Actor Mandy Patinkin has posted several videos on social media, including one on Friday, urging Jewish voters to support Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed if they're concerned about their "safety" in the country.
"Jewish safety depends on a real multiracial democracy, and Abdul is the one fighting to protect it," the "Homeland" and "The Princess Bride" actor said in one such video.
Patinkin, who is also Jewish, said that El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, was pushing a political movement attacking the "rights and dignity of certain people" and argued that El-Sayed was the only candidate fighting for democracy.
"Jewish safety is tied to the health of our democracy," Patinkin said. "We can’t protect one without protecting the other. And in this Senate race, Abdul is the candidate who understands that and is willing to fight for it."
Patinkin continued to voice his support for El-Sayed in another video posted on Sunday, in which he called out efforts to make people "afraid" of the Democratic candidate because of his name and Muslim background, suggesting the criticism was similar to how Jewish people have been treated because of their identity.
"It’s hard for me to hear Muslims and Arabs talked about this way without thinking about our own Jewish history," Patinkin said. "We know what it’s like to have people treat your identity as a reason to distrust you, to make you seem threatening just because of who you are. I’m not telling anyone what they have to believe about Abdul. I’m asking people to recognize that this kind of talk should sound familiar to Jews."
"Who is going to protect the democracy that has helped keep Jews safe in America? Abdul," he added. "Who is going to stand up for the rights of all of us? Abdul. Because I believe protecting our community means protecting the democracy we all depend on. Please vote for Abdul El-Sayed and get him in the Senate seat."
Fox News Digital reached out to the El-Sayed and Rogers campaigns for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, criticized Patinkin's "lack of actual knowledge" about whether El-Sayed would support Jewish safety.
"Few candidates have expressed disdain for Jewish safety more than Abdul El-Sayed, who attempted to explain away a terror attack on Jewish preschoolers due to a war on terror 6,000 miles away, and who called the rescue of Jewish hostages from torture, rape, and murder, ‘genocide,’" Menken told Fox News Digital.
El-Sayed caused controversy in March when he responded to an attack on a Michigan synagogue by saying "Hurt people, hurt people." Federal investigators say a gunman inspired and radicalized by Hezbollah crashed into the place of worship seeking to kill as many Jewish people as he could. The alleged attacker was a Lebanese-born man who a week earlier had lost relatives in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.
Menken said the Democratic candidate "refused to endorse the right of Jews to their own identity, opinions, and self-governance, and campaigned alongside Hasan Piker until other Democrats prevailed upon him to stop. And, of course, when confronted about family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and its genocidal antisemitism, El-Sayed has called it an attack on his religion."
"To call Patinkin deluded and naive would be the height of understatement," the rabbi added. "El-Sayed's values are not those that made America a great and welcoming country."
Patinkin previously supported New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's 2025 campaign, celebrating the first night of Hanukkah with the democratic socialist after he was elected.
Throughout his campaign and since taking office, Mamdani has faced accusations of antisemitism.
John Healey raised taxes on banks and landlords to fund a £100 winter handout for 20 million families as official forecasts made clear there is no end in sight for the cost of living crisis.
In his first budget, the chancellor blamed “global economic storms” for the grim outlook, as the war in Iran drives up oil and gas prices.
Former President Barack Obama, the last Democratic president to serve two terms, is increasingly campaigning for his party, acting as a foil to President Donald Trump.
With apparently nothing better to do this summer, the police charged Guy Carpenter with picking up roadkill – who even knew it was a crime? As they took him to court, that's when he knew English freedom had died.
O CDS-PP Funchal regressou, no passado fim de semana, ao Parque Ecológico do Funchal, numa nova acção de reflorestação integrada na iniciativa “CDS em Acção”. Os participantes plantaram 128 plantas, dando continuidade ao trabalho iniciado em Março, quando o partido realizou ali a primeira intervenção deste ciclo. A acção reuniu militantes e simpatizantes, em mais […]
Fernando Seco, 62, said he and others moved at least a dozen wounded passengers from the crash site, using parts of the wreckage as makeshift stretchers.
