Month: August 2023

Authored by Mark Hemmingway via RealClear Investigations,

The Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has a profound interest in American politics. Over the years, he has pumped $475 million he has earned manufacturing medical devices into left-wing advocacy groups – $72 million in 2021 alone, according to a new report from the conservative watchdog group, Americans for Public Trust. 

According to a biography of Wyss written by a sister, Wyss’ goal is not to bend laws to his business’s advantage but to “[re]interpret the American Constitution in the light of progressive politics.”  

Although foreigners are prohibited from donating money directly to political causes, Wyss has donated lavishly to progressive political organizations. The New York Times reported in 2021 that these include the “Center for American Progress and Priorities USA, as well as organizations that ran voter registration and mobilization campaigns to increase Democratic turnout, built media outlets accused of slanting the news to favor Democrats, and sought to block Mr. Trump’s nominees, prove he colluded with Russia and push for his impeachment.” Since 2016, some $245 million of his spending on American politics has gone to Arabella Advisors, which controls a vast network of progressive nonprofits which, among other activities, has financed hundreds of smaller groups that campaign for specific issues and candidates. Arabella, which raised $1.6 billion in 2021, was dubbed by The Atlantic “The Massive Progressive Dark-Money Group You’ve Never Heard Of.” 

Critics argue that Wyss’ largesse illuminates a gaping loophole in political finance that essentially allows wealthy foreigners to launder their contributions – one that has been exploited far more robustly by Democrats than Republicans. That may help explain why the issue became more prominent on Aug. 14, when House Republicans announced an investigation “into whether entities that qualify as tax-exempt under Section 501 of the U.S. Code are abiding by the statutory and regulatory prohibitions against … foreign sources of funding … being funneled through such organizations to influence America’s elections.” As part of that probe, the House Ways and Means Committee produced an open letter detailing the problem and requesting information from the public. A significant portion of the letter discussed the political donations of a single foreigner – Hansjörg Wyss. 

Marneé Banks, a spokesperson for the two organizations most responsible for Wyss’ political giving, told RCI that “The Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund prohibit their grants from being used to support or oppose political candidates or parties or to fund get-out-the-vote or voter registration activities.” She said, “Both organizations comply with the rules and laws governing their activities, and they support increasing transparency in our campaign finance system.”  

Almost every expert interviewed agrees that the House investigation will prove challenging. The opaque nature of 501(c)4 independent political expenditure groups makes it impossible to tell whose donations are spent on what.  

“There’s no way for us right now to even check up on, let alone stop, wealthy foreign interests,  say from China or Russia, from cutting a check to an American foundation that disappears into its coffers and winds up in the hands of a political nonprofit,” says Hayden Ludwig, Director of Policy Research at the Restoration of America, a right-leaning nonprofit that investigates the undisclosed donations to nonprofits commonly disparaged as “dark money.” “And if it’s 501I4 [the IRS tax designation for organizations that can engage in activity supporting political candidates and electoral issues] that money can absolutely be used for independent expenditures, running political ads, hammering Republicans and electing Democrats.”  

Arabella, along with its subsidiary organizations, declined to comment for this article. 

Taking foreign donations has long been illegal, but it emerged as a major concern in 1996 when figures tied to Chinese intelligence illegally funneled hundreds of thousands to the Democratic National Committee. One of the major figures in the scandal, a Chinese businessman named Ng Lap Seng, told ABC News in 1997, “My philosophy is that I should not break the law but I wouldn’t mind bending it.”  

The political landscape shifted profoundly in 2010 with the Supreme Court landmark decision in Citizens United vs. FEC. By holding that campaign finance laws violated the right to free speech, the court broadly prevented the government from restricting independent political spending by corporations and other associations.  

Although foreigners have never been allowed to make direct contributions to campaigns, Citizens United essentially allowed Wyss and other foreign billionaires to give unlimited amounts of money to political action committees and other organizations that did not coordinate their advocacy with specific candidates.  

In the thirteen years since the Citizens United decision, which Democrats have long derided, a large number of 501(c)4 independent expenditure groups have sprung up to take advantage of the new rules. None has been as successful as Arabella Advisors.  

Arabella was founded by Eric Kessler, a former Clinton White House appointee, as well as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, which was plagued by fundraising controversies. Under Kessler, Arabella achieved great success in wrangling wealthy liberal donors and thereby making many organizations on the left dependent on its largesse: The Arabella network spent $1.2 billion in 2020. “Altogether this is absolutely one of the largest fundraising machines I have ever come across,” Robert Maguire of the left-leaning watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington told Politico in 2021. “I am really struggling to think of any other group, especially recently, that could rival it,” 

The structure of Arabella Advisors is complicated and opaque by design. Arabella is comprised of a handful of smaller but still large and influential funds – New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, North Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund. Those groups then create several “pop-up” groups with generic names such as “Floridians for a Fair Shake” and “Arizonans For Responsible Government” to campaign for specific issues and candidates.  

“They’re little more than websites designed to look like fully independent, grassroots advocacy groups; yet they can be unplugged the minute a campaign wraps up,” according to a recent report on Arabella’s operations by Ludwig. “These pop-up groups don’t file IRS disclosures, nor do they reveal their staff, boards, or budget. They often solicit donations from unsuspecting liberals, some of whom might be bothered to realize they’re in fact supporting the biggest ‘dark money’ monster in politics and not a grassroots group.”  

The Arabella network has created some 500 of these groups since 2006, and even political journalists are often fooled into thinking these are grassroots groups instead of entities controlled by well-funded D.C. activists. (Some of these pop-up groups have even run political ads that deceptively try to look like local news outlets.) Many of those pop-up groups are also 501(c)(3) organizations, which unlike 501(c)(4) groups, are tax deductible and supposed to be nonpartisan.

However, “nonpartisan” groups funded by Arabella often skirt the law and are created to accomplish narrow partisan goals. For instance, the Arabella network gave $25 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a nonprofit that endured heavy criticism for its role in the 2020 election. While CTCL’s mission was to improve election infrastructure by working with local government election offices, it was run by election analytics experts affiliated with Democrats and progressive causes. The hundreds of millions in grants CTCL distributed in the 2020 election were allocated by coordinating with Democratic politicians and heavily skewed toward increasing turnout in Democratic counties and cities located in swing states. 

