Pelosi Secretly Flies to Ukraine to Meet with Zelensky — Was She Grifting for a New Multi-Million Dollar Energy Deal for her Son?

Nancy Pelosi secretly flew to Ukraine to meet with President Zelensky this weekend.

Most Americans are concerned about the Democrats’ record inflation and gas prices and open borders. The war in Ukraine does not affect their weekly budget, Joe Biden does.

Ukraine is not even a top issue for Americans today.

As the Gateway Pundit reported back in November 2019 that Nancy Pelosi’s son was a board member of a Ukrainian energy firm and Nancy Pelosi appeared in the ads.

Quid-Pro-Joe and his son Hunter are not the only Democrat family members cashing in on their prominent positions.

Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul is also on the board of an energy company.

Paul Pelosi Jr. also traveled to Ukraine.

AND — Better Yet — Speaker Nancy Pelosi even appears in the company’s video ad!

According to Patrick Howley at National File Speaker Pelosi’s son Paul Jr. was an executive at Viscoil.

Paul Jr. traveled to Ukraine in 2017.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/pelosi-secretly-flies-ukraine-meet-zelensky-grifting-new-multi-million-dollar-energy-deal-son/

Putin signs law on data sharing with ‘unfriendly’ states

Russian banks won’t be providing information on clients and transactions to certain foreign nations

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Sunday barring the country’s banks from sharing data with government agencies from so-called ‘unfriendly’ nations that have illegally sanctioned Russian entities and individuals.

The new law prohibits the country’s financial institutions from responding to requests from foreign agencies, including judicial bodies, for information about their clients and transactions.

From now on, banks are instructed to reject such inquiries, citing Russian law as the reason for not processing such requests.

They should also notify the Central Bank within three days that a blacklisted country had been seeking data.

A request from an ‘unfriendly’ nation can only be fulfilled if the Central Bank receives approval for it from a relevant Russian government agency.

The new rules are being introduced to minimize the risks from foreign bank secrecy legislation that could threaten Russian financial institutions with fines for not providing information to foreign government bodies. Such a law was passed in the US in early 2021.

The list of ‘unfriendly’ countries, which includes the US, UK, the EU, Japan, and Australia, among other nations, was compiled by the Russian government in March.

The move was a response to the sanctions unleashed on Russia after the launch of its military operation in Ukraine in late February. Some of the measures targeted the Russian banking sector, such as disconnection from the SWIFT payment system and harsh restrictions slapped on leading banks.

https://www.rt.com/business/554818-banks-data-putin-unfriendly/

10 EU countries quietly buying gas with rubles, Hungary says

European leaders won’t admit they’re going along with Russia’s deal, government official Gergely Gulyas said

While multiple European leaders have publicly proclaimed they won’t buy Russian gas in rubles as Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded, 10 EU countries are technically going along with Putin’s plan, Hungarian official Gergely Gulyas told public radio on Sunday. According to Gulyas, these countries’ leaders aren’t admitting this in order to be seen as “being a good European.”

Gulyas said that Hungary has opened a euro account with Russia’s Gazprombank, which then converts payments into rubles before transferring them to suppliers in Russia. This system allows European buyers to comply with Putin’s demand, made in late March, that “unfriendly” countries switch to Russia’s national currency to buy its natural gas.

“There are nine other countries using the same payment scheme, but because today the idea of being a good European also means that the leaders of those countries are not honest when speaking either in the international arena or to their own people, the other nine countries won’t say that they are doing the same thing,” said Gulyas, who serves as Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff.

“There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that countries importing raw materials from Russia use exactly the same method to pay for Russian gas,” he added.

It is unclear which EU countries Guylas was referring to. Russian energy giant Gazprom has already shut off supplies to Poland and Bulgaria after both refused to pay in rubles, but a Bloomberg report last week stated, as Gulyas did, that 10 of the bloc’s member states have already set up accounts with Gazprombank, and four have actually paid for Russian gas using this mechanism.

Hungary depends on Russia for all of its gas imports, and has therefore opposed EU sanctions on this critical commodity. Gulyas reiterated this commitment to Russian energy and opposition to Brussels’ sanctions regime on Sunday.

“We mustn’t adopt sanctions with which we primarily penalize ourselves instead of those we want to sanction,” he said, referring to soaring energy costs throughout Europe. While the government in Budapest has condemned Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Guylas said that it would “continue to buy our energy at the cheapest possible price” to offset any costs on the Hungarian people.

https://www.rt.com/business/554827-hungary-eu-gas-rubles/

New COVID Bill Fines Parents For Unvaxxed Kids And Doubles Income Taxes

An absurd COVID-19 bill by radical leftist Road Island Senator Samuel W. Bell says that residents who refuse the vaccine and its booster shots are subjected to fines and pay more income tax unless they receive an exemption.

