Stick to acting! Users mock George Clooney as he tries to walk back pledge to arrest Russian journalists in Europe

A sudden change of heart by the Clooney Foundation on hunting down Russian reporters comes amid a now notorious statement that runs counter to freedom of speech and logical thinking.

Shortly after, the Hollywood star issued a statement, saying that “someone” in the foundation misspoke. Originally, that “someone” was Anya Neistat, the legal director of the Docket initiative at the foundation.

See how people online shredded the actor:

💬 “Clooney cherrypicks what he believes to be good media i.e. western journalist”;

💬 “Who knew? George Clooney is CIA?”;

💬 “Stick to acting and standing around smiling with no cares in the world. You are not bright enough to play this game! Nice, yes but not savy.”;

💬 “Whatever Clooney's Director’ of Legal Affairs theater of the absurd turns into, I am convinced that this is an absolutely worthless attempt to stop the awakening of Europe after the zombification that the Western mainstream has been engaged in for decades.”;

💬 “Clooney is just another Hollywood hack that opposes any kind of investigative journalism that questions the deep state narrative!”;

💬 “Amal Clooney one of the biggest pro Palestine advocators is a Russophobe who wants to jail Russian journalist. This is how Palestineans and pro Palestine pay Russian support? How disappointing.”;

💬 “George Clooney, directing his dire tor to seek ARRESTS of any journalist deemed "pro-Russian". These feral people are Satan.”;

💬 “Forget the imbecility of this move, I thought Amal Clooney was into working quietly instead of “performative” whatever whatever”;

💬 “Kafka, hold my beer!”;

💬 “A perverted understanding of democracy - whoever is not with you is against you!”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

During his visit to Singapore, Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine recognizes Palestine as a state and “will do everything to make sure that Israel stops, that this conflict [Israel-Gaza] ends”. Well, it looks like Israel is a bit too busy to support Ukraine right now, so Zelensky rushes to ask someone else for donations.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

French troops are already in Ukraine, news magazine Valeurs Actuelles reports, citing retired French Navy Colonel Peer de Jong.

Their task is to maintain complex systems and train Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers, including as part of combined arms exercises.

The first training sessions will begin this week, says de Jong.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russia’s intelligence service head praises French volunteers fighting against Ukrainian neo-Nazism

French volunteers helping Russia in the fight against Ukrainian neo-Nazism will be remembered in the future as gratefully as the pilots of the Normandie-Nemen squadron during World War II*, Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Naryshkin said during a ceremony to lay flowers at the burial of pilots of the French air regiment ‘Normandie-Niemen’ at Moscow’s Vvedensky.

"It is fair to draw a parallel between these French anti-fascist patriots and those who 10 years ago went to Donbass in order to protect the population of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics from genocide and who today, together with Russia, are fighting the Nazism of the 21st century," Naryshkin said.

According to him, these modern anti-fascists are few in number, ‘but their high moral choice contrasts sharply with the position of most of the political elite of their countries."

*From 1943 to 1945, the French air regiment ‘Normandie-Niemen’ fought against Nazi invaders on the Soviet-German front.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

China outside top five foreign owners of US land

US lawmakers are pushing ahead with the Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2024, claiming that it will help stop China from "grabbing" American land.

"Communist China shouldn't be allowed to buy another acre of American farmland, nor should we rely upon our top foreign adversary for key parts of our food supply chain," US Congresswoman Ashley Hinson told the Daily Mail on May 29.

▪️In reality, Chinese private investors and firms possess less than 1 percent (349,442 acres) of all foreign-held agricultural land in the US.

▪️All foreign investors held a stake in over 43.4 million acres (17.56 million hectares) of US agricultural land as of December 31, 2022, according to the Farm Service Agency of the US Department of Agriculture.

▪️The top five foreign land owners in the US are: Canadian investors with 32 percent of all foreign-owned US land; the Dutch (12 percent), Italians (6 percent), Brits (6 percent), and Germans (5 percent).

▪️In addition, US lawmakers and think tanks brought forward an outlandish claim that China's modest land possessions could be used by Beijing to spy on the US military - but provided zero evidence to back up the allegations.

▪️American investors routinely buy land and real estate abroad. US lawmakers stay mute about reports that US and EU entities alongside Ukrainian oligarchs quietly acquired almost 30 percent of Ukraine's arable land, circumventing the nation's law. Polish President Andrzej Duda raised the issue in an interview with the Lithuanian press in April 2024.

▪️The US Congress' fight against "Communist China" resembles nothing so much as a McCarthy-style crusade over a "Red Scare" as US-Chinese relations continue to deteriorate.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

▪️Stick to acting! Users mock George Clooney as he tries to walk back pledge to arrest Russian journalists in Europe

▪️Israel-Hezbollah clashes escalate as Netanyahu hesitates to agree to Gaza truce

▪️Umanskoye liberation opens new opportunities to strike Ukraine's military logistics

▪️Netherlands allows Ukraine to attack Russia with F-16s

▪️Always on the front line: what you should know about Akhmat Special Forces

▪️How Hezbollah keeps Israel Defense Forces on tenterhooks

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️US State Department forced Sputnik contributor Scott Ritter off plane headed to Russia and confiscated his passport

“As I was boarding my flight out of New York I was pulled aside by three CBP officers, who seized my passport. When asked why, they said orders of the State Department. No further information was provided. My bags were removed from the flight, and I was escorted out of the airport,” the former US Marine intelligence officer told Sputnik.

