Russia to halt electricity supplies to Finland

Power deliveries will be suspended due to the lack of payment, the grid operator says

Russian utility Inter RAO will stop exporting electricity to Finland from May 14, Finland’s grid company said on Friday.

According to Fingrid, citing Inter RAO, the trade in electricity imported from Russia will be suspended due to difficulties in receiving payments for electricity sold on the market.

“We are forced to suspend the electricity import starting from May 14,” said RAO Nordic, a Finland-based subsidiary of Russia’s Inter RAO, adding that it “is not able to make payments for the imported electricity from Russia.”

Fingrid said “There is no threat to the adequacy of electricity in Finland,” noting that power from Russia accounted for only 10% of Finland's total consumption.

The reduced supply can be compensated by increased imports from Sweden, as well as partly by domestic production, said Fingrid’s Senior Vice President Reima Päivinen.

Fingrid said last month it would restrict the transmission capacity of cross-border connections from Russia, in an effort to safeguard the security of its energy system.

Finnish media also reported that Russia could stop providing Finland with natural gas on Friday due to the nation’s bid to join NATO. Russia has not confirmed the reports.

https://www.rt.com/business/555446-russia-electricity-supplies-finland/

Pence Turns on Trump — Will Campaign with Dirtbag Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia Before Primary

Former Vice President Mike Pence is headed to Georgia to campaign with dirtbag Governor Brian Kemp.

Governor Kemp worked against True the Vote in their investigation of ballot traffickers in Georgia during the 2020 election.

Balllot trafficking is illegal

The Hill reported:

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday announced that he will campaign for Gov. Brian Kemp in his reelection bid in Georgia, breaking with former President Trump, who has backed former Sen. David Perdue in the closely watched primary.

Pence announced he will participate in a May 23 get-out-the-vote rally with Kemp before Georgia’s May 24 gubernatorial primary.

Pence said in a statement that Kemp is “my friend, a man dedicated to faith, family and the people of Georgia.”

Pence said in a statement obtained by the Journal-Constitution that Kemp is “dedicated to faith, family and the people of Georgia.”

The former vice president described Kemp as “one of the most successful conservative governors in America.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/pence-turns-trump-backs-dirtbag-brian-kemp-georgia-governors-race/

Ukraine Says $8.3BN Spent On War So Far As Zelensky Addresses Davos WEF

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to deliver a virtual address before the Davos, Switzerland based World Economic Forum, where the message is expected to be something along the lines of 'send more money, or see the global food crisis worsen' - which is also a theme of US Congressional leaders as they seek to push through the record-breaking $40 billion Ukraine aid package. This as a fresh US forecast expects that wheat production in the war-ravaged country will fall by one-third compared to last year.

Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko unveiled on Thursday that his country has spent $8.3 billion to fight the Russian invasion, according to Reuters. Marchenko described that the funds would have in normal times been used for domestic development, but has now gone toward procuring more weaponry and emergency repairs, as well as handling the refugee crisis of those millions of people displaced within Ukraine.

Also on Friday the Group of Seven foreign ministers will meet for talks in Germany. According to Bloomberg, where Ukraine’s foreign minister is "pushing the group to take steps to allocate seized Russian assets to Kyiv to finance rebuilding."

But despite the collective Western enthusiasm for punishing Russia and unifying the world against Moscow, there remains a few significant hiccups…

For starters, Hungary and a handful of other smaller nations are holding up Europe's planned Russian oil embargo, to the point that it may be delayed indefinitely for the sake of implementing other key facets of the sanctions package, as Rabobank observes:

Although the EU has vowed to implement a phased-in oil ban, preferably in the context of a broader sanctions package aimed at Russia, there are now Member States –according to Bloomberg news– that consider “delaying a push to ban Russian oil so they can proceed with the rest of a proposed sanctions package if the bloc can’t persuade Hungary to back the embargo.”

And on the Western military alliance front, Bloomberg has also aptly written that a "Turkish chill hits potential NATO expansion".

Turkey's Erdoğan is saying not so fast on the rush to admit Finland and Sweden into NATO, asserting that his country - which represents the second largest NATO military and hosts US nukes - is "not favorable" to the idea. "Sweden has become a home for PKK and other terror groups. We don’t view their NATO membership positively," he said earlier in the day.

The move to see both countries, one which shares an over 800-mile border with Russia, enter NATO has intensified since April in direct response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On Thursday Finland's president Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced the country will apply for NATO membership "without delay" - explaining that "NATO membership would strengthen Finland’s security. As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defense alliance."

