The veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports that President Biden himself ordered the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, and U.S. Navy deep-sea divers carried it out with the assistance of Norway. A spokesman for the White House said the report is utterly false.
In other news, the death toll in the horrific earthquake in Syria and Turkey has risen above 11,000.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Daniel Greenfield, Dean, DV, Fjordman, JW, LP, MM, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Bed, Bath and Beyond Closing Over 100 More Stores Even as it Secures Major Capital Backer
Home goods retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond this week announced the closure of dozens more stores around the country even as the embattled corporation managed to find a last-ditch capital backer to help prop up its cratering finances.
The company, whose retail outlets were popular from the late 1990s through the 2010s, announced this week that it had secured a major cash infusion through an unnamed investment firm, which insiders reported was Hudson Bay Capital Management.
The move, which was accompanied by a public stock offering as part of a desperate $1 billion fundraising gambit, is seen as a long-shot attempt to hold off a bankruptcy filing for the struggling retailer.
Still, the company announced the closure of 150 stores this week in several states, with the company having shuttered nearly 400 stores since last year in an effort to cut costs.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
More Than Half of Canadians Are Not Confident They Will Have Enough Money to Retire: Survey
Five-in-ten Canadians believe they won’t have enough money to retire, according to a new survey by Pollara Strategic Insights.
The BMO Annual Retirement Study released on Tuesday found that after two years, Canadians believe they need to save an additional $300,000 to retire — raising the total average retirement fund from $1.4 million in 2020 to $1.7 million near the end of 2022.
Less than half (44%) are confident they will have enough money as planned.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Inflation should fall below 10 percent within six months, and Poland looks set for a soft landing after a series of crises, said Pawel Borys, the CEO of the Polish Development Fund, while speaking at the EEC Trends conference in Warsaw.
Borys said he believes that the reduction in inflation should help Poland return to growth of 3-4 percent in 2024, with a continuing fall in inflation.
The CEO, who is one of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s most trusted allies, said that the prospects for the Polish economy are sound. He thinks that the climate for investment is therefore positive. He argues that the worst is over for Poland.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris is warning of ‘calamitous’ consequences if the Reserve Bank keeps raising rates, while AMP fears a deep recession unless rates are cut.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Zoom Lays Off 1,300 Workers as CEO Vows to Cut His Salary by 98 Percent
On Monday, Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan announced that his company would be laying off over 1,000 employees, making it the latest tech giant to slash its workforce in recent weeks.
Yuan took responsibility for the cuts and vowed to implement changes to management’s pay, including reducing his salary by a whopping 98 percent in Fiscal Year 2023.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Antifa Infiltrate TPUSA Event at University of Oregon
On Monday, a Turning Point USA event at the University of Oregon featuring contributors “MAGA Hulk” Stephen Davis and Olympic skeleton racer Anthony Watson was disrupted by a group of black bloc Antifa members.
The event, which was held in a classroom, saw Antifa members dressed in black with face masks sitting at the back of the room and shouting over the speakers.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Biden Blames Poor Office Pack-Up Job for Document Scandal
President Joe Biden on Wednesday blamed his classified document scandal on a lack of thoroughness by his staffers when packing up his old offices.
“One of the things that happened is that what was not done well is, as they packed up my offices to move them, they didn’t do the kind of job that should have been done, to go thoroughly through every single piece of literature that’s there,” he told PBS News Hour, per The Hill. “To the best of my knowledge, the kind of things they picked up are things, they’re from 1974, stray papers. There may be something else, I don’t know.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: Andy Ngo’s Twitter Account Restored After Ban for Reporting Violent Antifa Threats
After being locked out of his Twitter account for reporting on threats from Antifa against a TPUSA event at the University of Oregon, among other threats of violence, Andy Ngo’s account was restored on Wednesday evening.
Ngo had been locked out under what appeared to be a new policy from Twitter head of Trust and Safety Ella Irwin, that declared that reporting on threats of violence on Twitter is the same as amplifying those threats.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: Trump Slams Biden for Being the Most Corrupt President in US History in SOTU Response
President Donald Trump offered his response to Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night in a brief video taking aim at Biden’s failures as president and his own promise of a better future under his leadership.
“Here’s the real state of the union,” Trump said. “Over the past two years under Biden, millions and millions of illegal aliens from 160 different countries have stormed across our southern border.”
“Drug cartels are now raking in billions of dollars from smuggling poison to kill our people and to kill our children. Savage killers, rapists and violent criminals are being released from jail to continue their crime wave, and under Biden the murder rate has reached the highest in the history of our country,” Trump said.
His plan for the cartels is to order the US military to declare cartels as enemy combatants if he were to be reelected president. Trump would deploy the Navy and Special Forces to defend the security of the Western hemisphere.
“Biden and the radical Democrats have wasted trillions of dollars and caused the worst inflation in half a century. Real wages are down 21 months in a row. Gas prices have soared and are now going up much higher than even before and the typical American family is paying $2,200 in increased energy and food costs each year,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: Andy Ngo Locked Out of Twitter After Reporting on Antifa Plan to Attack TPUSA Oregon Event
On Tuesday evening, The Post Millennial Editor-At-Large Andy Ngo was locked out of his Twitter account after tweeting out plans from Oregon Antifa members to attack a Turning Point USA campus event.
A screenshot of Twitter’s message regarding the violation states that Ngo violated Twitter’s rules, with no further reason given. In order for his account to be unlocked, Twitter stated that the offending tweet must be deleted.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: Biden Uses SOTU Speech to Push MAGA Style Policies on Infrastructure, Manufacturing, Jobs
Biden addressed Congress for the second State of the Union Address of his presidency, touting what he sees as his accomplishments, glossing over the obvious failures. The pomp and pageantry surrounding that speech was emphasized by fencing that has gone up around Capitol Hill.
Biden stood before Congress, the body in which he spent the vast majority of his career, to mass applause from the assembled lawmakers, officials and guests, as Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sat behind him. McCarthy, too, received a standing ovation from many in Congress, though the First Lady, in her box, did not stand.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Following President Biden’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, MSNBC’s Andrew Mitchell said that Biden was “politically courageous” for not taking a more aggressive stance on China during the speech.
“Even the House Republicans will not separate themselves from Ukraine, but on China, what Joe Biden did tonight by not taking on China more aggressively was politically courageous, if you will, in terms of the domestic support, because, as you know, the polling is that, you know, 75 percent of Americans are getting tough on China,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
On Tuesday evening, Arkansas Governor and former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered the Republican Party’s response to President Biden’s State of the Union address, stating “Biden and the Democrats have failed you.”
“Tonight, let us reaffirm our commitment to a timeless American idea that government exists not to rule the people but to serve the people. Democrats want to rule us with more government control, But that’s not who we are. America is the greatest country the world has ever known. because we’re the freest country the world has ever known. We’re the people who are strong and resilient,” Sanders said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
On Wednesday morning, former head of trust and safety at Twitter Yoel Roth testified before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, admitting that the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was widely censored after the New York Post broke the story, did not violate Twitter policies.
Rep. Andy Biggs grilled Roth, asking, “Mr. Roth, within just mere minutes or hours after the New York Post published its story on the Hunter Biden laptop, at 8:51 am you sent a message to a team, part of your team, I assume, and you said ‘it isn’t clearly violative of our hack materials policy,’ referring to the story, ‘nor is it clearly in violation of anything else.’ Do you remember sending that message?”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: Airbnb Bans Lauren Southern’s Parents for the Crime of Being ‘Closely Associated’ With Her
Update: Lauren Southern’s parents’ account with Aribnb was restored after the service was trending on Twitter in the wake of Southern’s publicizing their treatment of her parents. Airbnb claimed that the account was banned by mistake, though the message they sent explicitly stated the reason for the banning.
Original story follows:
Airbnb has banned the parents of conservative pundit and filmmaker Lauren Southern from using their service. Southern posted the news to Twitter along with the notice from Airbnb. “My parents just got banned from Airbnb for being related to me,” she wrote.
“They have never booked anything for me. They do not represent me in any way. They aren’t publicly political in any way. How is this sane in any way @Airbnb.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: AOC Lies About Hunter Biden Laptop in Congressional Hearing, Calls it ‘Half-Fake’
During Wednesday’s Congressional Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter censorship, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the Hunter Biden laptop story “half-fake,” and complained that Twitter failed to censor former President Donald Trump and Libs of TikTok
“When New York Post first reported in October 2020 that it had obtained contents of a laptop computer, allegedly owned by Joe Biden’s son Hunter… The newspaper wasn’t sharing what it obtained. New York Post had this alleged information and was trying to publish it without any corroboration, without any backup information. They were trying to publish it to Twitter, Twitter did not let them, and now they’re upset.” the New York congresswoman began, referring to the outcry over the censorship of Twitter accounts that shared links to the alleged corruption story.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: Biden Lied About Nord Stream Sabotage, US Did it With Help From Norway: Report
The Biden administration had been intending to take out the Nord Stream pipeline since December 2021. This was two months before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, while Putin was amassing troops on the border.
It was “the first of a series of top-secret meetings,” reports Seymour Hersh, and it was here that the crucial question was asked by the president’s advisors, which was if they should recommend further economic sanctions to Biden, or something irreversible.
It was Jake Sullivan, Hersh reports, according to a source, who intended to concoct a plan to destroy two of the Nord Stream pipelines, known collectively as Nord Stream 1, that were delivering natural gas from Russia to Europe, and to recommend that course of action to the president.
Many plans and schemes as to how to go about this were entertained, but as they developed, the winning plan involved the use of deep-sea Navy divers, divers who were not part of any special forces units, as the use of those units had to be cleared by Congress and plans briefed to the Gang of Eight. This was not something Sullivan wanted to do.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Since the Biden Institute was established in 2017 at the University of Delaware, it has been revealed that China, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Turkey have donated millions of dollars to the school.
Since the institute’s founding, the school has received $23,610,996 from Saudi Arabia, $6,704,250 from China, $2,513,646 from Oman, and $1,673,847 from Turkey, according to the Washington Free Beacon, which conducted a review of US Department of Education records.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Spy Balloon Part of Larger Surveillance Program: U.S. Intel
The suspected Chinese spy balloon that attracted national attention as it traversed the United States was part of a larger surveillance program, the U.S. intelligence officials have concluded.
The program has existed for several years under the direction of the People’s Liberation Army, according to the Washington Post, and has surveilled Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan, and the Philippines, all territories and nations of strategic interest to Beijing.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Democrat Rep Was ‘Honorary Chair’ of CCP-Backed Intelligence Front Group
Democratic Representative Judy Chu of California was revealed to have been appointed to an honorary leadership position within an alleged Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence front group in August 2019.
According to the Daily Caller, Chu was named “honorary chairwoman” of the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China, an organization that opposes Taiwan’s independence. The US-China Economic Security and Review Commission (USCC) had previously identified the organization as serving a CCP “intelligence service.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
DeSantis Brushes Off Latest Trump Attack: ‘I Spend My Time Delivering Results’
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday brushed off an attack from former President Donald Trump, asserting that he was intent on governing the state and combatting the Democratic agenda from Washington.
“I’d just say this. I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,” DeSantis said. “I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Elon Musk: “Most Are Oblivious” To the Danger of World War 3
Tesla founder Elon Musk warned that “most are oblivious to the danger” of World War 3 as the conflict in Ukraine continues to escalate.
The comment was in response to a speech by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to the General Assembly on Monday during which he expressed his fear that humanity was marching toward a “wider war” with its “eyes wide open”.
“Could we please not do WWIII,” asked commentator Luke Rudkowski.
“Most are oblivious to the danger,” responded Musk.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Fauci Paper Suggests Feds Knew COVID Vaccines Were Doomed From the Start: ‘Decidedly Suboptimal’
Anthony Fauci knows why COVID-19 vaccines have been so unreliable at halting infection and transmission beyond a few months. He waited until he stepped down as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to publicly explain it.
Elsevier’s medical journal Cell Host and Microbe published a “perspective” led by Fauci’s office last month that shows NIAID had good reason to believe COVID vaccines would fail even before they were authorized, based on research spanning Fauci’s 38-year tenure leading NIAID.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Former Top Twitter Exec: We’ve Used ‘Visibility Filtering’ To Suppress Certain Political Content
Former Twitter executives who worked for the company when the Hunter Biden laptop story was censored on the platform were in the hot seat on Wednesday at a marathon House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias.”
The committee’s chairman, James Comer, alleged that Big Tech giants such as Twitter are “under the control of people who are hostile to the fundamental American principles of free speech” and have colluded with federal agencies to censor stories embarrassing to President Joe Biden and his family.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
House Passes Measure to End COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements for Foreign Travelers
The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed legislation to end the requirement that most foreign travelers arriving in the United States be vaccinated for COVID-19.
The legislation passed in a 227-201 vote with seven Democrats joining Republicans to end the mandate, The Hill reported. Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie introduced the measure, which would also bar the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from imposing a similar restriction in the future.
Fellow Kentucky GOP Rep. Brett Guthrie said retaining the requirement would keep the U.S. “out of touch with the rest of the world” and that ending the mandate would “align the United States with the rest of North America’s COVID-19 vaccine policy,” per the outlet.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
It has been revealed that alleged University of Idaho killer Bryan Kohberger was let go from his position as a teaching assistant at nearby Washington State University just days before he was arrested in connection with the gruesome November quadruple murder.
Administrators at WSU, where Kohberger was also completing his master’s degree in criminology, said he was fired due to ongoing “behavioral problems” and a “sexist attitude towards women.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Johnston Schools Facing First Amendment Lawsuit Over Student’s Shirt
JOHNSTON, Iowa — The Johnston Community School District is facing a lawsuit from a student who was kicked out of class and suspended, for wearing a shirt depicting a rifle and a quote from the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit, filed Monday, lists the plaintiff as A.B., by her next friend Janet Bristow. Bristow is the mother of the minor student who wore the shirt to school on September 1, 2022.
According to the complaint, A.B. wore the shirt two days after a discussion on students’ free speech rights in her high-school government class. During that class, A.B. alleged teacher Tom Griffin told students their rights to free speech were “extremely limited” while on school property. He also reportedly told students he would decide what speech was acceptable in the classroom, and wouldn’t allow students to wear clothing that depicts guns, alcohol, or other “inappropriate material.”
The complaint said A.B. knew Griffin was wrong about the scope of the First Amendment and that’s why she wore the shirt, which said “What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ do you not understand?” A depiction of a rifle is below the text on the shirt.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Kayleigh McEnany overruled Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Outnumbered today after AOC made some astounding claims about Hunter Biden’s laptop story being censored by social media, specifically Twitter during a GOP hearing.
Co-host Emily Compagno reminded McEnany that she had been censored by Twitter. Kayleigh said: “That’s right, James Comer said October 10th, 2020, the story publishes and there was a coordinated campaign to suppress the New York Post, one of the five largest newspapers in the United States, including me.
“I was White House press secretary at the time, I shared it on my personal account, they blocked my personal account and would not unblock it until I took down the story.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Latest: Residents Near Train Derailment Site Can Now Return Home, Officials Say
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Residents who live within the train derailment evacuation zone have been told they can return to their homes.
The evacuation order in place for residents near the train derailment site has been lifted.
| — Hat tip: MM | [Return to headlines] |
MTG Calls Out Former Twitter Exec Yoel Roth for Failing to Remove Child Porn But Banning Her Account
During a Wednesday hearing of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed former Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth for banning her account while allowing child pornography to thrive on the social media platform.
“It’s amazing to me, Mr. Roth, as the head and trust of safety at Twitter, your ability, or should I say inability, to remove child porn,” Greene said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Speaking at a Florida Governor Ron DeSantis roundtable on media defamation on Tuesday, former Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann spoke on his experience with the media’s reaction to a viral clip from 2019 showing him and other students at the March for Life.
Sandmann told DeSantis that on the bus ride back to Kentucky at 3 am he found out that a clip showing himself standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial wearing a “MAGA” hat as Native American man Nathan Phillips approached Sandmann face-to-face and banged on drums went viral.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
NY Stockbroker Turned ISIS Sniper Found Guilty of Aiding Terror Group
A former New York stockbroker who became an ISIS sniper was convicted Tuesday of providing support and training to the extremist group on battlefields in Syria and Iraq.
Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, 46, a U.S. citizen and former resident of Bay Ridge, New York, was found guilty on all five counts, including providing and attempting to provide material support to the foreign terrorist organization.
The jury also concluded that his actions caused at least one death, a finding that means he faces the potential of life in prison. His sentencing is set for June 7.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Poll: Donald Trump Double Digits Ahead of Potential GOP Challengers
Former President Donald Trump is ahead of his potential 2024 Republican challengers by double digits, a Tuesday Morning Consult survey found.
The survey showed Trump leading his closest potential challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), by 18 percent, garnering 49 percent support compared to the governor’s 31 percent.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Portland News Crew Witnesses Shooting While Covering Homeless Encampment
On Tuesday morning, staff from local Portland outlet KGW8 were covering a group of anarchists’ attack on the beloved Belmont Goats in retaliation for the planned demolition of an adjacent homeless encampment when they witnessed someone in the camp get shot by another resident.
The camp, located just off the Peninsula Crossing Trail in northwestern Portland, has been deemed a “hot spot” by city officials and is slated to be cleared in the near future to make way for a new “safe rest village” that will better accommodate the area’s homeless population.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Portland Anarchists Attack Goat Refuge as Revenge Over Homeless Encampment Removal
Late Monday night, a group identifying themselves as “some anarchists” targeted a beloved herd of goats in Portland, Oregon to protest the removal of an illegal homeless encampment in a lot next to their enclosure located near the Peninsula Crossing Trail.
The suspects slashed part of a fence surrounding the Belmont Goats, as they’ve become known, causing seven of them to escape. They also pinned threatening notes to the fence, wherein they blamed the goats’ owners for the city’s decision to move the homeless encampment.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A hearing to discuss San Francisco’s planned reparations for the city’s black community has been postponed for over a month after Democratic Supervisor Shamann Walton reportedly took a weeklong vacation to Colombia and is having trouble getting home.
According to The San Francisco Standard, Walton had authored the resolution in 2020 for the city to study harm done to the city’s African American community and as a result, a committee was formed and has been working since February 2022.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sextortion Involving Teen Boys ‘Exploding’ Worldwide
International law enforcement groups are joining the FBI to sound an alert over “an explosion” of online sexual extortion cases involving teenage boys.
Thousands of cases of sextortion — in which a minor is tricked into sending explicit photos or videos and then threatened with release of the material unless they send money or more photos — were reported worldwide in 2022, according to FBI statistics.
In Jacksonville last week, a man told police he was being exploited after being solicited to send lewd images to someone over social media. The man said the person who received the photos then threatened to distribute them to others unless the victim sent money.
| — Hat tip: DV | [Return to headlines] |
Telehealth Companies Face Investigation for Sharing Data With Facebook
Research and reports about the way telehealth companies track and monetize people’s sensitive data have spurred a bipartisan group of senators to action.
The investigation was carried out by STAT, revealing that a number of telehealth firms give health information to ad giants like Google and Facebook, among others.
The results, published under the title, “Out of Control,” showed that out of 50 telehealth sites, only one was not sharing patient data using tracking tools provided by Big Tech behemoths.
Now Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Maria Cantwell, and Republicans Susan Collins and Cynthia Lummis want three of those companies — Monument, Workit Health, and Cerebral — to provide further information about the data deals.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The UFO Craze is a Chinese Spy Balloon Crisis
by Daniel Greenfield
2022 was a banner year for UFO nuts. And for Chinese spying on America.
The Biden administration, following in the footsteps of the Carter and Clinton administrations, had an interest in flying saucers. Conspiracy theorists embraced the release of Pentagon reports about UFOs, but the real conspiracy was down to earth and hiding in plain sight.
Last month, the Director of National Intelligence released a report on “unidentified aerial phenomena”, especially those in “restricted or sensitive airspace”. The report characterized 26 reports as “Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)” and 163 as “balloon or balloon-like entities.”
