. Trump appears to care personally about people supporting him, as it appears he has a rather fragile ego that feeds on popular support, and if people are booing him, it appears to hurt his ego. But ultimately, because this is a democracy and there is therefore no mechanism through which the public can petition grievances, he can do whatever he wants while he remains in office, and no one’s opinion about what he does means anything.

That said, Trump probably will maintain some fanatical base of morons who don’t really know much about what is going on but are very excited by alligators. And of course, the polls published can say whatever.

Then, after he does whatever it is he is going to do, he can turn over the government to Gavin Newsom or AOC, and they can be popular for a while after claiming they are going to do something or other, and then become unpopular after they do something different than they claimed they would do. And we will just keep going on like that until eventually, something gives out, and the American empire falls into disarray, and something finally happens.

REPORTER: “You called for a ceasefire in Ukraine. If Putin doesn’t come to the table to negotiate with you, will you put additional sanctions on Russia?

PRES. TRUMP: “Sounds likely.”

REPORTER: “And do you think the war should be frozen…”

PRES. TRUMP: “The war should have… pic.twitter.com/lDMbLh0iNi

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) January 21, 2025

Okay, so let me tell you the basic thing that is happening here: Trump wants whatever happens in the Ukraine to be a “win.” That is the terms in which he thinks. Everything has to be a “win.”

He’s not actually going to try to remove the Russians from the land they’ve already conquered. But he wants some kind of “win.” Unfortunately, there is no possible “win” for the US in this situation, and what he would need to do is simply recognize that Joe Biden started this war and he cannot turn it into a win any more than he can turn Biden’s dog-eater Haitians into “winners.”

But he’s totally surrounded by neocon liars, and he doesn’t totally understand international relations and still believes America can do anything with its military, so he is going to try to pressure Russia.

Or at least, that’s what he’s starting with.

This was predictable and I predicted it.

Again, I am not going to take a pro or anti Trump position in general. It doesn’t make any sense to do that, as he is just doing seemingly random things, some of which are good and some of which are very bad.

Obviously, prolonging the war in the Ukraine would be bad. However, simply making threats doesn’t mean much, especially when these threats are coming before he’s actually sat down with Vladimir Putin to talk about the situation.

RT:

US President Donald Trump has said that Washington could impose more sanctions on Russia if it refuses to engage in talks on settling the Ukraine conflict.

During his Tuesday press conference, Trump was asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reluctance to negotiate will lead to additional curbs against Moscow – on top of the thousands of restrictions already introduced under Joe Biden.

“Sounds likely,” he replied.

Trump, who had been extremely critical of Biden for supplying military aid to Ukraine, did not rule out the possibility of Washington sending more weapons to Kiev during his tenure, saying: “Well, we will look into that.”

However, he insisted that Brussels should “equalize” with Washington when it comes to the amount of support it provides to Ukraine. “We are in there for $200 billion more than the EU. I mean, what are we, stupid? I guess the answer is ‘yes.’ They must think so,” the president said.

He again expressed a readiness to engage in discussions with Putin to end the fighting between Moscow and Kiev. “We are talking to [Ukrainian leader] Zelensky. We are gonna be talking with President Putin very soon and we will see how it all happens,” Trump stressed.

This is really just “tough talk” that I would not put any weight in.

Ending the war in itself would be a “win,” regardless of what happens to the Ukraine. No one gives a shit about the Ukraine, other than sickening tranny psychopaths and the Jews. Also, white women, apparently, but they are basically some combination of tranny and Jew.

Literally, no one cares.

Trump doesn’t want an ugly scene, and he wants to be able to claim he did something impressive, but I really don’t think he wants to prolong Biden’s war.

When it comes to Iran, that’s a totally different story.

Also, he could be forced into a war with the Chinese, definitely.

But the Ukraine thing is so ridiculous and gay. This is one thing that I said from the beginning I thought there was a good chance he would fix.

Maybe he won’t, I have no idea, but I would be surprised if he escalates it.

Civ VII is going to to utter garbage. I’ve seen the clips.

