James Lindsay, has the best concepts
JFK: "Freedom of information is a fundamental human right…for a nation that is afraid to let its people to judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
https://t.co/H6WZx7ve1L
https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1522989014785044480?s=20&t=pg7n_bqT7fJ2sxBiwmAEaw
I can’t post thre video its too large, but well worth a listen
Kathy Barnette running against Oz and Richardson, shes spent $150,000 they’ve spent millions
Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸
Here is @Kathy4Truth slamming BLM and Defund the Police in the summer of 2020 during the middle of the riots https://t.co/3b7HOzQ96v
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1523516514472644608?s=20&t=pg7n_bqT7fJ2sxBiwmAEaw
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1522314206250418178?s=20&t=pg7n_bqT7fJ2sxBiwmAEaw
We need Trump back now. This is fucking insane.
https://twitter.com/BryanDeanWright/status/1522332275282636800?s=20&t=pg7n_bqT7fJ2sxBiwmAEaw
9 May, 2022 21:15
Biden revives World War II arms act for Ukraine
The Lend-Lease Act of 2022 will allow the White House to send unlimited weapons to Ukraine
President Joe Biden on Monday signed the Lend-Lease Act of 2022 into law. The Act, previously used to arm the Allies of World War II, will expedite American arms shipments to Ukraine, and has been warmly welcomed in Kiev.
Speaking as he signed the act at the White House, Biden vowed to continue arming the Ukrainians “in their fight to defend their country and their democracy.” He added that “the cost of the fight is not cheap but caving to aggression is even more costly.”
The act, which passed Congress last month with 417-10 votes in the House and no dissent in the Senate, suspends limitations on the quantity of weapons and other military supplies Biden can send to Ukraine or “other Eastern European countries,” although it stipulates that Kiev must subsequently pay for whatever it receives.
Weapons sent under this act are separate from the nearly $4 billion in military aid that the US has already sent to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s military operation in February, and from the $33 billion worth of military aid that the president recently asked Congress to approve.
The original lend-lease was enacted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in March 1941 – nine months before the US entered WWII – and amounted to $50.1 billion (980 billion in 2022 dollars) by September 1945. Although the Allies, including the Soviet Union, were supposed to pay for this aid, the US also accepted the lease of bases for its military instead.
Kiev’s ability to repay the US is currently questionable, considering Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently asked the US and EU for $7 billion per month just to keep his country afloat.
That Biden chose May 9 to sign the WWII-era act was likely deliberate, considering that this date is celebrated as ‘Victory Day’ annually in Russia and a number of former Soviet countries, commemorating the defeat of fascism at the end of the Second World War.
Biden referred to the defeat of Nazi Germany during the signing ceremony on Monday, but did not mention Victory Day. Instead he noted that the European Coal and Steel Community, which would expand into the European Union, was formed on May 9, 1950.
The signing of the act was welcomed by Kiev, with Zelensky declaring it a “historic step” that will help Ukraine and the US “win together again … like 77 years ago.” Although Zelensky referenced WWII in his statement, the modern country’s history books often refer to it as a ‘German-Soviet war’, and Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera are now national heroesin Ukraine.
Earlier on Monday, Zelensky marked Victory Day by posting a photo of a Ukrainian soldier wearing Waffen SS insignia to his social media accounts, before deleting the image.
https://www.rt.com/news/555217-biden-lend-lease-ukraine/
9 May, 2022 21:42
EU to go into debt for Ukraine – Politico
Brussels is reportedly considering a €15 billion bond emission to finance Ukrainian government operations
The European Union is planning to fund the operating expenses of the government in Kiev for at least three months, Politico Europe reported on Monday, citing diplomatic sources. The €15 billion would be raised through a new debt emission, using the template established for Covid-19 relief.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) he needed $7 billion per month ($1 = €0.95) to pay salaries, pensions and other government expenditures.The US has pledged to provide a third of that sum for the next three months. The EU intends to make up the difference with special bonds, according to Politico.
The European Commission (EC) briefed ambassadors of the member countries about the plan on Friday, according to the outlet. It involves issuing debt using guarantees from EU member countries. The scheme is structured along the lines of SURE, the program used to raise €100 billion in aid for EU citizens who lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 lockdowns. That debt was then securitized as bonds ranging from 5-30 years.
“Whenever there’s a problem with money, [the Commission] says SURE!” Politico quoted a diplomat as saying.