We didn’t have a plague of UFOs, but a massive Chinese aerial surveillance operation. We now know that Chinese spy balloons had previously targeted Navy facilities in Guam and Hawaii.
Democrats and their media had no interest in the balloons or UAS systems showing up in sensitive airspace. And the UFO nuts they allied with gleefully dismissed “weather balloons” as a military cover-up for flying saucers. But it was the UFOs that were the real cover-up.
When a Montana resident captured the first video of the Chinese spy balloon, he first thought it was a UFO. The Biden administration, which had been aware of the balloon all along, kept it secret until videos and photos by Montana residents forced their hand. For the first time, top officials had to go on record about Chinese spy balloons and to even shoot one of them down…
| — Hat tip: Daniel Greenfield | [Return to headlines] |
‘Very Healthy’ 18-Year-Old Athlete Suffers Cardiac Arrest Playing Basketball & Dies
An 18-year-old athlete, who collapsed suddenly after suffering a massive cardiac arrest during a basketball game, has tragically died, according to reports.
Cartier Woods senior student from Detroit Northwestern High School had been on life support since he suffered the sudden cardiac arrest on January 31.
However, Woods’ family has confirmed this week that the teen has now died at Henry Ford Hospital.
Woods did not have any known heart conditions or significant medical ailments, Fox 2 Detroit reported.
The teenage athlete “was very healthy,” one of his family members told the outlet.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Videos: Former Twitter Execs Squirm as They’re Told They Could be Arrested for Election Interference
Former Twitter executives looked at times uncomfortable, but betrayed their staunch anti-free speech biases during a House Oversight Committee heading on Wednesday.
The hearing was called to investigate the role government played, specifically the FBI, with regards to censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop report by the New York Post.
Former Twitter Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, Former Deputy General Counsel James Baker, and Former Global Head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth were grilled by Representatives, with Congressman Clay Higgins telling them they could be arrested for interfering with the 2020 presidential election.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Biden, Who Called Republicans Fascists and Extremists, Says Politics is “Too Divisive”
In an interview with PBS, Joe Biden complained that politics is “too divisive,” despite the fact that he spent a large portion of last year calling his political opponents “Fascist”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Virginia Democrats Reject Indian Immigrant Mom From Board of Education Due to Her ‘White Supremacy’
Virginia Democrats voted on Tuesday to reject an immigrant mom and education activist from the state Board of Education after accusing her of aligning with “white supremacy,” as well as condemning her criticism of socialism and promotion of the US Constitution.
In a 22-18 vote, the Democrats unanimously killed Suparna Dutta’s nomination to the Virginia Board of Education by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, reported independent journalist Asra Nomani.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Washington Dept of Corrections Looking to Hire Felon for 6-Figure Salary
The Washington State Department of Corrections is offering a six-figure salary for a “former incarcerated individual” to “utilize their lived experiences” as the Director of Person-Centered Services in a possible telework position.
According to the job listing, the chosen candidate “…will serve as a senior member of the agency’s Executive Leadership Team and provide direct oversight of various strategic initiatives with the goal of working to continue to reduce recidivism and improve the reentry of incarcerated adults,” and earn $108,636 to $133,044 annually.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Watch: US Sabotage of Nord Stream Predicted by 2014 John Mearsheimer Report: War Room
Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed by a covert American military operation with the help of Norway, contrary to the popular narrative of self-sabotage, according to Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
On Steve Bannon’s War Room, international correspondent Ben Harnwell and Revolver News editor Darren Beattie and broke down Hersh’s report, citing international relations scholar John Mearsheimer’s 2014 report on “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault,” which argues that “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Watch: Kari Lake Entertains Senate Run on the Charlie Kirk Show
During a Monday morning appearance on the Charlie Kirk Show, former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake hinted that her time in politics was long from over, and that she may run for Senate in 2024.
Lake lambasted her Democratic opposition, deeming them dangerous to the people of Arizona, and suggested that she was the only Republican who could beat them.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
President Joe Biden’s big State of the Union speech tanked in the ratings. Bill Clinton’s 1994 State of the Union averaged some 45.8 million total viewers. Donald Trump’s SOTU in 2018 averaged 45.55 million.
George W. Bush’s SOTU speech in 2002 averaged 51.77 million total viewers. Joe Biden averaged 33.83 million in 2022 (early numbers) and finished with 38.2 million total viewers.
Last night, Joe Biden saw a massive drop in viewers from the year before. The early numbers show Biden had a dismal 24.1 million viewers across the major cable news networks and the top four broadcast news channels.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Whistleblower Reveals FBI Tried to Open Criminal Cases on 140 People Just for Taking Bus to J6 Rally
Arecently retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst told Congress in a whistleblower disclosure that agents in Boston were improperly pressured by Washington to open criminal cases on 140 people who had simply taken a bus ride to the Jan. 6 rally in Washington. The agents refused because there was no evidence the attendees engaged in any criminality, the whistleblower said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
White House Says Blog Post on Nord Stream Explosion ‘Utterly False’
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The White House on Wednesday dismissed a blog post by a U.S. investigative journalist alleging the United States was behind explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines as “utterly false and complete fiction.”
Reuters has not corroborated the report, published by U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, which said an attack was carried out at the direction of President Joe Biden.
“This is utterly false and complete fiction,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council. A State Department spokesperson said the same.
The pipelines are multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects designed to carry Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Sweden and Denmark, in whose waters the blasts occurred, have both concluded the pipelines were blown up deliberately, but have not said who might be responsible.
The United States and NATO have called the incident “an act of sabotage.” Moscow has blamed the West for the unexplained explosions that caused the ruptures, without providing evidence.
| — Hat tip: LP | [Return to headlines] |
A Third of Berlin Residents Feel Unsafe in Own Neighborhoods
Roughly a third of people living in Berlin say they feel unsafe in their own neighborhoods, according to a new survey.
Just 68% of respondents told the German research firm Forsa they felt secure in their districts, an “extremely low number compared to other cities,” notes the report, which was prepared for Berliner Zeitung.
In comparison, 93% of residents of Bonn said they feel safe.
The lion’s share (77%) of Berliners said they would not allow their underage children to ride buses and trains alone at night.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Addressing UK Parliament, Zelensky Thanks Country ‘In Advance’ For Warplanes
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the British Parliament Wednesday afternoon, expressing his view on military alliances in terms of equipment transfers, and thanking the United Kingdom “in advance” for the gift of its warplanes.
The speaker of the British House of Commons was presented with a signed combat pilot’s helmet by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday afternoon, saying the gift should act as a symbol to help get Western warplanes donated to the Ukrainian war effort. Indicating, perhaps, that he now considers getting British fighter jets is now a fait accompli Zelensky said in his address to the UK Parliament that he was “thanking all of you —in advance — for powerful English planes”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Britain Will Train Ukraine to Fly Western Fighter Jets, Sunak Announces as Zelensky Lands in London
The United Kingdom is expanding its training of Ukrainian forces to “fighter jet pilots”, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced Wednesday as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in London on a surprise visit on an RAF jet.
