Notable

>>16729274, >>16729398, >>16729571, biden and his admin gaffs and actions topic

EXC: Biden’s Energy Dept Drag Queen Gets Top Secret ‘Q Clearance’ Alongside Six-Figure Government Salary.

by K. Christopher Powell Natalie WintersRaheem J. Kassam

July 12, 2022

A high-level hire at the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, whose past as a drag queen and defender of underage gay prostitution sites has stirred controversy, is earning a salary in the top one percent of all government employees, according to documents obtained exclusively by The National Pulse.

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by The National Pulse revealsSam Brinton’s taxpayer funded salary of $178,063, placing him amongst the top one percent of other federal salaries. It is also around five times the national median individual income.

Brinton, who received his job offer in allegedly strange circumstances in January 2022, will also enjoy thetop secret “Q clearance” level in the Department of Energy. The designation Top Secret is applied to information, “the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.”

Official Job Offer.

The DOE uses its own terminology to classify security clearances, describing the Q-level clearance as “similar to what is completed by other agencies for a Top Secret National Security Information access clearance.”

“Access to Secret Restricted Data requires a Q access authorization,” the agency continues.

Job Posting.

The initial job description for Brinton’s post described the position’s security level as “Critical-Sensitive (CS)/High Risk.” The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) describes what this classification entails:

“Potential exists to bring about a material adverse effect on the national security, causing exceptionally grave damage. Any position receiving a position sensitivity designation of CS shall automatically carry with that designation, without further agency action, a High Risk designation.”

Brinton’s personal posts have also revealed the gravity of his appointment, sharing on Twitter on June 29th:

“I lead a staff of hundreds and a budget of millions (with a Nuclear Waste Fund I’m responsible for at over $45 billion) as the leader of the office overseeing the management of the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.”

The revelations follow The National Pulse exposé of appointee Samuel Brinton’s past as a drag queen, LGBTQ+ activist who has “lectured” on kink at college campuses and participated in interviews about fetish roleplay.

https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/07/12/exc-bidens-energy-dept-drag-queen-gets-top-secret-q-clearance-alongside-six-figure-government-salary/

"Take The Tragedy In Sri Lanka And Multiply By Ten": The Fed Just Lobbed A Financial Nuke That Will Obliterate The Global Economy

By Larry McDonald, author of the Bear Traps Report

We are living in a period of mass “Jonestown” economic delusion. Just twenty months ago – central bankers were offering to buy nearly every junk bond known to mankind, dramatically distorting the “true cost of capital.” All the way from crypto to emerging markets – it was a moral hazard overdose. Everyone on earth was borrowing money at fantasy-land bond yields.

Now, the Fed is promising endless rate hikes and $1T of balance sheet reduction onto a planet with emerging market and Euro-zone credit markets in flames.

Listen, all I have is an economics degree from the University of Massachusetts, but after having spent the last 20 years trading bonds professionally and embarking on a 20k feet deep autopsy on the largest bank failure of all time – from my seat the current Fed agenda is sheer madness and will be outed very soon.

The true cost of capital was distorted for so long, we now have hundreds of academics– clueless to the underlying serpent inside global markets. When the 6 foot seven, Paul Volcker walked the halls of the Marriner S. Eccles Building of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, our planet embraced about $200T LESS debt than we are staring down the barrel at today. Please call out the risk management imbeciles that make any reference of “Powell to Volcker.”

In 2021, global debt reached a record $303T, according to the Institute of International Finance, a global financial industry association. This is a FURTHER jump from record global debt in 2019 of $226T, as reported by the IMF in its Global Debt Database. Volcker was jacking rates into a planet with about $200T LESS debt. Please call out the risk management imbeciles that make any reference of Powell to Volcker.

Many economists in 2022 are highly delusional – a very dangerous group indeed. When you hike rates aggressively with a strong dollar you multiply interest rate risk, which was already off the charts coming from such a low 2020 base in terms of yield – it's a convexity nightmare. Interest rate hikes today - hand in hand with a strong U.S. Dollar - carry 100x the destructive power than the Carter – Reagan era.

