The Roundup

ICC arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leaders, the deaths of Iranian leaders in a helicopter crash, Anonymous takes on Georgia, Tucker Carlson's new show on Russian TV, and more!

Israel and Palestine

This week the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas for war crimes. They have joined Vladimir Putin in being war criminals on the loose.

Last weekend there was one protest in Tel Aviv calling for Netanyahu's ouster being held at the same time as another protest aimed at getting the international community to pressure Hamas to release all of the hostages that they have held since the October 7 terrorist attack.

A New Hope for Iran?

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian were killed in a helicopter crash last weekend. Raisi was a hardliner and his sudden death has put the leadership of Iran in a flux. It could be the proverbial shot in the arm to the ongoing Woman, Life, Freedom movement, which was originally formed to protest the killing of Mahsa Amini by the morality police because they didn't like the way that she wore her hijab.

Meanwhile the Gen-Z Lord Haw-Haw Jackson Hinkle was posting about how everyone should pray for both Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian only to get this snarky response: “I don't think I will, actually.”

Anonymous vs. Georgia

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has indicated that she will veto the proposed foreign agents law that is nearly identical to the one in Russia and it's the one that the Russian government uses to crackdown on dissent. It is also that same law that has resulted in huge mass protests in the capital city of Tbilisi. Despite that veto, the parliament, which is dominated by the pro-Russia Georgian Dream party has a majority that's big enough to override her veto.

Meanwhile the hacktivist group Anonymous has announced that it has condemned that proposed bill. The group has also announced that it had managed to take down the Georgian government's official website.

The group provided a screenshot showing how they managed to make logging into that website more difficult.

Putin Redraws the Maritime Border

This week Vladimir Putin made a unilateral decision to change the maritime border with Finland and Lithuania in the Black Sea. This change has not been internationally recognized. It makes you wonder what Putin is up to now.

Election News

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a general election that will be scheduled on July 4.

A Disturbing New Trend in Children's Clothing

The Spanish clothing store GOCCO is currently carrying a line of children's t-shirts by El Corte Inglés featuring a Ukrainian flag with a red “X” over it.

Of course that t-shirt has led to outrage among the worldwide Ukrainian diaspora. GOCCO came out with one of those “if you were offended by this we are sorry” apologies.

Tucker Carlson's New Show on Russian Television

It's official! Tucker Carlson has just launched his own TV show on the Russia 24 news channel. He will interview figures and politicians who have “alternative views to the mainstream.” His first episode deals with ticks and Lyme disease.

Apparently Carlson is insinuating that the existence of Lyme disease-carrying ticks is the result of some kind of a US government experiment in a bioweapons lab in the 1960s.

That's right, he is now going down the conspiracy theory route that have been paved by the likes of Alex Jones and QAnon. And this story has obviously been sanctioned by the Russian government since it's being aired on Russian TV. (There are no longer any independent media outlets in Russia since the government closed down the last remaining ones soon after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.)

If only Tucker Carlson would permanently relocate to Russia so he can work more closely with his colleagues at Russia 24…

Russian and Chinese Propaganda: A Combined Force to be Reckoned With

Check out this long post written by Artur Rehi, an Estonian reserve soldier and YouTuber, where he's implying that there will be a new stronger phase of Kremlin propaganda that will be aided by Chinese propaganda. He begins his post with this:

Putin's visit to China was not very successful for him in terms of economic agreements. Agreeing on the sale of Jerusalem artichoke and pork cartilage is not a very strong achievement for such a massive delegation. But there is another agreement that they have reached, and it gives rise to serious concern. Russia's information and propaganda agency TASS and the Chinese news agency Xinhua signed a cooperation agreement in Beijing. They are joining forces to create a common propaganda network in the world. Before this, Russian propaganda and its influence on the Internet are still Russia’s main and most powerful weapon against the West. China is not far behind. They had worked together before, but now they will cooperate even more closely.

If he's correct, then we must all be prepared for this in the coming months.

A Right-Wing Organization Bites the Dust While Blaming Donald Trump for its Demise

Remember FreedomWorks? They were a right-wing organization that was funded by the billionaire Koch brothers. They hijacked the Tea Party movement, which was originally formed as a nonpartisan independent organization protesting the economic meltdown of 2008, and it turned into a Republican-aligned movement just a month after Barack Obama was sworn in for his first term as president of the United States. The Tea Party claimed that they were opposing Obama's alleged leftist communist tendencies (although Obama's policies had little to do with Marxism) but the reality was that many of them couldn't stand the thought of a person of color occupying the White House.

Anyway the Tea Party movement ultimately died with the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and now the Tea Party's former benefactor, FreedomWorks, have voted recently to dissolve as well. They definitely won't be missed since they were one of the inspirations for Donald Trump's MAGA movement. Here's a great obituary about FreedomWorks that is definitely worth reading.

More Info About the Probable Death of Russell “Texas” Bentley

Russell “Texas” Bentley, the American-born pro-Russia propagandist based in the Russian-occupied region of Donetsk, Ukraine has been missing since last month and has been reported dead, even though his body has not been found as of this writing. When I first became aware of Russell “Texas” Bentley after his one video went viral in 2022, I did a Google search on the guy and I found this 2017 interview he did with Texas Monthly. That article was probably the most in-depth story I read about the guy because it went into details about his family background (mainly that his family was wealthy) and his life in the US before he moved to Donetsk. Recently the same writer, Sonia Smith, wrote a sequel that is in the most recent issue of Texas Monthly. The only thing about Bentley that’s really new is the report that in late April a white Niva was found near an abandoned brick factory close to the front line. Inside of the car was a burned body. That body is supposedly undergoing a forensic medical examination to see if it is Bentley or not but nothing further had been released.

Even if that body belonged to someone else, the chances of Bentley still being alive are practically nil at this point. He disappeared from an active war zone a month-and-a-half ago without a trace. If he was simply being kidnapped and held hostage his captors would’ve released a photo or video of Bentley along with a list of demands a long time ago. The fact that it didn’t happen only further proves that Bentley is dead.

The only other new fact about Bentley that was in that article is that he was the subject of this new documentary that was completed shortly before he died. It will air on Al Jazeera in a few months.

My blog is free to subscribe but if you want to make a comment, you’ll need to take out a paid subscription. Click on the button below for more details.