Christian Porter to quit politics, ending career of a Liberal once touted as a future PM

Liberal MP Christian Porter says he will quit politics at the next election, after a year in which he fell from one of the highest positions of power in parliament to the backbench.

Announcing his resignation on Facebook, Mr Porter said he was quitting to spend more time with family.

"After a long time giving everything I could to the people of Pearce it’s now time to give more of what is left to those around me whose love has been unconditional," Mr Porter wrote.

"There are few, if any, constants left in modern politics. Perhaps the only certainty now is that there appears to be no limit to what some will say or allege or do to gain an advantage over a perceived enemy.

"This makes the harshness that can accompany the privilege of representing people, harder than ever before. But even though I have experienced perhaps more of the harshness of modern politics than most, there are no regrets."

Mr Porter was elected as the Member for Pearce in Perth's north in 2013, and quickly rose through the ranks to become attorney-general under former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and then under Scott Morrison.

He was openly mentioned in conversations in the corridors of parliament as a potential future prime minister.

But the West Australian MP became embroiled in controversy earlier this year after the ABC reported an unnamed cabinet minister had been accused of raping a woman in 1988, in a letter sent to Mr Morrison.

Mr Porter identified himself as the unnamed cabinet minister, and strenuously denied the allegation in a tearful press conference.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-01/christian-porter-to-quit-politics/100622928

Health Minister Greg Hunt will announce his retirement from politics in parliament this week

The Health Minister, who has helped lead Australia through the coronavirus pandemic for almost two years, is expected to make the announcement on Thursday, according to reports.

Health Minister Greg Hunt is reportedly expected to announce he will quit politics after 20 years.

Mr Hunt will on Thursday announce he will not recontest his Victorian seat of Flinders as parliament sits for the last time this year, according to the Australian Financial Review.

The father-of-two will continue to lead Australia through the coronavirus pandemic as Health and Aged Care Minister until the federal election, which is due by May next year.

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/reports-swirl-health-minister-greg-hunt-will-announce-retirement-from-politics-in-parliament-on-thursday/news-story/3771180e0bf34d38d51c677d69b7ec6b

Russian Forces Are Growing…In Russia! Pentagon Awkwardly Downplays Ukraine Invasion Hype

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday urged Western allies in NATO to act fast to "deter" Russian aggression aimed at the country's east, claiming that a Russian military assault could come "in the blink of an eye".

"What we are seeing is very serious. Russia has deployed a large military force in regions close to Ukraine's state border," he told reporters after weeks of widespread Western media assertions that at least 90,000 Russian troops are mustering near the border. "If Russia decides to undertake a military operation, things will happen in literally the blink of an eye," the foreign minister added.

Kuleba's numbers were even higher than common Western press estimates: "Moscow has massed 115,000 troops around Ukraine, on the Crimean peninsula," he was cited as saying. He also alleged tanks, military vehicles, and electronic warfare systems were also being positioned.

But the consistent response from the Kremlin has been to point out it's free to move its forces anywhere it wants within Russia's own sovereign borders. Ironically enough no officials in the US or anywhere else have actually disputed the reality that there's not been any attempt to breach Ukraine's borders.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby seemed to acknowledged this in statements the same day. He said the Pentagon is monitoring Russian troop movements… within Russia. Kirby described Russian forces as—

…"a continuing concern" and pledged US support for Ukrainian forces, though he downplayed expectations of a direct US military intervention.

"We continue to see movement, we continue to see additions" to their forces near the Ukrainian border, said Kirby.

"We're watching it very closely," he told reporters, adding: "We don't envision any US military intervention in this conflict."

To be sure, if US intelligence actually believed Putin is preparing an "imminent" invasion (as an initial Bloomberg report and some US officials earlier this month claimed), Kirby would now be threatening US military intervention to prevent such an offensive.

But instead Kirby is obviously downplaying the "invasion" scenario, and is reduced to admitting the Pentagon is merely "watching" the "movement" of Russian troops within Russia's own territory. He with a serious tone told the press pool that Russian troops are growing…in Russia.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russian-forces-are-growingin-russia-pentagon-awkwardly-downplays-ukraine-invasion-hype

WTF?

Secretary of Defense Sends out Memo to Force Full Vaccination of All Members of the Armed Forces Under DoD Authority

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that the Air Force last week announced that anyone not vaccinated for COVID is no longer eligible for a permanent change of station.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget is telling federal agencies behind the scenes that they should refrain from suspending or firing federal workers who have not complied with Biden’s authoritarian vaccine mandate until the holidays are over, according to a memo obtained by ABC News.

Today the Secretary of Defense dropped another memorandum to all the Secretaries of the Military Departments. The memo directs the secretaries to immediately begin full vaccination of all members of the Armed Forces. This includes all members under Department of Defense authority on active duty or in the Ready Reserve including the National Guard.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/secretary-defense-sends-memo-force-full-vaccination-members-armed-forces-dod-authority/

Clinton Foundation Donations Hit Lowest Point in a Decade, Down 75% Since 2016

Donations to the Clinton Foundation hit $16.3 million last year, the lowest amount in at least a decade, down close to 75 percent from its 2016 peak of $62.9 million.