With Arabella, donors’ money is extremely fungible. Because it is routed through two or three organizations before it gets spent, it is difficult to determine how donations from foreigners such as Wyss are disbursed. 

And given Arabella’s massive political spending, there’s no question the organization exerts political influence and is cozy with the Biden administration. This year, it was revealed that Arabella’s Eric Kessler was the only non-government employee on an email chain where Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and other USDA employees were discussing policies about how to “transform” the U.S. food system and go after the meat industry for high prices, raising questions about whether the group is directly shaping the Biden administration’s agenda.  

With Arabella and their foreign megadonors working this closely with the White House, “I don’t see Democrats remotely concerned about the influence of foreign money, even though they spent years hammering Trump about being a supposed Russian asset,” says Ludwig. 

This lack of concern also created a marked contrast with how similar organizations on the right are operating. While it is very difficult to track the flow of such money, the top nonprofit groups accepting it on the right that are comparable to Arabella, One Nation, and American Action Network have institutional bans on accepting foreign money.   

And those groups are quite happy to emphasize this as a point of political contrast with Arabella. “Unlike the left, who rely on massive foreign gifts to bankroll their toxic agenda that’s costing American families more daily, we do not accept foreign contributions,” says American Action Network Communications Director Courtney Parella. Americans for Public Trust executive director Caitlin Sutherland adds that “This is mostly an issue on the left, with all the hypocrisy involved, because they’re the ones decrying dark money, they say they want to ban dark money, want to get money out of politics, but have no actual ban on accepting money from foreign nationals.”  

And despite the broad freedom Citizens United created for political spending, serious questions about the legality of these arrangements remain. Two years ago, Americans for Public Trust filed a complaint with the FEC regarding Wyss and Arabella. “Foreign nationals cannot give to Super PACs, but what we’d see a pattern where the foreign national gives to a nonprofit, that nonprofit turns around and gets the money to a Super PAC. We’ve been calling this the foreign influence loophole,” says Sutherland. “So we filed an FEC complaint that basically argued just that, that the money flow needs to be investigated by the FEC.”  

By law, the FEC board can have no more than three appointees from a particular political party, and the Americans for Public Trust’s FEC complaint was eventually dismissed last year on a 3-3 deadlock between commissioners. The attorney representing Wyss in the FEC matter was Marc Elias, the Democratic party super lawyer who specializes in contesting elections – Elias also served as the DNC’s cut-out to pay for the debunked Steele Dossier, which alleged that former President Trump and many of his aides were financially compromised by Russian interests.  

However, while the FEC’s general counsel report on the matter concluded “there is also not currently enough information in the record to conclude that Wyss made indirect political contributions… that would be used for electoral purposes,” the report validated a number of concerns raised by Americans for Public Trust. Specifically, it concluded that the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a key part of Arabella Advisors network and funnel for Wyss’ money, had spent the lion’s share of its budget on electoral politics. The organization spent $400 million in 2020, which included a whopping $128 million to America Votes, a progressive organization that declares its mission is to “WIN ELECTIONS in key states” on its website.   

“Based on this record, including STF’s [Sixteen Thirty Fund’s] admitted spending, its grants to politically active grant recipients, and its payments … it appears that there is reason to believe that by 2020 STF had the major purpose of influencing a federal election,” notes the report. The FEC’s general counsel report went on to conclude that Sixteen Thirty, and a subsidiary organization, The Hub Project, had likely violated the law by not registering as political committees.  

Had they been forced to register as Super PACs, that would have forced significantly more transparency requirements on both organizations. Registering as a Super PAC would have also made it clear the fund could not accept foreign donations, something which the FEC has previously cracked down on. In 2019, the FEC fined a Jeb Bush Super PAC $940,000 for taking in donations from a Chinese corporation. However, since the FEC took no enforcement action, the conclusions of the FEC’s general counsel were not binding. The Sixteen Thirty Fund is still not registered as a political committee.  

Sixteen Thirty Fund did not respond to a request for comment, but it appears neither Sixteen Thirty nor Arabella is done dealing with the FEC. On August 15, Americans for Public Trust filed an all-new complaint with the Internal Revenue Service alleging Arabella’s relationship with Sixteen Thirty and its other subsidiaries is illegal. In order to receive nonprofit status, Sixteen Thirty and the four other funds in the Arabella network initially claimed Arabella would only be providing the groups with temporary administrative support. Seventeen years later, the groups have paid Arabella hundreds of millions in management fees and remain under its yoke. 

Ultimately, any hope for addressing foreign money in elections may lie with Congress because the FEC’s role is merely interpreting the existing laws governing dark money, which are unclear. House Republicans recently introduced the “The American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act,” which would make it illegal for foreigners to funnel money from nonprofits to Super PACs and other vehicles for electoral spending.  

Though Democrats once thought of concerns about foreign election interference and dark money as signature issues, Axios notes that Republicans are “trying to flip to script and draw attention to foreign donations to Democrat-aligned and progressive nonprofit organizations” with the introduction of the ACE Act. Additionally, Sen. Marco Rubio reintroduced the Protecting Ballot Measures from Foreign Influence Act, which would make it illegal for a foreign national to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to State or local initiatives and referendums.  

Plastic No-No Bans

And setting aside the complicated world of dark money, Democrats have faced accusations of willfully enabling fraudulent fundraising for the last 15 years. Both of former President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns were heavily criticized for refusing to use basic credit card verification systems for online donations that are designed to, among other things, filter out donations from foreign sources. This resulted in a raft of obviously fraudulent donations.  

ActBlue, the largest online fundraising platform for Democrats, which raised a whopping $5 billion in 2020, still does not require donors to supply the three-digit Card Verification Value (CVV) number on the back of credit cards. Requiring a CVV is now standard industry practice for online transactions, specifically to prevent fraud and illegal foreign transactions. (ActBlue’s GOP counterpart in online fundraising, WinRed, does require CVV numbers to donate.) 

To that end, Rubio has also introduced legislation to require a CVV for online donations. When Rubio submitted it as an amendment to the Democrats’ climate and tax bill last year, it didn’t even receive a vote. Rubio has subsequently called for an FEC investigation into ActBlue after reports emerged earlier this year that ActBlue is a conduit for fraudulent donations made with stolen credit card numbers. ActBlue also did not respond to inquiries about why it chooses not to require CVV numbers for fraud prevention.  