At the same time, you add lighter fluid on to the credit risk fire in emerging markets with a raging greenback. Global banks have to mark to market most of these assets. If global rates reset higher and stay at elevated levels, the sovereign debt pile is in gave danger. The response to Lehman and Covid crisis squared (see above) has left a mathematically unsustainable bill for follow on generations. The Fed CANNOT hike rates aggressively into this mess without blowing up the global economy. We are talking about mass - Jonestown delusion on roids.

Then Covid-19 placed a colossal leverage cocktail on top. Emerging and frontier market countries currently owe the IMF over $100B. U.S. central banking policy + a strong USD is vaporizing this capital as we speak.

A dollar screaming higher with agricultural commodities – priced globally in dollars - is a colossal tax on emerging market countries – clueless academics at the Fed are exporting inflation into countries that can least afford it. Emerging – and

frontier market countries owe the IMF over $100B – U.S. central banking policy – strong USD, is vaporizing this capital…

A quarter-trillion dollars of distressed debt is threatening to drag the developing world into a historic cascade of defaults. The number of developing nations trading distressed has doubled, with El Salvador, Ghana, Egypt, Tunisia and Pakistan appearing particularly vulnerable. With the low-income countries, debt risks and debt crises are not hypothetical - try buying oil in USD in an EM currency. A fifth — or about 17% — of the $1.4 trillion emerging-market sovereigns have outstanding in external debt denominated in dollars, euros or yen, according to data compiled by Bloomberg…

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/take-tragedy-sri-lanka-and-multiply-ten-fed-just-lobbed-financial-nuke-will-obliterate

Twitter Experiencing Major Global Outage

Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

Though it likely has nothing to do with the ongoing Elon Musk/Twitter saga, the social media site appears to have gone conspicuously offline this morning around 8:15AM EST. As of the time of this blog post, it has not come back online. Several other people have confirmed to me that they cannot access the site.

While the outage is likely just run of the mill and worth chalking up to outages that sites have all the time, the fact that Twitter is in such focus right now can’t be overlooked.

DownDetector showed the outages reported in realtime:

Curiously, other sites didn’t show up as crashing at the same time (which usually happens when it’s an ISP or cloud problem). Instead, it appears to be isolated to Twitter and Tweetdeck. Here were the top services experiencing problems on Downdetector at the same time:

Those who went to login or access their Twitter page were greeted with the following error:

A window I already had open would not let me Tweet out a link to this article:

And Tweetdeck also appeared to not be working, showing a simple error code:

Comments from some users seem to indicate it may be working in other counties, like New Zealand.

I’m certain this has nothing to do with the fact that both Twitter and Musk are going to be trying to prove, in court within weeks, that the site is not laden with spam and bots.

It has to be just a coincidence, right?

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/twitter-appears-be-experiencing-outage-morning

They "Should Never Know Peace Again": Harvard Instructor Calls For People To "Accost" Justices In Public

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

(Seize the endowments of every major university that has terrorists training the youth of our country NOW!)

We recently discussed the Georgetown law professor who defended “more aggressive” protests targeting the Supreme Court justices, but Harvard clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo wants to guarantee that “The 6 justices who overturned Roe should never know peace again.”

Accordingly, Caraballo is calling for people to “accost them every time they are in public.”

That harassment, according to Caraballo, is the “civic duty” of every American.

The tweet from Caraballo is the latest example of academics seeking to harass these justices because they hold opposing constitutional views. It is also an example of the addiction to rage that has developed in this country. There is a license that comes with rage that is evident in Caraballo’s writings: “Since women don’t have their rights, these justices should never have a peaceful moment in public again.” The tweets even attach photos to assist others in this ignoble enterprise.

These calls have continued despite the alleged attempted murder of Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home recently.

As noted by Campus Reform, Caraballo is also an advocate for censorship, calling for Twitter to ban the popular conservative site “Libs of TikTok” as a “terrorist” enterprise because it shows liberals talking about themselves.

