#you banned celebrations of victory over nazis what is wrong with you

[cansomebodytellmewhatsgoingon]

“Alexander Dubyako, 19, was arrested after waving a Russian flag and giving a speech in front of Riga's huge Soviet war memorial on 10 May.

He was attending an unofficial gathering to celebrate Victory Day, an annual holiday that commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

Official celebrations were banned as they were seen as a glorification of Russia, which led to protests like the one Alex attended.

"I saw the flag as a symbol of unity, I consider the Victory Day a day of unity. There was just an incredible atmosphere, a sense of togetherness that I have not seen in Latvia for a long time," he told the BBC.

Latvian police saw his action as a sign of support for Russian aggression in Ukraine, which Alexander and his family say was not the case.

He was charged under a law that outlaws glorification of genocide and war crimes and he is now awaiting sentencing. The maximum punishment is five years in prison.

 "My grandfather went through the war… we believe this is a memory that should be honoured and respected," says his mother Svetlana who was with him when he was arrested. Both have since received death threats on social media.

"We are forced to be ashamed, to be afraid that we are Russians, but this is also wrong."”

-BBC News, Russian-speakers in Latvia told to pick sides in test of patriotism

~~

Latvia: worried that Putin will use the excuse of oppression of Russian speakers to invade, as they did in Ukraine

Latvia: proceeds to do the exact same fucking thing Putin says is happening to Russian speakers

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/zelenskii-beat-poroshenko-next/

The Saker: Zelenskii beat Poroshenko – what will happen next?

[This analysis was written for the Unz Review]

As everybody predicted, Poroshenko completely lost the election. As I wrote in my previous column, this is both amazing (considering Poro’s immense and extensive resources and the fact that his opponent was, literally, a clown (ok, a comic if you prefer). His defeat was also so predictable as to be almost inevitable: not only is the man genuinely hated all over the Ukraine (except for the Nazi crackpots of the Lvov region), but he made fatal blunders which made him even more detestable than usual.

First, there was this masterpiece:

Translation: April 21st. A crucial choice

Now one could sympathize with Poroshenko: not only did this “Putin the boogeyman” appear to work fantastically well with the main sponsors of the Ukronazi coup and with the legacy Ziomedia, but nobody dared to tell Poroshenko that most Ukrainians were not buying that nonsense at all. The suggestion that all the other candidates are Putin agents is no less ridiculous. The thin veneer of deniability Poroshenko had devised (the poster was not put up by the official Poroshenko campaign but by “volunteers”) failed, everybody immediately saw through it all, and this resulted in Poro’s first big campaign faceplant.

Next came this disaster:

Again, this was not officially Poroshenko’s campaign which made this video, but everybody saw through this one too. The quasi-open threat to murder Zelenskii was received with horror in the Ukraine, and this PR-disaster was Poro’s second faceplant.

Then the poor man “lost it.” I won’t list all the stupid and ridiculous things the man said and did, but I will say that his performance at the much-anticipated debate in the stadium was a disaster too.

The writing had been on the wall for a while now, and this is why the two candidates were summoned to speak to their masters (face to face in Germany and France, by phone with Mr. MAGA) and they were told a few things:

Poroshenko was told in no uncertain terms that he could not trigger a war, organize a last-minute false flag, murder Zelenskii or engage in any other “creative campaign methods.”

Zelenskii was also clearly told that should he win the election, he was not to touch Poroshenko.  It appears that the USA gave personal security guarantees to Poroshenko.

Meet the new Ukie President (no, this is not a joke!)

The western calculus is simple: try to keep Poroshenko alive (figuratively and politically) and to see how much of the Rada he can keep. Furthermore, since Zelenskii is extremely weak (he has no personal power base of any kind), Kolomoiskii will have him do exactly as he is told and Kolomoiskii can easily be told to behave by the Empire. Finally, there is Vladimir Groisman, the current prime minister who has kept a very low profile, who does NOT have blood on his hands (at least when compared to thugs like Turchinov or Avakov) and who has not made any move which would blacklist him with the Kremlin. Groisman is also a Jew (Israel and the Ukraine are now the two countries on the planet in which both the President and the Prime-Minister are Jews; ironic considering the historical lovefest between Jews and Ukrainian nationalists …). He might make a much more effective Ukrainian Gauleiter for the Empire than either Poroshenko or Zelenskii.  For the time being, Goisman has already ditched Poroshenko’s party and is creating his own.  And let’s not forget Avakov and Parubii, who are both soaked in innocent blood, and who will try to hold on to their considerable power by using the various Nazi death-squads under their control.  Finally, there is still the formidable (and relatively popular) Iulia Timoshenko whose political ambitions need to be kept in check.  Thus, Poroshenko with his immense wealth and his connections can still be a useful tool for the Empire’s control of the Ukraine.