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-says-83bn-spent-war-so-far-zelensky-addresses-davos-wef

“No Way Elon Musk Is Going to Buy Twitter…A Company Largely Based on BOTS and Spam Accounts” President Trump on Elon Musk’s Twitter Deal

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/no-way-elon-musk-going-buy-twitter-company-largely-based-bots-spam-accounts-president-trump-elon-musks-twitter-deal/

DESPICABLE: ‘2000 Mules’ Reveals 200+ Mules In Maricopa County, Possible 207,435 ILLEGAL Votes Trafficked In Arizona – RINO AG Mark Brnovich Does NOTHING

Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” documentary exposed even more shocking evidence that the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen in Arizona, and RINO Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich refuses to do anything about it.

The bombshell film presented Irrefutable evidence of systematic wide-scale voter fraud discovered by True The Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht and 30-year election intelligence expert Greg Phillips.

Using publicly available geotracking data from the cellphones of ballot trafficking “Mules” and over four million minutes of security footage from dropboxes across the country, True The Vote shows us exactly how Democrats rigged the 2020 election with mail-in voter fraud.

Catherine and Greg purchased cellphone geotracking data from October 1st, 2020, through the 2020 General Election in key swing states across the country and narrowed their search parameters to pinpoint their Mules. Individuals who made unique trips to ten or more ballot drop boxes and five or more visits to a nonprofit organization were identified as ballot Mules.

“When we started the project, we had to figure out how are we going to describe the individuals and the elements involved, and to us, it felt a lot like a cartel… So we began to use that vernacular. A Mule is, by our definition, a person that is involved in picking up ballots from locations and running them to the drop boxes,” said Catherine Engelbrecht.

The Mules were discovered picking up ballots from Democratic nonprofits or “stash houses” in each state and dropping them off at various ballot dropboxes around town.

Many were even filmed visiting dropboxes in the middle of the night, wearing gloves while handling ballots, and photographing themselves stuffing the ballots. These alone are major red flags.

In the film, Engelbrecht explained,

One of the questions that will come up in the work that we’ve done is, “well, how do you know that this wasn’t just somebody that’s got a big family and they just deposited a bunch of ballots once?” Or, “how do you know that this person didn’t just work at a location that is near a Dropbox and so they’re constantly going by a Dropbox?“ the elements that are added to here, the going to the nonprofits, the ability to identify the pattern of approach to Dropbox and that it is going not past a Dropbox and on but directly to a Dropbox and back to another point and then to another Dropbox; all of these things.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/despicable-2000-mules-reveals-200-mules-maricopa-county-possible-207435-illegal-votes-trafficked-arizona-rino-ag-mark-brnovich-nothing/

Johns Hopkins center dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse hires prof who said adult sexual attraction to minors is OK as long as it's not acted upon

A Johns Hopkins University center dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse hired a professor who said adult sexual attraction to minors is OK as long as it's not acted upon.

What are the details?

The Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse announced Thursday that Allyn Walker will join the center as a postdoctoral fellow May 25, Fox News reported.

The cable network said the Moore Center confirmed the news in a statement that went on to note, "Walker is a leader in the field of perpetration prevention research, which is essential for developing a comprehensive public health approach to addressing child sexual abuse and effective prevention programs. … Walker’s expertise and qualitative research methodology will enhance and advance the Center’s work."

What's the background?

Walke, while previously an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, stated in an interview last November that "there is no morality or immorality attached to attraction to anyone because no one can control who they're attracted to at all."

In the Prostasia interview, Walker added that "it's not who we're attracted to that's either OK or not OK. It's our behaviors and responding to that attraction that are either OK or not OK." Walker also went to great lengths to differentiate between pedophiles and minor-attracted people in what seemed to be an attempt to normalize adult attractions to people under the age of 18 as long as those attractions aren't carried out:

And I want to be extremely clear that child sexual abuse is never ever okay. But having an attraction to minors as long as it isn't acted on doesn't mean the person who has those attractions is doing something wrong. I think we have a tendency to want to categorize people with these attractions as evil or morally corrupt. But when we're talking about non-offending MAPS, these are people who have an attraction that they didn't ask for. And one that frequently they would give anything to change. But they find that they're unable to change those attractions. And most importantly, the people in my study did not act on them.