Ron Fein of the clean elections watchdog Free Speech for People warns against making foreign dark money a partisan issue. Fein notes Republicans are not perfect on this issue – Free Speech For People filed an FEC complaint against President Trump’s inaugural committee for taking a $500,000 contribution from Venezuelan-owned oil company CITGO.   

More important, curbing foreign influence in elections is an issue that large majorities in both parties support. “Survey after survey, and every opportunity to actually vote directly, like a ballot initiative shows that large majorities of Americans of both political parties will say time and time again, that they don’t want foreign money entering US elections,” says Fein. He also notes that state and local Democrats have embraced limiting foreign donations.  

At the national level, Rubio has attracted some support from Democrats – Virginia senator Mark Warner is co-sponsoring his Protecting Ballot Measures from Foreign Influence Act, and it has attracted some support from moderate Democrats in the House – but Rubio is plainly frustrated with the fact that stopping foreign money in American elections has become a largely Republican issue in Congress.  

“Democrats talk a big game about protecting our elections from foreign interference, but it is all talk,” Rubio tells RealClearInvestigations. “Cracking down on credit card fraud and foreign political donations used to be a bipartisan idea, but apparently fundraising comes first for the Democrat Party.”

Britain’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) has urged millions of Britons to not heat their homes in the evening to help the government hit its net zero target.

No, they aren’t urging elites to ditch their private jets for commercial, or not to burn 1,000 of fuel taking the yacht out for a jaunt. Chris Stark, head of the CCC, wants ordinary citizens to turn off their electric heaters (heat pumps) at night as part of a wider drive to deliver “emissions savings,” which includes a shift away from gas boilers – which Chris, a hypocrite, still has.

Contained in a document on “behavior change,” the CCC recommended that Britons instead “pre-heat” their houses in the afternoons when electricity use is lower, and would theoretically save families money.

“There is significant potential to deliver emissions savings, just by changing the way we use our homes,” reads the CCC’s sixth “carbon budget” paper, which lays out how the UK should reduce its emissions between 2033-37.

“Where homes are sufficiently well insulated, it is possible to pre-heat ahead of peak times, enabling access to cheaper tariffs which reflect the reduced costs associated with running networks and producing power during off-peak times.”

Critics boil

“The grid is already creaking and daft ideas like this show just how much worse it will become,” Andrew Montford, the director of Net Zero Watch, told The Telegraph. “It’s clear that renewables are a disaster in the making. We now need political leaders with the courage to admit it.”

And according to Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, head of his party’s Net Zero Scrutiny group, “It is becoming clear that adherence to judicable Carbon Budgets and edicts coming from the CCC are developing into farce.”

“The Climate Change Act 2008 will require amendment to free us from madcap and impractical targets foisted upon the population by long departed politicians.

“This latest advice to freeze ourselves on cold evenings merely shows the truth that the dream of plentiful and cheap renewable energy is a sham.

“I came into politics to improve all aspects of my constituents’ lives, not make them colder and poorer,” he told The Telegraph.

Lower bills?

The CCC insists that following the advice means “homes will still be warm, but bills can be lowered,” adding “This is a demonstration of homeowners benefiting from periods of the day when electricity is cheaper.”

“Using electricity to heat a home opens the prospect of choosing a time when prices are lower, something that’s not possible with a gas boiler,” he continued, adding “Smart heating of homes like this also makes the best possible use of the grid and supports greater use of cheap renewable generation.”

The advice follows a furore over Government plans to ban the installation of new oil powered boilers from 2026 and force homes into adopting heat pumps.

Downing Street has hinted it is now set to U-turn amid warnings the move would increase rural fuel poverty and put more strain on the struggling electricity grid.

The CCC is an independent body set up by ministers in 2008 to advise the Government on how to hit its climate targets.

In its latest report, the committee criticises No 10 over its “worryingly slow” action on climate.

It states that Downing Street’s support for new oil and coal exploration and the expansion of airports meant Britain was no longer a global green leader. -The Telegraph

Last month Stark, the head of the CCC, admitted that he still has a gas boiler at home instead of an electric heat pump (gasp!). And he’s not alone.

“I have a gas boiler. I wish I didn’t, but I live in a flat and heat pumps are a very difficult thing to put in there,” he told the Commons environmental audit committee. “The gas boiler guy who comes round and fixes my gas boiler – it breaks very often – tells me they will never work.”

Do as Chris says, not as Chris does.

Authored by Julian Liniger via BitcoinMagazine.,com,

Switzerland values many of the core properties of Bitcoin and now the two are poised to create the future of financial sovereignty together…

As a Swiss citizen, it didn’t take me long to understand why Bitcoin is unique. Switzerland is a country that values lots of the critical aspects that Bitcoin offers to people. The small country in the middle of Europe encourages self sovereignty, privacy and financial literacy. The pioneering Swiss banking secrecy was codified in 1934. This regulation, along with its political neutrality and enduring stability, makes the country a “safe haven” for companies and institutions that deal with money.

However, there is one critical flaw: What’s the point of using the most trustworthy place in the world to store your money when the money itself is broken? Particularly in recent years, we have witnessed reckless behavior by governments and central banks across the globe. Tumbling from one crisis into the next one, it seems that no matter the obstacle, more liquidity has been (and continues to be) the solution from politicians. This is one of the reasons why price inflation is rising in developed nations, and is completely out of control in developing countries.

Bitcoin is a solution to this problem. Bitcoin is the ultimate pristine asset, capped at 21 million units, not centrally controlled, genuinely neutral and global. It’s a monetary good that can be best described as “digital gold.” And, on top of that, it will act as a foundational layer for a new global financial system.

I still remember my first real employment, which, ironically, was with one of the biggest national banks in Switzerland, called Raiffeisen. It was also when I first tried to understand how money and our financial system worked. I asked the bank employees and managers deep and intriguing questions, like probably no 21-year-old intern had before:

Why can the bank just create money out of thin air and lend it out to people for a profit?

What is fiat money backed by?

Why can banks just speculate with the savings of their customers and then get bailed out when they fuck up?