The plan could be unveiled as early as May 18 and at least three countries – including Austria, Germany, and Greece – have asked for alternative options, according to the outlet. They are reportedly hoping non-EU countries like Japan, Norway, and the UK would “chip in”as well, leaving the EU with less of a debt burden. France has also proposed that heads of EU states discuss the problem in a summit meeting at the end of May.
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has proposed another option to fund rebuilding Ukraine: confiscating the Russian foreign exchange reserves currently frozen under EU sanctions. Borrell pointed to the example of Washington confiscating the funds of the Afghan central bank after the US withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban took over. It is “full of logic” to use Russian assets the same way, Borrell told FT in an interview published on Monday.
In February, US President Joe Biden seized half of the $7 billion in Da Afghanistan Bank’s assets held in US financial institutions, saying it would go towards compensating victims of 9/11 terrorist attacks, while the other half would go towards “the benefit of the Afghan people and for Afghanistan’s future,” though it was not specified as to how.
The New York Times described the move as “highly unusual,” the Taliban denounced it as theft, and even the former US-backed president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, termed it “unjust and unfair and an atrocity against Afghan people.”
(Insanity infected their brains, all of them are crazy. And everyone knows it. Bidan couldn’t win a war of any kind and neither could the EU.)
https://www.rt.com/news/555214-eu-debt-ukraine-financing/
9 May, 2022 18:03
Elon Musk warns he could die ‘under mysterious circumstances’
The Tesla tycoon’s cryptic tweet generated a slew of Hillary Clinton jokes
Elon Musk on Monday told his followers on Twitter that should he die “under mysterious circumstances, it’s been nice knowin ya.” The SpaceX and Tesla magnate had previously clashed with a Russian official, but his announcement sparked more jokes than concern.
Musk tweeted his message on Monday morning but gave no further explanation. Shortly afterwards, however, he shared a post written byRussia’s former deputy prime minister and current space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin, in which Rogozin said the Tesla tycoon will be held “accountable” for providing Starlink internet terminals to “Nazi” militants in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol via the Pentagon.
SpaceX has provided the technology, and satellite coverage, to Ukraine since Moscow sent troops into the country in late February, but has refused to allow Russian media to be censored on the service, calling himself a “free speech absolutist.” It is unclear if Musk arranged for the terminals to be sent directly to the neo-Nazi militias in Mariupol, or if he made them available to Washington and Kiev.
Musk and Rogozin have feuded online before. Rogozin remarked in 2014 that the US should use a “trampoline” to send astronauts to space, a reference to its reliance on Russian rockets at the time. When SpaceX launched two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in 2020, Musk declared “the trampoline is working.”
Rogozin replied that he “loved” Musk’s joke, and Musk declared in Russian that he was looking “forward to a mutually beneficial and prosperous long-term cooperation.” However, if genuine, Rogozin’s issue with Musk allegedly supplying communications equipment to Ukrainian neo-Nazi forces appears more serious.
Musk’s American followers didn’t connect the cryptic message with his back-and-forth with Rogozin. Instead, they joked that the billionaire must have “dirt on the Clintons,” a reference to the mysterious deaths of people in some way connected to Bill and Hillary Clinton, such as the 1993 suicide of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster, the fatal armed robbery of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich in 2016, and the death of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, which was officially ruled a suicide.
Musk’s message was also reminiscent of claims by John McAfee, who prior to his suicide in a Spanish prison last year insisted that he would be killed while behind bars and his death made to look like a suicide. McAfee, whose eponymous antivirus software made him a multi-millionaire, had claimed that if he were to “hang [him]self, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of [his].”
https://www.rt.com/news/555208-elon-musk-die-mysterious/
10 May, 2022 00:11
Congress pushes arming Ukraine over Covid aid to Americans
White House urges Congress to pass both, but weapons for Ukraine are deemed more urgent
Democrats will make a separate $10 billion coronavirus funding proposal so the nearly $40 billion in weapons and other aid to Ukraine could get approved more quickly ahead of a “critical” deadline, US President Joe Biden said on Monday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) originally had funding for Covid-19 treatments, tests and vaccines tacked onto the $33 billion proposal for supplemental aid to Ukraine. Republicans, who fully backed funding Ukraine but had a problem with how the Covid funding proposal would affect border policy, threatened to block it in the Senate.
