His Holiness.  Alexei Navalny, alleged leader of Russia’s opposition, has two claims to sanctity.  One, Russian President Vladimir Putin supposedly poisoned or had him poisoned for, as the New York Times noted on September 20, 2020, “denouncing corrupt pro-Kremlin politicians during a recent trip to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. He named 18 local legislators who he said had suspiciously intimate ties to a construction industry notorious for corruption.” Two, he  has been unable or unwilling to lash out at the recent travesty of the political process in the United States the way he has at the Russian one.

Following his return to Moscow from Siberia, Novalny reportedly fell violently ill and, allegedly, might have died had the pilot not diverted the plane to Omsk.  Once there, he was hospitalized and, later, transferred to Berlin for treatment.

According to the German government, NATO member and U.S. client state, Mr. Navalny was suffering from the effects of a nerve agent in the Novichok family.  (In 2018, the British government had previously asserted that Sergei Skripal, former Russian military intelligence officer and U.K. double agent, and his daughter Yulia, were mysteriously sickened by Novichok.  Great Britain later accused Russia of attempting to murder the Skripals.)

Mirabile dictu, Navalny, like the Skripals, swiftly recovered.  He is, according to press reports, striding about Berlin with a police escort.  The New York Times article noted that Navalny’s supposed poisoning resulted from the Russian government’s fears of his stirring up trouble during elections in neighboring Belarus and in protests in Khabarovsk, a city in the Russian Far East.  Astonishingly, the Times continued with an alternative, and equally bizarre explanation:  “that Mr. Navalny’s poisoning pointed not to the strength of a ruthlessly efficient system of repression but to the weakness of a system whose response to potential threats has become so degraded that the state no longer functions as a single unit but rather as a jumble of rival clans and freelance enforcers with grudges…”

Another View.  The Greanville Post (describing itself as an independent, leftist publication) had a different take on Alexei Navalny.  Stating that Navalny was the favored transparency and anti-corruption activist of the U.S. and its allies, the journal noted that he and the American media failed to criticize numerous, disturbing election irregularities in the recently concluded 2020 general election.  (www.greanvillepost.com/2020/11/06/the-us-electoral-nightmare-discredits-anti-russian-rhetoric/)  The website questioned why only Judicial Watch (the conservative organization) had sounded the alarm–and not Novalny and his supporters.  “…353 counties in more than 29 states across the United States had voter registration rates above 100%, meaning that there were more people registered to vote than eligible voting residents.” Yet, in contrast, “4 cases of a single person attempting to vote twice in Russia’s constitutional referendum became the source of outcry just a few months earlier.”

The Greanville Post went on to say ” The phenomenon of dead people voting…has been a widely highlighted form of voting irregularity in the United States for many decades, so much so that comedians regularly bring it up as a punch line.”  Certainly, the specter of John F. Kennedy being elected in 1960 because dead men cast their ballots for him has not been forgotten.  (His father’s money paid mobsters to ensure that tombstones in Illinois voted Democratic, giving his son victory in the Electoral College.)

Donald Trump has been raising concerns about the integrity of the voting process, particularly the late mail-in ballots favoring the Democrats.  Somehow, these postal votes disproportionately backed Joe Biden the Democratic candidate for president.  This was especially apparent in major U.S. metropolitan areas, with Biden getting 80% to 90% of the vote, something you don ‘t see outside of 3rd World countries.  However, not one peep came from Novalny and his peeps about this. Yet, in Russian Caucasus districts in 2018, “independent observers” raised concerns at candidates receiving 80% to 90% of the vote.  These “concerns” were trumpeted by Navalny and his backers there and in other parts of Russia as proof of a rigged election.

The most damning comment from the Greanville Post is as follows:

The atmosphere surrounding the US elections is also worth noting. With COVID-19 restrictions still in effect, the media continued to play up the fear of rioting in response to the results. Across the country National Guard units were called up, and a heavy police presence was very visible on Nov. 3^rd when the public went to vote, if they had not voted early or through the mail. Gun sales skyrocketed, and it was clear that the public was whipped up into a state of terrified anticipation. Residents were led to believe that terrorist attacks from right-wing militias, violent protests by leftists, retaliatory targeted attacks by anti-fascists, or other bloodshed was nearly inevitable in the election’s aftermath. Imagine of such an atmosphere had been created in the lead up to a contested Russian vote?