It always struck me how low on substance and high on bullshit the answers were and quickly, I realized that most of these bankers working for the money machine didn’t actually understand how it works. I came to the conclusion that the reason why it works in Switzerland was the high-quality standards, credibility and work ethics of the Swiss people, coupled with the country’s very stable regulatory and political system. These are clearly characteristics that set this nation apart from almost any other one in the world. And, for the same reasons, I think it is why Switzerland experiences among the lowest inflation rates and unemployment rates.

So, it has built the most fertile ground worldwide for the Bitcoin industry — and, finally, sound money — to flourish.

HOW SWITZERLAND IS BEATING THE EUROPEAN UNION

While Switzerland is in the middle of Europe, it always opted to stay sovereign. This also shows up in terms of the different approaches to regulating Bitcoin. One of the biggest differences between Swiss regulation and the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MICA) is the implementation of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) “travel rule.”

Switzerland’s travel rule, implemented by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), requires virtual asset service providers to verify the identity of the beneficiary of the transfer. Meanwhile, Europe’s version of the travel rule requires crypto asset service providers to apply enhanced due diligence measures when transactions involve self-custody wallets. What this means is that custodial services that operate in Europe will have to transfer huge amounts of data in order to comply with the much more demanding European travel rule.

Another one of the advantages of Switzerland is the “kassageschäft” framework. Originally used for exchanging physical coins and banknotes of national currencies, it also applies to Bitcoin. Therefore, you don’t need KYC/AML registration to exchange cash in Switzerland, and luckily it fits the digital age as well. In recent years, FINMA has lowered kassageschäft limits for bitcoin compared to physical coins and banknotes from 5,000 CHF per day to 1,000 CHF per day and now is trying to push the limits to 1,000 CHF per 30 days, a move that has been met with skepticism by Bitcoin companies in Switzerland. But, compared to other countries, the Swiss government has shown time again that it’s willing to talk and collaborate with Bitcoin companies to find the best solution for all.

WHY MANAGING RISK MATTERS MORE THAN EVER

One person’s asset is another person’s liability. This basic rule in the world of finance became very real for a lot of cryptocurrency investors in 2022. Some of the biggest (and in terms of marketing, the loudest) names in the industry collapsed last year, taking customer funds with them into the abyss.

But it was not only FTX, BlockFi and other crypto platforms that showed us that your assets are only yours as long as the respective third party says so. The banking crisis in Lebanon, rampant inflation combined with financial repression in Argentina and the loss of access to banking services because of political reasons around the world are very real. This all shows us one thing: counterparty risk matters, especially in the uncertain geopolitical future that we are heading into. We’ve seen that USD treasuries can be quickly frozen and sanctioned. The same goes for stocks or any other asset, including real estate, that people hold in other countries. While this has been the U.S.’s soft power of choice, investors have surely taken notice of the downsides of counterparty risks.

It matters more than ever that Switzerland is the most trusted place for money on the planet. It has always been open to innovation, technology and international finance. Furthermore, it is, both from a regulatory and political perspective, very decentralized and community driven. Switzerland consists of 26 autonomous cantons and offers its citizens true direct democracy. When taking a closer look, the similarities between Switzerland and Bitcoin are striking: Any Swiss citizens can start an initiative to change the federal constitution, and if they manage to collect at least 100,000 signatures, the whole country will vote for it, almost like a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP).

It should come as no surprise then that Switzerland plays a crucial role in the Bitcoin market today, known as a “crypto nation,” with Zug as the “Crypto Valley” and Lugano with the “Plan ₿” initiative, hosting hundreds of companies and thousands of employees working in this space.

Particularly Lugano, Switzerland’s ninth-largest city with a population of over 60,000 located in the Italian-speaking southern region, shows how Bitcoin innovation and adoption should be done: in a curious, open and grassroots way. Lugano Mayor Michele Foletti is not afraid to take the leap here, to show the world firsthand why the decentralized Swiss governance model enables projects like the advent of a bitcoin-focused city. More than 100 merchants, restaurants and bars accept bitcoin in Lugano. It’s expected that soon, taxes can be paid in bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies), which means that it’s very easy to seamlessly delve into a new, open monetary network.

THE TRUST CRISIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR BITCOIN AND SWITZERLAND

Public trust in institutions like (central) banks, politics and legacy media outlets is at its lowest point in decades. In particular, younger people are looking for new answers. According to a recent survey, 45% of millennials said they prefer bitcoin to stocks, gold or real estate. More than half (51%) of millennials said they have more faith in Bitcoin than in financial institutions.

This is bullish for Bitcoin. However, there are still obstacles. The tedious onboarding process, complicated user interfaces, lousy customer support and lack of self-custody solutions are still a reality for newbies interested in buying their first bitcoin. It’s clear what we have to do to get bitcoin in as many hands as possible: make buying and selling it easier. Get rid of all the hindrances, and allow anyone to stack sats in their own, self-hosted wallet, directly.

Bitcoin is about long-term thinking, about saving. And people are desperate for ways to save money that they can genuinely trust again, solutions that don’t get eaten away by inflation or high fees, solutions that are ready for the digital age and that can’t be frozen or censored in any way.

I believe that Bitcoin is a force for good that can accelerate financial and, therefore human, freedom. Going forward, Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention will play an integral role not only as an asset without counterparty risk but also as an alternative financial layer that can host a wide range of services.

THE FUTURE OF BITCOIN-ONLY IS BRIGHT, IN SWITZERLAND AND BEYOND

True to its history as a place that fosters financial innovation instead of killing it, Switzerland will thrive in a world that is increasingly embracing Bitcoin.

But despite the growing recognition and adoption of Bitcoin by the financial industry, it remains a bottom-up movement driven by its community of users, developers and enthusiasts. They are committed to the principles of decentralization, privacy and financial freedom and work to promote the use and adoption of bitcoin as a digital currency. The community is active in organizing meetups, forums and events where it can share its experiences and knowledge with others and work together to improve the technology.