A Representação Parlamentar do CDS-PP Madeira, através da deputada Sara Madalena, deu entrada na Assembleia Legislativa da Região Autónoma da Madeira (ALRAM) de um Voto de Congratulação dirigido ao jovem luso-descendente Yann Cristóvão, que se sagrou recentemente vencedor absoluto da Rookie Challenge da NASCAR Euro Series. O documento enaltece o extraordinário feito desportivo e o […]
Connor Harvey leads a protest outside Liberty Mutual's Boston headquarters.
Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
"Liberty Biberty" is a much-hated new yellow puppet mascot for Liberty Mutual, appearing in ads.
People are so riled up that there was a protest at its Boston HQ. Its organizer called the mascot "a disgusting little creature."
But this kind of cheeky "hate" might actually work in Liberty's favor, an ad expert says.
On Sunday, a small crowd took to the streets of Boston to protest, holding signs, chanting, with one person even appearing in full costume and face paint. The protest took place in front of the Back Bay headquarters of insurance company Liberty Mutual. The protest was not against some sort of corporate malfeasance, political, or even a social justice issue.
They were protesting the existence of Liberty Biberty, the new fuzzy yellow mascot that appears in the insurance giant's TV ads.
People, for some reason, really hate the Liberty Biberty puppet.
There's a Facebook page with over 40,000 people devoted to hating it. There's TikToks. Reddit threads. I even saw a ghastly tattoo depicting the spherical character being fed into a meat grinder. John Oliver did a segment about it on HBO's "Last Week Tonight" recently.
The concept of the ads is surreal and self-referential. Liberty Biberty is a yellow puppet who has appeared in a few TV ads so far. In one, he appears on someone's car and tells them about the benefits of auto insurance, and then is carried off by a hawk. In another, he chats to a bored bartender, and then meets the aforementioned hunky actor prone to malapropisms.
Liberty Mutual is well aware of the, ahem, passionate response.
"We're encouraged by how strongly people are engaging with him, whether they love him or feel differently," Jenna Lebel, Liberty Mutual's chief marketing officer for US retail markets, told Business Insider. "We've been encouraged by the early results, including independent testing that shows Biberty performing above average on attention and brand attribution."
Insurance companies' advertising strategies for the last decade or more has been focused on a series of recognizable characters like Flo from Progressive, Jake from State Farm, and "Mayhem" from Allstate. Let us not forget the forefather of them all, the Geico gecko. Liberty Mutual has also had Doug and the LiMu Emu, as well as a hunky actor prone to malapropisms — hence "biberty." (Don't worry: Doug and the LiMu Emu are still active, Liberty Mutual's PR person assured me. Some complaints about Biberty were that people thought it had replaced the popular human/avian duo.)
Young people are watching less and less linear television, and so see fewer traditional ads, with one big exception: sports. Most of the people I talked to mentioned seeing the Liberty Biberty ads during baseball or football games, week after week.
The repeated exposure to the ads seems to be getting under people's skin.
"I think Liberty Bibberty is just a disgusting little creature," Connor Harvey, the organizer of the protest in Boston, told me. The 19 year old content creator from New Hampshire said that he considers himself a "sucker for weird advertising," but that the fluffy yellow orb seems to be intentional ragebait — purposely meant to be annoying.
"The new Biberty campaign has definitely sparked a conversation, with a wide range of reaction and opinion. We're listening to all of it," Lebel said.
Zach Johnson, 40, manages a machine shop in North Carolina and was inspired to start the Facebook group "Liberty Biberty Hate" after seeing the ad multiple times while watching TV with his wife one night. "It's a terrible mascot. Plus, they have more mascots than I can think of," he said.
The over-the-top hate towards the mascot is certainly a bit tongue in cheek; although some people may find it genuinely annoying, it's not offensive or tone deaf like the infamous Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad.
That means all that hate may actually be a good thing for Liberty Mutual.
"I think there's a real opportunity right now to jump in and have fun with this moment in a way that, frankly, a lot of brands would absolutely die for," said Simon Bruyn, ad industry vet and co-founder of the marketing strategy firm Significant.
"For that Gen Z and younger culture, who might be starting to get into insurance decisions, you suddenly have a very clean crossover into an internet nascent brand that feels like something you could really, really have fun with and play and own that idea of faux outrage," Bruyn said.
