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Blue Planet

Best of the Web: What could have been: Study says electoral fraud prevented Trump victory in 2020

biden trump mail in ballots
The Heartland Institute claimed fraudulent mail-in votes swung the presidential election for Democrat Joe Biden

Mail-in ballot fraud "significantly" impacted the 2020 US presidential election, handing President Joe Biden his victory, according to a study published by conservative think tank the Heartland Institute on Friday.

"Had the 2020 election been conducted like every national election has been over the past two centuries, wherein the vast majority of voters cast ballots in-person rather than by mail, Donald Trump would have almost certainly been re-elected," the report stated, citing survey data collected in December.

As many as 28.2% of mail-in voters potentially committed some form of fraud, acting in ways that were "under most circumstances, illegal," the institute's data suggested.

Dig

Flashback Best of the Web: Anti-Putin Russian outlet fact-checks Putin's claim that Lenin conspired with the US to break up Russia into smaller countries... and finds it to be true!


Comment: Whenever his haters 'fact-check' him, they discover that Putin's knowledge of history is sublime. Putin's remarks about a little-known fact of US meddling in Russian affairs over 100 years ago were part of this riveting answer he gave to a British Sky News reporter during his marathon Q&A in December...


(The relevant portion begins at 04:36)


vladimir lenin woodrow wilson
Last week, at a press conference with 500 journalists, Vladimir Putin reiterated his suspicions about American intentions toward Russia, recalling that one of President Woodrow Wilson's advisers once endorsed the partition of Russia, writing more than a century ago:

"It would be better for the whole world if a state in Siberia and another four states emerged in the European part of what is now greater Russia."

The quotation is real — it belongs to Edward House, Wilson's informal chief adviser on European politics and diplomacy during World War I.

To find out more about America's proposal to carve up the Russian Empire (and to get some much-needed historical context), Meduza turned to historian Alexander Etkind, who recently authored a book about William Bullitt, the U.S. diplomat sent to negotiate with Lenin on behalf of the Paris Peace Conference. It was Bullitt who devised the plan in 1918 to partition Russia.

Comment: No, what Putin's 'allusions' to Russian history reveal is that he knows history, and that he goes deep into it to find answers to the pressing problems of today.


TV

Best of the Web: Tucker Carlson also met whistleblower Edward Snowden and Biden sexual assault victim Tara Reade in Moscow

Edward Snowden
© Associated PressEdward Snowden was granted asylum in Russia in 2013. NSA whistleblower featured heavily in Russian media before seeking more privacy in his family life.
Tucker Carlson met with NSA leaker Edward Snowden while in Moscow, according to Semafor.


Comment: Russian news agency TASS confirmed the meeting.


The former whistleblower featured heavily in Russian media before seeking more privacy in his family life.

Mr Snowden was initially granted asylum in Russia in 2013 after leaking a trove of classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents, and then was granted permanent resident status in Russia in 2020.


Comment: Snowden may have narrowly escaped a fate similar to that of Julian Assange, who is currently suffering cruel and unusual punishment in prison in England.


That year, he announced his decision to seek duel citizenship, stating in a tweet that "after years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our son."

Comment: Here's an example of how Western media conduct interviews:


The following is an interesting article explaining why Putin chose to explain the history of the region to a Western audience:
[...]
He is saying: We have our own unique historical existence and our own world. You have no right to impose your historically nihilistic reign of instant-gratification upon our existence.

The separation between the Western and Russian world is not just a separation between two civilizations. It is a separation between two completely different relationships to history itself.

For the 'Western world' is just as ignorant of its own history, as it is of Russia's!

To appreciate the gap between the Western and Russian world, is the only way Russia and the West can ever come to an understanding.

But that will take an education far greater than what can be communicated in a few hours.

This animation shows the build up to Russia's SMO:




Bad Guys

Best of the Web: German foreign minister's grandfather was 'ardent Nazi' - Bild

Annalena Baerbock
© AP / Aaron FavilaAnnalena Baerbock gestures during a press conference in Makati, Philippines, January 11, 2024
Annalena Baerbock's office said she had no idea that her ancestor was a committed follower of Hitler.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock's grandfather was "an unconditional National Socialist" who had read 'Mein Kampf' and fully stood with the Nazi regime, according to documents seen by the tabloid Bild.

Baerbock has spoken publicly about her grandfather's wartime experiences, telling an audience in 2022 that Waldemar Baerbock returned to Germany from the east in early 1945 "as a defeated soldier."

What Baerbock did not mention was that her grandfather was an officer in the Wehrmacht, and had been awarded one of the Third Reich's highest military honors, the War Merit Cross with Swords in 1944, Bild reported on Thursday. The cross was bestowed on soldiers for "special services when deployed under enemy weapons or for special services in military warfare."

Comment: See also:


Putin

Best of the Web: Putin 'tried everything possible' to make peace - Ukrainian diplomat

Delegations from Russia and Ukraine meet in Istanbul
© Cem Ozdel / Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesFILE PHOTO: Delegations from Russia and Ukraine meet in Istanbul, Türkiye on March 29, 2022.
The possibility of compromise was "very real" in April 2022, a key negotiator from Kiev's side has said

Russian President Vladimir Putin personally sought a peace agreement with Ukraine in April 2022, according to Ambassador Aleksandr Chaly, a senior member of the Ukrainian delegation.