Walker's bio in "Experiences of Trans Scholars in Criminology and Criminal Justice" indicates the professor is "queer" and "nonbinary trans."

What happened next?

Amid controversy over the interview, Walker was placed on administrative leave in mid-November. By the end of the month, news hit that Walker was resigning amid "multiple threats … made against me and the campus community generally." The Associated Press reported that Walker would remain on leave before officially stepping down at the conclusion of the academic year in May.

Walker's research was "mischaracterized by some in the media and online, partly on the basis of my trans identity," the prof added to the AP. But denunciations against Walker — who uses the pronoun “they" — were rolling in.

More from the AP:

An online petition calling for Walker’s removal received nearly 15,000 signatures. It referenced Walker’s use of the term, “minor attracted persons,” and said “(w)e want to be clear that this is pedophilia and should not be considered a sexual preference.”

Fox News host Tucker Carlson also talked about Walker’s work with the headline “The Left’s Depraved New Low.”

A letter sent out last week by university President Brian Hemphill noted the controversy had triggered terrible memories and caused fresh pain to people who suffered abuse.

As for Walker's resignation, Hemphill told the outlet "we have concluded that this outcome is the best way to move forward."

https://www.theblaze.com/news/johns-hopkins-sexual-attraction-minors

Cenk Uygur goes on bizarre rant claiming Joe Rogan had sex with transgender people, wants to know 'how much of a groomer and pedophile is Joe Rogan?

Leftist Cenk Uygur went on a bizarre and angry rant in which he claimed that Joe Rogan has a personal "hatred" of transgender people because he had sex with them and now allegedly has deep regrets. "The Young Turks" host also wants to know "how much of a groomer and pedophile is Joe Rogan?"

During Wednesday's episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, Rogan skewered people who find the word "groomer" offensive.

Rogan posed a question to people offended by the term groomer, "Do you not like it because you don’t want children to be groomed, or do you not like it cause it's a pejorative that’s used against the left? Which I think is more likely."

Rogan emphasized, "Here’s what's more important — not have people groom your f***ing kids. That’s what’s more important than you getting uncomfortable with this word because it's used by people on the right."

Rogan wondered, "And how many of those people are doing it under the guise of 'I'm an LGBTQ educator'?"

"There's people who are good people in all walks of life," Rogan declared. "Trans people, gay people, straight people, bisexual, whatever the f* you are. There's good people in all walks of life. There's also pieces of st that will use those labels in order to get closer to groups of people and indoctrinate them. Indoctrinate them for their own sexual pleasure. That's real."

"The Young Turks" hosts Ana Kasparian and Uygur reacted to Rogan's opinion by outlandishly questioning whether he had sex with transgender people and whether he is a pedophile.

"Joe Rogan doesn't understand why some people would have a problem with the usage of the word groomer, as the right wing in America incessantly uses that type of terminology to inaccurately describe people they disagree with," Kasparian asserted, then claimed Rogan "apparently loves to provide cover for right-wingers."

"So as you guys can see, Joe Rogan went on a rampage because he had a right-winger sitting across from him," Kasparian proclaimed. "So of course, he had to get down on his knees and fellate him, as he usually does when he has right-wingers on his podcast."

In the "Joe Rogan Experience" episode in question, Rogan spoke to Gad Saad – a Canadian evolutionary behavioral scientist, professor at Concordia University, and author.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/joe-rogan-cenk-uygur-groomer

State Passes Bill Allowing Gov’t to Vaccinate Preteens WITHOUT Parental Consent

Though there has long been a push by the state to sever the bond between parents and their children, over the last two years, this disturbing trend has ramped up. Thanks to the rampant fear pushed by media and politicians alike, many American citizens are sitting by idly as government circumvents parental authority.

This week, it escalated to a new level as the Californian Senate passed Senate Bill 866. The bill, titled Teens Choose Vaccinations Act, is a farce from the start as it is not just teens targeted in the bill. Children as young as 12-years-old can now go behind their parents’ backs and take any vaccine they wish.

The bill was championed by Senator Scott Wiener who thinks that young children should not have their parents standing in the way of their health decisions — pre-existing conditions, contraindications, and health problems that may lead to complications be damned.

Notice the deception in Wiener’s tweet as he says “teens” to imply that these are older children when, in fact, they are 6th graders.

Prior to covid, the same people pushing this bill were likely calling out “big pharma” for their corruption and criminal activity. Now, however, they are passing bills to inject their products directly into your children without your consent.