I have defended the right of people to protest justices, but having a right does not mean that you cannot abuse that right. Hounding and harassing justices and judges because you do not like their conclusions is wrong and dangerous. Most Americans are appalled by this conduct and we need to collectively condemn those who seek to mete out their own retaliatory justice.

As more on the left call for aggressive protests and public confrontations, this harassment is more and more likely to turn violent.

There are many unbalanced individuals who will see such calls as a license for violent action. A justice or judge should not have to put his or her family at risk to serve on our courts. These academics are fueling a sense of mob justice that will cause untold harm to our judicial system and the rule of law.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/they-should-never-know-peace-again-harvard-instructor-calls-people-accost-justices-public

Russia, Ukraine Reach Breakthrough Over Blocked Grain Exports: UN Chief

Is this the beginning of a solution to the Ukraine grain export impasse which has been threatening to put large swathes of dependent populations across the Middle East and Africa on the brink of famine?

On Wednesday UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that warring powers are on the cusp of a deal to free up Black Sea exports after multiple intense rounds of talks in Istanbul, saying an "important and substantive step" was made towards reaching a comprehensive agreement.

"Next week, hopefully, we’ll be able to have a final agreement. But, as I said, we still need a lot of goodwill and commitments by all parties," Guterres said from UN headquarters in New York. He qualified that despite this rare instance of Ukraine and Russia engaging the other in negotiations, it remains that "for peace we still have a long way to go."

Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar also confirmed that a deal is close, saying it would be signed next week, when both sides are expected to meet again. Moscow and Kiev have reportedly agreed to "joint controls for checking grains at harbors" - though details of the draft deal haven't been fully revealed.

The BBC additionally reported that talks are appearing to focus on neutral external parties - such as Turkey for example - safeguarding international vessels through the Black Sea:

Talks on opening up a "green corridor" through the Black Sea took place in Turkey on Wednesday. But any agreement will require support from President Vladimir Putin, who meets Turkey's president in Iran on 19 July.

And Bloomberg sources revealed the following:

Talks were held in Istanbul with representatives from Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, plus the United Nations. The sides agreed on the "main technical principles," Turkey’s defense minister said in a statement.

Ukrainian and Russian delegations will meet again in Turkey next week to further discuss details, Turkey said. There has been no statement issued yet from Kyiv or Moscow. The parties agreed to form a coordination center, among other discussion points, Turkey said.

Further, according to Al Jazeera citing two sources privy to the Istanbul talks, the parties "are close to a deal or perhaps they even have a deal."

In a Spring forecast by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, it was estimated that the globe will see a 20% decline in global wheat production this year due to the ongoing situation in Ukraine, where the country's Ministry of Agriculture recently warned a third of the country's farmland is occupied or unsafe.

The issue of a theoretical deal being reached vs. the reality of actually executing it remains an entirely different question, given the presence of thousands of mines around many of Ukraine's key ports. Russia has put the issue in central focus as it has sought to combat accusations from the West that it alone is to blame for the blockade of crucial wheat supplies from the country. The Kremlin has laid fundamental blame for the crisis on Ukraine's military mining its own ports.

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/russia-ukraine-reach-breakthrough-over-blocked-grain-exports-un-chief

14 Jul, 2022 11:18

US providing Kiev with intelligence on Donbass targets – Moscow

Washington also sent instructors to Ukraine to help with US-supplied rocket systems, the Russian Foreign Ministry says

Washington has not only supplied long-range High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Kiev, but is providing intelligence on targets in Donbass and has even “unofficially” sent instructors to Ukraine to help with the hardware, the Russian Foreign Ministry claimed on Thursday.

Moscow alleges that the Ukrainian government has ordered troops to shell civilians in the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics with the help of the US-made weapons.

Speaking at a media briefing in Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said that Ukrainian forces “have used US-supplied multiple-launch rocket systems HIMARS on all fronts” of late. She added that Washington has been actively sharing intelligence on targets with Kiev, and has even “unofficially dispatched instructors, who were helping representatives of the Kiev regime to aim correctly.”

Zakharova linked the recent uptick in Ukrainian shelling with the delivery of the US-made rocket systems.

She noted that the Ukrainian military “has apparently been ordered by Kiev to use the said launchers against civilians without any hesitation.”

