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Russian Flag

Best of the Web: The real story behind the Russia-Ukraine war — and what happens next

David Stockman
International Man
Sat, 27 Dec 2025 16:45 UTC
graphic russia us ukraine flag soldier shadow war
© Tomas Ragina/Shutterstock
Notwithstanding the historic fluidity of borders, there is no case whatsoever that Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was "unprovoked" and unrelated to NATO's own transparent provocations in the region.

The details are arrayed below, but the larger issue needs be addressed first.

Namely, is there any reason to believe that Russia is an expansionist power looking to gobble up neighbors which were not integral parts of its own historic evolution, as is the case with Ukraine?

After all, if despite Rubio's treachery President Trump does manage to strike a Ukraine peace and partition deal with Putin you can be sure that the neocons will come charging in with a false Munich appeasement analogy.

The answer, however, is a resounding no!
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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: New memos reveal how corruption probe into Clinton Foundation was killed: 'We were told NO by FBI HQ'

Jerry Dunleavy and John Solomon
Just the News
Tue, 16 Dec 2025 20:37 UTC
Graphic of James Comey and Hillary Clinton
Drip, drip, drip: A newly-declassified timeline exposes how the FBI's investigation of the Clinton Foundation was hamstrung by DOJ leaders while the inquiry into Trump-Russia collusion hoax marched forward. This isn't the first tranche of evidence pointing to political interference.

A top Republican senator has provided Just the News a timeline written by FBI investigators laying out the repeated political obstruction those agents faced from their own bosses and the Justice Department during the 2016 election and beyond as they probed whether Hillary Clinton engaged in a pay-to-play corruption scheme involving her family foundation.

"Field agents were frustrated. But HQ would not let it go forward," the newly-released and lengthy investigative timeline reveals. "We were trying to explore the [Clinton] Foundation, and we were told 'NO' by FBI HQ."

Not the first timeline showing interference

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley made the records produced to him by FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi available to Just the News this weekend. Grassley's office said the senator's request for these records was prompted by whistleblowers who first brought the issue to his attention.
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Black Magic

Best of the Web: Bondi Beach Shooting: 16 Dead, 38 Injured After Father & Son Terrorists Attack During Hanukkah Celebration

Anthony Blair, Nicholas McEntyre and Alex Oliveira
NY Post
Sun, 14 Dec 2025 13:16 UTC
bondi beach shooting
© APEmergency workers transport a person on a stretcher after a reported shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025.
The death toll in antisemitic terror attack on Australia's world-famous Bondi Beach has surged to at least 15 — with 40 injured in the harrowing onslaught, which lasted more than 10 minutes.


Comment: The New South Wales Minister told AFP that the death toll is now at 16.


The victims include a 10-year-old girl, a popular rabbi and an elderly Holocaust survivor.

Footage from the scene shows the two terrorists, one of whom had a shotgun and the other a bold-action rifle, firing round after round from a bridge overlooking the family-friendly Chanukah by the Sea 2025 event — which had a petting zoo and a bubble station for the kids.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the slaughter, "a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah." Jewish leaders, including several of the victims, warned the left-wing government — as recently as days before the attack — that antisemitism was dangerously escalating in the nation of 27.5 million people.

One of the suspects has been identified as Naveed Akram, 24, who is in critical condition after being hit by police. The other terrorist, 50, is was killed.
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Top Secret

Best of the Web: US regime change front NED funded Nepalese youth revolutionaries, leaks reveal

Kit Klarenberg
The Grayzone
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:40 UTC
NED and IRI composite in Nepal
Leaked files reviewed by The Grayzone show the US gov't covertly funded Nepalese youth groups in the run-up to a violent coup. The "Gen Z" shadow army mobilized as the US sought to neutralize Chinese and Indian influence over Kathmandu - now controlled by a leader chosen by an informal social media poll.

The US government's National Endowment for Democracy (NED) spent hundreds of thousands of dollars tutoring dozens of Nepalese youth on "strategies and skills in organizing protests and demonstrations" prior to a violent coup which overthrew the government of Nepal in September 2025, leaked documents show.

The documents reveal a clandestine campaign organized by an NED division known as the International Republican Institute (IRI) that sought to cultivate a Nepalese "network" of young political activists explicitly designed to "become an important force to support US interests." The leaked documents note that the IRI's program "connects vibrant youth... and political leaders" and "provides comprehensive trainings on how to launch advocacy campaigns and protests."
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Skull

Best of the Web: Brussels "crosses Rubicon" in final act of self-destruction to seize Russian assets

Simplicius
Simplicius the Thinker
Fri, 12 Dec 2025 22:50 UTC
european union eu torn flag
© Getty Images/mikie11
and buy Ukraine a sliver of time . . . .