The western calculus might also be wrong: for one thing, Zelenskii cannot deliver *anything* meaningful to the Ukrainian people, most definitely not prosperity or honesty. Pretty soon the Ukrainian people will wake up to realize that when they elected the “new face” of Zelenskii, they ended up with the “not new” face of Kolomoiskii and everything that infamous name entails. Zelenskii might not have another option than to jail Poroshenko, which he semi-promised to do during the stadium debate. Except that now Zelenskii is saying that he will consult with Poroshenko and might even use him in some official capacity. Yes, campaign promises in the Ukraine are never kept for more than the time it takes to make them. Finally, Poroshenko’s power base is very rapidly eroding because nobody wants to go down with him. I tend to believe that Poroshenko has outlived his usefulness for the AngloZionists because he became an overnight political corpse. But this is the Ukraine, so never say never.

Finally, the Empire is also pushing for a reform of the Ukrainian political system to give less powers to the President and more to the Rada.  Again, this makes sense considering that Zelenskii is an unknown actor and considering the fact that Rada members are basically on the US payroll (across all parties and factions).

What about Russia in all this?

Maria Zakharova: only caution and skepticism for now

Well, the Russians have been extremely cautious, and nobody seems to harbor any illusions about Zelenskii. In fact, just a day after his election Zelenskii is already making all sorts of anti-Russian statements. Truly, besides the logical implication of Poroshenko’s poster (that a defeat for him would mean a victory for Putin), nobody in Russia is celebrating. The main feeling about the entire topic of the Ukraine is one of total disgust, a gradual and painful realization of the fact that our so-called “brothers” are brothers only in the sense of the biblical Cain and the acceptance that there is nobody to talk to in Kiev. Thus Russia will have to embark on a policy of unilateral actions towards the Ukraine. These could include:

Decide whether to recognize the outcome of the election or not.  I think that it is more likely that Russia will recognize the fact that most Ukrainians did vote for Zelenskii, but that recognition will imply nothing more than that: the recognition of a fact.

Accelerate the pace of distribution of Russian passports to citizens of the DNR and LNR republics.

Slap further economic sanctions on the Ukraine (Russia has just banned the export of energy sources to the Ukraine – finally and at last!).

Declare that since millions of Ukrainians did not vote (inside the Ukraine, in the DNR/LNR and in Russia, and since the Minsk Agreements are dead (they are de facto if not de jure yet) Russia does not recognize this election and, instead, recognizes the two people’s republics.  I don’t think that the Kremlin will do that short of an Ukronazi attack on Novorussia (in which case the Russians will do what they did following Saakashvili’s attack on South-Ossetia).

So far, Russian spokespeople have just said that they “respected the vote of the Ukrainian people” and that they will judge Zelenskii “on his actions, not his words”.  This approach sure seems balanced and reasonable to me.

Conclusion:

The truth is that nobody knows what will happen next, not even Kolomoiskii or Zelenskii himself. There are just too many parameters to consider, and the real balance of power following this election has not manifested itself yet. As for the true aspirations and hopes of the people of the Ukraine, they were utterly ignored: Poroshenko will be replaced by Kolomoiskii, wearing the mask of Zelenskii. Hardly a reason to rejoice …

In spite of the large number of electoral candidates, the people of the Ukraine were not given a meaningful choice. So they did the only thing they could do: they voted to kick Poroshenko out. And that sure must have felt great.

But will Zelenskii turn out to be any better?  I very much doubt it, even though I also very much hope that I am wrong.

The Saker

[nancydhooper]

The Southern Poverty Law Center Surrenders Unconditionally To Maajid Nawaz. We Should Be Concerned.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has surrendered, completely and unconditionally, in the face of a threatened defamation lawsuit by British activist and politician Maajid Nawaz. That surrender includes a $3.375 million payment to Nawaz "to fund work fighting anti-Muslim bigotry and extremism" and prominent written and video apologies.

This is a rout by Nawaz, a crushing victory on a scale I don't remember seeing in a threatened defamation suit. Though it inspires good feelings about fairness and truth, it ought also inspire concern about free expression and our broken court system.

