My friend and co-author, Yuri Maltsev passed away. He was born in Tartarstan, Soviet Union. He worked as a high level economist for Gorbachev before defecting (he hated that word) to the US. He worked as an economics professor, was a senior fellow at the Mises Institute, and sharply criticized the Soviet Union and Putin’s Russia.
Memorial Website: https://www.forevermissed.com/yuri-maltsev/about
My toddler used to correctly answer “two”, when asked his age. But he was told that some other boys were four. Now he answers “five”, when asked about his age.
Tonight we played chess. His favorite part of the game is when I hide a black pawn in one fist, and a white pawn in the other and ask him to choose colors. We (mostly I ) set up the pieces. Sometimes we make a few moves. Then he runs the board over with one of his toy cars. This evening, he walked to the other room to get one, having mistakenly sat down to chess without it. Several times I started putting the pieces away, but he kept insisting that we play again. I was tired. We played several more times, and I, trying to wind things down, suggested we read a book. We went together to the other room, and returned with a book to sit on the sofa and read. He was more attentive than usual, really looking at every picture and listening. When we finished, he took the book and threw it. Then he said “more book”, and climbed off the sofa. “I’ll wait here,” I said. He ran to the next room, and returned with another, his smile beaming as he returned. When we’d read this one, he also threw it, and went for a third. This time he waved and said “goodbye”. “Goodbye,” I replied. “Will you come back?” “Yes,” he said. During the fourth book, he fell asleep on my shoulder. I continued reading, and then talking to myself when I reached the end of the book, until he seemed pretty sound asleep. Then I carried him into the bedroom from where he’d been getting the books. His mother was collapsed there on the bed, amid the toys she was putting away.
(This is somewhere between accurate and Russian propaganda — I can’t tell. The problem is that Russian propaganda, where ever possible, pushes motifs that have a great of truth.)
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
As President Trump takes on the globalist scourge that has savaged the American middle class, it is instructive to look at other areas of the world where the so-called “Soros prescription” is alive and well.
Mr. Trump tapped into a deep, rich vein of domestic angst over the open-border, internationalist vision championed by Hungarian-American liberal billionaire George Soros. Developing nations hungry for freedom, the rule of law, and the benefits of a market economy would do well to learn from the U.S. experience and not buy a bottle of Dr. Soros’ snake oil.
Having been kicked out of Hungary, Mr. Soros and his network of NGOs are still virulently active in Eastern and Central Europe. It is a poorly-held secret that Mr. Soros has been deeply entwined in Ukrainian politics since the 2014 Maidan Revolution. Allegedly hacked documents in 2015 showed Mr. Soros appointing himself “a self-appointed advocate of the new Ukraine,” and detailed the billionaire’s intricate involvement with the Obama State and Treasury Departments in the push for weapons and billions of dollars in assistance for the Poroshenko government.
Although the visa-free regime now set up with the European Union thrills the Ukrainian people, they should beware that the offer comes with strings. At the end of the day, the globalist medicine looks to strip a country of its natural resources for the use of international corporate interests and to open the borders to millions of illegal migrants, destroying a nation’s sovereignty, culture and security forever.
The moral: Beware what you wish for. Just ask the citizens of Sweden, Italy, Germany or France how they are enjoying the massive increases in crime and the massive headaches involved with assimilating a large Muslim population.
The Soros International Foundation “Vozrozhdenie, which injects millions each year into Ukraine to fund the billionaire’s agenda, has its proteges seeded throughout the halls of power in Kiev. The Soros power structure is very interested in Ukraine’s gas transit business, not to mention its agriculture, energy, health care and IT industries. With its abundance of natural resources and an educated work force, Ukraine is the perfect candidate to be “colonized” to serve the globalists’ agenda.
It seems the Sorosistas’ first choice to lead Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, has been unable or unwilling to deal with the systemic corruption that paralyzes the state. He is likely going to lose the upcoming presidential election and the wolves are circling. Longtime rivals are lining up to compete against him.
Mr. Soros’ partner in Ukraine is Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law of a former president and long-time friend of the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation. There are reports that Mr. Soros and Mr. Pinchuk have a new project — electing popular singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk to the Ukrainian presidency. There is ample photographic evidence of the three hobnobbing in Davos in the recent past.
Mr. Vakarchuk holds a special place in Ukrainian culture, as his music and activism have been a voice for the popular pain and discontent given the failures of the Poroshenko government and the painful separatist conflict grinding away in the east. After an initial foray into politics, he resigned his seat in parliament in 2008 after one year due to corruption concerns.
Mr. Vakarchuk loves his country and no doubt wants to do what’s in its best interests. But with very little experience in business or politics, it won’t be easy for the singer to stand up to the Soros machine once installed by the Open Society crowd.
The Ukrainian people need to think long and hard about whom they want to lead the country. The Soros track record is not one any ambitious nation would want to emulate.
• L. Todd Wood is a former special operations helicopter pilot and Wall Street debt trader, and has contributed to Fox Business, The Moscow Times, National Review, the New York Post and many other publications. He can be reached through his website, LToddWood.com.
Silicon Valley is in danger of jumping the shark. They’re ruining their brand by massive spying and selective censorship.
EU President Juncker wants to allow Romania into the border-free Schengen zone, no doubt as an additional Muslim migration route, now that other Eastern European countries have closed their borders to it. Judging by Romania’s disdain for Muslims, it looks to be a non-starter. Romanians insist “our children must also grow up in safe and civilized conditions. We don’t want to end up like Western Europe where they are afraid to let children walk to school alone, or for their wives to be alone in the streets.”
Romania is using technology and extra border control agents to prevent Muslims from using Romania as an alternate destination after borders in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic have been shut down to Muslim invaders.