Despite children facing a near zero chance of dying from COVID-19, the tyrant class is hellbent on moving in this direction.

Governments across the country began requiring children to get the jab to go to school and, consequently, researchers began to see an increase in myocarditis.

Since the vaccine was approved in December 2020, there has been a record number of adverse reactions reported to the CDC and many of them include children. This is why the Florida Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo officially recommended against vaccinating healthy children as they have an extremely low risk of complications from covid.

The idea of the state circumventing parental authority and giving children any medical procedure without their parents’ consent is utterly shocking. What’s more Supreme Court precedent has been clearly established and has held for decades that parents have both the duty and the right to direct the care, custody, and control of their minor children. This move in California and others like it are in direct conflict with said Supreme Court precedent and contrary to the U.S. Constitution.

In fact, in its 1979 Parham v. J.R. decision, the Supreme Court declared that the state cannot make these decisions:

“Simply because the decision of a parent is not agreeable to a child, or because it involves risks, does not automatically transfer the power to make that decision from the parents to some agency or officer of the state. The same characterizations can be made for a tonsillectomy, appendectomy, or other medical procedure. Most children, even in adolescence, simply are not able to make sound judgments concerning many decisions, including their need for medical care or treatment. Parents can and must make those judgments.”

The state taking parental rights away and allowing impressionable children to be guided by government motives is a terrifying notion. Nevertheless, it continues to happen.

https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/sb866

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/state-passes-bill-allowing-govt-to-vaccinate-preteens-without-parental-consent/

‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Sex and the City’ actor Bruce MacVittie dead at 65

Beloved actor Bruce MacVittie, best known for his roles in “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” has died. He was 65.

MacVittie died in a Manhattan hospital on Saturday, his wife, Carol Ochs, confirmed to the New York Times on Thursday.

No cause of death was disclosed.

https://pagesix.com/2022/05/13/the-sopranos-star-bruce-macvittie-dead-at-65/

Powell Says He Can’t Promise a ‘Soft Landing’ and Avoid Recession as Fed Fights Inflation

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday that persistent supply chain disruptions and “huge” geopolitical events happening around the globe could foil the Fed’s attempts at engineering a so-called “soft landing” for the U.S. economy, with the central bank chief’s statement amounting to an acknowledgment of the possibility of a recession.

Powell made the remarks in an interview on NPR’s “Marketplace,” in which he was asked whether he’s more concerned about the prospect of high inflation sticking around or the notion that the Fed’s monetary tightening response to surging prices could spark a recession.

“It’s a very challenging environment to make monetary policy,” Powell replied. “Our goal, of course, is to get inflation back down to 2 percent without having the economy go into recession, or, to put it this way, with the labor market remaining fairly strong.”

Calling price stability the “bedrock” on which the economy rests, Powell insisted that the Fed’s key objective is to tame runaway prices, saying that “nothing in the economy works” unless inflation is reined in.

‘Prepared to Do More’

Powell reiterated his expectation that the Fed would tighten monetary settings by hiking rates by 50-basis-point increments over the next two meetings but added that the central bank is prepared to act more aggressively if conditions warrant.

“We have a series of expectations about the economy. If things come in better than we expect, then we’re prepared to do less. If they come in worse than when we expect, then we’re prepared to do more,” Powell said, prompting a question about whether the Fed would consider a 75-basis-point hike, which he declined to do, saying only that policymakers would “adapt to the incoming data and the evolving outlook.”

Powell was then asked about a pathway to “this mythical soft landing,” where the policy tightening doesn’t tip the economy into a recession.

“It will be challenging, it won’t be easy,” Powell replied, admitting that it “would have been better” to have started raising rates earlier than in March.

Soft Landing

Addressing challenges, the Fed chief said that monetary policy can cool surging demand, which is part of the inflationary puzzle, but that the central bank has no tools to address supply-side factors.

“Supply is a big part of the story, here. But more than that, there are huge events, geopolitical events going on around the world, that are going to play a very important role in the economy in the next year or so,” Powell said.

https://www.ntd.com/powell-says-he-cant-promise-a-soft-landing-and-avoid-recession-as-fed-fights-inflation_779044.html

Mexican President Praises Soldiers for ‘Protecting’ Cartel Gunmen by Running From Them

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sparked controversy for defending his country’s soldiers after a video showed them retreating from a convoy of cartel members. The president claimed the escape protected the lives of cartel gunmen.

