Former Assistant District Attorney Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Violate the Federal Travel Act
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtn/pr/former-assistant-district-attorney-pleads-guilty-conspiracy-violate-federal-travel-act
Minerals and petroleum lobbies are not taxpayers (but guess who subsidises them?)
It’s a phenomenon more commonly attributed to ”banana republics”. Our government is helping the resources lobby even as it works against the interests of the nation and the planet. Stephanie Tran examines the influence of energy lobby giants as they intensify efforts to delay Australia’s embrace of clean energy.
Australian taxpayers are subsidising the lobbying activities of the Minerals Council of Australia. In 2020, the council received a $100,000 “Federal Government cash flow boost”.
The subsidy was awarded under a scheme that saw businesses and not-for-profits receive a temporary boost during the economic downturn associated with COVID-19.
This cosy relationship between the government and the resources lobby should alarm every Australian. “You see a media release coming out of a minister’s office and it might as well have been written by the industry. The proximity between two suggests that democracy is broken,” says Dan Gocher, director of Climate and Environment at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility.
“You’ve got governments at a local, state and federal level that are making decisions for the benefit of corporations rather than citizens.”
“What the mining industry is trying to achieve strategically is for governments to only ever adopt policies that have the blessing of the mining industry,” adds Bob Burton, editor of the Coal Wire blog. ”The first part of that is scaring any party that might want to adopt a policy on climate out of doing that. The other side of the coin is ensuring that every key decision maker is surrounded by mining industry lobbyists at all the key stages.”
Income tax exemption
According to their 2020 financial reports, both the Minerals Council and Australian Petroleum Production Exploration Association (APPEA) are exempt from paying income tax under section 50.40 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.
The section provides a tax exemption to organisations that are established to promote Australian industries. To be eligible for the exemption, organisations must meet a special condition that states that the activity of the organisation is “not carried on for the profit or gain of its individual members”.
The significant lobbying activities of both organisations on behalf of their members arguably contradicts this special condition. In fact, both organisations boast about the success of their lobbying efforts in their 2020 financial statements.
Chief among the achievements of APPEA included:
In the 2020-21 financial year the Minerals Council contributed $256,203 in political donations. The Liberal Party received $147,998, Labor $84,260 and the Nationals $23,845.
APPEA has donated $393,975 to political parties since 2003-04. The party breakdown is as follows:
Liberal: $173,701
Labor: $152,597
Nationals: $67,677
In 2020-21 APPEA made $107,010 in donations with $72,610 going to the Liberal Party, $31,650 to Labor and $2,750 to the Nationals.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/minerals-and-petroleum-lobbies-are-not-taxpayers-but-guess-who-subsidises-them/
Large-Scale Bombardment Of Kiev Deemed Imminent As Zelensky Admits "We Are Left Alone" As NATO "Afraid"
Update(6:42pmET): Shortly before 1am Kiev time Ukraine's President Zelensky announced: "The enemy’s sabotage forces have entered the capital. Me and my family are remaining."
"We need to talk about a ceasefire with Russia," he added in the video message. Then what followed suggests the brutal reality is finally sinking in that despite years of 'promises' from Washington and the West of a "path to NATO membership" - none of his backers or Ukraine's allies are coming to help:
"We are not afraid to talk to Russia. We are not afraid to talk about security guarantees for our state. We are not afraid to talk about neutral status. But what security guarantees will we have? But which countries will give them?" Zelensky says in response to a prior Russian offer to begin to negotiation "terms of surrender".
"We are left alone in defense of our state. Who is ready to fight with us? I don’t see it. Who is ready to guarantee Ukraine’s accession to Nato? Everyone is afraid," added Zelensky.
"I asked the 27 leaders of Europe whether Ukraine should be in Nato. I asked directly. They are all afraid. And we are not afraid," he said.
The world is now witnessing in real time what prominent geopolitical analyst John Mearsheimer predicted over a half-decade ago against the backdrop of the initial West-backed Ukraine coup…
Analysis & prediction on Ukraine from 6 years ago:
“The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path & the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked.”
-John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the U. of Chicago, pic.twitter.com/kPQNH58o7G
— Prodigal Son (@ThePr0diga1S0n) January 24, 2022
“The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path & the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked,” Mearsheimer said in a clip that's lately resurfaced and widely circulating.