A community in the Northwestern county of Satu Mare in Romania threatened to unleash violence if the Government proceeds with its partnership with an NGO to build a “refugees” centre for Muslims in their hometown.
Petliura had to lie when he claimed nationhood for Ukraine was widely supported by the Jewish community. He constantly tried to get Ukrainians to care as deeply for Jewish issues as he did. Jewish parties were willing to work with the Ukrainians, but they abstained from coming out for or against independence. Or, if they did have a firm stance on the matter, it was decidedly against independence.[i] Yet, throughout his time in power, Petilura would again and again make public statements in favour of Jews. Take for example, the following statement to what remained of his army in August of 1919,
It is time to know that the Jews have, like the greater part of our Ukrainian population, suffered from the horrors of the Bolshevist-communist invasion and now know where the truth lies. The best Jewish groups such as the Bund the Faraynigte [United Socialist Jewish Workers’ Party], the PoaleiTsion [Workers of Zion], and the Folkspartey [People’s Party] have come out decidedly in favor of an independent Ukrainian state and cooperate together with us. The time has come to realise that the peaceable Jewish population — their women and children — like ours have been imprisoned and deprived of their national liberty. They are not going anywhere but are remaining with us, as they have for centuries, sharing in both our happiness and our grief. The chivalrous troops who bring equality and liberty to all the nationalities of Ukraine must not listen to those invaders and provocateurs who hunger for human blood. Yet at the same time they cannot remain indifferent in the face of the tragic fate of the Jews. He who becomes an accomplice to such crimes is a traitor and an enemy of our country and must be placed beyond the pale of human society. … I expressly order you to drive away with your forces all who incite you to pogroms and to bring the perpetrators before the courts as enemies of the fatherland. Let the courts judge them for their acts and not excuse those found guilty from the most severe penalties of the law.[ii]
If Peltiura was guilty of anything, it was that he had almost no control over many of his generals, who essentially did as they pleased. He actually tried to set up Jewish militias in response to the growing number of accounts of pogroms. These militias would be tasked to defend Jewish communities from anyone, including those supposedly under Petliura’s command. However, they were never created because, interestingly enough, the Jewish parties were against any such units being created.[iii] He passed laws which were meant to stop pogroms: reformation of the army, extraordinary courts to deal with pogromists and funds to be used to assist victims of pogroms.[iv]
His reforms seem to have had some effect. Indeed, there are many cases of soldiers being found guilty of engaging in pogroms and were thus sentenced to death for their role.[v] But the damage to Petliura’s reputation was done. The international press had portrayed him as a murderous tyrant, and nothing Petliura could do would change that. No wonder, then, that even before Schwartzbard’s trial in the minds of many Petliura deserved a violent end.
Symon Petliura was completely misrepresented, but the press ran with the anti-Semitic canard and that was the end of the story. Although his support for Zionism meant that Petliura was defended by Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky, still other prominent Jews, like Hannah Arendt, fully bought into the narrative formulated by their kinsmen. In preparation for this piece I read many Jewish online news media, magazines, etc., and they all went with the traditional Jewish narrative of Petliura the pogromist.
As should be clear by now Petliura was not an anti-Semite but was actually quite the opposite. In fact, he and his colleagues in both ruling regimes of the Ukrainian People’s Republic held views which were very much egalitarian. Or at least they were when they came to the Jews, the people whose trials and tribulations always seem to be of the utmost importance. . . .
In today’s Ukraine, Petliura’s legacy is being re-evaluated and a more positive view now exists. The government is now rehabilitating Petliura and other Ukrainian nationalists from the interwar era, including later figures who fought both the Soviets and Hitler’s Germany in World War II. Of course, this is seen as highly controversial in the Western states which are backing Ukraine in its current crisis with Russia . Given the history of Ukrainian-Jewish conflict and that Ukrainian nationalists today are more rightist than those of the 1918-20 period, it is interesting to see so many in the West have been pro-Ukraine including Jewish organizations (particularly neoconservatives for whom Russia is the main enemy).
The case of Petliura is one of much interest to me because I believe in it we can see parallels with what is going on now in the Occident of the twenty-first century. One of the points of interest is how Petliura and his associates did their best to promote Jewish interests and placate that community only for it to largely remain aloof to the issue of Ukrainian statehood. . . .
Important stmt from Ukraine’s Finance Minister Danyliuk: next IMF tranche will be disbursed only after adoption of a law on anti-corruption courts and legislative changes on privatization. The ball is in the Rada and President’s court.
for some reason, it’s in Polish:
Notice the bomb-throwing red terror in the north. Also, that the Kuban — the area around the Azov Sea — is Ukrainian.
Friends, consider donating to the Ukrainian Freedom Fund. A vetted, well-managed charity helping Ukraine’s vets. http://ukrfreedomfund.org
Love it. Exactly the sort of warrior culture needed at the edge of the Steppe.
http://azov.press/ukr/u-centri-mariupolya-zmagalis-naysil-nishi
People arrive for a liturgy May 21 at the new Ukrainian Catholic parish in Odessa, Ukraine. “We dreamed of a golden-domed church,” said Bishop Mykhaylo Bubniy of Odessa, whose parishioners waited decades for the new building. (CNS photo/Mariana Karapinka) See UKRAINE-ODESSA-CHURCH May 24, 2017.
Below is a video of the behind-the-scenes work CNN did to stage the photo-op with Muslims holding up signs that read, ‘ISIS WILL LOSE’.
Cautiously optimistic that this isn’t consolidation of power.
https://odessablog.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/nationwide-sweeps-and-arrests-across-ukraine/
told ya