The case begins with the SPLC's October 2016 "Field Guide To Anti-Muslim Extremists," which listed Nawaz. Nawaz is Muslim and spends a considerable amount of his time calling out anti-Muslim bigotry. The SPLC put him on the list for, among other things, printing a cartoon of Mohammed, advocating a ban on wearing a veil in some public places, and — most significantly — providing British law enforcement with a list of Islamic organizations and saying that "the ideology of non-violent Islamists is broadly the same as that of violent Islamists; they disagree only on tactics." The SPLC's stance was met with rather broad criticism. They sent the "Field Guide" down the memory hole.

Nawaz did not take this characterization lightly. He attacked it repeatedly and publicly, threatened a defamation suit, and eventually crowdfunded a legal team to pursue that lawsuit. This settlement, reached in advance of any suit being filed, is the result.

The SPLC's agreed-upon apology is both complete and oddly vague:

The Southern Poverty Law Center was wrong to include Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation in our Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists. Since we published the Field Guide, we have taken the time to do more research and have consulted with human rights advocates we respect. We’ve found that Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam have made valuable and important contributions to public discourse, including by promoting pluralism and condemning both anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist extremism. Although we may have our differences with some of the positions that Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam have taken, they are most certainly not anti-Muslim extremists. We would like to extend our sincerest apologies to Mr. Nawaz, Quilliam, and our readers for the error, and we wish Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam all the best.

The SPLC has fallen from being a justifiably respected warrior against bigotry and brutality to an unreliable, sophomoric, flailing orthodoxy-cop that struggles to distinguish organized hate groups like the Klan from trolls, idiots, or social conservatives. I would like to see them be more responsible. But I am worried — and you should be too — about the abuse of defamation law.

One of the most basic principles of defamation law, mandated by the First Amendment, is that pure opinion can't be defamatory. Only statements of provable fact — or statements that imply provable fact — can be defamatory. I write about this constantly. An opinion, however moronic or unfair, is absolutely protected by the First Amendment unless it implies that the speaker is relying on undisclosed provable facts. So, for instance, "look at what this guy wrote, he's a bigot" is by definition not defamatory; it's based on an interpretation of a disclosed fact, the thing the guy wrote. "I've listened to this guy's conversations and, let me tell you, he's a bigot" might be defamatory, because it implies undisclosed facts — whatever you claim you heard.

Here, the SPLC's fatuous Field Guide appeared to be classic opinion based on disclosed facts. The SPLC offered its opinion that certain people were "anti-Muslim extremists" based on facts it set forth and linked. Their conclusion appears unfair, narrow-minded, and uttered in bad faith, but opinions are absolutely protected whether or not they're unfair, narrow-minded, and in bad faith. It's possible that I have missed a textual analysis, but it appears to me that Nawaz' criticism of the piece was that it unfairly characterized him based on facts, not that it got specific provable facts wrong.

That impression is fortified by the negotiated apology. The SPLC's apology — the precise language of which is dictated by the settlement agreement — says that the SPLC was wrong to put Nawaz on the Field Guide list and that Nawaz has done valuable work against bigotry. That's all true, rationally and morally. But what it very conspicuously doesn't say is exactly what facts the SPLC got wrong. It sounds like an apology for drawing an irrational, unfair conclusion, which is simply not defamation. Moreover, Nawaz specifically said he was going to sue to fight people who use labels like "racist" and "Nazi." But such labels are classic opinion.

It's impossible to overstate the extent of the SPLC's surrender here — I can't remember one combining this level of money and apology, especially pre-litigation. So why did they do it? Maybe there are specific false statements of fact in the Field Guide that haven't come to light. Perhaps discovery would have revealed ugly things about the SPLC's process of writing such lists. Perhaps the lawsuit would have resulted in sustained terrible publicity for the SPLC, undermining whatever credibility it has left. Maybe they're actually contrite.

But though I celebrate an apology for wrongdoing, I can't celebrate a surrender at swordpoint that encourages censorious litigation. Bad opinions are, and ought to be — must be — absolutely protected. If the SPLC surrendered because we've got a broken judicial system that makes litigation ruinously expensive and fails to protect free speech, the result is bad, not good. The threatened lawsuit appears to be part of a trend of suing the SPLC for its opinions and characterizations. The settlement will embolden that trend. The trend will not stay confined to the SPLC — that's not the way the law works. Especially in such bitterly divided times, suing over opinions is deeply censorious and corrosive of free speech. Nawaz — who has himself been the target of attempted censorship — should know that.

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