MA Political Science-International Relations, Syracuse University. Foreign Policy Analysis, EU affairs. Greek-American
Thessaloniki, Greece
Joined July 2011
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Nick Barnets retweeted
Aside from the shocking substance of this story, what's amazing is how it was unearthed by Cole. The short version: The Russians were able to penetrate Jared Kushner's iPhone and extract screenshots and data. Then, a Russian intel official was captured by Dutch intelligence (!) and flipped. The Dutch believed Kushner may have been acting on behalf of Russia, so pursued him as an intel target and were able to get into his phone.
They did not find any evidence of Russian collusion, instead they watched him moving hundreds of millions of dollars from slush funds created by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, one of them housed in Israel's central bank.
Incredible reporting, and if Democrats have any sense, they will pull on these threads and learn a lot more about this money.
Explosive story many years in the making, now out in Vanity Fair by Matthew Cole (who will be on Breaking Points next week, and publishing soon in @DropSiteNews):
Saudi Arabia and the UAE set up multi-billion slush funds for Jared Kushner to use.
Iran-Contra 2 here (except with Iran-Contra, at least the US got some hostages released. Not clear what we got out of this one.)
Nick Barnets retweeted
SCOOP: The State Dept has started asking career diplomats up for promotion if they voted for Trump in 16, 20, 24.
Federal law prohibits politically based hiring for career staff.
State tells @washingtonsun it's screening for "fidelity" and execution of the president's vision👇
Nick Barnets retweeted
Episode 2: ‘Russia Bombards Ukraine After Trump Envoy Hails “Humanitarian” Putin’. Good job Witkoff wasn’t negotiating with Pol Pot, or we’d have another mountain of skulls.
Its extremely ironic to see the leader of a party that claims to be patriotic to say that a country defending itself against an invasion & relentless bombing attacks on its people from another country is a provocation. Not the country attacking, but the country defending. Sick.
Weidel: "Prolonging the war and shooting drones into the hinterland of Russia, destroying refineries, houses, and buildings near Moscow, is a huge provocation."
Host: "It's defending itself."
Weidel: "No, it's not."
Host: "Every night, drones and ballistic missiles rain down on Ukraine..."
Weidel: "This strategy is very risky, and we've been criticizing it. We want to end this war.
It doesn't help if a country [Ukraine] launches drone attacks against a country [Russia] that has nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense, it's very risky and very stupid.
We need to end this, and we need to actually put pressure on Ukrainian president to have the willingness to end the dying and stop this very risky strategy for all of Europe."🔚
Folks, here is Weidel's imaginary reality: black is white, the victim is to blame for the crime against them, and defending your home against a bloody, illegal invasion that murders children and razes towns is "stupid," while letting Russia occupy you and carry out a country-wide Bucha massacre is probably smart.
And defending yourself is risky! Risky, did you hear that? Well, no shit, just standing there and catching Russian ballistics with your face is risky, too. So we may as well take the risk and, hear me out, fight back?
Please don't vote for this evil Russian appendix in Germany!
Nick Barnets retweeted
Ukraine has survived terror-famine, Nazi occupation, Soviet communism, Chernobyl, Yanukovych, Russian invasion and occupation and Russian invasion and occupation. It will survive a lowlife from Queens and a sociopathic Space Karen from Praetoria.
Nick Barnets retweeted
When our political future is distorted by Zuckerberg’s @Meta (boycotting Lula) and Musk’s @Starlink (boycotting Ukrainians’ resistance) to please @realDonaldTrump, our collective dependencies on the US have now become a democratic and security risk.
reuters.com/world/americas/m…
Nick Barnets retweeted
YOU'RE NOT PAYING TAXES FOR THE PROPERTY, YOU'RE PAYING YOUR TOWN FOR THE SERVICES IT PROVIDES. THE ROADS, POLICE, SCHOOLS, FIRE DEPARTMENT, LIBRARY, SNOW PLOWS, EMERGENCY SERVICES AND SO MUCH MORE.
“I’m old. I’ve paid my home off,” said Ray Warner, a 72-year-old Akron resident. “Why would I pay property tax?”
Across the country, homeowners are asking the same question and revolting against property taxes at a scale not seen in a half century.
politico.com/news/magazine/2…
Nick Barnets retweeted
Israeli settlers are out of control, because the Israeli government allows them to be. And while attacks on diplomats or journalists command attention, as they should, this happens unnoticed to Palestinian farmers all the time.
#Breaking: European diplomats, including French and Polish representatives, who went to the West Bank to observe the olive harvest, have been violently assaulted by Israeli settlers.
Nick Barnets retweeted
Deaths of Ukrainians resulted from this. And they put USG officials at Embassy Kyiv plus thousands of US citizens in Ukraine at grave risk. Unconscionable. This is not ok.