Also on Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement, that Moscow’s “operation will continue despite attempts by the US and its allies to 'strengthen the security' of Ukraine.”

https://www.rt.com/news/558964-russian-foreign-ministry-ukraine-himars-civilians/

14 Jul, 2022 11:30

Bumper grain harvest predicted for Russia

(Russia trolling world leaders)

This year’s production is expected to reach record 138 million tons, market researcher IKAR says

Russia is expected to reap its largest grain harvest ever this year, according to the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR).

“The forecast for wheat crop has been increased from 88.7 million to 90.5 million tons, the estimate of gross grain harvest – from 133.5 million to 138.5 million tons,” IKAR CEO Dmitry Rylko told Interfax on Thursday.

According to Rylko, Russia’s export potential for the current agricultural year (July 2022 to June 2023) will also grow – for wheat, from 42 million to 44 million tons; for overall grain production, from 52 million to 56.1 million tons.

The forecast echoes an earlier statement of President Vladimir Putin, who said the wheat harvest could be the biggest “in the entire history of Russia.” At the time, citing preliminary data, Putin said the results could allow Russia “not only to meet domestic needs with a margin, but also to increase supplies to the global market for our partners, which is very important for the world food markets.”

Russia’s biggest grain harvest ever was recorded in 2017 – 135.5 million tons, including 86 million tons of wheat.

In 2020, the figure was 133.5 million tons of grain (including 85.9 million tons of wheat). Last year, the harvest was 121.4 million tons (with 76 million tons of wheat).

Russia is projected to retain its leadership in the world’s wheat market in the coming years.

https://www.rt.com/business/558962-russia-record-grain-harvest/

14 Jul, 2022 09:00

US wants China, India to pay Russia less for crude

Washington is trying to create a buyers’ cartel that would set a price limit on Russian oil

The US State Department believes that China and India, the two current major buyers of Russian oil, should be part of the proposed oil price cap mechanism, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Molly Montgomery said on Wednesday.

“China and India are importers of Russian oil, and I can say that we are working very actively with partners and allies to help develop a proposal [to limit the price of Russian oil],” Montgomery said during a press briefing.

“We see this [price cap] as an opportunity for countries to do something in the international interest, to pay less for energy imports and stabilize the global oil market, so countries should be interested,” she added.

According to US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs Erik Woodhouse, the participation of both China and India in the deal could persuade other countries to join in.

“Obviously, China and India are important purchasers of Russian oil. I can say that we’ve been [talking] most intensively with partners and allies to help design a proposal… Perhaps this can work, as well as outreach to countries that we would like to see participate or otherwise support the price cap,” Woodhouse said.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published earlier on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US plans to set a price cap for Russian oil which would be profitable enough for the country to continue production. She did not specify the exact numbers, but explained that the mechanism will demand that any tanker carrying Russian oil would only receive financing and insurance from US, UK, and EU institutions if the sales price of the oil is below the cap.

Also on Wednesday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan noted that the introduction of the price cap mechanism will take some time due to the number of details that have to be sorted out. He added, however, that Washington has already been discussing the measure with a number of key oil consuming countries, including China and India.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Thursday confirmed that the issue of the Russian oil price cap was discussed between Janet Yellen and China’s vice premier, Liu He, earlier this month. According to a statement from the ministry, the issue of the price cap is a complex one, and should be solved based on the desire of the parties involved to reduce tensions in Ukraine.

https://www.rt.com/business/558956-us-china-india-oil-price-russia/

14 Jul, 2022 09:35

US national held in DPR custody – media

(He fucked around and found out)

The Guardian has reported that Suedi Murekezi was captured in the city of Kherson last month

The number of American citizens captured by pro-Russian troops in Ukraine may be higher than previously thought, The Guardian has claimed. The newspaper reported on Wednesday that another US national has been in custody of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) since last month. This is in addition to two other Americans known to be held.

According to the report, citing the captive’s brother, Suedi Murekezi, 35, was apprehended in June in the southern Ukrainian port city of Kherson, which is currently under Russian control. Friends of his living in the city first noticed Murekezi’s disappearance on June 8, the paper claimed.