Even in the European Union, where the will to innovate with Bitcoin seems less determined, Nakamoto’s innovation will thrive. With a coherent regulatory framework on the horizon, Bitcoin is set for a bright future in Europe — no matter how hard some politicians want to fight it. Despite an ongoing energy crisis and attacks on Bitcoin’s energy consumption, it’s clear that there will be demand for an asset like bitcoin. High price inflation, financial repression and a looming euro-based central bank digital currency will drive adoption and demand.

The following chart shows the recorded number of third country nationals who were deported following an order to leave one of the member states or EFTA countries in 2022.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, according to the Eurostat database, France carried out the highest number of deportations at 14,240 people that year (14 percent of the bloc’s total returns), followed by Germany with 13,130 people (13 percent) and Sweden with 10,490 people (10 percent).

You will find more infographics at Statista

The 10 year annual average for asylum applicants in each country included on the chart highlights how the highest number of asylum applicants and highest number of returns to other countries are both in France and Germany, the bloc’s two most populous countries.

Looking at these figures side by side, Sweden stands out for its relatively high number of returns compared to its average number of asylum applicants.

In 2022, the biggest groups of nationals ordered to leave an EU Member State territory were Algerians (33,535), Moroccans (35,510) and citizens from Pakistan (25,280).

It’s important to note here that this chart reflects just two metrics and so only a quick impression of a complex topic, providing an idea of the scale of the number of people deported in contrast to the average inflow.

People migrate from one country to another for all kinds of reasons and of course not only asylum seekers will be among those returned to other countries.

Authored by Olivier Bault via Remix News,

Remix sat down with Mick Hume, a journalist and author known in Britain for his focus on issues related to free speech and freedom of the press, at the MCC Feszt in Esztergom, Hungary, at the end of July to talk about what has happened to free speech in the U.K.

According to Wikipedia, you used to be a Marxist, a libertarian Marxist. That’s how you are described there, as a libertarian Marxist…

Yes, there was a time when I liked to call myself that because I found that it annoyed all the right people on both sides of the debate. The libertarians hated it, and the left hated it. But I do not have a political label that I can attach to myself these days. I think one of the problems with politics is we’re stuck with 20th-century language – left, right, conservative, Marxist… – and politics has changed. We just don’t have the right language.

Still, you considered yourself a Marxist then, didn’t you?

Yes, most certainly. I was the launch editor of the Living Marxism magazine in the 1980s, when I was in my 20s.

And you were a figure in Britain’s Revolutionary Communist Party.

Yes.

Many people think that what is happening in the West with free speech, freedom of opinion, and what we call woke ideology, which includes all this LGBT and gender stuff, is Cultural Marxism. As a former Marxist, do you agree with that?

No, I don’t think it’s helpful to call it Cultural Marxism. It’s a bit like the generals at the beginning of the First World War who were trying to fight the last war, were trying to fight yesterday’s enemy rather than realizing that the machine gun had been invented and the world had changed.

I think calling it Cultural Marxism is kind of trying to find something in the past. It’s actually something new happening. I would rather describe it as my friend Frank Furedi describes it, as a combination of technocracy, ideology-free management politics, merged with identity politics.

Identity woke politics gives the technocrats a political language in which they can justify their authority when they don’t have an ideology of their own. It is a new phenomenon. You can call it what you like, but that’s what it is.

So you probably disagree with Victor Orbán when he once said – while on a state visit to the UK, by the way – that there is a parental link between the elites coming from the 1968 revolution in the West and the former communist regimes of Eastern Europe…

Oh no, I do agree with that. All I’m saying is that if we try to find a label of the past to describe what is happening today, we’re kind of missing the point. There’s something new happening. We’re not fighting yesterday’s battle. We’ve got to fight today’s battle. But I agree with that convergence point. The woke left have inherited the Stalinists’ hatred of freedom.

When I was a young man, I thought I was left-wing because I believed that free speech and democracy, the two principles that I’ve always cared about in my life, were left-wing causes. Historically, they were.

Today, however, the left is the enemy of both of those things. And even when I was left, I was never part of that left. So my friends and I were the only people on the left who, even in the 1980s, were against the “no platform” policy of censoring fascists, censoring conservatives, saying people should be banned.

That was starting then, and from the first, we were always against that and for freedom of speech. So my principles are the same, not just in politics.

Mick Hume, second from right seen wearing a hat, taking part in a discussion panel at the MCC Feszt

In the U.K., dissidents are not only “deplatformed,” they can now get “debanked.” This has happened to Nigel Farage this year…

My old comrade. I worked with Nigel in the Brexit Party.

Well, he’s had his bank accounts closed, and we now know for sure that it happened because of his political opinions. We also know that other people like, for example, members of the Free Speech Union have been debanked too in the U.K. Is this debanking of people the newest stage of a totalitarian drift in your country?

What it demonstrates very powerfully is that what you described as woke cancel culture is not just about a few radical students trying to get feminists banned from university campuses for criticizing trans ideology. It goes to the top of society. The corporate world is now run by woke ideologists. The woman who was in charge of Nigel’s bank had to resign when it became clear that she was the one who lied to the BBC and told them that Farage had been debanked for financial reasons, not political reasons.

Her whole mission in running that bank, as she said herself, was to pursue cause-led banking. She told the BBC those lies at a dinner for a green charity. So she’s not interested in banking, she’s interested in environmental causes and diversity.

That’s what her idea of being a corporate boss was: Not making profits for the shareholders or paying back the government the billions of pounds that they spent bailing out the banks, but running an ideological institution. So, it’s very dangerous.

I’m very grateful to Nigel because he’s exposed how far this has gone. Right at the top of capitalist society, we have woke ideologues who are prepared to cancel people, to make people, as Nigel described himself, a non-person by removing their right to have a bank account. In the 21st century, if you haven’t got a bank account, you don’t exist, right? You cannot operate.

Nigel Farage said he might have to leave the U.K. if he cannot have a bank account there.

Exactly.

And he’s been refused accounts by a dozen banks.

Several others, yes. I’m sure he’ll get one now because of all this fuss. But nevertheless, he’s done a great service exposing how far this has gone. So, it’s a very important thing.

Is it specifically the banks or is it the corporate world?

It is across the corporate world. If you listen to corporate leaders talk, all they’re ever talking about now is diversity, sustainable development, and all these kinds of woke issues.

Why? What motivates them to do so?

It’s almost like capitalists don’t believe in capitalism anymore. They’ve lost the ability to justify themselves and their position in society. If I say: We’re here to employ people and make profits, that’s a dirty word, even amongst capitalists themselves. So, they’re looking for some kind of mission, some sense of worth in society.

It goes against the interests of free speech and a free society. And it does serve their interests; not financially, but woke ideology and cancel culture are really a new way of disciplining the working classes, telling ordinary people what they can say, what they can’t say, what they can think, and what they can’t think.

And it’s not just the corporate world. You wrote an article in the Daily Mail in April about a new bill, the Worker Protection Bill, which was proposed by the government of Rishi Sunak to discipline the companies that do not fall in line with this new woke ideology.

Yes, this new law would give people the right to sue their employers because they’ve heard something they don’t like in their work environment. It’s actually been proposed by a couple of Liberal Democrats, but the government has supported it. So this is another indication of how these things go to the top. The Conservative Party – this is a conservative government – is actually pushing this bill through.

When campaigning against Liz Truss for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Sunak said that, if he became prime minister, he would fight this “woke nonsense” that had “permeated public life,” he would “end the brainwashing, the vandalism, and the finger pointing”, and “protect British freedoms.”

Exactly.

So it’s another broken promise…

Yes. You know, we have to judge politicians by what they do, not by what they say about themselves. And the Conservatives are very good at making speeches about free speech, democracy, and British values. But in practice, the country is being run by civil servants and technocrats who are 100 percent committed to this woke cancel culture. And the government has not stood up to them at all. So, the Conservative Party is part of the problem, not the solution.

In fact, several British prime ministers in the past criticized what was happening at universities. Boris Johnson and Theresa May both said they wanted to restore freedom of speech, freedom of thinking, and academic freedom in universities across the UK. Has anything been done for that purpose?

They are bringing in a law that is supposed to protect academic freedom, and they say they are going to appoint someone to be in charge, a kind of free speech tsar. So you might say that’s a step in the right direction, but a law is not the answer.

We’re in a culture war. You’ve got to fight it. And just putting a law on paper and saying that free speech exists in universities will not solve the problem.

In America, they have the First Amendment, the gold standard of legal protection for free speech. That hasn’t stopped American universities from going down this road further and faster than us in terms of restricting academic freedom.

So, it is a step in the right direction, but a law is not going to fix it.

There seems to be also a problem with the British police monitoring social media. Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the Polish Law and Justice Party, once cited the example of a mother who was arrested in front of her children at her home in the U.K. for calling a man a man on Twitter, whereas that man identified himself as a woman. The poor woman was in custody for several hours and prosecuted by the police. She finally won her case in appeal, but this took several years. And Kaczyński said that as long as Law and Justice governs in Poland, it will preserve people’s freedoms and Poland will not go totalitarian like Western Europe.

It is indeed quite extraordinary that the police have for several years in Britain become more interested in, as I used the slogan once, policing the tweets rather than policing the streets.

They have become a kind of thought police. They’re obsessed with what people say on social media and hassle them for things that are not a crime.

It’s not a crime to call someone a man who is a man. It’s not a crime either to call a woman a man. But somehow they’ve invented these things as crimes.

And what’s interesting about that is that they started keeping a register of what was called non-criminal hate incidents: Things that weren’t a crime, but which they’d decided were hate speech. So, your name would be in that register even if you hadn’t committed a crime but just said the wrong thing.

They were told from the top to stop doing this, and they’ve just carried on. They are a law to themselves. The British police are one of the most woke institutions in our society.

You’ve only got to look at the way that they deal with the Just Stop Oil protesters who are blocking the highways of London, with the police asking them if they can help them or if they would like some water and are all right. And when drivers come and drag those people out of the road, the police threaten to arrest the drivers, not the road blockers.

So, the police in Britain are a major problem.

This is the new kind of totalitarianism. It’s not jackboots and beating people up. It’s trying to control what people are saying and not solving crimes. If your house is burgled, the police will not come. If you say the wrong thing and call someone a man on Twitter, then they will come.

In your article about this Worker Protection Bill, you gave the hypothetical example of a bookstore inviting J. K. Rowling. So, I understand that nobody in the U.K. would dare invite J. K. Rowling. So, a renowned author who says, in line with the truth, that only biological women are real women has been socially canceled in the UK, right?

Obviously, she couldn’t care less because you can’t cancel J. K. Rowling. She’s the biggest-selling author in the world. So, she’s in a very powerful position to hit back at those who try to cancel her, but yes, she can’t appear in a public forum without there being huge protests, and anything she says on social media will be attacked from all quarters.

She’s been incredibly courageous in standing up for the fact that there are two sexes and that this is a biologically determined division and a fact of life.

However, by doing this to J. K. Rowling, making it impossible, even for someone like her to operate normally in society, you can scare a lot of other people who would think: If they can do that to her, what could they do to me? They could wipe me out. They could cancel my job. I could lose my whole livelihood.

So, it has a much greater effect on other people.

That is why we now have the problem of self-censorship, which is one of the biggest problems we’re facing today in Western society.

Not just state censorship or Twitter censorship, but people who will not say what they think because they’re scared of what the consequences are. Or they don’t know what they’re allowed to say anymore, because the terrain shifts so fast. What word am I allowed to use this week? I don’t know.

The rules keep being rewritten all the time. So, self-censorship is a big issue, and this is why it’s so important for people who believe in free speech to put the banner up so that you give people a sense of confidence that they’re not alone and there’s something they can rally around.

People in continental Europe tend to think that the U.K. at least has a diverse and free press and media. I suppose you don’t agree with that, as you wrote a book titled: “There Is No Such Thing As a Free Press – and we need one more than ever.”

Everything is relative. Compared to some countries, I love the British press. But they are very constrained. Far more constrained than they used to be when I started writing for them. Every newspaper has a diversity team who are checking the language that’s used, and it’s very disruptive. Also, we have new legal problems with the British press. We have privacy laws. Libel law in Britain has always been a big problem for the press, being sued for defamation. Now, the rich and powerful are more likely to use privacy law. This is what people like Prince Harry are using to try to police the press. The thing about these privacy laws is this is a big issue not only for free speech but for democracy because those two things are always very closely connected, and the British Parliament never passed any privacy laws.