Zelensky's latest comments showing deep frustration and desperation came hours after President Biden in an address on the crisis confirmed that "US forces are not going to fight in Ukraine" while also rolling out fresh sanctions which stop far short of what Congressional hawks are demanding. On the energy front, he had said while crucially sparing key Russian energy exports from sanctions:
"In our sanctions package, we specifically designed energy payments to continue. We are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption,” Biden said from the East Room of the White House. “We have been coordinating with major oil-producing and consuming countries…"
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putins-shock-awe-war-ukraine-unfolds-dark-day-europe-many-hundreds-killed
Biden Spares Russia’s Crucial Energy Exports From Sanctions
Country is a key global supplier of oil and natural gas
Purchasing and selling Russian energy is still allowed
Russian energy exports escaped sanctions from the U.S. as President Joe Biden toughens restrictions on the country while avoiding measures that could send oil prices surging even further, worsen Europe’s gas shortage and make gasoline more expensive for Americans.
Harsher sanctions announced by Biden on Thursday following the invasion of Ukraine included blocking major Russian banks and cutting off the country from semiconductors and advanced technology, but purchasing and selling Russian energy supplies are still allowed.
“In our sanctions package, we specifically designed energy payments to continue. We are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption,” Biden said from the East Room of the White House. “We have been coordinating with major oil-producing and consuming countries toward our common interest to secure global energy supplies.”
Russia is a major exporter of energy and raw materials that the world badly needs at a time when shortages of everything from wheat and crop fertilizers to natural gas and aluminum are stoking inflation, forcing central banks to weigh the need to hike interest rates against the risk of economic slowdown. The U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia are the world’s biggest oil producers.
Also See: Millions of Barrels of Russian Oil, Products Head for U.S. Ports
Biden also raised the prospect for the U.S. to release more oil from its strategic reserves in coordination with other nations, in order to quell rising energy prices. The U.S. will release additional supplies as conditions warrant, Biden said. That would build on a release of 50 million barrels the U.S. authorized last year.
Energy supplies around the world have failed to keep pace with a vigorous recovery in demand after the worst of the pandemic.
Earlier, oil prices topped $100 a barrel in New York on fears that additional escalation could lead to sanctions impacting the energy market or supply disruptions. Europe relies on the nation for about a quarter of its oil and a third of its gas.
Also See: Biden Team to Hold Off on Russia Sanctions Hitting Aluminum
After the announcement of new sanctions, oil prices cooled to eliminate almost all of their gains. West Texas Intermediate traded near $93 a barrel at 2:54 p.m. in New York, down from earlier highs above a $100.
Energy traders were looking to see if sanctions would target their crude supplies, said Ed Moya, Oanda’s senior market analyst for the Americas. When that didn’t occur and the U.S. announced it could tap strategic reserves as needed, it allowed prices to drop, he said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/biden-spares-russia-s-crucial-energy-exports-from-sanctions
Heritage Foundation report on COVID finds gov't efforts largely failed, 'time to move on' from virus
The 38-page report, which reviews data from U.S. and abroad, deems the government effort to end COVID “unprecedented.”
A scientific study released Thursday by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation finds governments’ "unprecedented" efforts to contain COVID-19 have largely failed and in fact have inflicted "enormous" harm on Americans and should therefore be ended promplty.
"Governments took unprecedented steps to contain COVID-19's spread in the hope that a vaccine would 'shut down' the virus," say researchers Kevin Dayaratna and Doug Badger in their 38-page report.
"Those policies have failed to achieve their stated aim and have done enormous economic, social and political harm. Perpetuating the national emergency mindset is futile, misguided and infeasible … It is time to move on from COVID-19."
They argue that beyond what their data shows – including numbers on hospitalizations and mortality – governments should consider in drafting future COVID-related health policy the "massive shift" in public opinion about existing policy, which include mask and vaccine mandates.
"Public officials should communicate that COVID-19 is one of many public health problems and diseases in circulation, that vaccines and natural immunity reduce the risk of severe illness and death and that new medicines make COVID-19 a treatable disease," reads the report, "COVID-19: A Statistical Analysis of Data from Throughout the Pandemic and Recommendations for Moving On."
However, the authors caution: "People at greatest risk of illness should still take precautions, but government mandates and restrictions are no longer appropriate."
Dayaratna is a principal statistician, data scientist and research fellow in the Center for Data Analysis at Heritage's Institute for Economic Freedom. Badger is a senior fellow in Domestic Policy Studies for Heritage’s Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity.
