Kekkity. Poor Chris Wallace thought if he aided Bidan’s winhe’d be happy and successful forever! CNN and CNN+ are losing viewers like the Titanic
These is very satisfying to hear
https://twitter.com/NewsPolitics/status/1514009399509016583?s=20&t=2dcmVW97mtMWDVv2tkxmBA
Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️
@realchrisrufo
TheDepartment of Education estimated that up to 3 million kids suffer physical sexual abuse at the hands of public school teachers. You wrote forcefully against abuse in the Catholic Church, why give public schools—where the scale of the problem is 100x—a pass?
Andrew Sullivan@sullydish · 1h
Replying to @realchrisrufo
Rufo now fomenting a full-on moral panic in which all public school teachers are pedophiles unless proven innocent. But hey it works!
Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️@realchrisrufo
I have never said that "all public school teachers are pedophiles unless proven innocent"—a ridiculous charge. I have said that, according to the best available evidence, there is a major sexual abuse problem in the public schools.
Here are the facts:
No Conspiracy Theory
Parents are right to worry about sexual abuse of students by school officials.
Christopher F. Rufo
April 12, 2022
https://www.city-journal.org/abuse-in-schools-no-conspiracy-theory
My position is that we should aggressively prevent, identify, and prosecute sexual abuse in every institution that assumes the care of children: churches, schools, etc. Public schools have legal authority over 50 million children and should not be exempt from scrutiny.
5:57 PM · Apr 12, 2022·Twitter Web
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1513997456135974914?s=20&t=2dcmVW97mtMWDVv2tkxmBA
https://twitter.com/braxton_mccoy/status/1513864869778386946?s=20&t=lNV_dnavzQnMV1hL6lRRew
12 Apr, 2022 18:20
Ukrainian opposition leader arrested
Zelensky shares photo of Viktor Medvedchuk in handcuffs
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his delight on Tuesday after Kiev's successor to the Soviet-era KGB arrested the country's most prominent opposition leader.
The President shared a photo of his handcuffed rival Viktor Medvedchuk on social media, with the caption: “A special operation was carried out by the SBU. Well done! Details to follow."
The SBU is Ukraine's main intelligence and security agency, founded in 1991 to replace the KGB.
“I consider it especially cynical of him to use military camouflage,” Zelensky later said, mocking Medvedchuk as trying to pose as a “warrior” and “patriot” and proposing to exchange the detained politician for Ukrainian prisoners of war held by Russia.
Medvedchuk heads the second largest party in the national parliament, the “Opposition Platform - For Life.” He was previously placed under house arrest, last year, as part of Zelensky's clampdown on dissent, which was granted tacit approval by the regime's Western supporters.
Medvedchuk, who opposed the 2014 Kiev Maidan, and believes the country's Western turn to be detrimental to Ukraine's interests, has led his party since 2018. He previously served as Chief of Staff to former President Leonid Kuchma, in the early 2000s.
Some Western commentators have labelled him as Vladimir Putin's "closest ally in Ukraine." However, the Russian President has described Medvechuk as a "Ukrainian nationalist."
In 2019, Opposition Platform - For Life won 13% of the vote in a parliamentary election, making it the country's largest opposition faction. Last year, polls showed that it had passed out Zelensky's Servant of the People as the most popular party in the state.
That seemed to prompt a crackdown by Zelensky, who closed media outlets associated with Medvedchuk. Soon after, the politician was arrested on politically motivated "treason" charges.
Medvedchuk has rejected accusations of being “pro-Russian,” insisting his party represents millions of ordinary Ukrainians. In February 2021, he accused Zelensky of seeking to establish a dictatorship in Ukraine and suppress the legally elected opposition.
Authorities in Kiev also charged Zelensky’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko with treason, back in December 2021 – on the same charge as Medvedchuk: illegally buying coal from the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk and thus “financing terrorism.” Poroshenko made a big deal out of publicly returning to Ukraine in January, and a Kiev court refused to jail him.
Unlike Medvedchuk, Poroshenko has substantial support in the West.
The US and its allies have sought to justify their support for Ukraine by saying Zelensky is a democrat fighting for freedom, and have presented Russia’s actions towards Kiev as motivated by a fear of democracy.
https://www.rt.com/russia/553776-zelensky-arrest-of-opposition-leader/
12 Apr, 2022 17:58
Putin comments on Bucha ‘massacre’ allegations
The purported massacre blamed on Russian troops is as “fake” as past “chemical attack” claims in Syria, the president has said
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed accusations that Russian troops were responsible for killing civilians in the Kiev suburb of Bucha, labeling the case as fake. The president made the remarks during a joint press conference with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday.
“I’ve been talking to colleagues from Western countries, often, up until now. And when they say ‘Bucha’ to me, I ask them: ‘Have you ever been to Raqqa? Have you seen how this Syrian city was completely flattened by American aviation?’ Corpses have been laying there decomposing in ruins for months. And nobody cared about that,” Putin said, adding that mass-killings of civilians by the West in Afghanistan had been met with the same silence.
“There was no such silence when they staged provocations in Syria, when they imagined the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. Then it turned out that it was a fake, the same fake is in Bucha.”
The Russian president also added that the country’s intelligence services have already received materials proving that the Bucha mass killing, largely branded as a ‘massacre’, was staged, from their Belarusian counterparts. Putin, however, did not elaborate on the materials he mentioned.
Bucha made the headlines early in April shortly after the Russian military withdrew from the outskirts of Kiev and Ukrainian troops moved in and scores of dead civilians were discovered in the town. Kiev authorities promptly blamed the Russian military for the purported massacre, while top western politicians were quick to side with Ukraine and amplify its take on the incident. The suburb had already become a hotspot for European politicians to visit to show their solidarity with Ukraine, as well as to condemn “Russian war crimes.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/553765-putin-bucha-massacre-comment/
12 Apr, 2022 21:36
Macron comments on prospects to visit Kiev
The French president has said he would not visit Ukraine’s capital just to follow current “fashion” trend
Whats gotten into Macron, is he trying to act like a leader now? Hmmm
French President Emmanuel Macron said he would not come to Kiev in order to “just make a diplomatic visit” or follow the “fashion” set up by other European politicians.
“I am ready to do anything, to go to Kiev or to another Ukrainian city. But, I want it to be useful,” Macron told BFM TV late on Monday.
“I would only do it to trigger something new, a new process, so I want it to be useful,” he stressed, adding that he would not come to Ukraine just to follow the “fashion” of going to Kiev, set up by European leaders. At the same time, he welcomed their visits as it demonstrated “European solidarity” with Ukraine.
Kiev and its northwestern suburb of Bucha have become the hotspots for top European politicians last week after the Ukrainian authorities accused Moscow of mass-killing civilians at the site. The location has been visited by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the top EU diplomat Josep Borrell, as well as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer.
While Western politicians were quick to back and amplify the Ukrainian take on the Bucha incident, condemning the alleged “war crimes,” Russia has firmly denied any involvement, suggesting the whole affair had been deliberately staged by Kiev to frame Russian troops. Scores of dead civilians were discovered in the suburb after Russian forces withdrew from Kiev outskirts late in March and Ukrainian troops moved in.
https://www.rt.com/news/553778-macron-kiev-visit-fashion/
12 Apr, 2022 23:26
Biden accuses Putin of ‘genocide’
US president echoes Ukrainian rhetoric, while trying to blame Moscow for record inflation
US President Joe Biden accused Russia of committing a “genocide” in Ukraine during a speech in Iowa on Tuesday, while trying to promote corn-based ethanol as a way to lower gas prices amid a 40-year record inflation.
“Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away,” Biden said in Menlo, Iowa, some 45 miles west of Des Moines. The hamlet of some 300 residents is located next to a factory producing bioethanol from corn – something the White House is trying to encourage now in order to combat the rising fuel prices, for which it blames Russia. (Were there any people at this soeech?)
“I’m doing everything within my power by executive orders to bring down the price and address the Putin price hike,”Fucking Liar Biden said, using his administration’s talking point about the 48% spike in prices at the pump since March 2021.
This is Biden’s first officially recorded use of “genocide” to describe the conflict in Ukraine. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed the alleged mass killings in the town of Bucha were genocide, for which he blamed Russia.
When asked about it on April 4, Biden said, “No, I think it is a war crime.”
His national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters later that there was a process in determining what amounted to genocide, and that the US has “not yet seen a level of systematic deprivation of life of the Ukrainian people to rise to the level of genocide,” though that is “something we will continue to monitor.”
Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” in mid-March, prompting the Kremlin to denounce such rhetoric as “unacceptable and unforgivable” coming from a country “whose bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.”
The US president has escalated his rhetoric towards Russia as economic news at home grew more dire. The March inflation report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed an 8.5% spike in the Consumer Price Index, highest since 1981. Gas prices had risen 18% from the previous month, and 48% from March 2021, while food was up by 8.8%, the most since May 1981.
While blaming this all on Russia’s decision to send troops into Ukraine, the White House is reportedly sending another $750 million worth of US weapons to Kiev, Reuters reported on Tuesday citing anonymous officials. The equipment – including heavy artillery – would come from US military stock and not require congressional approval, the report said.
https://www.rt.com/news/553781-biden-putin-genocide-inflation/
12 Apr, 2022 13:22
White Helmets group shares tips with Ukrainians – media
Syrian ‘first respondents’ film video guides on how to rescue people and document war crimes, the Times newspaper reports
White Helmets, a controversial group hailed as heroes in the West but also criticized for being close to radical Islamist forces in Syria, are filming video guides, which are meant for Ukrainians, the British newspaper Times reported on Monday.
The first of a planned series of videos, which the Times said will be translated into Ukrainian, showed two men explaining how to search for people under debris, identify unexploded ordnance and use first aid on injured people.
There is an overarching goal of teaching people in Kiev that “properly documenting rescue operations can help to provide credible evidence of atrocities,” according to Times.The group advised filming the action with GoPro cameras for later use.. Propagandists
White Helmets was created in 2014 and claims to be a civilian rescue force helping civilians injured by the Syrian government. It received funding from Western governments and was praised by Western media as brave heroes of the protracted war in Syria.
=•Critics, including Russia, call them a propaganda outfit that work hand-in-glove with the rebel groups that control the territories==, in which the White Helmets operate. On several occasions, members of the group were filmed participating in apparent executions by jihadists.
In some cases, Western media outlets confirmed the allegations to be true. For example, France 24 authenticated footage showing the White Helmets taking part in an execution in Haritan, a suburb of Aleppo, which was carried out in 2015 by the terrorist group Al Nusra Front. The group distanced itself from the incident, saying their goal was “to go pick up the body” and that its people arrived before the killing took place.
According to the Times, the first video guide for Ukrainians was filmed in Ariha, a city in the Idlib province. It’s the last major stronghold of anti-government forces in Syria, in which radical Islamists have a dominating position.
The Syrian province borders Turkey, a NATO member which threatened to use its armed forces in defense of the rebels, claiming that it was necessary to prevent a new surge of refugees fleeing to Turkish territory. Russia, which aided Damascus in its fight against jihadists, helped it establish an arrangement with Ankara that limits cross-border hostilities.
The Ukrainian government accused Russia of an attempted genocide of the Ukrainian people after claiming it found evidence of war crimes committed by Russian troops near Kiev. Some towns close to the Ukrainian capital were held by Russian forces, but switched hands after Moscow pulled back its troops in the wake of diplomatic progress made during Turkey-hosted peace talks in early April.
Moscow rejected Ukrainian allegations and claimed the evidence was misinterpreted or fabricated, likely to derail the peace process. Kiev said it expected to find more evidence of Russian war crimes. Moscow said that apparently more staged scenes falsely purporting to show Russian wrongdoing in Ukraine were being prepared by the Ukrainian side.
Many Western nations took Kiev’s allegations against Russia on face value without any neutral investigation on the ground.
Moscow attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered Minsk Protocol was designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.
Russia has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.
https://www.rt.com/russia/553749-white-helmets-tutorials-ukraine/The
11 Apr, 2022 17:33
Andrey Kortunov: Ukraine conflict is the last act in a long Soviet collapse
Moscow’s adjustment to the post-USSR world still feels painful
By Andrey Kortunov, Ph.D. in History, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council, RIAC member
Thirty years ago, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist, many observers expressed their surprise at the relatively peaceful nature of the huge state's disintegration. The deconstructions of other great European empires – including the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese – were followed by large-scale armed conflicts, some of which lasted for several decades and were accompanied by hundreds of thousands, or even millions of victims. The post-Soviet space, of course, also witnessed military violence and armed conflicts in the early 1990s (Tajikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Chechnya, and Dagestan), but most of these were of a relatively modest scale and duration.
Military conflicts within the territory of the former USSR were often successfully “frozen” and only from time to time did they draw attention to themselves with outbreaks of escalation. The gloomy prophecies about the spread of nuclear weapons, millions of refugees flowing to neighboring countries, widespread ethnic cleansing, and the unstoppable rise of religious fundamentalism, international terrorism, etc., did not actually come true immediately after the Soviet disintegration. It must be admitted that the initial stage of the imperial deconstruction passed surprisingly peacefully and even somewhat orderly, especially if we take into account that nobody had been working on any contingency plans for the Soviet disintegration in advance.
Analysts offered a variety of explanations for this remarkable feature. In particular, references were made to the cynicism and opportunism of the late Communist nomenklatura, who preferred opportunities for personal enrichment to the continuous commitment to preserving the great Soviet power. It was also noted that the USSR had been a very peculiar entity in which the imperial centre (Russia) had not so much economically exploited its colonial outskirts as had subsidized them at the expense of its own development prospects.
Thus, many in the new Russian Federation had considered the Soviet imperial periphery to be not an asset, but rather a liability for the Russian core. Attention was drawn to the generally favorable international situation, which allowed for the avoidance of fierce conflicts and bloody wars over the “Soviet legacy” in the 1990s.