His brother, Sele Murekezi, told journalists that Suedi had been residing in Kherson since 2020, having moved to Ukraine two years earlier.

The detained man’s relatives insisted that he had not participated in the fighting and had been falsely accused of taking part in pro-Ukrainian protests.

Sele was able to reach his brother by phone last Thursday for the first time since his disappearance, The Guardian reported. Suedi reportedly said that he was being held in the DPR city of Donetsk in the same prison as two other American citizens, Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, who had allegedly served in the Ukrainian military as volunteers prior to their capture. The DPR authorities, however, insist that Drueke and Tai Ngoc Huynh were mercenaries and should be held accountable as such.

When asked for comment, the US Department of State confirmed that it was “aware of reports” of Murekezi’s detention but declined to go into detail, citing “privacy considerations.”

The Guardian also reached out to Russian and DPR authorities but received no response, according to the paper. No official statements regarding the American citizen’s arrest have been forthcoming either.

The paper reported that Murekezi was born in Rwanda, but his family fled to the US after the 1994 genocide. He is said to have served in the US Air Force for eight years before retiring in 2017. He subsequently reportedly began investing in cryptocurrencies – presumably an interest that eventually brought him to Ukraine, which was known for its liberal regulation of digital currencies.

In early March, Russian forces took over Kherson, where the American had been living.

https://www.rt.com/news/558953-report-another-us-national-held-dpr/

14 Jul, 2022 07:59

Ukrainian militants forced mothers and newborns out of maternity wards – Russian MOD

Medical staff who tried to stop the soldiers were assaulted, head of Russia’s National Defense Control Center claims

The Ukrainian military has been accused, by the Russian Defence Ministry, of throwing mothers and their newborn babies out of maternity hospitals in the southern Odessa Region. Wednesday's statement added that medical staff who tried to stop them were allegedly assaulted.

“In the settlements of Dobroslav and Krasnoselka of the Limansky district in Odessa Region,Ukrainian militants use hospitals and ambulance stations as command posts and barracks. At the same time, all the patients, regardless of their health condition, as well as maternity ward patients and their newborn children, were ruthlessly kicked out of medical institutions, while medical staff who tried to prevent the neo-Nazis’ cruelty suffered from physical violence,” Mikhail Mizintsev, the head of Russia’s National Defense Control Center, outlined.

He added that the Ukrainian forces set up barracks, firing positions, and ammunition depots in a clinic in Ugledar (a city in the Donetsk People’s Republic), with heavy weaponry, artillery, and mortars stationed nearby.

Mizintsev urged international organizations, including the World Health Organization, to influence Kiev to put an end to the use of medical facilities for military purposes.

“Such actions of the criminal Ukrainian authorities show their complete indifference to the fate of their own citizens and absolute disregard for all moral norms and principles of international humanitarian law,” he said.

Mizintsev’s comments come in the wake of Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-controlled city of Novaya Kakhovka in Kherson Region, which reportedly killed two people and injured at least 90, with seven still missing after a fertilizer storage depot was hit. The explosion also damaged several civilian sites, including a market and a hospital.

https://www.rt.com/russia/558949-ukraine-hospital-odessa-newborn/

14 Jul, 2022 09:07

Russia responds to US abuse claims

The secretary of state’s allegations of forced deportations is “poor quality Western disinformation,” Moscow said

Moscow has dismissed American claims that it forced up to 1.6 million Ukrainians to move to Russia, was confiscating Ukrainian identification documents, and issuing Russian passports instead.

The accusations, which were made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, are “poor quality Western disinformation,” the Russian embassy in Washington said.

The top US diplomat accused Russia of abusing Ukrainian citizens in various ways. He cited estimates by sources that “indicate that Russian authorities have interrogated, detained, and forcibly deported [to Russia] between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children.”

He was apparently referring to the evacuation of civilians from Eastern Ukraine and Donbass republics. Hundreds of thousands of people fled to Russia before and during the ongoing military conflict. Kiev claimed that those refugees were Russian “hostages.”