IRS filings revealed the Clinton Foundation received $16.3 million last year in grants and contributions. Some of the largest donors in 2020 include the Norwegian government, Haim and Cheryl Saban, and the Walton family.

The 2020 donations are a significant decrease from its 2019 numbers, when the foundation raked in $29.6 million in donations. In 2018, the foundation took in $24.2 million. In 2017, the foundation received $26.6 million in donations.

“While 2020 brought urgent needs to address from the pandemic and a deepened focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion; it also was a difficult year for philanthropy,” Clinton Foundation CEO Kevin Thurm said. “Across the sector, resources were stretched thinly and fundraising activities were impacted.”

75 percent of nonprofit organizations said the pandemic negatively impacted revenues and fundraising, according to tax and accounting firm BDO.

Donations to the Clinton Foundation peaked in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and ran for U.S. president. The Clinton Foundation took in $62.9 million in donations that year.

As the Clintons lose their political relevance, so too do they lose donations to their foundation.

Indiana University professor Leslie Lenkowsky who studies philanthropy said, “I think it largely reflects the fact that the Clintons are less prominent these days and their ability to raise funds has been affected by that.” He also described the Clinton Foundation as a “celebrity foundation,” where donations to the organization rely mostly on the fame of its founders.

The Clinton Foundation operates the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Bill Clinton will appear this week to celebrate the center’s 20th anniversary.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/11/30/clinton-foundation-donations-hit-lowest-point-decade/

Pentagon Orders New Probe into Syria Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered a new investigation into a 2019 airstrike in Syria that led to multiple civilian deaths, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby announced on Monday.

The renewed probe will be led by U.S. Army Forces commander Gen. Michael Garrett within a 90-day deadline. It aims to review “reports of investigation already conducted” while simultaneously conducting “further inquiry into the facts and circumstances” of the U.S. airstrike that killed dozens of women and children, Kirby said.

The news follows an investigation published by The New York Times earlier this month, titled “How the U.S. Hid an Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians in Syria.”

Its report revealed that the March 18, 2019 airstrike on ISIS in Baghouz, Syria, was carried out by a classified American special operations unit, called Task Force 9, which was in charge of ground operations in Syria, and resulted in the deaths of as many as 70 civilians.

There were mostly women and children in the region hit by the strike, the Times reported, noting that the Baghuz strike was one of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the war against the Islamic State, but it has never been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. military.

The investigation also alleged that top officers and civilian officials attempted to downplay these figures.

The probe will cover “civilian casualties that resulted from the incident, compliance with the law of war” and “whether accountability measures would be appropriate,” Kirby said.

Garrett will also be asked to recreate the timeline of the original probe into the incident after it was “stalled and stripped of any mention of the strike,” according to the Times.

It comes after Austin earlier this month said that the U.S. military was “committed” to getting right its transparency about strikes and how they are conducted.

“The American people deserve to know that we take this issue very seriously. And that we are committed to protecting civilians and getting this right both in terms of how we execute missions on their behalf and how we talk about them afterwards,” Austin said at a press briefing on Nov. 17. “And I recognize that and I’m committed to doing this in full partnership with our military leaders.”

Kirby said on Monday that Austin decided to order a new probe after being briefed on the matter by Central Command head Gen. Kenneth McKenzie earlier this month.

https://www.zerohedge.com/military/pentagon-orders-new-probe-syria-airstrike-killed-dozens-civilians

Left-wing wife of ousted Honduran leader wins presidential election

Xiomara Castro, the wife of ousted former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, was pronounced the winner of Honduras’ presidential election on Tuesday after rival Nasry Asfura conceded defeat.

Asfura conceded the election after 52% of the counted votes showed Castro had a clear majority of 53% over Asfura’s 34% and he publicly congratulated her victory, saying, “I hope that God illuminates and guides her so that her administration does the best for the benefit of all of us Hondurans, to achieve development and the desires for democracy.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also congratulated Castro for becoming Honduras’ first female president and said the US was looking forward to working with her government.

“We congratulate Hondurans for the high voter turnout, peaceful participation, and active civil society engagement that marked this election, signaling an enduring commitment to the democratic process,” Blinken declared.

Castro previously served as Honduras’ first lady between 2006 and 2009, up until her husband Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a military coup. Zelaya claimed the US was behind the coup and attributed it to his signing of Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

“The US warned me: If you sign the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas (ALBA), you’re going to have problems with the US. I signed it, and six months later, I had problems,” he told RT America in 2019, adding, “When you give them competition in the free market, they stop being capitalist. They become retrograde, authoritarian, and they play coups, wars, invasions.”

https://www.rt.com/news/541812-xiomara-castro-wins-honduras/

Goldman Partners With Amazon To Launch New Cloud Computing Platform

Goldman Sachs and Amazon are launching their most ambitious collaboration yet: a new cloud computing service geared toward Wall Street firms to help them with high-frequency trading and other practices.