This is not hype.  In the writer’s area of Upper Northwest, Washington, D.C., many shops and his gym all had plywood covering their windows in anticipation of trouble on Election Day or the days following..

Again, the Greanville Post has the right of it:

If the Navalny supporters who constantly condemn Russia’s political system and leaders were really nothing other than human rights activists, their voices would be speaking up louder than ever about recent events in the United States. However, they remain silent, indicating that their motives are far more geopolitical than they are principled.

Solution?  The United States can make election day a holiday.  But, far more importantly, it can control the social media companies, such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter which supported the seizure of the American Herald Tribune, and which manage ads and posts, often to the detriment of free speech.  That same attempt to control speech was clear in the mainstream media’s attacks on Donald Trump and Russia.  For the second election in a row, “Russia was interfering in American elections”, instead of the other way around, with U.S. media backing St. Novalny and his faceless, nameless crowd.

1. Michael Springmann is a former U.S. State Department official having served as a diplomat in the Foreign Service with postings in Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia. He previously authored, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World: An Insider’s View recounting his experiences observing officials granting travel visas to unqualified individuals. Additionally, he penned Goodbye, Europe? Hello, Chaos?  Merkel’s Migrant Bomb, an analysis of the alien wave sweeping the Continent. He currently practices law in the Washington D.C. Area.

His Holiness.  Alexei Navalny, alleged leader of Russia’s opposition, has two claims to sanctity.  One, Russian President Vladimir Putin supposedly poisoned or had him poisoned for, as the New York Times noted on September 20, 2020, “denouncing corrupt pro-Kremlin politicians during a recent trip to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. He named 18 local legislators who he said had suspiciously intimate ties to a construction industry notorious for corruption.” Two, he  has been unable or unwilling to lash out at the recent travesty of the political process in the United States the way he has at the Russian one.

Following his return to Moscow from Siberia, Novalny reportedly fell violently ill and, allegedly, might have died had the pilot not diverted the plane to Omsk.  Once there, he was hospitalized and, later, transferred to Berlin for treatment.

According to the German government, NATO member and U.S. client state, Mr. Navalny was suffering from the effects of a nerve agent in the Novichok family.  (In 2018, the British government had previously asserted that Sergei Skripal, former Russian military intelligence officer and U.K. double agent, and his daughter Yulia, were mysteriously sickened by Novichok.  Great Britain later accused Russia of attempting to murder the Skripals.)

Mirabile dictu, Navalny, like the Skripals, swiftly recovered.  He is, according to press reports, striding about Berlin with a police escort.  The New York Times article noted that Navalny’s supposed poisoning resulted from the Russian government’s fears of his stirring up trouble during elections in neighboring Belarus and in protests in Khabarovsk, a city in the Russian Far East.  Astonishingly, the Times continued with an alternative, and equally bizarre explanation:  “that Mr. Navalny’s poisoning pointed not to the strength of a ruthlessly efficient system of repression but to the weakness of a system whose response to potential threats has become so degraded that the state no longer functions as a single unit but rather as a jumble of rival clans and freelance enforcers with grudges…”

Another View.  The Greanville Post (describing itself as an independent, leftist publication) had a different take on Alexei Navalny.  Stating that Navalny was the favored transparency and anti-corruption activist of the U.S. and its allies, the journal noted that he and the American media failed to criticize numerous, disturbing election irregularities in the recently concluded 2020 general election.  (www.greanvillepost.com/2020/11/06/the-us-electoral-nightmare-discredits-anti-russian-rhetoric/)  The website questioned why only Judicial Watch (the conservative organization) had sounded the alarm–and not Novalny and his supporters.  “…353 counties in more than 29 states across the United States had voter registration rates above 100%, meaning that there were more people registered to vote than eligible voting residents.” Yet, in contrast, “4 cases of a single person attempting to vote twice in Russia’s constitutional referendum became the source of outcry just a few months earlier.”