The day started with more hysteric-level fear-mongering from the dual totalitarian NATO-EU hydra. Rutte grimly declared that Russia has brought war to Europe, and that Europeans must be prepared for the scale of war that their 'grandparents' endured during WWII:


Which was swiftly followed up by the stark statements of another unelected bureaucrat:
kallas tweet prepare for war Russia
© Kaja Kallas/X
This comes on the same day that the Brussels mafia has lowered the latch on the final act of its own self-immolation by voting to illegally change the need for a unanimous decision on the matter of returning Russia's 'frozen assets' in order to freeze them in place indefinitely as a backstop to Ukraine's "reparations". They did this by using a clause for "economic emergencies", in essence citing that the EU is suffering severe economic damage as result of "Russia's war".
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Handcuffs

Best of the Web: Kafkaesque: Ex-English footballer Joey Barton convicted for saying rude things on social media


Sky News
Mon, 08 Dec 2025 20:09 UTC
joey barton
The ex-Manchester City midfielder was handed a six-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday.

Retired footballer Joey Barton has been sentenced over X posts he sent to football pundits Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward, along with broadcaster Jeremy Vine.


Comment: You don't 'send' posts to others on social media, you 'post'... posts!

We don't know who the other two are, but this is Jeremy Vine:



Barton, 43, had been found guilty of six counts of sending a grossly offensive electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety.

He was sentenced to a six-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday.

Comment: Batshit bonkers Britain has moved well beyond the pale at this point.

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USA

Best of the Web: Erasure of 'compatible values': Trump's new National Security Strategy recasts Europe as strategic liability

Simplicius
Simplicius the Thinker
Sun, 07 Dec 2025 19:41 UTC
chess board world america National Security Strategy
The US has released a new National Security Strategy which re-envisions the Monroe Doctrine for a new century. Bernhard at MoA covered it in full here for those interested in the thorough details. I'll instead look at the bigger picture, as well as one specific, fascinating aspect of this major rethink of US foreign policy.

trump nyt national security strategy
© New York Times
NYT's subheading reframes the new vision as a hatred for Europe:
A new White House policy document formalizes President Trump's long-held contempt for Europe's leaders. It made clear that the continent now stands at a strategic crossroads.
Well, why wouldn't Trump hate the new Europe? It's a continent that has turned its back on civil liberties, the principles for which America itself was supposed to stand first and foremost.
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Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: 'No US citizens': Meet the IT firms discriminating against American workers

Aaron Sibarium
The Washington Free Beacon
Fri, 05 Dec 2025 21:53 UTC
lancesoft tech discriminate americans h-1b
© LanceSoft/LinkedInLanceSoft has been found to actively discriminate against American citizens in its hiring practices
The job post for LanceSoft, an IT staffing firm committed to "diversity, equality, and inclusivity," began innocently enough.

The $60-per-hour role would be based in Santa Clara, Calif., focus on "technical support," and entail a 3-10 p.m. shift. Posted on Nvoids, an IT jobs aggregator, the ad described LanceSoft as an equal opportunity employer and said that the firm, one of the largest staffing agencies in the country, strives "to be as diverse as the clients and employees we partner with."

"We embrace people of any race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation," the Nov. 25 post read.

This particular job, however, would not be open to a very large group of people: citizens of the United States.

Comment:

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Warning

Best of the Web: Viktor Orban: The EU is drowning in corruption


RT
Fri, 05 Dec 2025 22:00 UTC
von der leyen european commission
Brussels and Kiev are covering up for each other instead of "confronting the truth," the Hungarian leader says.

The EU is still claiming "the moral high ground" despite "drowning" in corruption, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, accusing Brussels and Kiev of shielding each other from graft scandals.

Orban ripped into the EU leadership on Friday in an interview with Kossuth Radio, invoking the latest corruption scandal that hit the bloc earlier this week.

The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) formally accused three high-profile suspects, including the bloc's former foreign policy chief and EU Commission vice president, Federica Mogherini, of fraud, corruption, conflict of interest, and breaches of professional secrecy.

The Hungarian prime minister drew parallels between the affair and the string of graft scandals that has hit Ukraine, including the $100 million kickback scheme linked to Vladimir Zelensky's inner circle. Despite the scandal, Brussels has sought to secure €135 billion ($156 billion) to prop up Kiev through the upcoming year.

The EU failed to provide a proper response to the Ukrainian corruption scandal, Orban said, accusing the bloc's leadership of covering up for Kiev.


Comment: The bigger the distraction, the more corruption flourishes.

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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: EU ignores not-so-subtle warning shot from VP Vance, fines X $140M for ignoring censorship orders

Tom Tillison
American Wire News
Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:18 UTC
jd vance munich security conference speech
© (REUTERS/Leah Millis"The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China. It's not any other external actor," Vice President Vance said at the Munich Security Conference February 14, 2025
Vice President JD Vance issued a not-so-subtle warning to European leaders for "attacking American companies over garbage."

Taking to X, Vance responded to reports that the European Commission may finalize a formal probe into the social media platform owned by Elon Musk as early as Friday, after the EU's digital rules enforcement began investigating X following Musk's purchase of the company.

"Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage," Vance wrote.

Comment: Vance has been making this point for a while: Apparently the EU is not above bribery:

Elon Musk says European Commission offered X 'secret' agreement in return for 'quiet' censorship

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