Harvey, the protest organizer, isn't in the market for home or auto insurance — for now. "I'm on my mom's insurance," he told me.
In 2019, workers preparing the ground for a gas pipeline and a new parking lot in the village of Loculi, in the interior of Sardinia, began to find ancient structures. Seven years later, those structures belong to an archaeological site of about 700 square metres (7,500 square feet). The remains it holds range from the […]
My home state of Ohio has earned a not-so-nice distinction in the 2026 election: It is the site of "the ugliest" contest in the country. Nasty attack ads have been an ongoing feature of the governor's race between Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Amy Acton—piercing many a peaceful Hulu-watching session on my end with allegations that Acton is a pill-popping drunk and Ramaswamy a con man.
But the nastiness reached a whole new level in recent weeks, with the release of a Ramaswamy campaign ad implying that Acton lied about childhood sexual abuse by her stepfather.
Understandably, many Republicans bristled at being viewed as the party that defends accused child rapists. Not Trump. His only regret here is that he didn't get to run an ad like this, he said.
The ad features Acton's mother, Donna Arthur, from whom Acton has been estranged for decades for what seem like very good reasons. When Acton was 12, her mom took her stepfather's side when she accused him of sexually abusing her for years.
In 1978, Acton's stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was arrested and charged with child rape. Records from the case, obtained by Signal Statewide, "also contains a reference to a previous incest charge against Cledith Arthur from 1974…although it's not clear how that case was resolved."
Acton's mom lost custody of both Amy and her brother. But the stepfather was never tried, since he and Acton's mom fled the state. He remained a fugitive—and married to Amy's mother—until he died in 2004.
screenshot of Clip from the Youngstown Vindicator on July 17, 1978
In the new Ramaswamy campaign ad, Acton calls her daughter a liar. "It's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar," says Arthur in the video. "She lies about her past.…She's lied her entire life. My daughter needs help."
Arthur doesn't outright say "she lied about being molested by her stepfather," but given the historical context here, the implication is pretty clear. In effect, the Ramaswamy campaign has helped Acton's mom accuse her daughter on a national scale of making it all up.
That's despicable, even by political campaigning standards.
And—providing us with some hope for humanity—it also backfired. People roundly condemned the ad and the Ramaswamy campaign for running it. Acton's brother, Philip Stearns, corroborated her story. Even many Republicanshave objectedto the ad.
There are still some lines you don't cross, public figures left and right seemed to agree.
Public figures except President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.
Telling Republicans to "stop whining" about the ad, Vance said he was getting "a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America."
"Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar," Vance continued.
Trump went further, calling the ad "very powerful" and urging the Ramaswamy campaign to keep it up. Trump also criticized the current Ohio governor, Republican Mike DeWine, for calling the ad "deeply troubling."
DeWine is a moderate Republican who, for the most part, adheres to pre-Trump standards of decency. Their differing reactions here seem a perfect microcosm of pre-MAGA and post-MAGA standards for conduct and bounds of acceptability.
DeWine "probably wants a Dumocrat to win," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post last Thursday. "I suggested, on the other hand, that Vivek should keep it up, and let everyone listen to the mother of a defective, dishonest, and incapable Candidate, explain how the daughter is a DISASTER who, uncontrollably, lies, cheats, and steals!"
Talking to reporters that same day, Trump just kept repeating that if an ad had been made with his mom calling him a liar, the press would love it. He stuck to that talking point again and again, acting clueless about the childhood sexual abuse allegations at the center of this whole controversy.
The idea that the president would passionately post about and answer questions about this without knowing the whole story is almost beyond belief. But even if Trump somehow didn't know the full context when he first started talking about it, he was made aware and then kept right on praising the ad.
Trump on Ramaswamy Ad: The mother is calling the daughter a terrible person and a liar. Why would you shield somebody from that? Why would we do that? So I told him, leave it up and say thank you God. I only wish I could have had an ad like that. pic.twitter.com/M2TYz3jhUy
At a campaign rally in Iowa last Thursday, he said, "I only wish I could have had an ad like that against somebody."
Ramaswamy has also defended the ad, saying, "Unfortunately, the person I'm running against does have serial problems with the truth" and that the ad highlights a "pattern" of the "people who are closest to her" telling Ohioans not to vote for her.