What Tony Blair’s New Labour government did was pass the Human Rights Act based on the European Convention on Human Rights. And that gave the judges tremendous power. They have used that power to basically invent a privacy law. These judges, not parliament or the government, are the ones who have decided what can and cannot be published in the British press.

You have unlimited parliamentary sovereignty in the U.K., so a Conservative-dominated parliament could change all that very easily.

Of course, they could. And they have often made noises like “We’re going to get rid of the Human Rights Act” and “We’re going to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.”

But nothing has happened because of the different forces ranged against them on that: The judges, the lawyers, the mainstream media, the civil service…

There is a very substantial wall in support of the Human Rights Act and the judges’ power, and the government has never had the backbone, the nerve, the political will. It’s all about political will to, as you say, use parliamentary sovereignty to change that.

They’ve allowed the judges to write this privacy law, and this is a terrible situation.

So, are there still reasons for hope in the U.K.?

Well, look at the Nigel Farage incident.

On one hand, that shows you how far the problem goes. But the backlash against it, the support, the public outrage, and the fact that the people responsible for it have all had to resign… The left has been after the banks for years and never got anywhere. Nigel Farage got rid of the top bankers in a week.

So, the public outrage at that kind of attack on free speech shows you there is hope. It shows that we can rally forces for free speech as a fundamental value of our civilized society. But in order to do that, we’ve got to put the flag up and fight. We’ve got to go on the offensive.

Free speech is the fundamental liberty in our society. We can have no other freedoms without it. And it must include the right to be offensive. Spinoza said 350 years ago that in a free state, any man can think what he likes and say what he thinks. That’s still the stand that we’ve got to fight for. And we’re still not there.

*  *  *

A former “libertarian Marxist,” Mick Hume had a weekly column in The Times in the years 1999–2009 and has since then written regularly for leading British newspapers such as The Sun and The Daily Mail. Hume was the launch editor of Spiked-online.com, and still writes for Spiked. He is now a regular columnist for The European Conservative website.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

They wanted to fundamentally transform America, and they have succeeded.  So now instead of a “Leave It To Beaver” society, we have a society where literally anything goes.  Our families are disintegrating, traditional moral values have been completely discarded, our young people are running wild in the streets, crime is totally out of control, and our system of government is melting down right in front of our eyes.  So what is going to happen to our once great nation if things just continue to get even worse?

Our politicians like to tell us that “America is great because America is good”.

But the truth is that America stopped being good a long time ago. 

The following are 10 signs that U.S. culture is being turned completely upside down…

#1 It has finally happened.  The elite have such disdain for the choices of average Americans that some of them are starting to float the idea that elections should be eliminated.  The following comes from an article that the New York Times published just last week that was originally entitled “Elections Are Bad for Democracy”…

On the eve of the first debate of the 2024 presidential race, trust in government is rivaling historic lows. Officials have been working hard to safeguard elections and assure citizens of their integrity. But if we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether.

If you think that sounds anti-democratic, think again. The ancient Greeks invented democracy, and in Athens many government officials were selected through sortition — a random lottery from a pool of candidates. In the United States, we already use a version of a lottery to select jurors. What if we did the same with mayors, governors, legislators, justices and even presidents?

#2 The war on the family continues to escalate, and it is now being projected that 45 percent of all U.S. women in their “prime working years” will be single and childless in 2030…

We’re told by our culture that a woman who is unmarried and has no children is empowered and in charge of her own life. She has escaped the unnecessary burden of raising a family and being a slave to her husband. At least, that’s what our society has convinced us. Sadly, many women have adopted the modern feminist lifestyle and have chosen to sleep around, abort their baby if they unexpectedly get pregnant, and swear off marriage. But these cultural trends are going to have a tremendous impact on the future of American society. Morgan Stanley estimates that 45% of women in their “prime working years” (ages 25 to 44) will be single and childless by the time 2030 arrives.

#3 Theft is going to cost U.S. retailers more than 100 billion dollars this year, and at this point organized retail crime has become such a crisis that even Dollar Tree is being forced to take drastic measures…

The company, which runs Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, has “several new shrink formats” that it intends to roll out in the final six months of the year, CEO Rick Dreiling said in the morning. “Shrink” typically means theft and other types of inventory losses in the retail industry.

“It goes everything from moving certain SKUs [stock-keeping units] to behind the check stand,” he explained to those who tuned into the company’s earnings call. “It has to do with some cases being locked up. And even to the point where we have some stores that can’t keep a certain SKU on the shelf just discontinuing the item.”

#4 When I was young, I actually applied to go to school at Yale.  At that time, it was one of the most prestigious universities in the entire world.  Unfortunately, at this point violent crime in the city of New Haven is off the charts…

Yale University is rushing to reassure freshman students and parents after the school’s police union, which in the midst of contract negotiations, distributed flyers with stark warnings about high crime in New Haven, Connecticut — complete with a graphic of a grim reaper. They warned incoming students to avoid walking alone and avoid public transport. Forget night life: Student should stay in their dorms and “off the streets after 8 PM.” 

Presented by the Yale Police Benevolent Association as “A Survival Guide for First-Year Students of Yale University,” the flyers were distributed on freshman move-in day. “The incidence of crime and violence in New Haven is shockingly high, and it is getting worse,” the flyers warned. “During the seven month period ending July 23, 2023, murders have doubled, burglaries are up 33% and motor vehicle thefts are up 56%.”

#5 One man in Texas was just “forcibly removed” from a school board meeting for reading a book that had actually been available in the libraries of that school district…

A man was forcibly removed from a Tuesday school board meeting by law enforcement while reading a passage from a sexually explicit LGBT book that was previously available in the district’s libraries.

Mike Cee was escorted out of a Fort Worth Independent School District board meeting this week when he began reading vulgar passages from the book “Flamer” by Mike Curato.

Curato’s book is described as a “semi-autobiographical graphic novel” set in 1995 that follows the story of a child named Aiden as he “navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can’t stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.”

#6 It seems like there is a mass shooting somewhere in America almost every day now.  The latest incident just occurred in the city of Jacksonville, Florida…

Terrifying video shows the moment a crazed, racist gunman enters a Jacksonville Dollar General armed with an AR-15 and then shoots dead three people in a racially-motivated attack.