Gradual imperial disintegration
Without going into a detailed analysis of these and other hypotheses concerning the specifics of the disintegration processes in the territory of the former USSR, I could offer yet another explanation, which does not necessarily contradict those mentioned above. In my opinion, the Soviet Union did not actually collapse at the end of 1991, but only entered a long, complex, and contradictory process of gradual imperial disintegration. Thirty years ago, the leaders of the already former Soviet republics only proclaimed the goal of creating independent states on the site of the slowly imploding Soviet social, economic, and political institutions, but the process of building new statehoods lasted for several decades and continues even to this day.
For a very long time, the main part of the post-Soviet space – with the possible exception of the three Baltic states – remained essentially a single entity in terms of economic ties, transportation and logistics infrastructure, standards of education, science, culture, and, most importantly, in terms of the mentality of the political and business elites in power. It took at least another generation for this entity to begin to fade into the past. Therefore, the real collapse of the USSR is only taking place today, literally in front of our eyes, and the states that have emerged in the post-Soviet space have yet to go through all the challenges, risks, and pains of imperial disintegration.
The superficial nature of the Soviet disintegration at the end of 1991 becomes especially evident when compared with somewhat similar events in modern history, such as Britain’s exit from the European Union. Almost four years passed between the June 2016 Brexit referendum and the formal end of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union on February 1, 2020; these years were filled with intensive negotiations, sharp political struggles both in London and in Brussels, nonstop expert consultations, and a difficult search for compromises on the terms of further cooperation between the UK and the EU…. ..
Thirty years ago, it was not at all obvious that all the national projects of the Soviet Union’s republics would necessarily succeed….
Very long but fascinating article
https://www.rt.com/russia/553663-moscow-post-soviet-space/
12 Apr, 2022 18:51
US offers $5 million bounty for Irish criminal family(they should call Hillary, she’ll know where they are)
Reward for arrest of organized criminal Christy Kinahan and two sons
The US State Department on Tuesday announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrests of Christy Kinahan and his sons Daniel Kinahan and Christopher Kinahan Jr. The trio are accused of conspiring to participate in “transnational organized crime,” including drug and arms trafficking, murder, and money laundering.
The reward is offered by the US Drug Enforcement Agency in partnership with Ireland’s An Garda Siochana and the UK’s National Crime Agency. The designation also places the family on the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control list, freezing any assets they have in American banks.
The elder Kinahan is believed to be one of the wealthiest gangsters in Ireland, with a net worth of approximately $54 million (€50 million). The criminal family got their start dealing heroin and cocaine in Dublin in the 1990s and have since expanded into a massive criminal enterprise, generating over $1.1 billion (€1 billion) in ill-gotten gains.
The gang is believed to have committed at least 12 murders. They are also involved in legal activities, such as organizing high-profile boxing fights. All three men are living in the United Arab Emirates, with whom Ireland does not have an extradition treaty.
Irish premier Micheál Martin said his government would consider adding its own financial reward in exchange for information about the gang, calling the US-led crackdown “very, very significant.” His deputy Leo Varadkar agreed, acknowledging that while giving rewards for information is not something that is typically done, “if you think of the cost to the nation of what criminal enterprises do, giving a reward for information probably makes sense.”
https://www.rt.com/news/553777-us-state-dept-offers-bounty/
12 Apr, 2022 16:20
Russia responds to CNN’s default claim
The media outlet’s report is clearly false, finance ministry says
A report by US media company CNN about an alleged Russian Eurobond default announcement is not true, the Russian Ministry of Finance said on Tuesday.
CNN reported Monday, citing credit-ratings agency S&P, that Moscow has defaulted on its foreign debt because it offered bondholders payments in rubles and not in dollars.
“Information posted by CNN does not correspond to the facts,” the ministry’s statement said, adding “Russia did not announce the default on its Eurobond commitments.”
“Default means the debtor either has no money to honor his debt liabilities or no desire to honor such liabilities when funds are available. Neither of the two is the case in respect of Russia. The Russian Federation has enough funds to timely service and repay all its debt liabilities,” the finance ministry explained.
The ministry stressed that Washington’s actions to block Moscow’s payments have prejudiced the interests of foreign investors.
The hurdles to make payments, service and repay the Russian sovereign debt in foreign currency were created artificially, while the restriction for the Russian public-debt servicing can be viewed as the next default of foreign counterparties on their contractual obligations, the ministry said.
“All the possible claims of creditors related to this situation should be readdressed to the authorities of those states that unlawfully created obstacles to Russia’s fulfillment of its debt obligations,” it added.
The Ministry of Finance had also said earlier that the country would do everything possible to make sure its creditors are paid. Russia will take legal action if the West tries to create an artificial default in the country, Izvestia newspaper quoted Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov as saying on Monday.
Good thing CNN left Russia otherwise these reporters would be in jail
https://www.rt.com/business/553769-russia-default-false-report/
Thats your big takeaway from Chris Wallace losing his mind.
Ok, corrected, I’ll slow down and reread