But this is no longer just about one candidate's mistake or one campaign's poor judgment. The response from Trump and Vance has raised Ramaswamy's ad into bigger and uglier territory.
"It's actually kind of hard to find a prominent Republican who is defending the ad other than Vivek Ramaswamy himself, Vice President JD Vance and, quite fervently today, President Trump," noted CNN's Kaitlan Collins last Friday.
But Trump and Vance are the leaders of not just the Republican Party but the nation. And as we've seen again and again, Trump's responses tend to set the tone for what will become acceptable among conservatives by and large.
"Vance's acceptance of this campaign ad only breathes life into the disease that we should be seeking to cure," former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie toldThe Washington Post.
Do voters agree?
Whatever happens with Ramaswamy next Tuesday, it will be impossible to know how much of it is related to this ad campaign and how much of it is related to many other possible factors. But it's hard not to look at the Ohio gubernatorial election results now as something of a referendum on what type of political discourse is OK. Are voters over Trump-style belligerence and nastiness? Or do they accept the premise that politics is a war in which no low is too low if it helps you win?
In the News
Release the FISA Ruling: "Two Democratic senators who have long overseen US intelligence say the Trump administration is illegally withholding a secret court's findings from Congress until lawmakers renew a program that lets federal agents read Americans' communications without a warrant," reportsWired:
Seven months ago, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court objected to search filters that let intelligence analysts pull Americans' messages from intercepted data without the approvals, written justifications, or records the law requires. The court approved another year of surveillance anyway. The ruling has never been made public, and Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Adam Schiff of California say the administration's own deadline for releasing it passed in September.
"This opinion details serious abuses of Americans' rights under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and, by law, should have been released before September 13," wrote Wyden and Schiff in a letter to the director of national intelligence and the U.S. Attorney General. "Yet this opinion remains hidden over a month later, suggesting that the administration hopes to secure a renewal of Section 702 while keeping Congress and the public in the dark."
Wishful thinking from Flock. Garrett Langley, the CEO of Flock, told a conference of cops to believe him rather than what's right in front of their eyes. The backlash to Flock "is not real," he said at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference, per leaked audio obtained by 404 Media:
"Somebody was paying for [the social media posts and] stopped paying for it," Langley said about the many viral posts criticizing his company's technology. "Social media chatter on Flock is down about 95 percent from July. It went down 50 percent last week when Ukraine bombed a Russian data center with a drone. Literally 50 percent overnight. And so look, I'm the last person, my wife as well, she's like 'This is crazy, these people are getting paid to say these things,'" he added, repeating a disproven theory that Ukraine's strikes on Russian data centers had a significant impact on internet bot activity.
"It's anonymous bots, and so it is not real," he continued. "Inorganic activity has led to organic activity, but when I look at protests across the country, it is the same people with the same signs and the same message. That's not normal. That's not organic at all." Langley's comments echo another unsubstantiated theory that said opposition to Flock comes from a far-left network spreading propaganda at the behest of China.
The backlash is widespread and multifaceted. Backlash to Flock "has just exploded, like no other issue that I have seen in my time at the ACLU," Becca Eastwood, deputy policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, told Reason recently.
On Substack
Techlash on the campaign trail. Democrats have been panning data centers in campaign ads, but artificial intelligence was the subject of only a small fraction of ads, notes the Blue Horizon Project, an initiative from Chamber of Progress "to restore tech optimism in the Democratic Party and reset the relationship between Democrats and the technology sector." And when Democrats have focused on AI and data centers, it's been more about economics than general anti-AI sentiment, Dave Vorland writes:
Data centers are the important exception to the lack of ads focused on AI and technology. In AdImpact's tables, they appear among the three leading Democratic advertising topics in 5 of the 21 Toss-Up House races. They are not politically irrelevant, and dismissing the local backlash would be a mistake.
But look more closely at what these ads actually argue. Using AdImpact's data on 2026 campaign spending, ads matching either a tax-language screen or energy message, or both, account for $69.76 million, or 76.2% of all data center advertising.