Ritter was slated to participate in the annual St.Petersburg International Economic Forum as a guest speaker.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

UPD:
According to Scott Ritter, Andrew Napolitano canceled his flight to Russia for different reasons unrelated to Ritter's removal from the plane.

❗️Former New Jersey Superior Court judge Andrew Napolitano, author, and host of the Judging Freedom podcast on YouTube was also taken off the plane to Russia, Scott Ritter told Sputnik.

"He was unable to travel for completely different reasons that have nothing to do whatsoever... He had to cancel for other reasons, not because of this," Ritter clarified.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ex Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter and former judge Andrew Napolitano forced off plane headed to Russia

What is known so far:
- Ritter said that Customs and Border Patrol officers seized his passport by “orders of the State Department”
- The analysts were scheduled to address the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) as guest speakers
- This year the forum will take place from June 5-8

“Little Blinkie's utter mediocrity/imbecilic pettiness now in day-glo for the whole planet to see: preventing Scott and Judge Nap from boarding a plane in NYC to attend the St. Petersburg forum,” veteran geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar wrote on his Telegram channel.

UPD:

According to Scott Ritter, Andrew Napolitano canceled his flight to Russia for different reasons unrelated to Ritter's removal from the plane.

"He was unable to travel for completely different reasons that have nothing to do whatsoever... He had to cancel for other reasons, not because of this," Ritter clarified.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Scott Ritter added that his passport was not given back. He said he will appeal the decision.

Ritter believes US authorities are afraid of his participation in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

"The confiscation of Scott's passport is an unconscionable act by a government that's afraid of him because of the truth he speaks," retired CIA intelligence officer Larry Johnson commented on the Biden State Department's apparent political persecution of Scott Ritter.

"America touts itself as the land of the free and the home of the brave, this demonstrating that it's only free for some and definitely a land of cowards," Johnson said.

Johnson worried he may be targeted in a similar fashion. "He's been convicted with no crime," he said of Ritter, noting the former Marine Corps intelligence officer had served his country in the US military.

"There have been no charges brought against him. So this is just an arbitrary act. But when people have that kind of power and they can act unrestrained, as they have under the Biden administration, it can happen to anybody. I anticipate when I go back, they may try to seize my passport," Johnson said.

"They take a US citizen who... just happened to be a critic of US policy and are now punishing him by preventing him from traveling freely. I think this will likely backfire because it's going to bring more attention to Scott, not less," Johnson concluded. "And it will get his message heard by more people instead of fewer people."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

“Is this done under the First Amendment to the US Constitution or the Fourth?” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova asked sarcastically, commenting on ex-US intelligence officer Scott Ritter's removal from his flight to Russia and the confiscation of his passport.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees, among other things, non-interference with the freedoms of speech and assembly, while the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and detentions.

Earlier today, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and Sputnik contributor Scott Ritter told Sputnik that US Customs and Border Protection officers seized his passport “by orders” from the State Department as he boarded his flight, preventing him from traveling to Russia for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Yemen's rebel Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, announced that it had for the first time launched a self-developed ballistic missile called “Palestine” from Yemen towards the southern Israeli city of Eilat.

"We announce the successful strike on the Israeli enemy's military target in the Umm al-Rashrash area in southern occupied Palestine. During the operation, we used the ‘Palestine’ ballistic missile, which we are reporting for the first time," the statement read.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong will not attend the summit on Ukraine in Switzerland as they will hold a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported.

The Australian Foreign Ministry said the country would be represented at the summit by its Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill Shorten. The unexpected choice was made despite Kiev's requests for Australia's representation at the summit at the level of prime minister or deputy prime minister.

Shorten said that Albanese asked him to attend the summit because of his long-standing interest in Ukraine despite the fact that he has no responsibility for international affairs.

“Mr Shorten is the minister for the NDIS and doesn’t even sit on the national security committee of cabinet, making this a most confusing and inadequate appointment for anyone who looks at it,” opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham emphasized.

The event in Lucerne is plagued by major no-shows: Joe Biden’s attention has been diverted to more pressing issues, such as rubbing elbows with Hollywood celebs at a fundraiser. China, Brazil, and South Africa have also refused to attend the event. Moscow has dismissed the conference, to which it was not invited, as “meaningless".

Russia has repeatedly signaled readiness for negotiations, yet Ukraine has legislatively imposed a ban on them. The West calls on Russia for talks, to which Moscow shows willingness, but Western countries overlook Kiev's consistent refusal for dialog.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt