Biden Admin Freezes New Oil And Gas Drilling Leases Despite Recent Court-Ordered Injunction

As oil prices continue to rocket, now further helped along by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration is still fighting tooth and nail to freeze new oil and gas drilling leases - even after a court ruled against the administration for using a metric to estimate "the societal cost of carbon emissions" to justify their move.

Despite the court's ruling, Biden's administration has stopped new leases and permits for federal oil and gas drilling, MSN reported this week.

The administration was previously prevented from using the "social cost of carbon" metric in decisions regarding oil and gas thanks to an injunction issued by US District Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana.

But government lawyers quickly appealed the injunction, arguing that it "necessitated a pause on all projects where the government was using a social-cost-of-carbon analysis in its decision-making". This, in turn, allowed the Biden administration to freeze oil and gas projects.

The metric in question uses economic models to put a value on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted, MSN reported, with the intention of quantifying the economic harm of climate change.

Biden's lawyers argued: "The consequences of the injunction are dramatic. Pending rulemakings in separate agencies throughout the government none of which were actually challenged here will now be delayed. Other agency actions may now be abandoned due to an inability to redo related environmental analyses in time to meet mandatory deadlines."

Interior Department spokesperson Melissa Schwartz added: "The Interior Department has assessed program components that incorporate the interim guidance on social cost of carbon analysis from the Interagency Working Group, and delays are expected in permitting and leasing for the oil and gas programs."

Schwartz says the Interior Department "continues to move forward with reforms to address the significant shortcomings in the nation's onshore and offshore oil and gas programs," the report noted.

The timing couldn't be worse for the administration, as this week's invasion of Ukraine by Russia has pushed brent well above $100/barrel. We noted earlier this week that JP Morgan has suggested oil could average at about $110/barrel for the remainder of the year - but this prediction was also before the current geopolitical conflict in Europe escalated.

Great timing, Joe…

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/biden-admin-freezes-new-oil-and-gas-drilling-leases-despite-court-ruling-against-using

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/biden-admin-freezes-new-oil-and-gas-drilling-leases-despite-court-ruling-against-using

Anonymous declare ‘cyber war’ against Russia

RT.com has also been targeted in what appears to be a widespread denial-of-service (DDoS) attack

Hacker collective ‘Anonymous’ declared a “cyber war” against Russia, claiming to have disabled several Russian government websites and that of RT.

Social media accounts claiming to represent the group announced on Thursday evening that they were “officially in cyber war against the Russian government” and had taken down dozens of websites in response to Russia’s military action in Ukraine.

The websites of the Russian government, the Kremlin, the Duma, the Ministry of Defence, and RT were all affected by the apparent cyberattack, with some of the websites slowing down and others being taken offline for extended periods of time throughout the day.

“F**k #Putin… We support the people of #Ukraine… We are legion. We will not forget the lives that have been lost under Putin's regime,” tweeted one account related to the collective, while another account wrote, “The Putin criminal regime are gonna have a very hard time recovering from our attacks!”

In another post, an account claiming to represent Anonymous said that while its operations were “targeting the Russian government,” there was also “an inevitability that the private sector will most likely be affected too.”

“So, while people around the globe smash your internet providers to bits, understand that it's entirely directed at the actions of the Russian government and Putin,” the account said in a message to Russians.

As a decentralized collective, Anonymous does not have any central hierarchy or leadership and thus its operations have been known to take on a wide range of issues from different political perspectives.

Hackers affiliated with Anonymous have previously attacked US government websites, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Westboro Baptist Church, ISIS, the Church of Scientology, and the Epilepsy Foundation – which was targeted with flashing strobes in 2008 – among many others.

https://www.rt.com/russia/550548-anonymous-cyber-war-russia/

Anonymous back the DS - kek

Ukraine ready to discuss neutrality, Zelensky says

The Ukrainian president says Kiev is left to fend for itself as NATO is “afraid” to give Kiev any guarantees

Accusing the West of leaving Ukraine to face Moscow alone, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday he was not afraid to negotiate about ending the Russian “invasion,” but would need security guarantees to do so.

Speaking in the early hours of the morning from Kiev, Zelensky said he had reached out to “partners” in the West to tell them Ukraine’s fate was at stake.

“I asked them – are you with us?” Zelensky said. “They answered that they are with us, but they don’t want to take us into the alliance. I’ve asked 27 leaders of Europe, if Ukraine will be in NATO, I’ve asked them directly — all are afraid and did not respond”

“We were left by ourselves. Who is ready to go to war for us? Honestly, I don’t see anybody. Who is ready to give Ukraine guarantees of NATO membership? Honestly, everybody is afraid,” the Ukrainian president added.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on Thursday, with President Vladimir Putin declaring a special military operation to “demilitarize and de-nazify” Ukraine. Moscow has since told Kiev that it would consider negotiating with the Zelensky government if it agrees to discuss neutral status for the country, among other things.

In an address on Friday, Zelensky said that he is open to talk about Ukraine’s potential neutral status, but insisted that his country needs third party guarantees.

“We are not not afraid of Russia, we are not afraid to talk with Russia, talk about everything: security guarantees for our country and a neutral status. But we are not in NATO now – what security guarantees will we have? Which countries will give them?” he said, before adding that there should be talks that could bring an end to the Russian military offensive.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that “neutral status and rejection of hosting [offensive] weapons systems” are Putin’s “red lines” for Ukraine and that the ball was now in Kiev's court.

https://www.rt.com/russia/550546-zelensky-nato-ukraine-neutrality/

Telegram experiencing outages in Europe

Messaging app faces ‘unprecedented’ user load due to ongoing events in Ukraine

Telegram messaging app is experiencing outages due to “unprecedented” user demand for its services in Europe, following Russia’s attack on Ukraine on Thursday morning, according to founder and CEO Pavel Durov.

“Due to today’s events, the European Telegram cluster is facing an unprecedented load. As a result, some users may experience intermittent short-term outages in a number of Telegram services,” Durov said on his own Telegram channel.

The tech mogul said he was aware that many people were in desperate need of reliable communications with loved ones following the morning’s events.

“We will do our best to keep the speed of sending and receiving messages at a high level”, he added.

The app’s service outages come after Russia launched a military attack on neighboring Ukraine early on Thursday – an offensive that President Vladimir Putin has claimed to back the leaders of the breakaway Donbas republics.

The assault comes days after Moscow recognized the independence of the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, alleging that Kiev had failed to meet its obligations under the Minsk agreements, reached in 2014 and 2015, to resolve the conflict between the separatists and the Ukrainian government.

You can share this story on social media:

https://goodwordnews.com/telegram-experiencing-outages-in-europe-rt-world-news/

Someone once said that when dealing with the media, just be yourself. Thank you Andrew Breitbart!

Lukashenko says Putin promises he would regard attack on Belarus as attack on Russia

The Belarusian leader pointed out that NATO was quickly building up forces on the border with Belarus in Poland and in the Baltic countries

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says he has received assurances from Russian President Vladimir Putin the Russian leadership would regard an attack against Belarus as an attack against Russia. A Telegram channel close to the Belarusian presidential press service released a video with Lukashenko’s statement to this effect on Thursday.

"We have a joint group. Part of it is on the western border of Russia. I asked him (the Russian president - TASS) to avoid using part of that group. To keep it in reserve just in case, if something happens. His reply was: ‘I promise you that any attack against or just one step across the border into the Belarusian territory would mean that they attack Russia’," Lukashenko cited Putin as saying.

"I would like them (in the West - TASS) to hear and understand this. And refrain from lying and coining fakes," Lukashenko added.

Also, he pointed out that NATO was quickly building up forces on the border with Belarus in Poland and in the Baltic countries.

https://tass.com/politics/1410061

Russian Politician and Director of Space Program Calls latest Sanctions by Joe Biden the “Sanctions of Alzheimer’s”

Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin is a Russian politician, currently serving as Director-General of Roscosmos, the state space program, since 2018. Previously Dmitry was Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in charge of the defense industry from 2011 to 2018.

Rogozin is a President Putin lackey.

On Thursday Dmitry Rogozin called Joe Biden’s latest sanctions the “sanctions of Alzheimer’s.”

Dmitry Rogozin berated America’s latest attempt to punish and control Putin and Russia.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/russian-politician-director-space-program-calls-latest-sanctions-joe-biden-sanctions-alzheimers/

>>15715592

site has been penetrated so it looks

Daily mail, has gone mad