After analyzing a variety of foreign and domestic data, they essentially divide the report into three categories:
a statistical examination of how the roughly 2-year-old pandemic and the understanding of it has evolved;
the efficacy of natural and vaccine-acquired immunity in reducing the risk of virus-related hospitalizations and mortality
whether the data supports the assertion that the U.S. is suffering a "pandemic of the unvaccinated" and how new data, along with the advent of innovative treatments, should reshape public policy toward COVID.
The researchers found cases and hospitalizations reached new heights in January, despite "aggressive" pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions. In addition, newly confirmed cases, generally defined as the number of people who return positive tests, have continued to rise and fall throughout the pandemic, they said.
Some of the information, specifically on hospitalizations after July 15, 2020, is from Our World in Data.
On whether the pandemic is of the unvaccinated, they say it's "impossible" to verify whether such claims by the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services are true because the data does not identify whether a patient hospitalized with COVID was admitted specifically because of the virus, nor does it differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients.
However, they find that data compiled by U.S. states and the United Kingdom suggest that Biden's Jan. 4 assertion that "the unvaccinated are taking up hospital beds and crowding emergency rooms and intensive care units" is untrue.
In conclusion, Badger and Dayaratna write: "Policymakers should adapt their approach to ever-changing facts on the ground, including the increasing likelihood that the SARS-CoV-2 virus will remain in circulation indefinitely … We will thus need to learn to live with the virus as we already do with many other problems such as heart disease, cancer, hepatitis, influenza, and HIV. Coexistence should replace eradication as the lode- star of pandemic policy.
"More specifically, we suggest that policymakers eschew restrictions and mandates and instead restore pre-pandemic social and economic arrangements … Or to put it more simply, it is time to return to our pre-pandemic understanding of normal."
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/heritage-foundation-report-covid-finds-govt-efforts-largely-failed-time
https://www.heritage.org/public-health/report/covid-19-statistical-analysis-data-throughout-the-pandemic-and-recommendations
https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/SR255_1.pdf
Obama warns of 'economic consequences' to Americans from Biden sanctions on Russia
Former president says rising energy costs are 'a price we should be willing to pay.'
In a rare interjection on his successor's policies, former President Barack Obama warned Thursday that the Biden administration's economic sanctions on Russia may boomerang and create higher energy prices back home.
"There may be some economic consequences to such sanctions, given Russia’s significant role in world energy markets," the former president said in a statement a few hours after Joe Biden imposed sanctions on Vladimir Putin's regime for its military assault on neighboring Ukraine.
"But that’s a price we should be willing to pay to take a stand on the side of freedom," the former president added. "For over the long term, we all face a choice, between a world in which might makes right and autocrats are free to impose their will through force, or a world in which free people everywhere have the power to determine their own future.
Obama condemned "Russia’s reckless actions" and said they were "mounting an assault on the ideals of democracy, rule of law, equality, individual liberty, freedom of expression and worship, and self-determination."
He called on all Americans, regardless of political strip, to stand against the agression.
https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/obama-warns-economic-consequences-americans-biden-sanctions-russia
Russia takes issue with Israel's sovereignty over Golan Heights and Jerusalem
"Russia doesn't recognize Israel's sovereignty over Golan Heights that are part of Syria," Russian deputy ambassador says.
Polyanskiy spoke just hours after Israel broke its neutrality on the conflict, as it gave a nod in support of Ukraine.
Moscow has presented itself in its conflict with Ukraine as the supporter of the Russian-speaking population in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
At the Security Council, Russia reminded Israel that it stands with Syria, where it is militarily entrenched, regarding Damascus’ demand that Israel returns the Golan, which the IDF captured during the defensive Six-Day War in 1967.
Israel annexed the Golan in 1981, but to date, the United States is the only country that recognizes that sovereignty. In December, the cabinet approved a NIS-1-billion plan to increase Israel’s population on the Golan, including through the creation of two new towns.
Polyanskiy recalled that decision when he said that Russia was “concerned over Tel Aviv’s announced plans for expanding settlement activity in the occupied Golan Heights, which contradicts the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention.”
He also indirectly took issue in his comments with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, including west Jerusalem.
In 2017, Moscow said it recognized west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. But Polyanskiy appeared on Wednesday to ignore that recognition of Israel’s government, using Tel Aviv as a synonym for Israel’s government.
It is a phrase used only by those countries who mean to convey that they do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over any part of its capital city.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-698512
For me this was the most interesting thing of the day