Nine months of fighting for a symbolic site in Kiev's attempt to regain control of the region have ended with another triumph for Moscow's forces

The battle for Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut by the Ukrainians) began in August 2022, and gradually turned into the epicenter of fighting between Russia and Ukraine. While other parts of the front remained relatively stable, both sides actively brought forces to this small city. For Kiev, which in May 2022 suffered a defeat at Azovstal that helped undermine its image, Artyomovsk became the new Mariupol. Ukrainian propaganda labeled it 'the Bakhmut Fortress', and attempted to give an air of heroism to those fighting there.

Despite the fact that the city has no strategic importance for advancing westward, Russian troops accepted the challenge posed by Ukrainian propaganda. So what did Moscow gain from the nine-month-long 'Bakhmut meat grinder'?

Sadly, none of the above claims of Western media are even remotely true, but it doesn't stop said media from repeating them ad nauseum. In this week's NewsReal, Joe and Niall discuss the fall/liberation of Bakhmut/Artemovsk, the torrent of misinformation about which American and Russian missiles did what in Ukraine last week, the tardy release of the Durham investigative report into 'Russiagate', and assorted 'weapons of mass distraction' designed to keep you ignorant and afraid.


Running Time: 01:29:31

Download: MP3 — 61.5 MB

Russia has banned 500 Americans, including former US President Barack Obama, from entering the country in retaliation for the latest round of sanctions imposed by the US.

"In response to the anti-Russian sanctions regularly imposed by the Biden administration... entry into the Russian Federation is closed for 500 Americans," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.

It added that Obama was among those on the list, which also included television hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers, as well as CNN anchor Erin Burnett and MSNBC presenters Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough.

Let's start with a graphic depiction of where the Global North and the Global South really stand.

1. Xian, former imperial capital, and key hub of the Ancient Silk Roads: Xi Jinping hosts the China-Central Asia summit, attended by all Heartland "stans" (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgzystan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan).

The final statement stresses economic cooperation and "a resolute stand" against Hegemon-concocted color revolutions. That expands what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are already implementing. In practice, the summit seals that the Russia-China strategic partnership will be protecting the Heartland.

2. Kazan: the Russia-Islamic World forum unites not only religious leaders but top businessmen of no less than 85 nations. Multipolar Russia proceeded in parallel to the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, which welcomed back Syria to the "Arab family". Arab nations unanimously pledged to end "foreign interference" for good.

3. Hiroshima: the ever-shrinking G7, actually G9 (adding two unelected EU bureaucrats), imposes a single agenda of more sanctions on Russia; more weapons to black void Ukraine; and more lecturing of China.

4. Lisbon: the annual Bilderberg meeting - a NATO/Atlanticist fest - takes place in a not so secret hotel completely locked down. Top item in the agenda; war - hybrid and otherwise - on the "RICs" in BRICS (Russia, India, China).

I could have been in Xian, or most likely Kazan. Instead, honoring a previous commitment, I was in Ibiza, and then scraped the idea of flying to Lisbon as a waste of time. Allow me to share with you the reason why: call it a little tale from the Baleares, breaking the trademark pledge that what happens in swinging, sweaty deep house Ibiza stays in Ibiza.

I was a guest at a top business gathering - mostly Spanish but also featuring Portuguese, Germans, Brits and Scandinavians: ultra high-level executives - in real estate, asset management, investment banking. Our panel was titled "Global Geopolitical Shifts and Their Consequences". Before the panel, participants were invited to vote on what worried them most when it comes to the future of their business. Number one was inflation and interest rates. Number two was geopolitics. That prefigured a very lively debate ahead.

Equipment for the country's ground forces "arrives with depressing regularity," years behind time, and substantially over budget, according to a report issued on April 19 by the British Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee. For instance, the programs, which provide new Ajax armored fighting vehicles and Morpheus tactical communication and information systems, have faced significant difficulties. According to the MPs' assessment, the issue is made worse by underfunding of the defense budget expenditures and the pound's declining purchasing value in relation to the dollar.