Bell introduced Rhode Island Senate Bill S2552 on March 1. As of last week, the bill had not been passed into law is currently in review by the Senate Health and Human Services committee.

S2552 states eligible Rhode Island residents would have to be vaccinated against COVID. If they reject, they could face a $50 monthly fine and pay double the state income tax. There are also fines for unvaccinated children under the age of 16 that would be imposed on the parents. Text from the bill reads:

This act would mandate all residents sixteen (16) years or older to be vaccinated against COVID-19. If a resident is under sixteen (16) years of age, the resident would be required to be immunized against COVID-19, with the responsibility for ensuring compliance falling on all parents or guardians with medical consent powers.

Additionally, any person who violates this chapter would be required to pay a monthly civil penalty of fifty dollars ($50.00) and would owe twice the amount of personal income taxes.

Talking about the bill, Bell told the Boston Globe:

"The reason I introduced the bill is we have a crisis with the pandemic.

"Thousands of Rhode Islanders have died. I've had really painful calls from constituents who can't go to the store because they're immuno-compromised, who have lost loved ones to this pandemic, who are really ill and not fully recovered, suffering long-term effects."

Bell has faced harsh criticism for the introduction of the bill. He tweeted this email he received from one angry Rhode Islander.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-covid-bill-fines-parents-unvaxxed-kids-and-doubles-income-taxes

Half Of France's Nuclear Reactors Are Shutdown Amid Energy Crisis

Half of France's nuclear power plants are offline because of "maintenance or defects," which comes at a precarious time for energy and power markets across Europe as prices soar due to the Ukraine conflict.

Bloomberg reports energy supplier Electricité de France (EDF) is struggling with widespread outages after 28 of the country's 56 reactors are offline due to routine maintenance or defects.

France's nuclear power plants supply more than 66% of its total power output. The outrage has caused nuclear power output to hit the lowest seasonal level in at least a decade.

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/half-frances-nuclear-reactors-are-shutdown-amid-energy-crisis

Michigan Investigated Hundreds Of Doctors, Nurses Over COVID-Related Complaints

Hundreds of nurses and doctors, including a chief medical examiner, have been investigated by the state of Michigan on COVID-related allegations ranging from videotaping a wedding where some guests weren’t wearing masks to telling trick-or-treaters not to get the vaccine.

Authorities dismissed many of the complaints. Dozens are still pending, with a number referred for disciplinary action. Some have been referred to the Michigan Attorney General’s office for criminal prosecution.

An allergy and asthma specialist is the subject of one of the referrals sent to the attorney general. The complaint accuses the doctor of prescribing “a lethal dosage” of ivermectin.

Copies of the complaints, which total more than 500, were provided exclusively to the Epoch Times. The Pacific Justice Institute obtained the records through a FOIA request. The institute represents some of the accused nurses and doctors.

The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs received and investigated the complaints. Those they have investigated have either been dismissed or referred to its enforcement division for disciplinary action or the AG’s office. Many are listed as still being listed “under board review.” The list provided to the institute includes complaints as recent as February 24, 2022.

One of the nurses the Pacific Justice Institute represents is Holly Austin, a college nursing professor who holds a doctorate in nursing.

She faced the revocation of her license by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs for speaking at a public school board meeting in December of 2021 as a parent against plans to reinstitute a mask mandate at her children’s school.

Dave Peters, a staff attorney with Pacific Justice Institute, told The Epoch Times he was shocked when the state continued its investigation into Austin even after he submitted a 100-page response to the state’s allegations that she was spreading misinformation.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/michigan-investigated-hundreds-doctors-nurses-over-covid-related-complaints

Brian Fitzpatrick Faces Primary Challenge After Siding with Dems on Numerous Key Issues

The congressman's record indicates that he strongly aligns with the left on social issues

The upcoming 2022 midterm elections are shaping up to be a referendum not just on the Biden Administration, but on Republican candidates who have voted against the interests of their base on key issues. Several fierce primary races are taking place across the nation, including Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District, which is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.

The 2022 midterm elections are projected to be very beneficial for Republicans. Several Republicans who voted with Democrats on key issues are exiting Congress, however. Of the 10 U.S. Representatives who voted to impeach President Trump, four have already announced their retirement, to name just one example. Several additional congressmen who voted in favor of establishing a January 6 commission have also announced early exits.

Leading up to the primary, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) is one lawmaker who finds himself under the microscope.

Fitzpatrick represents Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District, a relatively affluent suburban district located about an hour north of Philadelphia. The district encompasses Bucks County and a small sliver of Montgomery County.

Brian Fitzpatrick has come under fire for a voting record that often mirrors the average Democrat. While Fitzpatrick may side with the bulk of the GOP on many economic issues, he is very much culturally aligned with the left. He voted in favor of establishing a January 6 commission and put forward a motion to censure President Trump shortly after the Capitol protests. Fitzpatrick has also allied with Democrats on Obamacare and gun rights issues.

Where Fitzpatrick deviates from the conservative base the most is the subject of education, however. Polls on Florida’s parental rights bill, as well as Glenn Youngkin’s election in Virginia, have consistently indicated that parental concern over school curriculum is a growing issue.

Parents are becoming increasingly concerned over issues of gender ideology and same sex education being introduced to preteen children. Pornographic books such as Gender Queer and Out of Darkness have created massive controversy in school districts throughout Brian Fitzpatrick’s home turf in Southeastern Pennsylvania, where education concerns project to weigh heavy in November

More conservative and populist leaning Republicans have been battling with teachers unions and Democrats over these issues. Fitzpatrick, however, has been consistently endorsed by both Pennsylvania state and national teacher’s unions, including the NEA-linked Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA).

https://nationalfile.com/brian-fitzpatrick-faces-challenge-after-voting-with-democrats-on-numerous-occasions/

Ukraine Now Admits ‘Ghost of Kyiv’ Was ‘Essential’ Propaganda to Boost Morale.

Chalk up another victory for the ‘conspiracy theorists’.

The ‘Ghost of Kiev’ or ‘Ghost of Kyiv’ was one of the most oft-repeated stories in the early part of Russia’s war with Ukraine. Western media outlets, television anchors, politicians, and Ukraine flag-in-bio-bros unsparingly littered social media outlets with tales of a secret, super-pilot who was knocking dozens of Russian jets out of the sky.

Now, as claims that the ‘Ghost of Kiev’ is dead, Ukraine’s own government as well as military social media accounts and historians are accepting that he never really existed.

“The ghost of Kyiv is a superhero-legend, whose figure was created by Ukrainians!” the nation’s military’s Telegram account announced this week.

“The #GhostOfKyiv is alive, it embodies the collective spirit of the highly qualified pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade who are successfully defending #Kyiv and the region,” the Air Force added on Twitter.

Ukrainian military historian Mikhail Zhirohov told the BBC the Ghost of Kiev story was simply “propaganda for raising morale”.

“It’s essential to have this propaganda, because our armed forces are smaller, and many think we can’t be equal to them [the Russians]. We need this in wartime,” he admitted.

The news follows the announcement of the death of Major Stepan Tarabalka, 29.

Tarabalkan was killed in combat on 13 March and honoured with a Hero of Ukraine medal posthumously. Some maintain that Tarabalka was the actual Ghost of Kiev, and that the new claims that he never existed are in fact a way to keep morale up in the face of one a significant loss. Nonetheless, the Ukrainian Air Force now denying that anyone downed up to 40 Russian planes would certainly be a bizarre and disrespectful move if indeed Tarabalka came anywhere close to the legends associated with him.

https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/05/01/ukraine-now-admits-ghost-of-kyiv-was-essential-propaganda-to-boost-morale/

Powers: Ukraine War Increasing Global Food Prices Will Hasten Green Transition — ‘Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste’

USAID administrator Samantha Powers said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was causing global food prices to increase and will hasten countries using natural solutions.

Anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “We’re also seeing the impact spread beyond Ukraine, beyond Ukraine’s neighbors, beyond Europe. We’re seeing global food shortages all around the world. As the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, what more can be done to address those shortages?

Powers said, “It is just another catastrophic effect of Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. I mean, as if the harms in Ukraine weren’t enough, you have countries like in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Middle East who get maybe 80 to 90 percent of their wheat or their grain overall from Russia and Ukraine. And you see massive spikes in food prices. Food prices right now, George, globally, are up 34 percent from where they were a year ago. Aided substantially, again, by this invasion.”

She continued, “So, we’ve gone to Congress asking for a substantial increase in humanitarian assistance in order to be able to meet those needs, but we’re also active, of course, in more than 80 countries around the world, well and apart from this crisis. So, we’re working with farmers to also increase their production so that you actually have more supply brought on market. Fertilizer shortages are real now because Russia is a big exporter of fertilizer. And even though fertilizer is not sanctioned, less fertilizer is coming out of Russia. As a result, we’re working with countries to think about natural solutions like manure and compost. And this may hasten the transition that would have been in the interest of farmers to make eventually anyway. So, never let a crisis go to waste, but we really do need this financial support from the Congress to be able to meet emergency food needs, so we don’t see the cascading deadly effects of Russia’s war extend into Africa and beyond.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/05/01/powers-ukraine-war-increasing-global-food-prices-will-hasten-green-transition-never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste/

15 Cartel Members Convicted in South Texas Drug Trafficking Conspiracy

Fifteen members of one of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to helping smuggle tons quantities of drugs into Texas. The cartel members will be sentenced later this year.

The convicted drug smugglers are all part of the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas, a criminal organization based in Nuevo Laredo The cartel is responsible for a large part of the violence in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas and for several violent crimes in South Texas.

This week, Gustavo Alberto Duenes-Perez, went before a U.S. District Judge and pleaded guilty to various drug conspiracy charges. Duenes-Perez is the fifteenth member of the CDN-Los Zetas to plead guilty in recent days. All fifteen members will be sentenced in June. The cartel members along with several other individuals who remain unnamed in a multicount criminal indictment are all accused of working for the CDN-Los Zetas cartel.

According to information released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, the case began in March 2019 when agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration learned that the CDN-Los Zetas provided Duenes-Perez and his associates with funds to purchase a utility truck that would be used to transport drugs to a warehouse located in Laredo, Texas.

Authorities kept were able to monitor the vehicle and through surveillance operations learned that Duenez-Perez regularly drove the vehicle. The drug smuggling cell that operated in Texas used personal vehicles and utility trucks to move drugs within Laredo from various stash houses and onto a ranch.

In April of that year, authorities followed Duenes-Perez as he and his group moved a load of drugs from a ranch to a stash house in Laredo.

Authorities raided the ranch and stash house, seizing a total of 11,240 kilograms (approximately 12 tons) of marijuana with an approximate value of $11.6 million.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2022/05/01/15-cartel-members-convicted-in-drug-trafficking-conspiracy-in-south-texas/

‘EU Empire’ – Euro Conference Approves ‘Joint Armed Forces’, More Centralised Power for Brussels

The Conference on the Future of Europe has approved measures calling for the establishment of a European Union army and centralising power in the hands of Brussels eurocrats on Saturday.

The Conference, which was established last year to supposedly add more democratic voices to the way the EU operates through the addition of supposed ‘citizens panels’, has been criticised for doing the exact opposite.

In a meeting in Strasbourg, France on Saturday, a plenary session of the Conference on the Future of Europe approved over 300 proposals, including the establishment of a “joint armed forces” of the European Union, as well as the empowering the European Parliament to propose its own legislation — currently EU-level legislation is initiated almost solely by the unelected European Commission — and the elimination of national vetos, which would remove much power from smaller EU member-states.

The globalist co-chairman of the Conference, former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt MEP, said that the European Parliament will take up the measures next week for consideration in hopes of making them into law as “soon as possible”.

“There is no time to lose. The world of tomorrow is a world of empires,” the europhile said. “It’s a world of danger, we have seen it with Ukraine, and in this world we need to defend ourselves, to organise ourselves to defend the interests of our citizens, and therefore we need to reform the Union.”

Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s chosen representative in Brexit talks, went on to say that the reforms are “necessary for our survival,” warning that Europe will otherwise “disappear” and come under the control of “autocrats instead of the liberal democracy we have”.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/05/01/eu-empire-joint-armed-forces-and-centralised-power-in-brussels-approved-by-future-of-europe-conference/

Elon Musk Twitter Takeover: ‘EU Does Not Want Free Speech’ Warns Euro MP

A Member of the European Parliament has warned the EU “does not want free speech” after a European Commission official threatened Elon Musk over his takeover of Twitter.

Tom Vandendriessche, an EU-level representative for the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party, has said that the European Union “does not want free speech”, accusing the supranational bloc of wanting to “outsource” censorship to Big Tech corporations.

Vandendriessche’s comments come shortly after one of the European Union’s unelected commissioners, Thierry Breton, issued threats to Elon Musk regarding his Twitter takeover, telling the pro-free speech entrepreneur that he must make sure the platform continues censoring content or face the wrath of Brussels.