The mf has Harriet Tubman leading American civilization.

And of course, Peter the Great got replaced with some woman no one has ever heard of.

But the Jews still mad, damn.

RT:

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII video game has sparked a heated debate online over the history of Russia and Ukraine, and the role of Empress Catherine the Great. A number of pro-Kiev X users have called for the Russian civilization to be axed from the latest installment of the popular series in light of the ongoing Ukraine conflict.

Since the escalation of the hostilities in February 2022, multiple Western countries have banned performances by certain Russian artists. Ukrainian authorities have been removing all things Russian from the public domain for years, with the trend recently intensifying.

Moscow has consistently denounced such policies as attempts to “cancel” Russian culture.

Scheduled for release on February 11, Civilization VII is the latest installment in the series that dates back to 1991, and allows players to “assume the role of a famous historical leader” and “guide a civilization through history.”

According to previews and information provided by the developers, the game features Russian Empress Catherine the Great, whose rule spanned more than 30 years in the second half of the 18th century.

It was on her watch that the Russian Empire crushed the Crimean Khanate and absorbed the peninsula following the Russo-Turkish War.

Am I supposed to reveal here that yes, I do know who Catherine the Great was?

Because there was a time I didn’t have to do that. There was a time when calling Catherine the Great “some woman no one has ever heard of” would have been considered classic Anglin humor.

However, it feels like now, there is a significant part of the audience that is retarded.

I don’t know how that happened.

I think it’s probably that boomers started reading the site after I stopped using so much explicit Nazi imagery.

But yeah, don’t pay $70 for this game, please.

I’m not joking about Harriet Tubman*.

If the oversees at 2K were demanding “woke,” the devs should have just made George Floyd the leader of American civilization and then if the suits were like “uhhhhh” they should have looked them straight in the eye and said: “is that going to be a problem? Because if the inclusion of George Floyd as the leader of America in this video game is a problem, then I think the New York Times would like to know about that.”

Agree and amplify still works.

But… maybe that was what they were doing by making Harriet Tubman the leader of American civilization?

I support making everything about George Floyd and calling people racists and threatening to tattle to the Times if they don’t support it.

Demand the Statue of Liberty’s face be replaced with George Floyd’s face.

Demand he be put on the $100 bill.

Demand a picture of his face replace the US flag in Congress.

Just claim anyone who disagrees is a white supremacist, then pull out your phone and say “hold on, I’m just texting the New York Times.”

*I was joking when I said that Fort Bragg had been renamed Fort Harriet Tubman. Some people did not get the joke, because it was apparently too plausible. Biden actually renamed it something benign, like “Fort Values” or whatever. 99% of the jokes here are obvious, I hope, but it sometimes makes the joke funnier when they are almost believable. But of course, we don’t want people going around repeating things I wrote as a joke. So I do be careful.

Washington is saying they know the war is lost. That’s what “they’re going to have to negotiate” means. It means the Spring Offensive won’t build a land bridge to Crimea.

But they still want more and more men to go die.

RT:

Outgoing US President Joe Biden will use every opportunity to deliver more weapons to Ukraine in the final days of his administration, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has pledged.

With 50 days left, the Biden administration is working to “get Ukraine all the tools we possibly can to strengthen their position on the battlefield,” the senior official told ABC News on Sunday.

“President Biden directed me to oversee a massive surge in the military equipment that we are delivering to Ukraine so that we have spent every dollar that Congress has appropriated to us by the time that President Biden leaves office,” he said.

President-elect Donald Trump has claimed that he could end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours after he is sworn in on January 20. Biden’s stated strategy has been to stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia.

Kiev will eventually have to engage Moscow diplomatically, Sullivan acknowledged on Sunday, and the purpose of the US military aid is to “give Ukraine as many tools as possible so that they could go into that negotiation and feel they could achieve the outcome that they would like to see.”

They’ll eventually engage, but right now they’re doing mass press-ganging (kidnapping teenagers) and sending them to the front where they admit more than 50% of them are casualties.