The British Prime Minister is “proud” to announce the United Kingdom is to start training Ukrainian pilots on jet fighters, which he says combined with long-term pledges to provide equipment to the invaded nation will allow the country to defend itself in the coming years.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
EU to Ban ‘Fast Fashion’ To Tackle Environmental Waste
The European Union (EU) is looking to enact new policies to phase out “fast fashion” to reduce the amount of clothing waste among member states and encourage manufacturers to create lasting products.
The EU strategy has set a target of 2030 to implement changes that will see textile and clothing products placed on the market in the bloc to be both fully recyclable and have a long lifespan, in order to cut down on the estimated 15lbs of clothing waste per person per year.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France Announces Aim to Block Children From Porn Sites by Verifying Identities of Computer Users
A form of digital age verification will soon be required in order to access porn sites in France, a minister has claimed.
Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s Digital Transition and Telecommunications Minister, has reportedly declared that all adults will soon need to verify their age before accessing porn sites in the country, with anonymous consumption of porn soon to allegedly be blocked in the country.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
French Strikes Halt Fuel Shipments From Refineries
The French nationwide strike over proposed pension reform (Macron is seeking to raise the retirement age from 62 to, gasp, 64; the French say “non”) which we profiled last week, interrupted on Tuesday the shipment of fuels from refineries and a fuel depot of TotalEnergies, the French supermajor told Reuters.
Workers and employees in various sectors, including the energy sector, civil servants, and teachers, have been staging strikes for weeks to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: ‘Last Generation’ Climate Protesters Miss Court Date Because They Flew to Bali
Two climate activists who blocked traffic in the German city of Stuttgart earlier this year missed their court date because they flew to Bali and Indonesia, for a round trip of 23,000 kilometers producing 7.9 tons of CO2 emissions.
In September 2022, Yannick S. and his girlfriend Luisa S., both members of the Last Generation activist group, blocked commuter traffic in Stuttgart. The two were cited by police, but when their court date arrived, it was revealed that neither could attend because they were on the other side of the planet on vacation.
The two climate activists are now being held up as an example of the hypocrisy of many such activists who come from wealthy families that can afford the type of backpacking trip typical of this social class. At the same time, many of these same individuals have blockaded airports, arguing that airplanes are responsible for a significant amount of CO2 emissions and are only available to the “wealthy” percentage of the population.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
‘He F**ks Like Crazy’ — Michel Houllebecq Stars in Porn Film Produced by Dutch Art Collective
Michel Houellebecq, considered France’s greatest living author and a potential Nobel laureate, is now set to become a porn star in a graphic new documentary film “KIrac 27,” produced by the Dutch art collective KIRAC.
“He f**ks like crazy,” said Stefan Ruitenbeek, the Dutch director of the film, who spoke to Vice about the documentary for the first time and his relationship with Houellebecq.
Ruitenbeek described a depressed Houellebecq whose only real joy in life at the age of 66 is having sex. Qianyun Lysis Li, the author’s younger wife, plays an active role in procuring a dwindling number of women willing to sleep with the aging literary star. Ruitenbeek then steps in and helps procure women willing to sleep with Houellebecq for the new film, which has yet to be released but is already drawing international attention.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Plurality of Germans Believe Sanctions Are Hurting Them More Than Russia
Over four in ten Germans believe that the sanctions levied against Moscow in response to the war in Ukraine have done more harm to their country than Russia.
A poll conducted this month by the opinion research institute Forsa on behalf of RTL Germany found that 43 per cent of German citizens feel that the sanctions against Russia have actually inflicted more pain on their country, compared to less than one third (32 per cent) who believe the contrary, and 20 per cent who believe that the sanctions have hit both countries equally.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Romania Protests Hungarian Minority’s Use of Szekler Flag
On Tuesday, the Romanian Foreign Ministry summoned Hungary’s ambassador in Bucharest to inform him that all 20 national minorities in Romania are free to use their symbols, but there is no territorial administrative unit called “Szeklerland” in the country that would create a legal basis for the use of a specific official symbol.
The Romanian foreign ministry’s statement strongly disapproves of a Facebook post by Zsolt Németh, chairman of the Hungarian parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Monday, which says that “Romania would allegedly restrict the right to use the flag of the so-called Szeklerland.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Issues Rare Ban Over Quran Burning Rally
An anti-NATO rally in Stockholm that would have included the burning of a Quran has not been allowed to go ahead. It comes after a similar incident sparked threats from NATO member Turkey.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The UK’s terrorism prevention programme is focusing too much on the perceived “mental illness” of would-be perpetrators rather than the dangerous ideology they hold, an official report on the project’s performance will say today.
An examination into the UK’s “Prevent” anti-terrorism programme will accuse it of putting too much emphasis on treating the “mental illness” of extremists, rather than tackling the effects of dangerous ideologies when it is published today, previews in the UK establishment press claim.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK Government Disincentivising Poor People From Getting Married Through Benefits System: Report
Welfare handouts are harming marriage in the United Kingdom by creating perverse incentives that see the less-well-off get more benefits by having children out of wedlock, while wealthier couples who don’t rely on state aid are twice as likely to be married before having children, a foundation has claimed.
The UK government’s policy of favouring single people, in which parents who live alone have greater entitlements to receive welfare and other state benefits, has resulted in only a small minority of children born to the poorest parents raised in two-parent households, a report from the Marriage Foundation has found. Conversely, children born to wealthier parents are privileged even further, as such households can afford to withstand anti-family policies and become married before having children, therefore giving them the ability to raise their children in a more positive environment to foster functioning members of society.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey-Syria Quake Death Toll Hits 11,000+ As Frantic Searches Go on
Thinly stretched rescue workers dug through the night into Wednesday morning to reach survivors trapped beneath the rubble of the devastating earthquakes that rocked southern Turkey and war-ravaged northern Syria two days ago.
The combined death toll rose to more than 9,500 across the two countries as the morning progressed, with expectations the grim figure will pass 11,000 before the day is out, making the quake the deadliest in more than a decade.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Did Biden Give the Order to Destroy Putin’s Nord Stream Pipeline After Ukraine Invasion?
Bombshell report claims Navy divers carried out mission to kill Russia’s gas stranglehold on Europe in audacious mission overseen by president
Specialized U.S. Navy diving teams carried out the bombing attack against the underwater Nord Stream pipelines which supply Russian gas to western Europe during a top secret mission overseen by President Joe Biden, a bombshell report claims.
Divers planted C4 explosives on three Nord Stream pipelines in June 2022 which were detonated three months later using a sonar buoy which broadcast a signal that triggered the bombs, according to the report.