The gunman was identified as Ryan Palmeter, 21, police confirmed on Sunday. They also detailed a manifesto he left behind, calling it the ‘diary of a madman.’

Palmeter used an assault rifle covered in Nazi swastikas in the deadly assault on Saturday before turning the gun on himself, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

#7 Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is admitting that vehicle theft is completely out of control in his city, but instead of going after the thieves he has filed a lawsuit against Kia and Hyundai…

Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office announced that the city filed the lawsuit against automakers Kia and Hyundai, alleging that both companies have failed to include “industry-standard engine immobilizers” in several models of vehicles, which resulted in a “steep rise” in crime.

“The impact of car theft on Chicago residents can be deeply destabilizing, particularly for low- to middle-income workers who have fewer options for getting to work and taking care of their families,” Johnson said. “The failure of Kia and Hyundai to install basic auto-theft prevention technology in these models is sheer negligence, and as a result, a citywide and nationwide crime spree around automobile theft has been unfolding right before our eyes.”

#8 Instead of cracking down on crime, federal law enforcement authorities are using their resources to raid Amish cattle farmers…

“They came with a search warrant,” softly spoke Samuel B. Fisher, a mild-mannered cattle farmer operating a 100-acre farm tucked away in Virginia’s heartland. Fisher’s bread-and-butter, Golden Valley Farms, carves out the scenic countryside that’s a hop, skip, and a jump away from historic Farmville, a postcard-perfect small Southern town with classical Main Street charm.

The father of five had graciously invited us down to his idyllic pasture to rehash the whirlwind of unforeseen events that unfolded over the cruel summer. It was a tumultuous time on the Fisher farm, an upheaval that threatened to upend the man’s livelihood.

“Then, they tagged the meat, so that we can’t touch it; we can’t sell it; we can’t feed our family with it,” Fisher told Townhall.

#9 The number of transgender surgeries in the United States nearly tripled in just a three year period…

Transgender surgeries nearly tripled in the United States between 2016 and 2019, with breast and chest procedures accounting for 56.6 percent of all operations, results of a study published Wednesday in the JAMA Network Open show.

Close behind was genital reconstruction, making up 35.1 percent, followed by facial and cosmetic procedures at 13.9 percent. The greatest number of procedures overall were undergone by women, 19- to 30-year-olds, people with private insurance, and people with higher incomes. Most procedures occurred in the West and were performed in urban teaching hospitals.

#10 Joe Biden is asking Congress for money for a new shot, and he is admitting that it “will likely be recommended everybody get it no matter whether they’ve gotten it before or not”…

Biden, who is vacationing in the Lake Tahoe area, was asked by a reporter on Friday if he could say anything about the uptick of COVID cases and a new variant.

“Yes, I can,” the president said. “I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to Congress a request for additional funding for a new vaccine that is necessary, that works.”

He added, “Tentatively it is recommended that it will likely be recommended everybody get it no matter whether they’ve gotten it before or not.”

Our society is going to continue to change.

Nothing can stop that.

But the direction of the change can be altered.

Those that have been transforming our culture are just going to keep on doing what they have been doing, and all that it is going to take for them to succeed is for good people to stand by and do nothing.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

By year’s end, it’s expected that up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers will have gone through a NATO training program hosted in Germany and run by Danish, Dutch, and German officers.

The Financial Times interviewed officials involved in the training program in a fresh report, and underscored that all are acutely aware of the serious setbacks the Ukrainian counteroffensive has faced. The publication reviewed persistent problems of training as well, from translating and communication issues, to sharp disagreements between Kiev and the West over military strategy and tactics. 

But there is one admission in the FT report which is most revealing, and shocking. While it’s long been known that Ukraine has had to tap untrained recruits and throw them into battle amid staggering losses as well as attempts of young men to dodge military service, the FT report mentions – almost in passing – that Kiev has been sending elderly soldiers to “train”. 

According to the section of the FT report in question: 

By the end of the year, European trainers were full of praise for the “tremendous motivation” of the recruits, despite the stress of the brutal war they are fighting and the daily dangers to friends and family back home. 

But they also said that the age and ability of the soldiers they are sent varies wildly, as Ukrainian commanders on the front line are often unwilling to spare their best men. One volunteer who turned up in Germany was 71 years old.

…that’s right: FT identified a 71-year-old Ukrainian in the ranks of the NATO-sponsored training program. While perhaps admirable in terms of the individual elderly man’s courage and willingness to defend his country, the whole scenario underscores the sad state of affairs within Ukraine military ranks, given they are sending geriatrics. 

Ukraine’s military in its social media posts has, to the surprise of many, even admitted that old men and retirees are increasingly showing up in their ranks and on the battlefield…

In their 50s, 60s & beyond, these Ukrainian soldiers defy their advanced age by carrying out combat missions with dedication.
Calmly and carefully, they work to dismantle & destroy the enemy.
“We will stand and win!” they say.

📷Territorial Defense Forces of Armed Forces of 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/avCtd7gGmW

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) August 28, 2023

This shows one particular line in the FT report to be a huge understatement…

“Teaching inexperienced soldiers how to operate a tank on the front line in just six weeks was never going to be easy,” the publication says. We might add that teaching 65+ year-olds how to become hardened and efficient soldiers was also “never going to be easy”. 

Russia has of late sought to capitalize on Ukraine’s manpower woes, producing wartime propaganda videos attempting to convince untrained Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their arms and save their own lives, instead of sacrificing for a government that doesn’t care about them. The following video out of Russia has been widely circulating…

‼️ “This is your last chance”

Russians make an appeal to all Ukrainians dragged into the counteroffensive:

You still have a way out. pic.twitter.com/dFqTkZmQzQ

— What the media hides. (@narrative_hole) August 28, 2023

While young men try to hind from Ukraine’s forced conscription, the country’s defense ministry strangely “boasts” that… “In their 50s, 60s & beyond, these Ukrainian soldiers defy their advanced age by carrying out combat missions with dedication.”

* * *

But it’s not the first time this phenomenon has been documented…

In Ukraine conflict, even the elderly are getting ready to fight https://t.co/DFj8Z9EMYR pic.twitter.com/oCWgTkQE3D

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 20, 2022