It’s pretty cynical, to kill this many people. I guess these Americans all worship Satan like Alex Jones says, because otherwise they would fear God. It’s one thing to cheat on your wife or to hire a hitman to torture and murder your neighbor because he poisoned your dogs. You can say “God will understand and forgive me for this.” But when you’re sending tens of thousands of young men to die in a war that you know is hopeless because you think it will be a financial benefit – and you’re openly admitting it in public, because you’re so proud of yourself – you have to assume you’re going to hell.

Sending men to kill each other is not a small thing. It should weigh very heavily on anyone. In theory, war is only supposed to happen in an existential situation. In reality, leaders do it for other reasons, sometimes. But they lie and say it’s existential. No one ever thought that the Ukraine’s war against Russia was existential. The Ukraine was a part of Russia when I was born. Every leader since has been Russian-speaking (including Zelensky, who had to do a “crash course” in the Ukraine language to become the leader). Conversely, it is easy to see how Zelensky going around talking about joining NATO and putting NATO nukes on Russia’s border was seen by Russia as existential.

You can see that the deaths of soldiers do weigh heavily on Putin. You see stoicism in him. Zelensky, meanwhile, is weighted down by fear for his own life. He is always looking manic and like he’s about to have some kind of breakdown.

Who the hell even knows what this means.

Musk is probably more anti-Ukraine than Trump. Musk is jungled up with David Sacks and other Silicon Valley who are fixated on ending the war. They are upset about what it has done to the economy.

Trump is not really committed to anything and will just do whatever, but it’s likely that Israel is pressing for him to end the Ukraine conflict so he can focus on the Middle East.

RT:

Elon Musk joined US President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky the day after Trump prevailed in the US election, Axios claimed on Friday.

According to sources familiar with the conversation, Trump reassured Zelensky of US support, though he avoided specific commitments on aid. At the same time, Musk added that he would keep supporting Ukraine with Starlink satellites, which have been a critical link for Ukraine’s communication and defense.

Both men have previously been critical of financial and military support for Ukraine, saying that Kiev cannot win the conflict.

The outlet described the move as a surprise that added a layer of intrigue to the call between the president-elect and the embattled leader in Kiev.

Musk’s involvement underscores his influence with Trump and his complex stance on the war, Axios added.

Earlier this year, Musk allegedly told Republican US senators during an X Spaces conversation that Ukraine could not realistically win against Russia.

“There is no way in hell [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is going to lose,” he reportedly said to Senators Ron Johnson and Mike Lee, among others. “This spending does not help Ukraine; prolonging the war does not help Ukraine. Having these boys die for nothing is wrong and needs to stop.”

Musk has also urged citizens to contact their representatives and oppose continued aid, comments that generated backlash for his perceived cynicism toward Ukraine’s cause.

It would be a good thing if this war ended and Russia was able to regroup and prepare for the next round. Hopefully that will happen.

I’m very critical of this new Trump administration, but Elon, Bobby, and Tucker are all pretty vocal about the war, so if they have any influence at all in the early days (they will all be pushed out eventually), the Ukraine war could come to some kind of a close.

People gotta get paid, you know?

If the Americans are just gonna pay you, what are you going to do other than take it?

All you have to do is exterminate a generation of men.

Remix:

A huge corruption case was uncovered in Khmelnytskyi, western Ukraine, with authorities detaining the head of the Hmelnytskyi County Medical Center over allegations he accepted huge sums of money to offer medical exemptions to Ukrainian men to avoid being conscripted.

The official, Tetyana Krupá, was responsible for medical examinations in the area, according to Trancarpathian news outlet Kárpáti Igaz Szó, which produces news in the Hungarian language. The paper reveals that the suspect is also the Khmelnytskyi county representative of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, the Servant of the People.

During a search of the official’s home, the man was found with various currencies worth a total of $6 million, which is an extraordinary sum for Ukraine. Officers found $5.24 million, €300,000, and 5 million hryvnias, which is Ukraine’s currency. In addition, jewelry and other valuables were seized.