The race with the highest spending on data centers is the Ohio Senate race, where Democratic spending accounts for $32.10 million. AdImpact's data shows Sherrod Brown's campaign spent over $1.5 million to air a data center ad 3,100 times. The message shows that while he is willing to hit his opponent for the data center tax breaks, his solution is ensuring that data centers don't raise energy costs, an idea that could have been drawn directly from our Data Center Development Playbook.
Vorland points out that "AdImpact's data for 2026 Congressional spending shows that less than $2.5 million went to ads supporting a data-center construction pause, moratorium, ban, or stopping new construction, a minuscule portion of the Democratic ad buy."
Interesting that "let data centers build but don't subsidize them" is the implicit message here. It feels like at least somewhat of a good sign that Democratic candidates don't by-and-large think "ban new data centers" is a message that voters want to hear.
More Sex & Tech News
• An interesting essay in Works in Progress looks at "the rise of prudishness" and what demographics might have to do with it.
• "Technology has advanced for centuries, shuffling workers among occupations, industries, and regions without making human labor obsolete," writes Nathan Smith at Human Progress:
As machinery pushed millions of Americans away from farming over the past century, most workers moved to factories, towns, and cities. They ended up with more comfortable lives than their predecessors plowing the fields. The AI economy will likely follow the same path: destroying jobs while creating better ones.
• The New Jersey Assembly recently advanced a bill that would increase prostitution penalties, and several other prostitution-related criminal justice bills are pending in the Assembly and state Senate. Tara Burns has details.
• Florida's attorney general said he plans to introduce even more stringent social media regulation, even as the state's earlier restrictions on minors using social media are still being challenged in federal court.
• British tech regulator Ofcom says its Online Safety Act isn't actually stopping kids from seeing "harmful content" online. So it wants to do more of it. "Instead of suggesting to repeal the Online Safety Act because it does not seem to be working or because it imperils online freedom, Ofcom's report proposes to broaden the law's scope," writesReason's Meagan O'Rourke.
NEW: The Online Safety Act has been a failure, according to a new report from Ofcom.
Ofcom have found "no significant change" in children encountering harmful content since the law came into effect last July. This is despite the signifigant threats to free speech and privacy.
• "Social media decentralized the information environment and weakened the influence of expert opinion. LLMs are likely to have the opposite effects," writes Dan Williams at Persuasion. "Whereas social media has been a democratizing technology, LLMs are a technocratizing force. They shift influence back towards expert opinion."
• Ten states have no birth centers and eight others only have one, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund. "Two dozen centers closed between 2023 and 2026, with some publicly blaming onerous regulations and steep increases in malpractice insurance," notesOhio Capitol Journal.
Ahead of a harsh winter, the Netherlands is giving Ukraine €1.2 billion to keep the lights and water on under Russian strikes. Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sjoerd Sjoerdsma announced the aid during a visit to Kyiv on 28 October.
The package comes as Russia targets Ukraine’s energy system every winter. Last winter’s strikes damaged or destroyed roughly 80% of the grid, and Moscow’s next target is Ukraine’s water supply.
“Ukraine is under heavy fire and faces a very harsh winter,” Sjoerdsma said.
That, he stated, is why the government is taking additional steps now. The funds will be distributed over the next three years.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said Kyiv needed $8-10 billion to get through winter, TSN reported.
The Netherlands shores up Ukraine’s power and water
Also, the Netherlands is fast-tracking €40 million this year to Ukraine’s Energy Support Fund for urgent repairs to power and water facilities, which are increasingly targeted by Russian strikes.
Another €55 million goes to in-kind support: energy equipment supplied by Dutch companies to Ukrainian partners through the Netherlands Enterprise Agency.
The money will also help build emergency reserves and train staff in the energy and water sectors.
Dutch business steps into Ukraine’s reconstruction
Most of the rest goes to business. Some €136 million will go to the Partnership Facility with Ukraine and other programs, and a further €19.5 million is added to export credit insurance, on top of an existing €60 million line, to lower the risk for Dutch companies entering the Ukrainian market.
Separately, the Netherlands signed a letter of intent to contribute €10 million to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “Industrial Ramstein” initiative, which aims to restore and modernize the production capacity of Ukrainian companies. Sjoerdsma traveled to Kyiv with Koen van Oostrom, chair of the business association VNO-NCW.