Ten days later, on April 28 this year, the Royal Navy informed the public about the decision to decommission the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier, launched just four years ago (in 2019), to be used as a donor for spare parts for the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier of the same class. According to the Royal Navy, the $3.72 billion aircraft carrier has docked more frequently than it has participated in naval operations, and the most recent maintenance cost $42 million.

This dispiriting news came just a month after the leaders of the US, the UK, and Australia had disclosed their ambitious long-term plans to build a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Canberra on the basis of British technology, which will cost the Australian budget $245 billion.

If equal standards were applied, Joe Biden would be impeached both in the press and in Congress for treasonous collusion with foreign governments.

Democrats pursued the most recent Republican president with impeachment three times over allegations he had partnered with a foreign government to influence U.S. government policies. If equal standards were applied to the Biden family, Joe Biden would be impeached both in the press and in Congress for treasonous collusion with foreign governments.

Democrats claimed Donald Trump committed treason because his son had met with a Democrat-planted Russian lobbyist. In exchange for Russian assistance with election-influencing social media memes, the allegations went, Trump's campaign promised a more Russia-friendly U.S. foreign policy.

Joe Biden's family's use of his high-level U.S. government positions to rake in millions from product-free "business deals" has been documented since before the Obama administration, perhaps most extensively by journalist Peter Schweizer. Last week, Republicans in Congress added more evidence to the accruing pile indicating the Biden family has been selling influence with the American government to foreign bidders for decades.

Special Counsel John Durham's highly-anticipated report on the origins of the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016 revealed that top leaders at the Bureau shut down four criminal investigations into Hillary and Bill Clinton.

In 2014, the FBI investigated a "well-placed" confidential source's claims that an unnamed foreign government intended to "contribute to Hillary Clinton's anticipated presidential campaign, as a way to gain influence with Clinton should she win the presidency," the report said.

The field office investigating these claims "almost immediately" sought a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant, but it remained "in limbo" for approximately four months, primarily due to Clinton's then-expected presidential campaign.

"After all, this was a collective effort. In Washington, the more people involved in a conspiracy, the less culpable it becomes. They all did it, so no one did." — Jonathan Turley

Historians of the future, boiling up a nice spring bouillabaisse of nettles, cattail tubers, and frogs over their campfires, will pore over John Durham's mystifying RussiaGate report for clues as to what begat the smoldering wreck of the legal system that once girded all the rough-and-ready ways of the old America, turning us into a land of simpering zombies. There was, apparently, a strange, Satanic cult called the FBI that cast a spell over the land, giving license to wickedness and depravity that transformed a once-upright folk into liars, until nobody knew what was the right way to do anything anymore....

Well, at least John Durham finally released a report exploding the claim that Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians in 2016. That is the "good news." The charges leveled against Trump and many of his associates since 2016 that he was a tool of Vladimir Putin were in fact the most despicable political dirty trick in history; a mega bomb of calumny. Durham's report lays out in startling detail that the FBI, the Department of Justice and the CIA all played a role in manufacturing a heinous allegation that was nothing more than politically lethal propaganda. Only one little problem — none of the decision makers at the FBI or the DOJ are facing any penalties, neither criminal nor civil. One more thing — I have been warning about this since 2017. That is six years ago for those of you not gifted with math skills.

More troubling is Durham's apparent refusal to look at the illicit activities of the FBI, the DOJ and the CIA prior to the kickoff of Operation Crossfire Hurricane. George Papadopoulos, for example, was identified as a potential target that could be used against Trump thanks to intelligence collected by the NSA and Britain's GCHQ. His calls and text messages to Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, in August of 2015 put Papadopoulos on the radar as an unwitting actor who could be used to help create the legend of Russian interference.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared recently at an awards ceremony for the "Freedom House" — a nonprofit "founded on the core conviction that freedom flourishes in democratic nations where governments are accountable to their people." Close to 90% of the organization's funding comes directly from the U.S. government, providing the capacity to launder social control initiatives through the guise of "human rights."

Embedded within Blinken's rambling speech about Democracy™ and whatever, he slipped in a most troubling admission that the government is weaponizing AI to combat "Russian disinformation."