Blinken further claimed that Russian forces were “separating families, in an apparent effort to change the demographic makeup of parts of Ukraine.”

Moscow has offered Ukrainian citizens a simplified path to Russian citizenship, should they want it. Initially only residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which Russia recognized as sovereign states in February, were eligible for the scheme, but it was later extended to all Ukrainians.

The US also claimed that Russia was “deliberately separating Ukrainian children from their parents and abducting others from orphanages before putting them up for adoption inside Russia.” Blinken cited “eyewitnesses, survivors, and Ukraine’s General Prosecutor” as his source for these and other serious accusations.

Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, commented on Blinken’s remarks, suggesting that “a case like this must have been described” somewhere in a medical encyclopedia.

When she discussed the allegations on Thursday on Russian TV, she said they were meant for consumption by a US audience. Blinken’s claims were as “absurd” as Washington’s “mantra” that Russian President Vladimir Putin had imposed “a tax” and driven American gas prices up, she added.

https://www.rt.com/russia/558957-blinken-forced-deportations-russia/

14 Jul, 2022 06:06

North Korea cut off by Kiev

(I bet Kim is all broken up over this…kek)

Ukraine made the move over the recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics by Pyongyang

Ukraine has severed all diplomatic and economic ties with North Korea after Pyongyang recognized the independence of the two Donbass republics.

“We consider this decision as an attempt by Pyongyang to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The North Korean regime’s recognition of the ‘subjectivity’ of the Russian occupational regimes in Donetsk and Luhansk regions is null and void, will have no legal consequences and will not change the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine,” the ministry said.

The statement comes after Pyongyang confirmed on Wednesday that it had officially recognized the independence of the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, which broke away from Ukraine shortly after the 2014 coup in Kiev. Russia recognized their independence in late February, and Syria followed suit last month.

https://www.rt.com/russia/558947-ukraine-cuts-ties-pyongyang/

13 Jul, 2022 15:28

German opposition demands free meth

The Left Party has called for hard drugs to be decriminalized so police can focus on more serious crimes

Calling for a “fundamental rethink” of the country’s drug policy, Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke) hopes to make small amounts of crystal meth available to addicts under close “therapeutic support,” it announced in a motion on Monday.

The party is also seeking to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of meth and other hard drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy, in the hope that reducing the time spent prosecuting addicts will free up police resources for more important matters.

Drug users must be “consistently protected from criminal prosecution,” the parliamentary motion states. “Police, public prosecutors, courts and last but not least medical facilities must be relieved and be able to concentrate on important public welfare tasks.”

Crystal meth use in Germany has been on the rise for years, with the number of related crimes up by 18.9% in 2020 over the previous year, for a total of 12,000 cases. While newer statistics are not yet available, drug policy experts have warned that the Covid-19 lockdowns likely exacerbated the problem, as they have in other countries.

Nor has the Left Party always been in favor of letting meth addicts use with impunity. Drug policy spokesman Frank Tempel explained as recently as 2015 that while he was in favor of legalizing substitutes for meth, which would give addicts “controlled quality” to rely upon, the substance itself must remain banned. “This stuff is so dangerous you can’t legalize it,” he said.

Germany began allowing the use of cannabis for medical purposes in 2017, and earlier this year began the process of legalizing the drug recreationally. The substance will remain off-limits for children and young people, but would-be German cannabis entrepreneurs are concerned that excessive red tape and over-taxing might doom the experiment to failure, driving consumers back to the illicit suppliers legalization is meant to defang.

No European country has yet completely legalized recreational cannabis, though the Netherlands famously sells marijuana in ‘coffee shops’, and Spain and Portugal have decriminalized the drug. Portugal has also allowed cannabis for medical use since 2018.

Regarding harder drugs, the German Left may be taking its cue from Portugal, which decriminalized possession of all narcotics in 2000. While selling drugs remains illegal, the amount of drug-related violence has declined significantly in the country, and addicts are encouraged to seek help rather than be imprisoned. Two decades after passing the controversial measure, Portugal boasts a rate of drug-related deaths five times lower than the EU average, half as many heroin addicts as it had in 1999, and an HIV transmission rate that has dropped by a factor of 18.