Chaly expressed this perspective during an event at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) in early December, where he dissected the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The ex-deputy foreign minister is an associate fellow at the Swiss government-funded foundation. His remarks drew media attention after a video of the event was released on YouTube last week.

Comment: The article adds to the list of articles that document what the Ukrainians and Russians tried to achieve. Putin talks about de-Nazification. Does that translate to de-NATOification, if what Russia wanted most of all, was for Ukraine to stay neutral and give up on NATO membership?

See also:
November 27, 2023 The Jews and Boris Johnson: Zelensky's top political ally looking for scapegoats as Ukrainian elites begin to accept the war is lost In this article Tarik Cyril Amar writes:
Regarding the peace negotiations that took place in Belarus at the end of February and the beginning of March 2022, Arakhamia tells Moseichuk that the Russian delegation had one "key aim": to make Ukraine accept neutrality and give up on NATO membership. In Arakhamia's own words, "everything else" Russia talked about, such as demands regarding "denazification, Russian-speaking populations, and blah-blah-blah" was merely "cosmetic political seasoning."

Let that sink in: Here is a prime negotiator for Ukraine and one of the Zelensky regime's top men stating explicitly that all that peace really required at that very early stage in the large-scale war was Kiev committing to neutrality and giving up on its NATO ambitions. The war could have stopped in the spring of 2022; that is, one-and-a-half very bloody years ago. And for Kiev, this would have come at the price of giving up on a NATO ambition that is based on a false promise encapsulated in the foul compromise of the 2008 Bucharest summit. A pledge which the West has no intention of keeping, as demonstrated again at the 2023 Vilnius summit.

Arakhamia's admission proves, once more, that there have always been viable alternatives to war. Western information warriors still denying this empirically established fact simply refuse to face their own terrible responsibility for stonewalling negotiations throughout. Likewise, Arakhamia demonstrates that everyone in Ukraine and the West who insisted that Moscow's war aims were maximalist (whether to obliterate Ukraine as a state or to march right through it to, at least, Berlin) were flat out wrong, whether by mistake or on purpose. At least, that's if we believe Arakhamia, who had direct experience with real representatives of Russia and not the fantasy creatures populating the minds of all too many Westerners, from Yale to Berlin. And note: Arakhamia has absolutely no reason to embellish Moscow's record.
[...]
One thing is clear: Kiev has chosen to see itself as literally unable to make peace without Western permission.
After Belarus there were talks in Türkiye:

November 22, 2023 Boris Johnson derailed Ukraine peace deal - key Zelensky ally The article has many links to articles that describe how the peace negotiations were derailed. In the article there is:
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson played a key role in derailing a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev, telling Ukraine to "just continue fighting," top Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia has said. Arakhamia, the head of President Vladimir Zelensky's parliamentary faction, was the chief negotiator at the botched peace talks in Istanbul, held early into the ongoing conflict.

The MP made the bombshell revelation on Friday in an interview with the Ukrainian 1+1 TV channel. "Russia's goal was to put pressure on us so that we would take neutrality. This was the main thing for them," he said. "And that we would give an obligation that we would not join NATO. This was the main thing."

However, Kiev did not actually trust Moscow to keep its word and did not want to reach such a deal without third-party "security guarantees," Arakhamia claimed, while revealing the lead role in derailing the agreement was played by Johnson.
When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we would not sign anything with [the Russians] at all. And [said] 'let's just continue fighting.'
The pivotal role played by Johnson in Ukraine's decision to scrap the draft agreement with Russia - signed by Arakhamia personally in Istanbul - has long been rumored, with initial reports on the matter emerging in Ukrainian media as early as May 2022. Until now, however, it was neither denied nor confirmed by any of the parties involved.
March 29, 2022: Highlights from Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Turkey
January 22, 2022: 'Threat of Russian invasion is no more than last year' says Ukrainian parliament leader
January 18, 2022: UK sends 'defensive weapons and small number of British troops' to Ukraine whilst also inviting Russia for diplomatic talks
September 04, 2016: Rasmussen: It's time for NATO to provide Ukraine with lethal weaponry


Putin

Best of the Web: Tucker Carlson committed 'treason' to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin... and the World loved it!

Tucker Interviews Putin
© Public Domain
The volume of vitriol poured on American journalist Tucker Carlson by Western media and politicians was something to behold.

Carlson traveled to Moscow to conduct an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The interview consisted of a full uncut exchange involving dozens of questions that lasted for more than two hours. It was aired on Carlson's website and other social media platforms.

In the hours leading up to the interview, the former Fox News host was pummeled by the political and media establishment in the United States and Europe. Their reaction was nasty and hysterical. Carlson was denounced as a "traitor" and a "useful idiot". There were calls for him to be arrested on returning to the U.S. and also to be banned from traveling to the European Union.

A telling reaction, too, was that after the interview was published, the Western media and politicians tended to ignore the event as if it did not happen.