The sensational report by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, published to his Substack, cites a source ‘with direct knowledge of the operational planning’ behind the alleged plot.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Polish General Warns That Zelensky Has Nuclear Weapon
Apparently it’s no longer just about tanks and fighter jets for Ukraine: According to Polish General Waldemar Skrzyptzak (67), the government in Kiev is said to have nuclear weapons once again. Other experts believe that even if they do not have such a weapon now, they’ll have one soon.
In an interview, one of Poland’s best-known military officers gave an analysis of where Europe might be headed in the war in Ukraine: General Waldemar Skrzyptzak said in an interview with radio station Wnet that President Zelensky’s government probably already has nuclear weapons.
This was not absurd, explained the general: “Ukraine has officially had no nuclear weapons since the early 1990s, when it agreed to hand them over to Russia under international agreements. Now the reality could be very different.”
The General concluded: “I do not rule out that Ukraine has nuclear weapons, because Ukrainians have nuclear power plants, scientists, laboratories and know-how. So you have everything to own such a weapon. In fact, as of today, no one will forbid Ukrainians from doing it.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Putin Ally Calls for Russia to ‘Denazify and Demilitarize’ Poland Followed by All of Europe
An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin is suggesting that Moscow should “denazify and demilitarize” Poland, then the rest of Europe after conquering Ukraine.
“As part of supporting Ukraine, Warsaw has managed to deplete its own military resources, and now it is confused,” Kremlin-appointed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov posted Monday on Telegram.
He also asked: What if, after the successful completion of the invasion of Ukraine, “Russia begins to denazify and demilitarize the next country? After all, after Ukraine, Poland is on the map!”
Poland, which borders Ukraine and the Russian ally of Belarus, has supported Kyiv’s fight against Russia, including sending 60 tanks to Ukraine last month.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Roger Waters Accused of Being ‘Putin Apologist’ by Former Band Mate as He Calls for Peace in Ukraine
Pink Floyd’s primary song writer and creative force Roger Waters has been viciously verbally attacked by his own former band mate David Gilmour as a ‘Putin apologist’ for calling for peace in Ukraine.
Gilmour, who has feuded with Waters for decades, didn’t directly lambast Waters, however, he simperingly retweeted the scathing words of his wife, author Polly Samson.
Samson launched the verbal assault in response to the publication of an interview Waters gave to German newspaper Berliner Zeitung in which he called for peace and said that Western politicians should attempt to better understand Putin’s motivations.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine War: Borrowed Time for Bakhmut as Russians Close in
The soil of Bakhmut is dusted with snow and soaked with blood. This small city in Eastern Ukraine is at the centre of an epic battle.
For more than six months Russian forces have tried to claim it. Ukrainian troops have resisted, giving rise to the popular slogan here “Bakhmut holds.”
Now the Russians are attacking from three sides, with regular troops and fighters from the notorious Wagner mercenary group. The Russians have reached one of the main highways into the city, and are closing in on the outskirts.
There is house-to-house fighting in some areas on the outskirts, with “hard battles for every home” according to the Ukrainian military.
| — Hat tip: JW | [Return to headlines] |
Why Zelenskyy Visited the U.K. Nearly 1 Year Into Russia’s War on Ukraine
LONDON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a surprise visit to the United Kingdom, one of his very rare trips outside Ukraine since Russia invaded the country nearly one year ago.
Zelenskyy is seeking more advanced weapons from one of Ukraine’s strongest international backers as the Ukrainian military prepares for an anticipated Russian offensive and potential Ukrainian counterattacks to reclaim territory.
The Ukrainian leader met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and delivered a speech to the British Parliament, thanking the U.K. for its support and weaponry, then promptly requested even more — especially fighter jets. He also met with King Charles III.
The trip is the first leg of an unannounced European tour for Zelenskyy — as the French government has just confirmed he will be visiting Paris later Wednesday for dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. On Thursday, Zelenskyy may also travel to Brussels for meetings with other European Union leaders, after the office of the EU Council President Charles Michel invited him.
Here’s why Zelenskyy made this rare visit to the U.K…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan’s ‘Purification’ Campaign Against Its Minorities
When Pakistan was created in 1947, 23% of its population was non-Muslim. Today in Pakistan — “Land of the Pure” in Urdu — only about 3% of the population is non-Muslim. At present, about 80-85% of its citizenry are Sunni Muslim. Pakistan’s appalling treatment of Hindus, Christians, Shia Muslims and other Islamic sects, such as the Ahmadis, has caused many minorities to leave the country. Most Hindus have migrated to India, others to Singapore and Hong Kong.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
China Tested Balloon Carrying 3 Hypersonic Missiles in 2018
Footage from Chinese Communist Party-controlled state media has resurfaced that shows the testing of a balloon carrying three hypersonic missiles in 2018.
China’s CCP-run media aired the footage of the high-altitude balloon dropping the missiles onto targets on the ground.
The clip has been raising concerns on social media as the aircraft is not dissimilar to the Chinese spy balloon that just traversed, unchallenged, across the United States last week.
In September 2018, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on the weapons test.
The footage has since been deleted from Chinese media.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Officials Demand Spy Balloon Debris be Returned
Chinese officials are calling on the US to return their surveillance balloon that was shot down and recovered off the coast of South Carolina over the weekend, arguing that China has seen American “spy balloons” as well.
In a Monday interview on LCI, China’s ambassador to France Lu Shaye said, “If a person picks up something on the street and knows who the owner is, he should return it to the owner.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Former teacher Malka Leifer, 56, is standing trial accused of sexually abusing Melbourne sisters Nicole Meyer, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper when they were her students between 2003 and 2007.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Video Shows Labor Candidate Terry Campese Dressed as a ‘Sexy’ Cop
Terry Campese, the Labor candidate for the NSW seat of Monaro in the south of the state, attended an adults-only party last year — wearing only blue underwear, a tie and a police hat.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Angela Merkel Receives UNESCO Peace Prize in Ivory Coast
For her ‘open door’ refugee policy in 2015, the former German chancellor was awarded the Felix Houphouet-Boigny UNESCO Peace Prize in Ivory Coast’s capital Yamoussoukro.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Filthy Migrant Squat is Producing Diseases Not Seen in Europe for Years
Belgian doctors are raising the alarm after encountering diseases they have never seen before in the country appearing in a migrant squat outside of Brussels.
Since last October, nearly 1,000 asylum seekers have lived in squalid conditions after illegally occupying a former Federal Ministry of Finance building in Schaerbeek, which is a suburb of Brussels. Residents in the area have complained about the squat for some time, saying the immigrants are constantly fighting with one another, raising concerns about public safety.
