More Russian mercenary groups ready to take Wagner’s place after failed rebellion

 When paramilitaries from the feared Wagner Group took cover in Belarus after their failed mutiny against the Kremlin last month, dozens of other mercenary groups were already poised to take their place in the Ukrainian conflict.

Mercenaries from Redut, Slavonic Corps and E.N.O.T, among dozens of others, have already been spotted fighting in the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began last year, according to reports.

Mercenaries from Redut, also known as Redut-Anti-Terror are among the most prominent, and were some of the first to enter the conflict in Ukraine, according to Russian news reports.

The group, whose Russian-language name means “Redoubt,” has been active in Syria where soldiers have been involved in guarding facilities for a construction conglomerate controlled by Russian billionaire Gennady Timchenko.

Some of the group’s mercenaries, which were recruited on Russian social media platforms, have been convicted of war crimes during the invasion, according to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.

Redut fighters like these men have been on the ground in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022. Three soldiers were recently sentenced for their part in war crimes

rferl.org

Last week, a court in Ukraine sentenced three Redut mercenaries, including Maksym Ziaziulchyk, a Belarusian soldier who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Ziaziulchyk, 22, said he had traveled to the central Russian city of Tambov to sign up for Redut at a salary of $3,400 a month, paid in US dollars.

Human Rights in Ukraine, a nonprofit that documents war crimes in the country, said that, while Redut is controlled by Russia’s defense ministry, the salaries are coming from oligarchs linked to Russian leader Valdimir Putin.

“Even if … Redut is linked with … or under the control of Russia’s defense ministry, somebody very rich is doubtless footing the bill for these mercenaries,” said a statement on Human Rights Ukraine’s web site earlier this week.

Military contractors from Slavonic Corps were originally set up to protect government installations in Syria in 2013

No Credit

Other Russian conglomerates, such as Lukoil and Gazprom, also have their own security forces which were initially set up to protect their oil fields and other facilities in the region and in foreign countries. Soldiers from Potok, a mercenary group linked to energy company Gazprom, complained about battlefield conditions in Ukraine last year, according to Radio Free Europe.

The group E.N.O.T., a Russian acronym for United People’s Communal Partnerships, emerged in 2011 to organize militias in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The group has also been active in Syria and, since 2015, has trained its forces at camps in Serbia.

It’s also used child soldiers from Russia, Montenegro and Serbia. In 2018, E.N.O.T. training camps in Serbia, which were run by veterans of the Bosnian war, were shut down by over allegations of child abuse, according to Balkan news reports.

Yevgeny Prigozhin is the founder of the brutal Wagner Group. Despite leading an insurrection last month against Vladimir Putin, he remains a strong ally of the Russian leader, according to one intelligence analyst

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Despite the proliferation of other paramilitary groups fighting in Ukraine, the Wagner Group remains powerful.

The group was started in 2014 by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin — a former special forces officer in the Russian Army and member of the Slavonic Corps, a private military contractor that operated during the Syrian Civil War.

The soldiers, who were recruited in St. Petersburg by the Moran Security Group, were used to defend government installations in Syria, according to Russian news reports.

The Redut or “Redoubt” paramilitary force uses a menacing bat and crossed swords as part of their logo

Even after Prigozhin’s attempted mutiny against Putin last month, the Wagner Group remains Russia’s dominant mercenary fighting force, said Rebekah Koffler, a Russian-born intelligence expert and the author of Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America.

“The Wagner Group hasn’t lost momentum but rather is redeploying in Belarus,” Koffler told The Post Tuesday, adding that Prigozhin’s forces are setting up training camps in an unused military base that Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus president, has offered to them.

Koffler believes that the attempted coup on June 24 was a “false flag operation” which allowed Putin to consolidate even more power. More than 25,000 Wagner Group forces marched into Rostov-on Don, launching 24 hours of chaos as Prigozhin threatened an insurrection and threatened to march on Moscow.