During the arrest, authorities claim Krupá tried tossing bags of money out the window containing half a million dollars. A photo of his son arrested among stacks of money strewn across his bed has also been published, although it is unclear if the son was found like this by police or the photo was staged, possibly to shame the arrested family members. A video was also published with the son lying on the bed with the money.

Is this really corruption, or are we witnessing the birth of a new sexuality?

Investigators also determined Krupá owns 30 properties in Khmelnytskyi, Lviv and Kyiv; has nine luxury cars; owns a hotel and restaurant complex; has properties in Austria, Spain and Turkey; and holds another $2.3 million in foreign accounts.

The official in Zelensky’s party is accused of accumulating huge sums of money by illegally extorting men who were seeking a disability designation to avoid military service.

…

Notably, in Krupá’s own family, all the male members were also listed as “disabled,” at least according to the official exemptions issued by Krupá, which meant none of them had to partake in military service.

A Ukrainian anti-corruption website known as Anticor notes that the entire Krupa family were employed as public servants.

Yeah, that’s where the money is.

There isn’t any other money in the Ukraine. Long before the war, it was one of the poorest shitholes in the world outside of Africa.

What if this war was actually started by solar panel producers?

I’m glad the Ukraine is fully embracing gay identity, not just in words, but in windmills.

Daily Caller:

The Ukrainian government approved a plan to significantly spur green energy development on Tuesday as its war against Russia continues to drag on, according to Reuters.

Ukrainian officials stated that the development strategy will require about $20 billion in investment to be realized, and will aim to increase the share of the country’s power coming from sources like solar and wind up to 27% by 2030, according to Reuters. Ukrainian energy infrastructure has been hit hard by the ongoing war, and the U.S. government has approved at least $175 billion of assistance to the Ukrainians since Russian forces crossed into Ukrainian territory, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Specifically, the Ukrainian government is aiming for green energy generation to provide 33% of the power needed for heating and cooling systems, 29% for overall electricity generation and 17% of the power consumed for transportation, according to Reuters. While the government did not disclose what percentage of power demand is currently met by green energy generation, some local media reports have pegged the figure at about 10%.

The war in Ukraine continues to rage nearly two-and-a-half years after it started.

Someone has to change the weather. Ukrainians are really moral people, much better than anyone in America, a country of evil racists.

No one is surprised that in the middle of a massive war with a superpower country, the good people of the Ukraine are sacrificing to change the weather.

With the help of other homosexuals, the Ukraine will succeed in turning the entire earth into a solid sheet of ice.

With moral highly moral analists in charge, the earth will be aught but a ball of ice, drifting through the cosmos*.

If I were a Ukrainian nationalist, I’d be fighting for Russia at this point

*More like a frisby, moron. Learn about the nature of the realm. -AA

It’s a wild video. There’s no way all those people lived.

I don’t know what the politics are. I don’t think it was pro or anti Russian.

But it says a bit about the general state of things in the country, no?

BBC News:

A village councillor in western Ukraine has thrown grenades on to the floor of a council meeting, wounding 26 people, police say.

The attack took place on Friday morning at the village council headquarters in Keretsky in the western Transcarpathian region.

Police have not yet commented on a possible motive for the attack, which has left six seriously wounded.

The meeting was being livestreamed on Facebook when the incident took place.

Councillors had been holding a heated discussion about their budget for 2024 as well as this year’s financial results and holding a vote on awarding the council chief a bonus.

Almost 90 minutes into the meeting, the footage shows one of the village councillors shouting, objecting to the budget. The man, wearing a dark jacket, then leaves the room, taking another man with him.

A few minutes later he returns and stands in front of the door. Shortly afterwards he takes several grenades out of his jacket pockets.

He briefly tries to attract people’s attention, saying “May I, may I?”, before tossing the grenades into the middle of the room. Moments later they explode.

“As a result, 26 people were wounded, six of whom are in a grave condition,” the police statement said, adding that medics were trying to resuscitate the man who threw the grenades.