In a statement on Monday, Biden said he would accept splitting the bill if that would get the Ukraine funds – which have since grown by another $6.8 billion – approved faster.
“We cannot afford delay in this vital war effort. Hence, I am prepared to accept that these two measures move separately, so that the Ukrainian aid bill can get to my desk right away,” Biden said.
“This aid has been critical to Ukraine’s success on the battlefield. We cannot allow our shipments of assistance to stop while we await further Congressional action. We are approximately ten days from hitting this critical deadline,” he added.
Biden did say helping Americans combat the virus was “equally vital” as helping Ukraine, as “more Americans will die needlessly” without timely funding. The US will also miss out on new treatments and “next-generation vaccines under development,” as well as fall behind on “our effort to help lower-income countries get [covid] vaccines into arms,” the president added.
Democrats wanted to use the Covid funding to get rid of Title 42, a policy that allowed the US to turn away or deport migrants caught crossing the border illegally, on account of the pandemic. Republicans objected.
They did not object to spending more money on Ukraine, however, reportedly agreeing to tack on $3.4 billion in food aid and another $3.4 billion for the US military to replace the equipment Biden sent to Ukraine from the Pentagon stockpiles, according to Roll Call. The Ukraine bill is still being finalized, and could appear in the House as early as Tuesday.
Earlier on Monday, Biden signed the “Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act Of 2022,” a WWII-era scheme to funnel weapons and other equipment to the government in Kiev, approved by Congress at the end of April. The signing was scheduled for the day Russia celebrates as the anniversary of its WWII victory over Nazi Germany – which Biden completely ignored, choosing instead to bring up the 1950 founding of the precursor to the EU, and praise the “Allied nations’ defeat of the scourge of fascism in Europe” on May 8 – the date on which the Nazis surrendered to the US and UK troops on the continent, but not the Soviets.
https://www.rt.com/news/555220-ukraine-congress-covid-relief/
9 May, 2022 21:04White House comments on Supreme Court protests
Following a backlash, Biden's team express opposition to rallies outside the homes of conservative justices
White House comments on Supreme Court protests
President Joe Biden's US government has declared that lurking outside the homes of Supreme Court justices in order to protest their presumed stance on reversing the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the US is not morally conscionable.
The website called on activists to demonstrate outside of the homes of the conservative justices following the leak of a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito calling for the repeal of the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion in the US. Although the identity of the leaker has not been officially determined, experts have suggested the individual will face criminal prosecution. Lacie Wooten-Holway, a neighbor of conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh, has taken credit for at least some of the protests, claiming she organizes “peaceful candlelit vigils in front of his house” but is “not going to be civil to that man at all” going forward.
The sudden feeding frenzy over the potential repeal of federal abortion rights has seized hold of the American political discourse ahead of the midterm elections, which had previously seemed to guarantee big wins for the Republican Party/ Now, despite record inflation, near record-high gas prices and the funneling of billions of taxpayer dollars into the Ukraine conflict, Democratic voters have rallied behind their party’s leaders out of fear of the loss of abortion rights, though the procedure would likely remain legal in most ‘blue states’ even if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has sought to bring a bill codifying abortion rights to the floor for a vote on Wednesday after a previous attempt to pass such legislation failed in March. Biden has also condemned Alito’s draft opinion.
https://www.rt.com/news/555216-white-house-condemns-stalking-scotus/
White House press secretary Jen Psaki released a statement on Monday acknowledging that “judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety.” Protests against Supreme Court decisions must “never include violence, threats or vandalism,” she continued.
Psaki was referring to the activities of a group of activists calling itself Ruth Sent Us,’ which last week announced a planned series of protests outside the homes of conservative Supreme Court justices expected to rule in favor of repealing Roe v. Wade. The group’s website prominently features a map with the judges’ home addresses, an invasion of privacy that could also invite violence given the increasingly volatile climate surrounding the issue over the weekend. The office of a Wisconsin conservative anti-abortion organization was vandalized on Sunday in what was believed to be arson, and law enforcement has constructed a hefty fence around the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC in an effort to head off further violence.
Psaki’s tweet represented an about-face from her previous dismissive stance about the release of the personal information of justices. Asked on Thursday by Fox News reporter Steve Doocy whether the activists’ posting of the map represented “the kind of thing this president wants,” Psaki responded that she didn’t “have an official US government position on where people protest.”
https://www.rt.com/news/555216-white-house-condemns-stalking-scotus/