Wagner Group soldiers guard an area in Rostov-on-Don during 24 hours of a chaotic attempted insurrection against Putin last month

AP

Putin accused his former ally of treason and called the rebellion “a stab in the back of our country.” But by the end of the day, Prigozhin had ordered his men back to base.

“The West fell for the narrative that Putin is weak, which is what he wants,” Koffler said. “In reality, what Putin has done is set up a strategic reserve of combat ready Wagner units, Putin’s best war-fighting force, within 140 miles from Ukraine’s northern border, in preparation for opening a second front.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is said to be 100% behind Wagner Group despite an attempted armed rebellion by the paramilitary force last month

AP
Despite the contretemps between Putin and Prigozhin, who emerged from exile to thank his fighters for their “March of Justice” in an audio message Tuesday, the two remain strong allies, Koffler said.

“In reality, Prigozhin is one of the world’s most murderous characters,” she said. “He is still 100% Putin’s ally, very loyal. Putin never denounced him. Washington and the West have always misread Putin. And that is very dangerous.”

https://nypost.com/2023/07/04/these-russian-mercenaries-are-ready-to-take-wagner-groups-place/

Chilling revelations on the rise of feds’ Orwellian speech police

 Imagine an America where the feds surge actual speech police wherever chatter on social media questions the integrity of the vote — speech police who then take to the airwaves to attack those making the claims.

If this sounds far-fetched, consider that last summer a national-security agency actually mulled the idea of deploying a “rapid response team” to local jurisdictions to help election officials fend off “mis-, dis- and mal-information” (MDM)-related “threats,” including through communications — an idea one federal official called “fascinating.”

That revelation comes from a new report from the House Weaponization Subcommittee on a little-known Homeland Security sub-agency called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

And it was followed Tuesday by a blockbuster preliminary injunction from a federal judge barring contact between Team Biden and social-media companies, who cited evidence of a “massive effort” by the White House and federal agencies to “suppress speech based on its content.”   

Despite its anonymity, CISA has served as the linchpin of government-led speech policing.

It has coordinated with federal agencies and a coterie of often federally funded “anti-disinformation” NGOs to chide, cajole and collude with Big Tech companies to impose a mass public-private surveillance and censorship regime on the American people.

CISA Director Jen Easterly has said “cognitive infrastructure” — that is, what people think — is “most critical.”

AP

That regime has silenced those who voice unauthorized opinions and even inconvenient facts on social-media platforms under the banner of combatting “dangerous” MDM.

This amounts to a conspiracy to violate the First Amendment, resulting in rampant election interference, the stifling of crucial debates for example on COVID-19 and the chilling of incalculable amounts of speech on much else — all in service of ruling class power.

Now House Republicans are striking back; the subcommittee’s report is part of the backlash.

By exposing CISA and its partners’ centrality to the censorship regime, Republicans are taking the first step towards terminating it.

The report shows, during the 2020 presidential contest, CISA collected and reported offending content Americans posted about elections to social media companies, which often censored it — a process known as “switchboarding.”

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The report tells of how an agency tasked with combatting foreign cyberattacks and defending the grid came to target Americans’ tweets questioning mass mail-in balloting as if they were mini-terrorist attacks on “cognitive infrastructure.”

CISA Director Jen Easterly has said “cognitive infrastructure” — that is, what people think — is “most critical,” hence the need for her agency to control Americans’ speech.

Consistent with this view, as the report shows, during the 2020 presidential contest, CISA collected and reported offending content Americans posted about elections to social media companies, which often censored it — a process known as “switchboarding.”

During and after that election, CISA colluded extensively with cut-outs, one of which was CISA-funded, to get content purged.

There have been specific instances of a CISA-funded partner working to get posts, including those of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, taken down by social-media companies.

REUTERS

As its efforts grew more ambitious, CISA formalized its coordination with the cut-outs and social-media companies, convening an Orwellian subcommittee for MDM.

The report adds rich color to this underreported story.\

It shows CISA and its partners casting aside concerns about targeting Americans’ speech, even as some expressed surprise and concern.