The support also covers the search for Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, through the UN, as well as housing, humanitarian aid, healthcare, demining, and the restoration of cultural heritage.
In all, the Netherlands is confirming the previously promised €878 million in non-military aid and an additional €327 million, much of it delivered through the EBRD, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank.
The same day, President Zelenskyy said he had arrived in the Netherlands on an official visit. The two sides plan to discuss defense and economic cooperation, strengthening Ukraine’s air defenses, and further support for Ukraine. Zelenskyy is also set to have an audience with King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.
EU enlargement has become a trap in which political intentions collide with economic reality; Eastern and Southern Europe will bear the brunt of the impact if Ukraine joins the European Union. Ukraine is a war‑torn country, and EU citizens are already footing the bill for its reconstruction and the support of its refugees. The EU’s cohesion policy would collapse: Ukraine would become the largest and poorest member state, absorbing virtually all available development funds. Current beneficiaries – such as Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Spain, and Greece – would lose 80% to 100% of their cohesion funding and, overnight, become net contributors.
Compared to Western European countries, nations such as Greece, Spain, and Hungary are “poor countries.” To illustrate: the minimum monthly wage for an employee in Greece is around €900, whereas in the Netherlands it is approximately €2,300 for a 40‑hour workweek.
In the planning for the next seven‑year EU budget, starting in 2028, the potential accession of Ukraine must be taken into account – at least according to the rhetoric of key EU figures, such as Ursula von der Leyen and her political elites.
Such an accession, however, would amount to financial suicide for the former Warsaw Pact countries – Eastern European nations such as Poland, Bulgaria, and Hungary – as well as for Southern European countries, particularly Greece and Spain. Furthermore, it would spell disaster for France, a Western European nation currently grappling with large‑scale demonstrations fueled by the state’s insolvency. Some economic experts are already warning that France could become a second Greece – a country that, in 2015, faced extremely harsh austerity measures, endured the eurozone crisis, and remains a financial burden to this day, especially for its own citizens. We are currently witnessing a clash between the political ambitions of Western European figures – such as Ursula von der Leyen and her entourage, as well as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte – and economic reality. It is Eastern and Southern Europe that stand to bear the brunt of the consequences.
The problem with Ukraine is not just the issue of reconstruction and the funding required for the many refugees – who, in theory, could return home, though in practice this rarely happens (consider the case of Syria, where tens of thousands remain in the EU, either unwilling or unable to return). There is also the matter of the devastation of the agricultural sector: Ukraine’s vast, fertile farmlands and massive agribusinesses would consume roughly one‑third of the EU’s entire agricultural budget.
To prevent a collapse, Brussels would either have to increase contributions from member states – a move likely to be blocked by Western nations – or drastically cut per‑hectare subsidies for farmers in countries like France, Germany, Poland, and Hungary. Such a move would risk an agricultural breakdown, potentially leading to tractor blockades across Europe.
In reality, an agricultural collapse is already underway within the EU – not because of Ukraine, but due to the EU’s utopian policies. The Netherlands, in particular, has implemented strict EU nitrogen‑reduction directives in an extreme manner, leading to the buyout of hundreds of farms and the departure of many farmers to countries outside the EU (notably Canada). Agricultural enterprises that have existed for centuries – and which once formed the backbone of the economy in the Netherlands – are now disappearing to make way for defense interests; after all, the military requires ammunition depots and training grounds for an imagined war against Russia. Under the guise of nitrogen reduction and climate change, the state is effectively securing farmers’ land for military use, and the accession of Ukraine will only exacerbate the situation.
Since 2022 (the year of what the EU refers to as the Russian invasion), the European Union has largely suspended import tariffs on Ukrainian agricultural products to provide economic support to the country. As a result, imports of inexpensive Ukrainian poultry and eggs into the EU have risen exponentially. In 2025, the Dutch poultry sector, which was the largest in Europe, expressed concern regarding the renewed trade deal between Europe and Ukraine. Under this new agreement, the quotas – within which Ukraine is permitted to export to Europe duty‑free – have been significantly increased for a number of agricultural products. For instance, the quota for chicken meat entering Europe has been raised from 90,000 tonnes to 120,000 tonnes, and for eggs from 6,000 tonnes to 18,000 tonnes.