The Greanville Post went on to say ” The phenomenon of dead people voting…has been a widely highlighted form of voting irregularity in the United States for many decades, so much so that comedians regularly bring it up as a punch line.”  Certainly, the specter of John F. Kennedy being elected in 1960 because dead men cast their ballots for him has not been forgotten.  (His father’s money paid mobsters to ensure that tombstones in Illinois voted Democratic, giving his son victory in the Electoral College.)

Donald Trump has been raising concerns about the integrity of the voting process, particularly the late mail-in ballots favoring the Democrats.  Somehow, these postal votes disproportionately backed Joe Biden the Democratic candidate for president.  This was especially apparent in major U.S. metropolitan areas, with Biden getting 80% to 90% of the vote, something you don ‘t see outside of 3rd World countries.  However, not one peep came from Novalny and his peeps about this. Yet, in Russian Caucasus districts in 2018, “independent observers” raised concerns at candidates receiving 80% to 90% of the vote.  These “concerns” were trumpeted by Navalny and his backers there and in other parts of Russia as proof of a rigged election.

The most damning comment from the Greanville Post is as follows:

The atmosphere surrounding the US elections is also worth noting. With COVID-19 restrictions still in effect, the media continued to play up the fear of rioting in response to the results. Across the country National Guard units were called up, and a heavy police presence was very visible on Nov. 3^rd when the public went to vote, if they had not voted early or through the mail. Gun sales skyrocketed, and it was clear that the public was whipped up into a state of terrified anticipation. Residents were led to believe that terrorist attacks from right-wing militias, violent protests by leftists, retaliatory targeted attacks by anti-fascists, or other bloodshed was nearly inevitable in the election’s aftermath. Imagine of such an atmosphere had been created in the lead up to a contested Russian vote?

This is not hype.  In the writer’s area of Upper Northwest, Washington, D.C., many shops and his gym all had plywood covering their windows in anticipation of trouble on Election Day or the days following..

Again, the Greanville Post has the right of it:

If the Navalny supporters who constantly condemn Russia’s political system and leaders were really nothing other than human rights activists, their voices would be speaking up louder than ever about recent events in the United States. However, they remain silent, indicating that their motives are far more geopolitical than they are principled.

Solution?  The United States can make election day a holiday.  But, far more importantly, it can control the social media companies, such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter which supported the seizure of the American Herald Tribune, and which manage ads and posts, often to the detriment of free speech.  That same attempt to control speech was clear in the mainstream media’s attacks on Donald Trump and Russia.  For the second election in a row, “Russia was interfering in American elections”, instead of the other way around, with U.S. media backing St. Novalny and his faceless, nameless crowd.

1. Michael Springmann is a former U.S. State Department official having served as a diplomat in the Foreign Service with postings in Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia. He previously authored, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World: An Insider’s View recounting his experiences observing officials granting travel visas to unqualified individuals. Additionally, he penned Goodbye, Europe? Hello, Chaos?  Merkel’s Migrant Bomb, an analysis of the alien wave sweeping the Continent. He currently practices law in the Washington D.C. Area.

On July 20, 2017, William F. Pepper, Ed.D., J.D., spoke at the National Press Club about his previous day’s filing of a 200-page petition regarding Sirhan Sirhan.  Sirhan, jailed since 1968, is the alleged killer of Robert F. Kennedy, late New York U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate.  Organized by Andrew Kreig, J.D., editor of the Justice Integrity Project (http://www.justice-integrity.org/), the well-attended conference enabled Dr. Pepper to discuss his long-sought evidentiary hearing.

As Sirhan’s lawyer for many years, Pepper conceded that the legal remedies for his client in the United States have been exhausted–at both the State and federal levels.  California, where Kennedy had been murdered in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen, did not assure a fair trial.  Essentially, ineffective assistance of counsel got the accused wrongly convicted.  Grant Cooper, his attorney, under threat of a sealed felony indictment, did almost nothing to defend Sirhan.  He failed to investigate the matter, obtain the autopsy report, or examine ballistics tests.  He spent most of the court proceedings arguing that Sirhan was guilty and, that because of diminished capacity, should not be given the death penalty.

Sirhan also got no relief in the federal system, neither with with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, nor with the extremely liberal and contrarian U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, nor with the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review the case.

Now, Pepper is staking Sirhan’s chances on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an Organization of American States (OAS) body. His goal is either a new trial or an evidentiary hearing. The filing alleges that the California and U.S. justice systems violated Sirhan’s right to a fair trial, as required under the OAS Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. By treaty, the IACHR may review U.S. cases and those from 34 other nations when domestic remedies have been exhausted.

Pepper, who had been a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, is known for his winning defense of King’s supposed murderer, James Earle Ray, during a 1993 mock trial on HBO.  In a celebrated wrongful death proceeding in 1999, Pepper obtained a symbolic award based on 10 years of dogged pursuit of relevant evidence and witnesses.  He is doing the same now with Sirhan.

Noting that the U.S. media is controlled, by high level businessmen, bankers, and other influential figures who move in and out of government, such as John J. McCloy one-time U.S. High Commissioner for Germany and member of the Warren Commission, Sirhan’s lawyer said that the “conclusive evidence” reported as news was, in realty, extremely weak.  There was never a hearing on the facts, he commented.  Such an investigation would have shown that Sirhan, the claimed criminal, was nowhere near Kennedy when the shooting started.  Thomas Noguchi, Los Angeles’ chief medical examiner at the time, swore that Kennedy was struck by three shots fired within inches of his body, from behind.  Sirhan got off two shots at Kennedy from a six-foot distance, in front. Sirhan was immediately tackled and pinned down while still pulling the trigger on his handgun.  However, Sirhan fired only eight shots total yet a carefully-examined sound recording heard thirteen rounds.  Moreover, the shots came from different directions.

Yet, the Los Angeles Police Department, Pepper revealed, failed to preserve the physical evidence from the crime scene, such as ceiling tiles, doors, and door frames with bullets buried in them.  The cops’ excuse?  There was no space in which to store them.  Pepper went on to say that the Los Angeles police had long-standing and very close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The suspicion is, Pepper remarked, that Sirhan appeared to fit the parameters of the infamous CIA drug and consciousness-altering program, MK-ULTRA.  (Its former director, Sid Gottlieb, destroyed most of the operation’s records in 1973.)  Dr. Daniel Brown, Harvard Medical School, spent nearly 70 hours examining Sirhan through hypnosis and questioning, concluding that the Palestinian Christian had undergone a variety of procedures coupled with drugs to make him controllable.  Notably, Pepper said, this could have occurred while Sirhan had mysteriously disappeared for two weeks before the assassination.  Seen as a patsy, he was prepped as a distraction while the real murderer fired the close-up shots killing Kennedy, Pepper continued.  Sirhan had apparently had a handler, a woman in a polka dot dress, the attorney remarked.  She disappeared after she pinched the scapegoat on the neck, apparently triggering Sirhan’s belief that he was really shooting at a paper, man-shaped target from a firing range.

COMMENT.  Despite Andrew Kreig ‘s extensive and most vigorous efforts, only a few members of the press turned up at the conference: an intern from the Washington Times, a representative from Al-Mayadeen TV, Beirut, along with a knowledgeable White House correspondent for an alternative news site.  This appeared to validate Dr. Pepper’s view of the heavily-managed American media.  And it bodes ill for what seems to be the attorney’s goal in filing with the OAS–to generate enough adverse publicity to force the United States to re-examine the questionable trial of Sirhan Sirhan.  Indeed, a casual search of the Internet turns up a number of references about “conspiracies” revolving around the problematically convicted man.

Perhaps everyone involved in this matter should take a look at Dr. Jack Shaheen’s writings on Arabs, notably Reel Bad Arabs:  How Hollywood Vilifies A People.