It shows specific instances of a CISA-funded partner working to get posts, including those of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, taken down by social-media companies.

Perhaps most important, the report shows CISA & Co. knew what the sub-agency was doing was unlawful and “routinely attempted to conceive methods” to “surreptitiously outsource its surveillance and censorship to non-governmental third parties.”

“It’s only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about our work,” a former CIA lawyer serving on the MDM Subcommittee warned in a May 2022 email.

CISA eventually scrapped the subcommittee and scrubbed evidence of its domestic-speech targeting.

The cover-up would seem to be an admission of guilt.

We still don’t know the full scope of any underlying crimes, but Congress’ probes may reveal them.

That oversight is critical, because lawmakers need a comprehensive picture of the surveillance and censorship regime to inform legislation to dismantle it.

Those efforts in fact have already begun.

The House Armed Services Committee recently adopted an amendment to its annual National Defense Authorization Act halting federal funding to purported anti-disinformation outfits that have gotten conservative outlets blacklisted and demonetized.

The Homeland Security Committee adopted an amendment in its annual appropriations bill — one I supported, including in testimony — defunding any DHS speech-policing activities.

These efforts are imperative to saving free speech in America.

Benjamin Weingarten, editor at large at RealClearInvestigations, recently testified before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Accountability on federal speech-policing.  

https://nypost.com/2023/07/04/chilling-revelations-on-the-rise-of-feds-orwellian-speech-police/

29% of young New Yorkers feeling seniors shouldn’t work: poll

 Age discrimination is a serious issue that must be confronted in the Big Apple — especially as the number of residents ages 65 and up is expected to continue climbing, according to a new report.

“Older adults and people of color have experienced disproportionate illness and death during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the city Health Department said in an analysis on ageism.

“The pandemic has also exposed and perpetuated ageism. For example, some public discourse portrayed older adults as less valuable than younger people when it came to allocation of resources for care,” according to the brief, entitled “How Ageist Are We, New York City?”

Of New York City’s 8.65 million citizens, 1.73 million or 20% are seniors 60 years of age and over, according to the Department for the Aging.

That figure is expected to surge to 1.86 million, or 40%, by 2040 as members of the baby boomer generation become senior citizens. 

Age discrimination could worsen the physical and mental health conditions of older New Yorkers and increase medical costs, while positive feelings about age can have beneficial health effects such as “possibly protecting against dementia,” the report said.

The number of residents ages 65 and up is expected to continue climbing in New York.

Corbis via Getty Images/Richard Levine

In its analysis, the Health Department cited statistics from an unpublicized internal 2019 survey of 1,200 adults — conducted before the COVID-19 outbreak — that revealed discrimination against older adults.

The poll found that 60% of younger adults agreed that NYC is a place where older adults are valued members of the community, while only 35% of New Yorkers believed that was the case.

Meanwhile, nearly 40% of people younger than 65 said speaking slowly would help older adults understand things, while only 13% of seniors believed that was necessary.

Nearly a third of younger adults agree that older adults are too easily offended or interpret innocent remarks as being ageist, compared to just 7% and 9% of senior citizens respectively who believed that was the case.

The poll surveyed different perspectives younger New Yorkers have on elderly people.

AFP via Getty Images/ Ed Jones

Nearly 20% of younger adults believe older adults are a drain on the health care system and the economy, nearly double the 11% of older adults who said so.

City officials said these examples constituted “hostile ageism.”

Age discrimination could worsen the physical and mental health conditions of older New Yorkers and increase medical costs.

Getty Images

Elsewhere, 37% of younger adults said seniors need to be protected from the harsh realities of society, double the 18% of adults who said that was necessary.

One-third of younger respondents said seniors are too old to do certain things and whose feelings get hurt when they fail, compared to 14% of older adults who agreed with the statements.

New York’s population includes 1.73 million seniors that are 60 years of age and over, according to the Department for the Aging.