This points toward the “death” of the poultry industry in Western Europe (the Netherlands) and an increase in the emigration of Western European businesses. Some refer to this as “depopulation” – a sensitive term in Europe – but I would describe it more accurately as “depopulation of businesses” coupled with the “expropriation of farmers and businesses.”
However, the Brussels elites face another major problem: they have promised Ukraine a swift accession to the European Union. These elites make almost monthly “unexpected” visits to Kiev to assure their “hero,” Zelensky, of their support – in the form of money (from EU taxpayers), weapons, and the prospect of EU membership. Yet a rapid accession would be suicidal for the European Union (and for the elites themselves).
The most likely solution is that Ukraine will not be granted full membership in terms of the distribution of funds. A transitional period of 10–15 years could be introduced – much like the way Albania, Turkey, and North Macedonia have been kept on a string for years – during which Kiev would have only minimal access to funds, and its participation in the agricultural market would also be restricted. Yet this would expose the European political elites (such as former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte) as liars – though, in fairness, that is nothing new.
Almost every year, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, visits Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro to assure them of her support (and that of the EU) – a practice that has continued for more than 15 years. Meanwhile, the citizens of these countries have largely grown completely fed up with the empty promises. We are now also seeing unrest emerge in Albania, where Prime Minister Edi Rama – a good friend of Mark Rutte, who also visits the country regularly – has been in power for years but is currently facing significant resistance from his own population; an opposition that has reached an unprecedented level, fueled in part by the so‑called “Flamingo Revolution.”
Take Turkey, for example, which has been waiting 39 years to join the European Union. It first submitted an application for membership in 1987 – to what was then called the European Economic Community – and it has been 27 years since it was officially recognized as an EU candidate country in 1999. This has only served to distance Turkey further from Europe, especially when contrasted with the almost obsessive rhetoric from the EU regarding its unwavering, unconditional support for Ukraine in its war against Russia – or, as they term it, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Other countries in and around Europe – such as Montenegro – are also involved in the so‑called accession process, with active negotiations and a projected timeline pointing toward potential membership around 2028. As with Ukraine, however, it is unlikely that they will meet the requirements regarding corruption. Serbia finds itself in a similar position, and Georgia is also a potential candidate – a fact that causes displeasure in Russia. After all, the majority of Georgian territory lies just south of the Greater Caucasus, which is traditionally considered the boundary between Europe and Asia; a situation comparable to that of Turkey. Armenia (in Western Asia) intends to submit a formal application for EU membership in the near future, though it has not yet done so. Armenia is not a European country; the EU views such nations primarily as geopolitical, strategic tools to help encircle Russia, even though, in reality, these countries remain far removed from Europe.
For Ukraine, and for Zelensky in particular, this would be a slap in the face if they could not join in 2028, as they are not fighting for second‑class membership or to be kept waiting like the above‑mentioned countries, and in particular Turkey. Consequently, EU enlargement has turned into a trap for the European Union, whereas said political will collides with harsh economic reality.
In 2016, a referendum was held in the Netherlands regarding Ukraine’s accession and its association agreement with the EU – the first and, to date, only referendum to take place in the Netherlands, a country that considers itself a democracy! The outcome was unwelcome to Dutch politicians and the EU (it should be noted that the Netherlands is one of the EU’s founding member states); consequently, no further referendums have been held in the Netherlands, and the mechanism itself has even been abolished. The Dutch public voted “NO” to Ukraine’s accession; the primary reason for this “NO” vote was the widespread corruption in Ukraine.
Moreover, many (Dutch) citizens feared even then that this would lead to problems with Russia and that Europe might ultimately have to fight on behalf of Ukraine – pointing to the European Union’s mutual assistance clause (Article 42, paragraph 7). This clause stipulates that if an EU country becomes the victim of armed aggression on its own territory, the other EU member states are obligated to provide all the aid and assistance within their power. It now appears that this obligation is effectively being acted upon, even though Ukraine is not an EU member state; the public and EU citizens have, in effect, been misled by their own politicians and are now paying a high price in the form of arms shipments, the loss of gas supplies, and the deployment of weaponry.
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