And all these firms need to do is agree to entrust their entire back-end IT setup to the Vampire Squid to access what Amazon is touting as one of the fastest and most useful back-end systems available to Wall Street firms looking to transition on to the cloud.

The new product - the result of a two-year collaboration with Amazon - will allow buy-side and sell-side firms to access all of Goldman's tools for quickly analyzing market data while enabling clients to set up high-speed trading strategies. Instead of simply relying on Goldman for prime brokerage services, hedge funds could soon outsource most of their IT setup to Wall Street's most powerful investment bank, with a critical assist from Amazon.

CNBC said the collaboration is in line with Goldman's attempt to use technology to better serve clients of the firm's markets division.

“Clients of the firm will get access to our decades of experience and data aggregation that should enable them to enhance their business decisions, both from a speed and efficiency perspective,” Solomon told CNBC last week in a phone interview. “We think that adds to our position as a leader in the marketplace."

The new service, called GS Financial Cloud for Data with Amazon Web Services, will purportedly allow buy side firms to save time by allowing developers to focus on what matters - making sure trades are filed and filled as quickly as possible, rather than wasting time wrangling data sets and leaning on a patchwork of legacy software to analyze said data. It will also “lower the barriers to entry” for firms to use advanced quantitative trading techniques, Goldman said.

To be sure, using Goldman's IT platform will also help the Vampire Squid monitor the activities of clients, granting Goldman the transparency to avoid any overlevered time bombs like Archegos.

The industry is struggling to keep up with the rising technological demands of the latest investment techniques, according to Goldman co-chief CIO Marco Argenti.

Argenti added that "if this existed, we would have used it…but we had to build it for ourselves. All you need to do is assemble the interface and integrate it with your application and then everything else is kind of taken care of for you."

Put another way: once Goldman is running the buy side's back end, firms will effectively be forced to trade with Goldman (not to mention the treasure drove of data and information that Goldman might glean from the arrangement). Nothing's free on Wall Street.

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/goldman-partners-amazon-launch-new-cloud-computing-product

>>15112296

Wife of Dr Andreas Noack Reports His Murder 4 Days After Vid on Nano-razors of Graphene Hydroxide

https://www.bitchute.com/video/7JAtY5eVlnw1/

China Is The Primary Source Of Another Plague Killing Americans

While many in the U.S. have attacked China for its role in allowing COVID-19 to spread across the globe, China is also the primary source of another plague that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in recent years: Fentanyl.

Opioid and drug overdose deaths skyrocketed 200% in the U.S. from 2000 to 2014, and haven’t stopped increasing since. The country hit a record 63,600 deaths in 2016 and we crossed the 100,000 death threshold for the 12-month period following April 2020, with the majority of those deaths coming from synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited synthetic opioids as the cause of death in 62,338 of those 100,000 deaths, adding that the category was “primarily fentanyl.”

President Joe Biden has largely focused his administration on combating the COVID-19 pandemic and passing his expansive infrastructure legislation. While he released a statement on Nov. 17 mourning the loss of the 100,000 American lives lost between April 2020 and April 2021, the statement made no mention of China’s role in the opioid crisis.

Biden has held multiple calls and a virtual meeting with Xi since gaining office in January but has never brought up illicit drug production, according to White House readouts of the meetings. The White House did not respond by press time when asked directly whether Biden has discussed the issue with Xi.

Fentanyl, a man-made opioid, is so dangerous due to its potency — and its cost. The substance is 80-100 times stronger than morphine, and it is far cheaper to produce than natural opioids like heroin. Illicit drug producers often lace their other substances with fentanyl to increase supply, often without the end-user even knowing it. Drug dealers then sell customers substances that are many times more potent than the user may know, resulting in tens of thousands of overdoses.

“China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States,” the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) wrote in a 2020 report.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/11/30/china-fentanyl-opioid-overdoses-xi-biden/

Domestic Travel Ban for Unvaccinated 'Not Off the Table' Says Psaki

Even though Biden suspended his vaccine mandate for federal workers to save himself a few approval points, he’s nevertheless looking for alternative ways to “force” people to get vaccinated, and a domestic travel ban is one such possibility.

“So, the President said earlier today that there haven’t been any recommendations to put in place domestic travel requirements. But what we saw with the Delta variant is that once it was already here, it spread rapidly across the country. So why not have any testing or vaccination requirements whatsoever for domestic air travel since people are, you know, going fairly openly across the country?” a reporter asked Psaki.

“Well, I think what you heard the President say […] was that he wasn’t taking any options off the table, but he’s going to rely on that advice of his health and medical experts,” Psaki responded.

However, like his vaccine mandate, a ban on domestic travel is also unconstitutional, as it is guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration doesn’t even consider the Constitution as a guideline, let alone a set of rules.

Dr. Fauci also revealed back in September during an interview on the “Skimm This” podcast that a vaccine mandate for travel was under consideration. “I would support that,” he said. “If you want to get on a plane and travel, then you should be vaccinated.”

The scary thing is, they think they have the power to do this.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/11/30/domestic-travel-ban-for-unvaccinated-not-off-the-table-says-psaki-n1537850