Getty Images/Spencer Platt

Another 29% of younger respondents said seniors shouldn’t be allowed to work and had already paid their debt to society, compared to 7% of older adults who said the same.

These findings expose “benevolent ageism,” health officials said.

“Mitigating ageism is key to healthy aging in our city, and can lead to longer, more productive lives for everybody. Despite the ubiquity of ageism on individual and systemic levels, awareness and recognition are important first steps in combating negative stereotypes and assumptions about older adults,” the report said.

The analysis highlighted city programs in place to help Gotham’s older New Yorkers and counter ageism.

For example, the department drafted specific COVID guidance for those 65 and older and visited home-bound residents during the city’s vaccination campaign, so they could get their shots.

Age was considered a risk factor for COVID-19.

Health officials said they also work closely with the Department for the Aging to curb ageism and create opportunities for older adults to thrive and age in their neighborhoods and recently published an anti-ageism guide with the Department of Education to teach students about age-based discrimination.

https://nypost.com/2023/07/04/ageism-in-nyc-is-a-serious-issue-with-29-of-young-new-yorkers-feeling-seniors-shouldnt-work-poll/

Illumina faces record fine over purchase of Grail without EU approval

Illumina faces a record fine from the EU as early as next week after the world’s biggest gene sequencing company bought Silicon Valley cancer screening start-up Grail for $8bn without Brussels’ approval. The fine, which can be up to $453mn or 10 per cent of the group’s turnover, would exceed the previous record of €125mn imposed on telecoms group Altice in 2018 — 1 per cent of the company’s turnover, according to two people with knowledge of the decision.

 “The EU never went above 1 or 2 per cent. This will be higher than any other previous ones. At least twice in percentage terms,” said one of the people with knowledge of the case. Illumina, based in San Diego, took the rare step of finalising the transaction in August 2021 even though the European Commission was still investigating whether it was anti-competitive. 

US regulators had also not approved the deal. A year later, the EU prohibited the merger on concerns it would stifle innovation and reduce choice. Regulators hope a record-breaking fine will serve as a deterrent to other companies looking to close a deal without Brussels’ approval. Earlier this year, the company’s chief executive Francis deSouza resigned following a bruising proxy battle with activist investor Carl Icahn, who led a shareholder campaign criticising the “reckless decision” to close the acquisition against the wishes of Brussels and the Federal Trade Commission in Washington. 

 Illumina, which intends to make an appeal against the fine, insists regulators are potentially risking lives by blocking a deal that aims to help the fight against cancer. Grail is seeking to develop an early cancer screening test for people who do not have symptoms. As well as fighting a fine and potential divestiture of Grail, Illumina is also contesting before courts in Luxembourg whether it is in the EU’s jurisdiction to investigate the merger.

 Illumina accused by Brussels of ‘delay tactics’ on Grail divestiture The European Commission declined to comment.

 Illumina said: “We disagree that the commission has jurisdiction to review the Grail transaction as well as with the premise of the commission imposing a fine. “We have appealed the EU’s jurisdiction and will appeal any decision imposing a fine. Illumina’s merger with Grail is pro-competitive and in the best interests of patients in Europe and worldwide.”

 Brussels is later this year expected to force Illumina to unwind the acquisition of Grail to restore “the independence” that the company had before the deal. Regulators, who are anticipated to force the unwinding as early as the autumn, say this would make Grail “viable and competitive”, ensuring innovation in the sector, people with knowledge of the plans said.

https://www.ft.com/content/1855b5a1-e4bc-4685-ae2d-0c32520da94b

We Need A Constitution That Means What It Says

by Frank Miele via RealClear Wire,

Some U.S. senators have famously kept a pocket Constitution handy to use as a prop at political rallies; a few may have even read it. But at this point in American history it no longer matters whether they, or anyone else, can read the words of the Constitution because the words no longer mean what they say. 

Take, for instance, the Supreme Court’s ruling last week that state legislatures do not have the sole discretion to determine how federal elections will be run in those states. Instead, state courts are given veto power over the decisions of the legislature.

