Psaki Dodges Questions On Biden "Weakness" Over Initiating Putin Summit

On Friday White House press secretary Jen Psaki was pressed on why President Biden appeared to initiate a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, yet without setting conditions, which is widely being viewed as a "weakness". This is also given as we and many others have pointed out that it effectively cuts out Kiev, leaving Ukraine's fate to be considered by the two superpowers at the table. For Putin, it appears that "saber-rattling" over Ukraine in the form of the troop build-up in Crimea and along the border has forced Biden's hand, effectively making Washington have to deal directly with Putin, precisely what the Kremlin has wanted all along.

She was asked at the daily briefing by a reporter: "Why would you announce a summit intention without a commitment? … A high-level meeting of this sort is often a point of leverage with the world leader… why aren’t there conditions?" Psaki fumbled through a response while avoiding the question head-on…

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/psaki-dodges-questions-biden-weakness-over-initiating-putin-summit

Russia Could Leave PACE In Light of Recent Anti-Russia Events, Senior Lawmaker Says

Russia could soon withdraw from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) amid the hostile western stance, particularly in what concerns Russian vlogger Alexey Navalny, Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the international affairs committee of the Russian State Duma, said.

"We can talk about a possible withdrawal from the Council of Europe, from its Parliamentary Assembly. You can only withdraw from the Council of Europe as a whole. I think that the Russian leadership will take … an adequate decision, corresponding to the fact that … the Council of Europe, and first of all PACE, is used … to inflict all sorts of attacks on Russia," Slutsky said on the Soloviev Live YouTube show.

He added that within the next few days, a harsh anti-Russian resolution was going to be adopted in relation to the Navalny case.

On Friday, a spokesperson of the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the European parliament, told Sputnik that there were calls for new EU sanctions against Russia amid a similar decision made by the US.

Earlier this week, Pyotr Tolstoy, the deputy chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, said that Russia was going to participate in the PACE spring session remotely, but could refuse to work at the PACE platform altogether if the rights of the country’s delegation are violated.

https://sputniknews.com/world/202104171082659001-russia-could-leave-pace-in-light-of-recent-anti-russia-events-senior-lawmaker-says/

Gillibrand: If You Redefine What Bipartisan Means, Biden Is a Bipartisan Leader

During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of PBS’ “Firing Line,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) argued that President Joe Biden can still say he’s a bipartisan leader, but this requires redefining what bipartisanship means.

Gillibrand said that Biden will still have credibility as a bipartisan leader even if both the coronavirus relief and infrastructure packages pass through reconciliation without Republican votes because “I think from a voters’ perspective, they see solving the COVID crisis, getting the economy up and running, the most bipartisan agenda you could have.”

Host Margaret Hoover then asked, “Is that a little bit redefining what bipartisanship means, though?”

Gillibrand responded, “It is. And I think that’s fair. But in this moment, when things have become so hyperpartisan, I still think it’s legitimate. And our job and the reason why we were elected and given the majority in the House and given the presidency was because the agenda that Joe Biden promised to get done. And so, I think the American people need us to do this. And if Mitch McConnell and the Republicans don’t want to help, that’s fine. I mean, it’s their choice. they’ve put politics over people. It’s not surprising, and I think it’s a mistake.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/04/17/gillibrand-if-you-redefine-what-bipartisan-means-biden-is-a-bipartisan-leader/

Bush Calls for 'Gradual' Path to Eventual Citizenship for Illegal Migrants Amid Influx at Border

In mid-March remarks on domestic policy, Bush already expressed his opinion that the US should find a way to legalize those illegal migrants who "have played by the rules." The ex-president claimed amid the current migrant influx that trying to return all of them back home would be a "political pipe dream."

Former President George W. Bush called for a "gradual" path to legal status and potentially citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants on Friday in his op-ed for The Washington Post, while also arguing that "amnesty" would be "fundamentally unfair."

In his opinion article, Bush previewed his own new book that he said would contain "principles for reform that can restore the people’s confidence in an immigration system that serves both our values and our interests," while his 2007 presidential bid for immigration reform was met with fierce opposition from his own party.

"The help and respect historically accorded to new arrivals is one reason so many people still aspire and wait to become Americans. So how is it that in a country more generous to new arrivals than any other, immigration policy is the source of so much rancor and ill will?" he wondered.

Bush lays out a series of options, starting with granting permanent legal status to undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children and were covered under Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy.

"One place to start is DACA. Americans who favor a path to citizenship for those brought here as children, known as "dreamers," are not advocating open borders," Bush wrote. "They just recognize that young men and women who grew up in the United States, and who never knew any other place as home, are fundamentally American. And they ought not be punished for choices made by their parents."

In terms of border protection, he alluded to the current situation on the southern border without actually speaking about it directly. "We need a secure and efficient border, and we should apply all the necessary resources — manpower, physical barriers, advanced technology, streamlined and efficient ports of entry, and a robust legal immigration system," he said.

"A grant of amnesty would be fundamentally unfair to those who came legally or are still waiting their turn to become citizens," Bush wrote about illegal immigrants already residing in the country.

He went on to note that anyone in the country illegally should be "brought out of the shadows through a gradual process in which legal residency and citizenship must be earned, as for anyone else applying for the privilege."

"Requirements should include proof of work history, payment of a fine and back taxes, English proficiency and knowledge of US history and civics, and a clean background check," he added.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202104171082658110-bush-calls-for-gradual-path-to-eventual-citizenship-for-illegal-migrants-amid-influx-at-border/

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part of the infertility insert

Hong Kong’s Fall a Harbinger of Communist China’s Takeover of Free World: Epoch Times Hong Kong Director

The suppressive climate in Hong Kong cultivated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—under which attackers can rampage the printing press of one of the city’s independent newspapers with impunity—is what Beijing hopes to foist on the West, according to the Guo Jun, director of the Hong Kong edition of The Epoch Times.

Once hailed for its democratic freedoms, Hong Kong has seen a steady rollback of its autonomy since it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Over the past year, Beijing imposed sweeping laws to criminalize vaguely defined acts of secession, subversion, and foreign collusion, while instituting electoral reforms declaring that only patriots could rule the territory.

Since then, authorities have prosecuted dozens under the new security law or other charges, including most recently media mogul Jimmy Lai, publisher of local outlet Apple Daily and a fierce critic of the Chinese regime.

“Hong Kong is the perfect example of how the CCP turned a free society into one where people fear speaking freely,” Guo said in a recent interview on The Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders.

“Today, even the Oscars can’t be aired in Hong Kong because movies have to be reviewed by the Chinese regime before they can be played in Hong Kong theaters. The Chinese regime, step by step, turned Hong Kong into this,” she said, adding that she has observed the same phenomenon happening in the West.

“Hollywood, some big tech companies, Wall Street, they need to do business with China, so they toe the Chinese Communist Party line when it comes to topics that the Chinese Communist Party does not like,” she said.

“Imperceptibly, things change around you and you realize the world is different,” she said.

“People don’t dare to say what they really feel because they fear being attacked or discriminated against.”

Some may find it hard to conceive that this could be happening in a free society, Guo said.

“But who’s behind all of this, controlling all of this? Who’s using financial incentives and China’s market as bargaining chips to change the entire world?” she said.

“We know it’s the Chinese Communist Party and it’s honed its skills in Hong Kong.”

https://www.ntd.com/hong-kongs-fall-a-harbinger-of-communist-chinas-takeover-of-free-world-epoch-times-hong-kong-director_599186.html

Woke Coca-Cola Was Invented By Slave Owning Confederate Colonel Who Was Addicted To Morphine

Coca-Cola was created by a slave owning Confederate soldier who became addicted to morphine.

Despite recently providing instructional material to its employees that taught them to “be less white,” the Coca-Cola company is seemingly running away from its own history and creator: slave owning Confederate Army colonel and morphine addicted John Pemberton.

Over a century before the company would become derided for purchasing an anti-white curriculum for its employees, Coca-Cola was invented by Pemberton, who – having sustained a devastating sabre wound while fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War – was addicted to morphine, and hoped the carbonated beverage would cure his addiction.

Prior to the Civil War, Pemberton married Anna Eliza Clifford Lewis, the daughter of a prominent Georgia planation owner. In 1854, Pemberton and his wife gave birth two a child, prompting her father to sell the young couple two slaves to assist with the raising of the child. Pemberton was also noted as owning a 20-year-old female slave in the 1860 Slave Schedule, suggesting he may have owned more than the two sold to him by his father-in-law.

Pemberton, and aspiring pharmacist and drug inventor, believed Coca-Cola could help him overcome his addiction to morphine, something he became dependent on after sustaining a saber injury during the Battle of Columbus, Georgia, during the Civil War.

According to the 2004 book, The Pursuit of Oblivion, Pemberton “was shot, slashed with a sabre, and scarred for life by the Yankees.” He later went bankrupt, and suffering from arthritis and “recurrent stomach pains,” Pemberton “became reliant on morphine” and came to “believe the claims of American medicine-makers that their coca products could be used to wean people from morphine addiction.”

By 1884, Pemberton began selling concotions of wine, coca leaves, and kola nuts. When prohibition came to Atlanta soon after, he instead sold a carbonated beverage made with coca leaves and kola nuts, calling his creation Coca-Cola.

Pemberton, however, struggled to market his creation and ultimately saw little profits during his lifetime. Following his death, the company ultimately became successful, eventually morphing into the corporate giant that provides materials to its employees which instructed them to “be less white.”

Ironically, LinkedIn sold the be less white curriculum to Coca-Cola and other major companies without knowledge of the person whose lectures were stolen to create the materials. LinkedIn ultimately made them unavailable after the media raised attention to the course, and National File tracked the materials’ creation to a Koch-funded company called Big Think, which specializes in tearing down Christianity and traditional American values in favor of the style of free market libertarianism favored by the Koch empire.

https://nationalfile.com/woke-coca-cola-was-invented-by-slave-owning-confederate-colonel-who-was-addicted-to-morphine/

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NOTABLE

>>13449351 2 days ahead of schedule

By Bill Gertz - The Washington Times - Thursday, April 15, 2021

FBI investigating Antifa for violent attacks, Director Wray says

The FBI is investigating far-left Antifa radicals linked to violent attacks around the country, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told Congress on Thursday.

Mr. Wray was asked his views on whether Antifa, a leftist radical group that has triggered violent attacks in several U.S. cities, is an organized group.

“We consider Antifa to be more of a movement,” Mr. Wray said during an appearance before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. “There are certainly local and regional nodes, individuals who self-identify with Antifa who commit violent attacks, citing that as their motivation. And we have a number of predicated investigations into such individuals.”

Antifa, he added “is a real thing. It is not a fiction.”

Mr. Wray‘s remarks appeared to step back from earlier comments suggesting the group was less of a threat. Last year, Mr. Wray testified that Antifa was viewed by the FBI as more an “ideology than an organization.”

“We take anarchist, violent extremism, much of which associates with the Antifa movement extremely seriously,” Mr. Wray said later in the hearing, adding that “it is something we investigate very aggressively.”

The number of investigations into Antifa violence “dramatically increased” over the past three years, Mr. Wray said, without elaborating.

“Last year we had more arrests in the anarchist/extremist space than in the past three years combined,” he said.

The lack of organization and structure of the group “does not mean that they are any less dangerous, or less threatening,” he said.

Antifa radicals have been spotted at protests in Minnesota over the recent apparent accidental shooting death of Daunte Wright by now-resigned police officer Kimberly Potter.

The shadowy Antifa radicals often are dressed in black hoodies and backpacks and in some cases helmets. They often carry shields that have been used in often violent protests.

Many of the Antifa protests took place last summer following the death of George Floyd in police custody, when Minneapolis was set ablaze by rioters.

Antifa radicals espouse anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and anti-state views while adhering to a number of left-wing and communist ideologies. The group was especially active in opposing the Trump administration. Antifa radicals also used violent protests to oppose conservative speakers on college campuses and elsewhere.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/15/fbi-investigating-antifa-violent-attacks-director-/

Military Bases Housing Migrant Children Plagued by Serial Sexual Abuse Claims

The Biden administration is now housing unaccompanied migrant children on military bases in Texas and California. Some of these bases have been plagued for years by record sexual abuse claims, one with the highest in the nation. All of them suffer from dangerous environmental contamination.

Over the first few months of 2021, the migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border has exploded. Due to the policies of the Obama, Trump and now Biden administrations, many of those migrants, particularly unaccompanied minors, remain housed in increasingly controversial “overflow facilities.”

Despite promises to reverse the policy, the Biden administration instead has taken the unprecedented step of now housing thousands of these unaccompanied minors on US military bases, a jolting move that hardly generated any attention from either the mainstream or independent media. This is true even for left-leaning outlets that spent much of the Trump era railing against and calling for the closure of these detention facilities as well as the increasing militarization of the US-Mexico border. The only exceptions have been those few outlets that covered the dangerous environmental contamination present at some of the bases now involved.

Currently, unaccompanied minors are being housed at two military bases in Texas and one in California. While there was media coverage of the decision to house children and teens at these bases, there was little journalistic interest in looking deeper into the issues of these particular bases, some of which are known for extremely unsanitary conditions or for allowing “serial rapists” to serve on base for years despite numerous reports about their crimes to base leadership. One of these bases has the highest rate of sexual assaults out of any joint base in the entire Department of Defense.

Not only that, but the US military’s computer network has consistently ranked among the top internet service providers for the trafficking of child pornography, further underscoring why military bases, particularly these military bases, are unsuitable for children.

Also concerning is the fact that US officials refuse to say how many children are being sent to these bases. HHS currently has more than 13,000 kids in their custody. That number is only projected to grow, with Customs and Border Protection now projecting that 184,000 unaccompanied minors could end up in government custody by this time next year.

In addition, these bases have not yet released photos of where the minors are kept and have even banned soldiers on these bases from photographing the areas where the children are being held. The tents they are housed in are said to be able to house 1,000 people each, implying that each base has received thousands of migrant children in recent weeks.

In recent years, prior to the current spike in the severity of the border crisis, thousands of migrant children that were placed into this system of “overflow facilities” and detention centers have been “lost” by the government and some have reported acts of physical and sexual abuse inside these facilities. These children’s reunification with their families can take months or years and, for many, it doesn’t happen at all. Now, with the opening up of these specific military bases to these unaccompanied children, it seems clear that these new, military-run enclosures are likely to be even more unsafe and are hardly a solution to the current situation on the US’ Southern border.

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/04/investigative-reports/military-bases-housing-migrant-children-plagued-by-serial-sexual-abuse-claims/

A School for Spooks: The London University Department Churning Out NATO Spies

LONDON — Last week, MintPress exposed how the supposedly independent investigative collective Bellingcat is, in fact, funded by a CIA cutout organization and filled with former spies and state intelligence operatives. However, one part of the story that has remained untold until now is Bellingcat’s close ties to the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, an institution with deep links to the British security state and one that trains a large number of British, American and European agents and defense analysts.

A school for spooks

A prestigious university located in the heart of London, King’s College has, in its own words, “a number of contracts and agreements with various departments within government, including the Cabinet Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Ministry of Defence.” Some of those contracts are up to 10 years long. The university has so far refused to elaborate on the agreements, telling investigative news outlet Declassified UK that doing so could undermine U.K. security services.