In a statement provided by the MEP to Breitbart, Vandendriessche argued that Musk’s publicly-expressed goals for the Twitter microblogging platform are positive and in line with what he has argued for personally in the past — and that the European Union is threatening democracy through its harsh regime of outsourced censorship.

“The EU does not want free speech,” the Flemish MEP said. “That is dangerous for their system.”

“They therefore want to ‘outsource’ censorship to private players,” he continued. “They call that ‘taking responsibility’, but it is nothing less than flat censorship.”

The Flemish nationalist emphasised that both he and his party back the regulation of Big Tech companies, but in order to limit their “arbitrary censorship” of political discourse, which is a threat to democracy.

The European Commission, he argued, only appears interested in regulation that will enforce its own censorship regime.

“Big Tech manages our communications, private data, preferences and even a vital part of our democracy,” he said. “It is precisely this that Big Tech selectively restricts through arbitrary censorship.”

“Elon Musk said that for him freedom of expression online should run parallel to the law,” he continued. “This means that what is legal offline must also be legal online.”

“I defended this principle before the European Parliament, but apart from the abstention of the N-VA [New Flemish Alliance], all other Flemish parties voted against this just principle,” Vandendriessche said.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/05/01/elon-musk-twitter-takeover-eu-does-not-want-free-speech-warns-euro-mp/

Lockheed CEO on excessive gov’t contracts: We just do what they ask

When asked whether the taxpayer funds the weapons giant receives reflects US priorities, James Taiclet left out how much his company spends lobbying.

Weapons manufacturers aren’t often faced with questions about how the size of their government contracts compares to other government expenditures and what their outsized slice of federal spending might say about national priorities. But Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet was put on the spot to answer those questions by NBC News correspondent Courtney Kube at an event on Friday that had every sign of having a home field advantage for the weapons executive.

After all, the event was hosted by the Atlantic Council, which received between $100,000 and $249,999 from Lockheed in 2019 (the last year the Council revealed its funding sources), and was part of the Council’s Forward Defense Forum, which is also funded by Lockheed.

Before the event, a spokesperson for NBC News told Responsible Statecraft that Kube was receiving no payment for engaging in a one-on-one interview with the top executive of the largest weapons company in the world and “retains full editorial control over her questions.”

The first audience question she chose to ask Taiclet, whose company received 70 percent of its revenue from U.S. government contracts in 2018, came from Responsible Statecraft. Using the Cost of War Project figures, I asked whether Lockheed receiving $75 billion in Pentagon contracts in fiscal year 2020, one and a half times the State Department and Agency for International Development budgets, was a reasonable balance of expenditure and if it was reflective of U.S. national priorities.

Taiclet defended the allocation of federal funds as “up to the U.S. government” and claimed to have no influence over taxpayers paying 70 percent of his $23 million salary.

“It’s only up to us to step to what we’ve been asked to do and we’re just trying to do that in a more effective way, and that’s our role,” said Taiclet.

Taiclet’s claim that he’s only doing “what we’ve been asked to do” doesn’t line up with Lockheed’s own statements or actions.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/04/29/lockheed-ceo-on-excessive-govt-contracts-we-just-do-what-they-ask/

Number Of Illegal Immigrants Living In US Rose By 1 Million In Biden's First Year: Report

The illegal immigrant population in the United States increased by one million in President Joe Biden’s first year in office, according to a new report.

At the end of 2021, 15.5 million illegal aliens were residing in the country, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated.

After rolling back key Trump-era policies, Biden presided over the largest number of apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the U.S.–Mexico border in a calendar year in history. Almost 1.9 million arrests were recorded.

“Massive numbers of illegal aliens are coming into the United States and they’re staying here,” Spencer Raley, research director at FAIR and author of the new report, told The Epoch Times.

The state with the most illegal immigrants, according to the new estimate, is California, with 3.2 million. Texas has 2.2 million, Florida has 1.1 million, and New York has 1 million.

At the bottom of the list are West Virginia, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota—all with under 10,000 illegal aliens.

The cost to taxpayers was estimated at $143 billion, up some $9 billion from a year prior when FAIR last released an estimate.

The group, which promotes policies that would reduce legal and illegal immigration in order to let America “manage growth, address environmental concerns, and maintain a high quality of life,” reached the figure by using Census Bureau data to calculate the total number of foreign-born residents presumed to be living in the United States.

After subtracting the total number of lawfully present immigrants, they add 30 percent to the total because of assumed underestimation.

Other groups use different methods to calculate the illegal immigrant population, which can’t be definitively ascertained because some escape detection.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/number-illegal-immigrants-living-us-rose-1-million-bidens-first-year-report