The mainstream media (and of course their Democratic Party allies) celebrated the court’s decision in Moore v. Harper that rejected the so-called “independent state legislature” theory. The New York Times called the theory “dangerous.” Vox said the ruling was a “big victory for democracy.” Those who supported the independent state legislature “theory” were called extreme, fringe, radical, and worse. In other words, they were Trump supporters.

The only problem is that if the theory is extreme, then so is the U.S. Constitution, because no matter how much the 6-3 majority insists otherwise, it isn’t a theory at all. It is the plain language of the Constitution. Check it out for yourself.

Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution says specifically, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

It is not the governor or the courts or even the people of the state which set election rules, according to the Constitution, but the legislatures. Mind you, the state legislatures are not entirely unchecked in their decision making, but it is the Congress of the United States that provides the checks and balances, not the courts.

And as for presidential elections, the matter is even more cut and dried. Article 2, Section 1, declares, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.”

Notice again that the Constitution gives state legislatures the exclusive power to determine the manner in which electors are appointed to vote for president and vice president. In this case, even Congress does not have the authority to override the legislatures.

Yet now the Supreme Court has determined that the words of the Constitution do not mean what they say. This is pure revisionism, and plainly the result of judicial activism. The plenary power of the state legislatures to make the final decision about federal elections is settled conclusively by the fact that for many years after the adoption of the Constitution, it was common in many states for electors to be chosen directly by the legislature with no election at all. Not only did the courts have no say in the matter; neither did the people.

We don’t have to defend that practice in order to confirm that it is clearly constitutional, and having said so, we can also declare that the Supreme Court in Moore v. Harper has not interpreted the Constitution, but written a new one. If we the people decided that it was inappropriate for the state legislatures to make the rules for how to elect federal officials, we could have done what the Constitution calls for and sought to amend it. But instead, lawyers have waged war upon the English language and enlisted activist judges and justices to implement interpretations that are based more on sentiment than common sense.

If we are being honest, it is not just crazy liberals who twist the words of the Constitution to mean whatever they want. Not long ago, I wrote a column titled “Do Democrats Value Abortion More Than the Constitution?” It lambasted Biden and others who want to create a law to protect abortion.

As I explained then:

Congress has no such ability. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates the powers of Congress. They are remarkably straightforward – and limited. Raise taxes, borrow money, regulate international commerce and commerce among the states, establish a process for naturalizing citizens, coin money and punish counterfeiters, establish post offices, establish copyright and trademark laws, establish lower courts, regulate pirates, declare war, raise armies and a navy, provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions, and create and maintain a small district that shall be the seat of government.

Search as you will, you won’t find any congressional power to promote social justice or to impose a moral standard on the nation. Unfortunately for lovers of limited government, Republicans have proven to be just as willing to ride roughshod over the Constitution as their Democrat counterparts. Former Vice President Mike Pence, whom I defended in my prior column, has now publicly called for a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks. No matter how much you abhor abortion, it is impossible to find any words in the Constitution which give Congress the power to regulate such a medical procedure.

So regardless of how many members of Congress (or former vice presidents) tuck a Constitution in their pockets, it is also impossible to make them read it, let alone be guided by it.

As a final note, I should probably give credit to the Supreme Court for overturning the policy of affirmative action in college admissions in two separate cases last week. It turns out that all those references in the Constitution to equality and equal protection of the law actually mean something. At least they do today. But for 45 years since the court’s ruling in the Bakke case, students who were rejected for college admission because of the color of their skin were just supposed to grin and bear it. Sure, the 14^th Amendment prohibits states or state agents from “deny[ing] to any person … the equal protection of the laws.” But once again the plain language of the Constitution was ignored until last week.

I would propose writing an amendment that forced elected and appointed officials of the United States to follow the Constitution as written, not the one with invisible asterisks and footnotes and a “social justice clause,” but chances are it would be found unconstitutional anyway – or at least inconvenient.

Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/we-need-constitution-means-what-it-says