The issue began this week when Mexico’s military announced operations in Michoacan. Hours later, a video became viral showing groups of cartel members in SUVs chasing soldiers out of the town of Nueva Italia.

Soon after, Lopez Obrador said during a news conference that they must protect his federal troops, but they must also protect members of criminal organizations.

“Cuidamos a los elementos de las Fuerzas Armadas, de la Defensa, de la Guardia Nacional, pero también cuidamos a los integrantes de las bandas. Son seres humanos, esta es una política distinta”, dijo el presidente López Obrador.

Más, en https://t.co/BjdELZkpfR pic.twitter.com/FRhqMatQzq

— Joaquín López-Dóriga (@lopezdoriga) May 12, 2022

“They are human beings, this is a different policy a completely different policy,” the president said. “To me, that was a responsible attitude.”

The comments earned Lopez Obrador criticism from all sectors of Mexican society.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2022/05/13/mexican-president-praises-soldiers-for-protecting-cartel-gunmen-by-running-from-them/

More Oil From U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve Heads To Europe

Europe is set to receive more cargoes of U.S. crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) as the European Union discusses an oil embargo on Russia and looks to reduce reliance on Russian oil, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing tanker-tracking data and sources with knowledge of the shipments.

In recent weeks, Europe has increased purchases of U.S. crude as it considers the details of a ban on imports of Russian crude and refined products.

A week after the European Commission officially proposed a full ban on Russian crude and oil product imports by the end of the year, the EU is still scrambling to find a common position, trying to persuade Hungary and some other central European countries to drop their opposition to an embargo.

“We made progress, but further work is needed,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said late on Monday following a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Meanwhile, U.S. crude is flowing to Europe at rates never seen before.

Two cargoes of high-sulfur crude from the U.S. strategic reserve are headed to Italy and the Netherlands, according to tanker-tracking data and sources briefed by Bloomberg. The tankers have loaded crude at terminals connected to storage caverns of the SPR in Texas and Louisiana.

According to Matt Smith, oil analyst at commodity data firm Kpler, these would not be the last crude exports out of the U.S. SPR to Europe.

In April, some 1.6 million barrels of U.S. crude from the strategic reserve made its way to Europe, Smith told Bloomberg, adding: “That’s the largest amount of SPR crude that’s been shipped to the continent based on historical monthly data.”

Although the EU is still working out the details of an embargo on Russia’s oil, many buyers in Europe are generally staying away from Russian crude and products, while May 15 is the deadline for European buyers to wind down and halt transactions with Russian oil firms, including Rosneft.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/More-Oil-From-US-Strategic-Petroleum-Reserve-Heads-To-Europe.html

Israel army reverses assertion Palestinian fire killed Abu Akleh

Israeli army chief Aviv Kochavi now says it was unclear who fired the shot that killed Shireen Abu Akleh.

Israel’s military chief has walked back assertions made earlier that Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh may have been killed by stray bullets fired by Palestinian fighters.

Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi said it was now unclear who fired the shot that killed Abu Akleh on Wednesday in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin.

“At this stage, we cannot determine by whose fire she was harmed and we regret her death,” he said, according to news reports.

The Israeli army initially raised the possibility that the veteran Al Jazeera journalist might have been killed by Palestinian gunfire, saying armed fighters were also present in the area at the time the journalist was shot.

Releasing a video earlier on Wednesday showing Palestinians firing in an alley at the Jenin camp, the Israeli army said the video was meant to bolster its contention that armed Palestinians were firing in the area at the time

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also shared a tweet with a video clip appearing to show armed Palestinian fighters who he said had claimed to have shot a soldier. Because no Israeli forces were hurt on Wednesday, he said that suggested the gunmen had shot a journalist instead.

“According to the data, we currently have, there is a considerable chance that armed Palestinians, who fired wildly, are what led to the unfortunate death of the journalist,” the prime minister wrote in a tweet.

However, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem conducted its own research into the claims and released a video on Wednesday that cast doubt on the Israeli army’s narrative of the killing of the journalist.

B’Tselem wrote in a series of tweets that its field researcher in Jenin documented the exact locations in which the Palestinian fighter, depicted in a video distributed by the Israeli army, had fired the shots. The researcher also identified the exact location in which Abu Akleh was shot and killed.