However, due to a lack of hygiene, professional cleaning, and unsanitary conditions, disease is also now running rampant in the building.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Biden’s Border Crisis: Quebec Officials Slam NYC for Shuttling Illegal Migrants to Canadian Border
Officials from Quebec have been caught off guard following revelations that illegal migrants are being shuttled to the Canada/US border from New York on taxpayer-funded buses.
The province’s immigration minister, Christine Fréchette, said she was “surprised” such a scenario was allowed to play out.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New Shock Forecast for Immigration to Germany
The first forecasts for the new year in terms of uncontrolled immigration are catastrophic. Around 800 000 new “refugees” are expected by the German Ministry of the Interior for 2023. But that’s probably just a “slimmed down” official number. Last year, an unbelievable 1,4 million people immigrated to Germany.
The new forecast gave rise to incomprehension in the districts and municipalities concerned. Nobody knows how and where the expected newcomers will be accommodated.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Christian Students Sue Smithsonian for Kicking Them Out Over Pro-Life Hats
Christian students are suing the Smithsonian National Air Space Museum (NASM) for allegedly violating their First and Fifth Amendment rights by kicking them out for wearing pro-life hats following the 50th annual March for Life.
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) filed the lawsuit on Monday in the federal district court for the District of Columbia on behalf of nine students and three parents it says were “unlawfully targeted for their religious pro-life views” on January 20, 2023.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Disney to Lay Off 7,000 as Woke Corporation Struggles to Recoup Subscriber Losses
On Wednesday, recently re-instated Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that the entertainment giant would be laying off 7,000 of its employees and undergo mass restructuring as it attempts to rebound from the last quarter of Fiscal Year 2022.
On the chopping block is Disney’s Media and Entertainment Distribution team, a holdover from the era of Iger’s predecessor Bob Chapek. The technology and product team, which oversaw the release of content on Disney+, is set to be dismantled entirely in favor of a replacement that puts creators back in the driver’s seat.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
We need to talk abut Madonna’s face.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
There were lively scenes outside the National Arts Centre in Ottawa Wednesday as a group of people protesting a “family friendly” drag queen story time event were met by a large counter-protest of LGBTQ+ activists.
Members of the group Save Canada, as well as other concerned Canadians, staged a protest outside the “all ages” event, which featured drag performers Cyril Cinder and China Doll. Josh Alexander, one of the organizers of the protest, told The Post Millennial he believes drag is inherently sexual and his issue is not with the LGBTQ+ community, but with children being exposed to such performances.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Ottawa Mayor Promotes Drag Queen Storytime Featuring X-Rated Performer
Ottawa mayor Mark Sutcliffe promoted an all-ages drag queen storytime for kids which features a performance by an x-rated entertainer.
As reported by True North, several drag queen storytimes are being advertised to children during the capital’s ongoing Winter Pride festival including one at the National Arts Centre (NAC).
In a tweet, Sutcliffe said the event celebrated Ottawa’s status as a welcoming and inclusive city.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Parents Sue After Nevada School Assigns 15-Year-Old Pornographic Monologue to Memorize
A Nevada family is suing their daughter’s school district and several school employees after a teacher allegedly assigned their child an “obscene, sexual activity as a class assignment,” reports KSNV.
Candra and Terrell Evans are bringing legal action against the Clark County School District (CCSD) after their 15-year-old daughter was assigned to perform an obscene monologue in a theater class about a girl coming out as lesbian to her boyfriend.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Scottish Police Refuse to Call Transgender Butcher Who Kidnapped 11-Year-Old Girl a Man
Scottish police defied efforts to allow criminals who have committed predatory attacks against women to legally identify as women by referring to a transgender butcher who kidnapped an 11-year-old girl as a man.
The 11-year-old girl disappeared on Sunday in Gattonside near Galashiels and was missing for more than a day before being found “safe and well” at home after an agonizing search and rescue mission by authorities.
Andrew George Miller was subsequently taken into custody on Monday night, with police describing him as a “53-year-old man,” despite Miller supposedly “transitioning” to become Amy six years ago and dressing as a woman.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
An anon broke ChatGPT, and it’s pretty hilarious and very revealing.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Top Gender Dysphoria Expert: Most Children Grow Out of Transgender Confusion
One of the world’s leading experts on gender dysphoria has warned that most children grow out of confusion about being transgender as they get older.
True cases of actual gender dysphoria are incredibly rare.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the condition can cause discomfort or distress due to feelings of being trapped in the body of the wrong biological sex.
Even the most severe cases of gender dysphoria in children are often just a phase that passes with age.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Watch: Woke Teacher Forces Students to Pledge Allegiance to the Pride Flag
A TikTok video posted to Twitter has revealed a young activist teacher bragging about having her students pledge allegiance to the Progress Pride flag.
The tattooed teacher with brightly colored hair and multiple piercings can be seen miming standing for the pledge of allegiance in her classroom and looking around confused while the caption reads, “my students on the first day realizing I don’t have an American flag in my room.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
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From Danish Berlingske Tidende
https://www.berlingske.dk/kommentatorer/for-faa-aar-siden-maatte-ingen-stille-spoergsmaal-til-svensk
A few years ago no one was allowed to question Swedish immigration, now Sweden wants to put the military in gang conflicts with automatic weapons and bombs.
Sweden’s police chief warns that crime in Sweden is alarmingly high – imagine if we had dared to talk about it several years ago, writes Paulina Neuding.
“So this is the situation in the country, where just four years ago, Social Democratic Prime Minister Stefan Löfven repeated, ‘We didn’t see it coming’, about gang crime, and claimed that there was no link between gang violence and immigration,” writes Neuding.
“The crime trend we are now seeing in Sweden is exceptional, incredibly serious and at a level we have never seen before in Sweden.”
That’s what Anders Thornberg, head of the National Police, and several of the country’s top police chiefs wrote in an opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter this weekend.
At the same time, the capital is still plagued by a wave of violence that has been going on since just before the New Year. Of 35 shootings in January, 17 took place in Stockholm. Three of them were fatal.
It is not just the violence itself that is shocking. The Swedish social debate is also unrecognisable.
About ten years ago, I had the opportunity to interview a number of prominent politicians and I made sure to ask a question that I felt was missing from a serious debate in Sweden: how immigration had affected crime and what the consequences of immigration policy should be.
The trend towards growing parallel societies, where crime was a feature of everyday life, was already underway at the time.
But the answers I received confirmed above all that the issue was indeed taboo.
I particularly remember how Sweden’s then bourgeois Minister of Justice, Beatrice Ask of the Moderates, first tried to play it down by saying that we should be glad that people wanted to come to a country with such bad weather. When I insisted, the minister responded with moral indignation, as if the issue was beyond all decency.
It was like a trip down the corridor of opinion.
There are few traces of this zeitgeist in the current wave of violence.
At the moment, there is no talk of safeguarding “Sweden’s image”, Sweden’s image as the great humanitarian power in contrast to a limited and prejudiced Denmark.