A 2009 study published by the CIA spoke approvingly of how beneficial it can be to “use universities as a means of intelligence training,” noting that, “exposure to an academic environment, such as the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, can add several elements that may be harder to provide within the government system.” The paper, written by two King’s College staffers, is essentially a request to the agency to send more of its recruits there, and boasts about how the department’s staff have “extensive and well-rounded intelligence experience” and how their programs “offer a containing space in which analysts from every part of the community can explore with each other the interplay of ideas about their profession.”

In 2013, former CIA Director Leon Panetta took time out of his schedule as then-secretary of defense to visit the Department of War Studies, where he expressed his profound gratitude to the unit. “I deeply appreciate the work that you do to train and to educate our future national security leaders, many of whom are in this audience,” he said, before adding that it was those young leaders who must ensure that NATO had the creativity, innovation and the commitment to develop and share capabilities in order to meet future security threats, citing the need to expand into tech, surveillance and cyberwarfare.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/79735/a-school-for-spooks-the-london-university-department-churning-out-nato.html

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https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/79735/a-school-for-spooks-the-london-university-department-churning-out-nato.html

>>13449483

These technical solutions, we now know, have largely entailed NATO indirectly taking control of social media. In 2018, Facebook announced that NATO’s cutout organization, the Atlantic Council, was becoming its “eyes and ears,” giving it significant control over curating its news feed, supposedly in an attempt to limit disinformation. Yet many of the most lurid stories around RussiaGate were started by the Council itself, which pumped out report after report accusing virtually every political movement in Europe outside the establishment beltway as being the “Kremlin’s Trojan Horses.”

King’s College staff have also been crucial in propagating the idea of Russian interference in American politics, with Professor Thomas Rid testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the “dark art” of Russian meddling, and condemning WikiLeaks and alternative media journalists as unwitting agents of disinformation. Rid previously described 2016 as the “biggest election hack in U.S. history.”

Earlier this year, Facebook also hired former NATO press officer and Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Ben Nimmo as head of its intelligence team. Meanwhile Reddit appointed former Atlantic Council Deputy Director of Middle Eastern Strategy Jessica Ashooh as its head of policy. And Eliot Higgins, of course, was a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council as well. In recent years, social media giants like Facebook and Google have radically altered their algorithms, demoting content from adversarial nations, but also attacking alternative media that challenge the power of NATO and the national security state.

Today, the Department of War Studies hosted an online seminar with two senior NATO officials who discussed what they saw as Russia and China’s increasingly aggressive actions, as well as new ways in which NATO can secure its control over the internet.

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Russia Tells Illegal Migrants from Post-Soviet Countries to Leave By June 15

Russia has asked migrants from post-Soviet states living there illegally to leave the country by June 15, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Friday.

In mid-December, President Vladimir Putin extended the residence status of foreign citizens living in Russia until June 15, 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic. This covered migrants from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries living in Russia without proper documentation.

“These people will be punished by expulsion and closure of borders” if they don’t leave by the June 15 deadline, RIA Novosti quoted Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Gorovoy as saying at an Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth meeting.

According to Interior Ministry data, more than 332,000 illegal migrants from Uzbekistan currently reside in Russia, along with 247,000 from Tajikistan, 152,000 from Ukraine, 120,000 from Azerbaijan, 115,000 from Kyrgyzstan, 61,000 from Armenia, 56,000 from Moldova and 49,000 from Kazakhstan.

Russia is experiencing a labor shortage due to pandemic-related border closures and is looking to simplify entry requirements for migrant workers in industries like construction and agriculture. More than a year since the start of the pandemic, only a handful of countries' citizens are permitted to enter Russia.

The Interior Ministry estimated late last year that nearly half of all migrants living in Russia before the pandemic had since left the country.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/04/16/russia-tells-illegal-migrants-from-post-soviet-countries-to-leave-by-june-15-a73623