“Documentation of Palestinian gunfire distributed by Israeli military cannot be the gunfire that killed Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh,” the organisation wrote in a tweet.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/11/israel-army-reverses-assertion-palestinian-fire-killed-reporter

The US plan to fight Russia REVEALED in 2019 Report

The “bleeding” of Russia shall be achieved with the use of the following measures:

• Hindering Russian natural gas exports to Europe by opposing pipeline renovations and manipulating world oil prices;

• Encouraging the brain-drain and seeking to exacerbate further Russia’s demographic crisis;

• Providing lethal aid to Ukraine;

• Promoting regime-change in Belarus;

• Using disinformation to diminish foreign and domestic support for the RF’s leadership;

• Increasing the size of the US nuclear arsenal (the fact that this breaks several treaties between the US/RF is not mentioned);

• Exploiting tensions in the southern Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan);

• Challenging the RF’s presence in Moldova;

• Controlling the Black Sea, ultimately preventing the RF from claiming territorial waters around Sevastopol.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html

https://www.rand.org/pubs/corporate_pubs/CPA1065-2.html

https://www.rand.org/pubs/corporate_pubs/CP1-2019.html

https://www.rand.org/about/glance.html

F.B.I. Told Israel It Wanted Pegasus Hacking Tool for Investigations

A 2018 letter from the bureau to the Israeli government is the clearest documentary evidence to date that the agency weighed using the spyware for law enforcement operations.

The F.B.I. informed the Israeli government in a 2018 letter that it had purchased Pegasus, the notorious hacking tool, to collect data from mobile phones to aid ongoing investigations, the clearest documentary evidence to date that the bureau weighed using the spyware as a tool of law enforcement.

The F.B.I.’s description of its intended use of Pegasus came in a letter from a top F.B.I. official to Israel’s Ministry of Defense that was reviewed by The New York Times. Pegasus is produced by an Israeli firm, NSO Group, which needs to gain approval from the Israeli government before it can sell the hacking tool to a foreign government.

The 2018 letter, written by an official in the F.B.I.’s operational technology division, stated that the bureau intended to use Pegasus “for the collection of data from mobile devices for the prevention and investigation of crimes and terrorism, in compliance with privacy and national security laws.”

The Times revealed in January that the F.B.I. had purchased Pegasus in 2018 and, over the next two years, tested the spyware at a secret facility in New Jersey.

Since the article’s publication, F.B.I. officials have acknowledged that they considered deploying Pegasus but have emphasized that the bureau bought the spying tool mainly to test and evaluate it — partly to assess how adversaries might use it. They said the bureau never used the spyware in any operation.

During a congressional hearing in March, the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, said the bureau had bought a “limited license” for testing and evaluation “as part of our routine responsibilities to evaluate technologies that are out there, not just from a perspective of could they be used someday legally, but also, more important, what are the security concerns raised by those products.”

“So, very different from using it to investigate anyone,” he said.

https://archive.ph/2022.05.12-191620/https:/www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/us/politics/fbi-pegasus-spyware-israel.html#selection-297.0-301.174

More than 80 former Chuck Schumer staffers employed by Big Tech

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s extensive ties to Big Tech firms have raised the specter that the powerful Democrat has put the brakes on much-sought antitrust legislation being pushed by his own party.

More than 80 former paid staffers of the longtime New York lawmaker have leveraged their time with Schumer to secure prestigious jobs, working directly with companies including Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple, according to data compiled for The Post.

The information was collected from publicly available filings of congressional staffers on LegiStorm — an online repository of data about congressional staffers and their compensation.

The analysis reviewed approximately 600 former paid Schumer staffers over the last 20 years and cross-referenced their employment history with other publicly available information – including lobbying registration, LinkedIn profiles and company websites – to determine their Big Tech ties.

The data comes as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in January to move The U.S. Internet Innovation and Choice Act and the Open Marketplace Apps Act forward — but await Schumer’s green light for a full Senate vote.

“Schumer doesn’t want to bring the bills to the floor,” Matt Stoller, an antitrust expert and Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project, told The Post. “If he brings them to the floor they’ll pass – if you want to kill this legislation without being overt you’d just stop it from being put up for a vote.”

The Post was first to report that both of Schumer’s daughters are on the payroll of companies Schumer is supposed to be regulating. And the bevy of staffers who have worked alongside Schumer during his many years in Congress only add to the perceived conflict of interest Schumer has when it comes to cracking down on Big Tech.

Jessica Schumer is a registered lobbyist at Amazon, according to New York state records. Alison Schumer works at Facebook as a product marketing manager.