Police later said the attacker was taken to a hospital to an intensive care unit in a serious condition.

Yeah, the dude literally blew himself up too.

You can tell in the video.

That’s the most shocking part about the event, I think. Why would he blow himself up?

But I thought about it, and was then like: THAT’S. SO. UKRAINE!

Democracy, by the way.

RT:

Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has been put on a criminal wanted list by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. The document identified the Patriarch by his secular name and described him as “an individual hiding from the bodies of pre-trial investigation” and deemed him responsible for violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

The head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, said that a criminal case had been opened following the announcement and that measures will be taken to identify the Ukrainian special service officials who are seeking to prosecute the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Patriarch Kirill has repeatedly called on his parishioners to support the participants of Russia’s military operation against Ukraine, who were “sacrificing their lives to protect our Orthodox people in the Donbass.”

Reacting to the news of the Patriarch’s being put on the Ukrainian wanted list, Russian church spokesman Vladimir Legoida labeled the move “predictable and absurd.” The Ukrainian authorities are guilty of “lawlessness and attempting to intimidate parishioners,” he wrote in a Telegram post.

It’s an adult response.

These actions by the Ukraine are like the actions of spoiled children.

Coach Red Pill proves that you’re never too old for your career as an e-celeb to really kick off bigly.

Nah, Coach never did anything nasty to me I don’t think. He talked a bit of shit, but who hasn’t? I’ve actually never talked shit about him.

And I do think it’s good work he’s done in the Ukraine. I don’t know why he thought he wasn’t going to end up in prison, and it seems like he could have done most of the same reporting from the Russian side of the line (it could have been interesting to be in Bakhmut anyway, no?), but he was brave to stay on the Kiev side.

And obviously, he should be freed. That goes without saying. He clearly did break Ukraine speech laws – there are zero speech protections for journalists in the Ukraine, no one is allowed to criticize Zelensky or the war, full stop (even in private conversation – it’s one of the only countries in the world that enforces speech laws against private communications). This makes these claims that “the Ukraine is a democracy” very tiresome, but I’m not going into all of that right now.

But who cares? Laws targeting journalists are fundamentally unjust and violate international law.

Biden should call for our “ally” the Ukraine to free Coach, and at least deport him to the US. He shouldn’t be in prison. The Ukraine is supposed to be a client state of the US, they don’t have any right to detain American citizens long term.

RT:

Elon Musk has reached out to both US President Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart, Vladimir Zelensky, regarding the status of Gonzalo Lira, a US-Chilean journalist and critic of the Kiev government. Lira has been detained in Ukraine since the summer, prompting Musk’s engagement on the matter.

On Saturday, US political commenter Tucker Carlson published an interview on X (formerly Twitter) with Lira’s father, who said that his son is currently awaiting trial in Ukraine “because he was exercising his right of freedom of speech.”

Ep. 47 Gonzalo Lira is an American citizen who’s been tortured in a Ukrainian prison since July, for the crime of criticizing Zelensky. Biden officials approve of this, because they’d like to apply the same standard here. The media agree. Here’s a statement from Gonzalo Lira’s… pic.twitter.com/4H2otHhYHi

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) December 9, 2023

Yep. Saying unapproved things. That’s his crime.

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) December 10, 2023

According to Gonzalo Lira Senior, the staff of the local US embassy “haven’t done a thing” for the detained American passport holder, who is being defended by a court-appointed Ukrainian lawyer with no knowledge of the English language.

In his comment on the interview, Musk wondered how it was possible that “an American citizen is in prison in Ukraine after we sent over a $100 billion” to support Kiev amid its conflict with Russia.

“Is there more to this story than simply criticizing Zelensky? If that’s all it is, then we have serious problem here,” the SpaceX and Tesla CEO posted on X.

Carlson responded to the message by saying that the “crime” committed by Lira, who is an author of several novels and a filmmaker with Hollywood experience, was “saying unapproved things.”

I don’t know that he is actually a filmmaker with “Hollywood experience,” but okay.

Hashtag Free the Coach.