Exclusive: Musk approached Trump to slow down Starlink in Ukraine telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2…
Nick Barnets retweeted
Elon Musk and Donald Trump decided to punish Zelenskyy by throttling Starshield because of domestic US fuel prices, and Ukrainians were killed by Russian attacks as a result.
That didn’t bother Musk though, the only thing he cared about was his profit margin.
EXCLUSIVE: Elon Musk came to Donald Trump with the plan to throttle Ukraine’s use of SpaceX’s Starshield satellite internet network, sources have told the Telegraph.
The tech billionaire made the proposal during the US President’s row with Volodymyr Zelensky over strikes on Russian oil refineries.
‘The reality is that they were both in it,’ a senior source said of Musk’s and Trump’s involvement.
But after a night of carnage in Kyiv caused by the slowdown, Musk was alarmed about the possibility of adverse consumer reaction in Europe.
The SpaceX boss then proceeded to tweet, blaming the US administration, and ultimately, President Trump for authorising the slowdown.
‘He tweeted out that he was innocent and that it was the US administration that did it,’ the source said.
Nick Barnets retweeted
Trump is lying again. Putin started the war and has repeatedly refused to negotiate to end it. The US spent nothing like $350 billion. Half the money is not missing. Washington and Moscow are both significantly more corrupt than Kyiv. Putin, not Zelensky, is a dictator who openly steals elections.
Nick Barnets retweeted
If Putin stops fighting, the war ends. If Zelensky stops fighting then his country will be occupied, leaders murdered, language banned, businesses stolen, children kidnapped. That's what happens in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
Nick Barnets retweeted
Trump extorted Ukraine in 2019 in a dirty scheme to win re-election in 2020. He is extorting Ukraine again in a dirty scheme to sway midterms in 2026. The first scheme failed. This second will fail too. But why must brave Ukrainians lose their lives for Trump's corruption?
One of the many reasons Trump admires Putin so much is that he wishes to rule his country the way he rules his- for life & without opposition, which is killed & suppressed by any means necessary.
Nick Barnets retweeted
The mood in Ukraine is grim today. There's frustration and outrage here in Kyiv towards the Trump administration over what Ukraine's government, the troops and society believe is a deliberate attempt on the part of Washington to force Ukraine to capitulate to Russia – by withholding intelligence that allows early warning when Russian missiles are incoming, and cutting off Starlink to the military which needs it to strike and for defence against jet drones. These decisions cut intel sharing and restrict Starlink cost lives; at least 5 people killed in Kyiv, 6 more in Lutsk, dozens others badly injured.
NEW: Ukrainian troops have been caught off guard by restrictions on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet systems that disrupted frontline operations, as Kyiv received no advance warning from its partners of a Russian missile attack on its energy facilities for the second day running, Ukrainian officials and troops tell @FT.
ft.com/content/37085602-726a…
Nick Barnets retweeted
Horrific footage from Kyiv last night.
Russia attacks residential buildings every day.
Civilians are killed every day. Putin does not stop. His goal is the genocide of Ukrainians.
How can sanctions be eased against a war criminal who is only intensifying his crimes?
📹: libkos/Instagram
A residential district in Kyiv, an apartment building. Tuesday night, about 10 p.m. Most people are already home, in bed or getting ready for bed.
Then, in a moment, a Russian ballistic missile changes their lives forever. Even those who were not harmed will have lived through this awful, tragic night (watch the video please). Russia has taken everything from dozens of families - their homes, family mementos, clothes, all their possessions are now gone.
The saddest part is that this story is not unique. This exact scenario has been repeated in thousands of buildings that Russia has attacked in Ukraine. Russia cannot achieve anything on the frontline, so it has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian civilians, and has no plans to stop - on the contrary, it has built new drone launching sites and is increasing missile production.
It is time to accept reality and deal with it - Russia must be stopped. The only way to stop Russia is through force.
Nick Barnets retweeted
The Starlink restriction over Ukraine is a perfect illustration of the danger of relying on US technology. Finding alternatives that aren’t Chinese is difficult and expensive- but I expect the drive to accelerate
Almost like those who were critical of the mostly politically motivated measures in the bailout loans to Greece who were called things like commies & reckless & enablers of laziness & bad behavior of the bad Greeks were right about some things…
Every time you hear the fiscal fundamentalists claim 'successful austerity in Greece' poin them to the economic effects: a low productivity "Café Economy," surviving on tourism
share.google/EiZig9wGVfot5lb…
Nick Barnets retweeted
Feelings in Kyiv running very high following latest. “If Trump had been running United States back in 1939, I think he would have been Hitler’s ally,” says an intelligence source. “And on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto, Witkoff and Kushner would have built a posh hotel complex.”