Schumer’s office provided a list to The Post of various actions the senator has taken to protect consumers. They also note one anti-Big Tech FTC Commissioner, Becca Kelly Slaughter, is a former Schumer staffer.

“If The Post wants to run a story about some ‘list’ related to Senator Schumer and tech, start with the one I provided detailing endless consumer wins, tough antitrust policies and legislative actions that defy, disprove and dropkick any notion of ‘outside influence,'” Schumer spokesman Angelo Roefaro said.

The Senate Majority Leader has also been juggling a busy legislative calendar: confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, getting funding to Ukraine, and most recently an effort to codify abortion rights

And Schumer just made good on his promise to get anti-tech progressive Alvaro Bedoya confirmed as the fifth commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission — giving Chairman Lina Khan the majority she needs to reign in tech companies.

In a statement, the senator said the FTC can begin “cracking down on bad actor companies… using anticompetitive practices.”

https://nypost.com/2022/05/12/more-o-staffers-employed-by-big-tech/

“COVID-19 Pills” Cause Deadly Relapses and Supercharge Mutations. U.S. Approves Remdesevir for Babies

So far, all of the drugs developed against COVID-19 have been disastrous in one way or another. Remdesivir, which to this day is the primary COVID drug approved for use in U.S. hospitals, routinely causes severe organ damage and, often, death

Despite that, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved remdesivir for in-hospital and outpatient use in children as young as 1 month old

Another COVID drug, Paxlovid, will in some cases cause the infection to rebound when the medication is withdrawn

Molnupiravir (sold under the brand name Lagevrio) also has serious safety concerns. Not only might it contribute to cancer and birth defects, it may also supercharge the rate at which the virus mutates inside the patient, resulting in newer and more resistant variants

The fact that U.S. health authorities have focused on these drugs to the exclusion of all others, including older drugs with high rates of effectiveness and superior safety profiles, sends a very disturbing message. They’ve basically become extensions of the drug industry, protecting the drug industry’s interests at the cost of public health

https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-pills-cause-deadly-relapses-supercharge-mutations/5779999

Tim Cook of Apple and financier Ray Dalio should register as agents for China, US panel hears

•US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an advisory panel, is told that the business executives ‘kowtow’ to Beijing

•Other suggestions include setting up an ‘Economic Nato’ composed of democratic countries with free markets to supersede the World Trade Organization

Apple chief executive Tim Cook and financier Ray Dalio should register as foreign agents because of their operations in China, a US advisory body was told on Thursday, along with other drastic recommendations for trade and investment restrictions.

Speaking before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, witnesses also pushed for an “Economic Nato”, or ENato – a trading bloc that would be made up of democratic countries with free-market systems – and a crackdown on US investment in China.

Clyde Prestowitz, founder of the Economic Strategy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, accused Cook and Dalio of “kowtowing” to Beijing, citing Apple’s removal of an app at the request of Hong Kong authorities during the 2019 protests.

The app, HKmap.live, crowdsourced the locations of police and anti-government protesters.

“This infuriated Beijing … and within two days the app was out of the App Store. This power of Chinese to capture foreign US corporations is very important and something that we need to respond to,” Preskowitz, a counsellor to the commerce secretary during the Reagan administration, said.

“Tim Cook knows, Ray Dalio knows, that if they get a little bit out of line with what Beijing wants, oh gee, the electricity could go off.”

https://archive.ph/3rc5f#selection-789.13-811.148

Milley: US Capable of ‘Strike Operations’ in Afghanistan

The head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said the US maintains surveillance in Afghanistan and has the capability to conduct strike operations if “we see a threat emanating from the land of Afghanistan.”

Talking to US congress members, Milley said that the military remains "committed to the very first mission statement that we got in Afghanistan which is to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a platform,” he said.

But the Islamic Emirate reiterated its promise that the Afghan soil will not be used against any country.

“The Afghan borders have been secured more than ever and the Islamic Emirate remains committed to its promise that the Afghan soil will not be threat to any country,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman for the Islamic Emirate.

Analysts believe that the current Afghan government has yet to satisfy the international community about security in Afghanistan.

“The Afghan side must give satisfaction to the US and international community that there is no circle in Afghanistan that can threaten their countries, it must take necessary actions in cooperation with the international community,” said Hekmatullah Hekmat, a military veteran.

https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-177983

Ridiculous bullshit

>>16268237

who benefits - not Russia = BS