Ironically, though, despite the concerted effort to suppress it, the interview has exploded with eager public viewing around the world. Within hours of airing, the interview had been seen by an estimated 100 million people. It will continue to gather millions of more viewers over the coming weeks.

An amusing aside is the scale of viewer figures far eclipses those of the Western media outlets that were vilifying Carlson over his encounter with Putin. Yet these marginal media outlets (one can hardly call them "mainstream" any longer due to their diminishing audience ratings) presume to deem what the majority of people should or should not watch. They include the likes of CNN, the BBC, the New York Times, the Guardian, and so on. Presstitutes all, as American writer Gerald Celente inimitably labeled them.

There are several conclusions to draw. One is the insidious malign control - or at least attempted control - of communication, views, and narrative by Western states and their media.

Alarm Clock

Best of the Web: Tom Luongo: The Great Reset is dead, long live the Great Reset

flooding landslide
"The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed."

- Susan Ivanova, Season 3 Opening Sequence, Babylon 5

When the World Economic Forum rolled out their advertising campaign for The Great Reset it was supposed to be the victory lap for Globalism. Coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent global financial crisis unleashed a flood of government funny money that was supposed to buy our way to their perpetual prosperity.

It failed.

Don't take my word for it. Take the word of one of the chief architects of the Great Reset, Klaus von Commie Schnitzel's right hand man, Yuval Noah Harari.

Camcorder

Best of the Web: It's happening! Tucker Carlson reveals Putin interview plans


Comment: If only for the copious hysteria and seething this is generating in ultra-liberals from Brussels to New York City, we approve!


tucker carlson
© X (Twitter) / @TuckerCarlson
The Ukraine conflict has reshaped the military and economic balance of power around the world but most Americans have no idea because their media has fawned over Vladimir Zelensky and refused to talk to his Russian counterpart, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on Tuesday.

Carlson, who launched his own network on X (formerly Twitter) in June 2022, posted a short video from Moscow, explaining the logic behind his upcoming interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Most Western media outlets are corrupt and "lie to their readers and viewers," mainly by omission, Carlson argued. There has been no effort to speak to Putin since the conflict started in 2022, while US outlets have conducted many "fawning pep sessions" posing as interviews with Zelensky, he added.

Comment: Tucker has confirmed his interview will be released on February 8th at 6PM EST. More from RT:
Conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson has said on Instagram that his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin will be aired at 6pm EST on Thursday.

Carlson, who launched his own network on X (formerly Twitter) in June 2023, traveled to Moscow for a sit-down with Putin. The Kremlin confirmed the meeting on Tuesday.

The Russian president rarely grants one-on-one interviews to foreign press. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Putin has "no desire" to speak to Western media outlets that have "completely one-sided" opinions and "aren't even trying to be impartial."



Warning

Best of the Web: Brace for impact

twostep
© Erin Shaff/NYTUS President Joe Biden two-stepin' in S. Carolina
"It's not enough to say it's nuts, you have to explain why it's so nuts." - Terrance McKenna
"Joe Biden's" victory dance in South Carolina — down on the ol' Democratic Party Plantation, where they grows votes — didn't last long. By Sunday, a rogue satellite named Tucker Carlson was spotted orbiting over Russia, Russia, Russia, a country you have to say three times so that people get how serious it is. Carlson threatens to actually sit down in the same room with Putin, Putin, Putin — the antithesis of "Joe Biden," since Putin actually operates as head-of-state — and convey Mr. P's thoughts and opinions to the citizens of America via the rascally social media platform called "X."

Do you realize the danger of exposing Americans to what this Putin might say? Hearing him express his thoughts about the world situation in a leisurely format — which Putin does regularly among his own people (I've seen him do it!) — is liable to inform Americans that their own political leadership is a party of mental illness.

Even without this new provocation of a Carlson / Putin colloquy, folks in the land of the free and the home of the brave have begun to grok just how insane things have gone under "Joe Biden" blobism. And that darn conversation comes just egg-zackly at the moment when our Senate is attempting to package a bill tying a $60-billion taxpayer gift to Ukraine with a "border security" law that will forbid more than 8,500 foreigners on any given day to enter the USA illegally. Sweet deal, huh? Er. . . maybe not. On the House side of Congress, Speaker Mike Johnson says, "No way, José."

Star of David

Best of the Web: However bad you think Israel is, it's worse

israeli flag
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

So it turns out the IDF has been running a Telegram channel featuring homemade snuff films in which Gazans are brutally murdered by Israeli forces, captioned with celebrations of the gore and pain therein like "Burning their mother... You won't believe the video we got! You can hear their bones crunch." The IDF had previously denied any association with the channel, but Haaretz now reports that it was directly run by an IDF psychological warfare unit.

This is one of those many, many times where Israel is so awful that at first you're not sure what you're looking at. You think you must be misreading the report. Then you read it again and go "Oh wow, that's SO much worse than I would have guessed."

However bad you think Israel is, you can always be sure that information will come out later that proves it's even worse.



Tucker Carlson has been spotted in Moscow, generating speculation that he's there to interview President Vladimir Putin, and the liberal commentariat are losing their minds about it.