A 2019 study of 70 European cities’ wastewater revealed Germany to be the meth capital of Europe. The top three heaviest-using cities – Erfurt, Chemnitz, and Dresden – were all found in Germany, followed by Bratislava in Slovakia and Brno in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, the German city of Saarbrucken was found to have the highest rates of use of amphetamine, a closely-related stimulant.

https://www.rt.com/news/558922-germany-left-methamphetamine-addicts-decriminalize/

13 Jul, 2022 14:08

Hungary declares energy emergency

Budapest will ban exports and boost domestic production ahead of possible winter shortages

The Hungarian government declared a state of emergency over tightening energy supplies on Wednesday. Gergely Gulyas, an aide to Prime Minister Viktor Orban, announced that domestic gas and coal production will be stepped up and gas reserves filled before winter.

With the EU cutting itself off from Russian energy imports, Gulyas told reporters that the bloc will likely not have enough gas from Autumn onwards. In response to the supply crunch, he announced a seven-point plan, effective from August.

Hungary will increase domestic gas production from 1.5 to 2 billion cubic meters, while filling the country’s storage facilities with foreign gas. At present, Gulyas said that the country's reserves are 44% full.

Meanwhile, his government will impose a ban on the export of firewood, while increasing domestic coal extraction. At the same time, the coal-fired Matra power plant will be restarted as soon as possible, having been partially shut down since January 2021.

The operating hours of the Paks nuclear power plant – which produces more than half of the country’s electricity – will be extended, while customers using more than an allotted amount of power will not be offered fixed rates. Price caps currently ensure that Hungarians pay six times less than market prices for power and eight times less for gas, according to government commissioner Szilard Nemeth.

Hungary relies almost entirely on Russia for its natural gas, and has opposed an EU embargo on the vital resource. Orban predicted last month that such a ban “will ruin the whole European economy.” Hungary has also opposed the EU’s phased withdrawal from Russian oil imports by the end of this year, and has been given a waiver to keep purchasing the fuel from Moscow.

With other EU countries – such as Germany – suffering economic turmoil after placing penalties on Russian fossil fuels, Orban’s government has lashed out at proposals from the bloc to share what little gas they have equally.

“Hungarian gas storage facilities will remain Hungarian property, we will use the gas in Hungarian gas storage facilities purchased with Hungarian taxpayers’ money in Hungary,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijarto said last week, adding that the gas-sharing suggestion “reminds us of communism.”

Despite a swathe of protectionist measures, Gulyas told reporters that Hungary will have to reduce its energy consumption. Similar announcements have been made in Germany, where officials have told the public to lower their heating thermostats and take shorter showers. In May, the International Energy Agency warned of impending fuel rationing across the entire continent.

https://www.rt.com/news/558914-hungary-declares-energy-emergency/

https://twitter.com/JohnBasham/status/1547439571532750848?s=20&t=JmGtAPKP6bCk0BVTyiDCmA

https://twitter.com/DrJamesOlsson/status/1547319843736657924?s=20&t=JmGtAPKP6bCk0BVTyiDCmA

When HRC gets involved, you know they are scared

https://twitter.com/DrJamesOlsson/status/1547319843736657924?s=20&t=JmGtAPKP6bCk0BVTyiDCmA

>>16730421

Corrected link to Kari Lakes tweet

https://twitter.com/KariLake/status/1547402863864791041?s=20&t=7Y71m3i1kX79BZZWC10ISQ

>>16730431

Thx anon, i fixed it

https://twitter.com/KariLake/status/1547402863864791041?s=20&t=7Y71m3i1kX79BZZWC10ISQ

>>16730414

Seconded Amen

>>16730502

Fake, Fredo the Fake, was never in Ukraine

Notable

>>16730532

Choose the lesser of two evils, Kari will be controlled by PDJT, Hobbs hates him and rigged the election to make him lose.

Easy choice

>>16730543

Cool

notable

>>16730097

It is, but doj doesnt prosecute terrorists