Denmark is now being held up, with a certain obviousness, as a role model in the debate on law enforcement.
But it has come too late.
This weekend’s opinion piece from the police leadership contains descriptions of situations that would have seemed dystopian not so long ago.
Crime has “created a historically high burden” on the authorities, the police directorate writes.
“Prosecutors, witnesses and offenders who previously spoke to the police and testified in court almost never provide information now.”
“Children commit serious violent crimes.”
And all this despite the fact that “police and prosecutors have never before arrested so many – detention centres and prisons are overcrowded.”
That we are dealing with a crime of historic proportions is something that most Swedes have probably realised just by following the news.
An investigation by SVT has shown that, on average, there were bomb explosions every other day in January 2023. More than 450 people, including 70 children, live in the stairwells that have been subjected to bomb attacks in the first month of the year alone. One of them, a mother, told SVT that she woke up to a loud bang.
“The police shouted: ‘It’s a bomb, stay inside – go back’ Then came the terror that I had to protect my child.”
So this is the situation in the country where Social Democratic Prime Minister Stefan Löfven repeated his mission just four years ago: ‘We didn’t see it coming’ about gang crime, claiming there was no link between gang violence and immigration.
But this is a situation that the Swedish left and right together have led us into.
Löfven’s predecessor as prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt of the Moderates, claimed as recently as 2014 in an interview with the Danish newspaper Politiken that Sweden could safely continue its immigration policy:
“I often fly around the Swedish countryside and I recommend others to do so. There are endless fields and forests.
There is as much space as you can imagine. Those who claim the country is full need to show where it is full.”
What happened on the ground in the country that Reinfeldt flew over was best not to ask the wrong questions about, unless you wanted someone to question your decency.
The new bourgeois government is now opening up the possibility of using the armed forces in the fight against crime. The Minister of Justice is no longer Beatrice Ask, but Gunnar Strömmer from the same party. He announced last week that there are no concrete proposals on the table yet, but that the government is currently discussing how the armed forces could assist the police.
It is time and natural to explore this opportunity. The police are clearly unable to cope with the burden of criminal gangs. Moreover, there is an escalation with military weapons.
But does Sweden really need to consider deploying the military in conflicts where gangs in ghettos are fighting each other with automatic weapons and bombs? Imagine if we had had a functioning public dialogue on this from the start.
Paulina Neuding is a commentator and former editor-in-chief of the magazine Neo and the online media Kvartal, for a number of years editorial and columnist at Svenska Dagbladet and former European editor at the English-language media Quillette.
“Europe’s welfare states will soon be a thing of the past”
video: https://rumble.com/v28sg32-nyhetsveckan-special-41-gonzalo-lira-are-we-heading-for-ww3.html
Everybody knows it, primarily the military. The loss ratio between the Ukrainian and Russian armies is about 8:1, with the Ukrainians having lost 125,000 soldiers and the Russians 20,000. In addition, Ukraine’s population has halved due to emigration to the EU, the US and Russia from 40 to 20 million people. The big question now is how the war will end, not that it will be soon or that Russia will win, although they have had to change tactics from their original small expeditionary force.
Here’s a correction to the tragi-comic propaganda* that the Western media fills us with. that will interest you.
Gonzalo Lira was born in the United States, of Chilean descent, and now lives in Kharkov, Ukraine, where he has family. He has an honorary doctorate in history and philosophy from Dartmouth College, speaks Ukrainian and Russian, and is well versed in the circumstances, not least the war.
He is currently imprisoned by the Zelinsky regime, which believes him to be a Russian spy, so he has some restrictions on his freedom of expression while his case is being considered. It is not wrong.
He is an independent observer, unlike our media, journalists and political class, whose policies and lies are sending Europeans into long-term poverty. Needless to say, he does not give much for them, especially not Angela Merkel, and he does not do it in painful language.
He also believes that this is a proxy war between the US and Russia, that Europe is behaving like American vassal states and that the war is a knife in the heart of Europe.
First and foremost on the welfare states, which are rapidly being impoverished within five years. We will feel this in Denmark too, and we will not thank the EU in particular for its political idiocy, detachment from the people, selfishness and indifference to our welfare.
And how do Europeans think millions of European immigrants with no cultural background will behave when they themselves feel what the ‘land of milk and honey’ has become? There will be violent riots. He describes this vividly, as well as many other analyzes and scenarios for the course and outcome of the war. Very watchable.
Lira believes that the Western media has degenerated into propaganda to such an extent that it has lost so many customers and advertisers since the advent of the net that it is all dependent on the state, and in the US on giant corporations – for example, in the pharmaceutical industry. Their own survival is now much more important to them than the truth.
That is why today we read state propaganda and everything that is political priorities in them. Most people who read the news at all read the headlines and the first three lines and then believe it.
I think he is right. That is why the most important thing for a media user today is not to believe a word of what is written and broadcast in advance until it is confirmed by another, trustworthy source. This is our media climate now, not much better than that of the GDR, and it is populated by “journalists” who have allowed themselves to be degraded into prostitutes – Lira’s term.
Therefore, truth-seekers have to settle for the likes of me (us). We may be wrong, but at least we don’t do it on purpose and for money, and today I can boast that I was much more right about Sweden than I ever thought. Or the idiots who declared me an idiot over twenty years ago. Politiken [paper], for example, and their daydreaming circle of youthful idylls.
Europe’s bloody battles are planted
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This introduction to the Lira-video was
written by snaphanen.dk
I found a meme on the internet some time ago, I believe westernrifleshooters, where a full food aisle in a supermarket was shown and below an empty supermarket food aisle.
The upper picture had the line “This is an anomaly” and the lower one “And it can return to historical norms with frightening speed”
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How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the
United States executed a covert sea operation that
was kept secret—until now
Seymour Hersh
24 hr ago
The U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center can be found in a location as obscure as its name—down what was once a country lane in rural Panama City, a now-booming resort city in the southwestern panhandle of Florida, 70 miles south of the Alabama border. The center’s complex is as nondescript as its location—a drab concrete post-World War II structure that has the look of a vocational high school on the west side of Chicago. A coin-operated laundromat and a dance school are across what is now a four-lane road.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
It has, or will hit the fan. The Nord Pipeline sabotage was an act of war. Madame Hilarity or O’Bama most likely ordered it in revenge for Russia trashing their bioweapons laboratories. Us citizens will most likely bear the brunt of the Russian’s wrath. So, why don’t we just hogtie O’Bama, Hilarity, and Bidening his time, and send them to Russia so the Bear can have his lunch and then Bear with us as Trump will be returned to the Oval Office.
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Sweden focuses on NATO as economy, law and order declines
https://swebbtube.se/w/dScrhdQUbK6To1WVp4roHNSweden focuses on
NATO as economy, law and order declines
The Duran: Episode 1505