Explosions at Nord Stream pipeline sites at time of leaks

Seismologists confirm underwater blasts were detected at the pipeline failure locations

Scientists in Denmark and Sweden registered underwater explosions near the Nord Stream pipelines on Monday, when several major leaks were reported. Sabotage is now suspected as a key reason for the damage.

“There is no doubt that these were explosions,” seismologist Bjorn Lund of Sweden’s National Seismology Centre (SNSN) told public broadcaster SVT on Tuesday.

The Danish military released aerial footage of the leaks, showing large spots and visible bubbling in the water. Nord Stream 1 suffered two leaks northeast of the Danish island of Bornholm, while Nord Stream 2 was damaged south of Dueodde, a beach located at the island’s southernmost tip, the military noted

Earlier in the day, Moscow said it has been looking into the reasons behind the leaks, suggesting the pipelines were targeted in an act of sabotage. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that currently “no option can be ruled out” on the causes of the incident.

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline was completed in 2011. Construction work on Nord Stream 2 began in 2018, and suffered numerous delays due to political pressure and sanctions from the US. The pipeline was finished and pressurized in September 2021, but never actually got online.

Two days before the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the German government put its certification on indefinite hold, and has repeatedly rejected any suggestions, both domestic and from Moscow, to open the pipeline.

https://www.rt.com/russia/563614-explosions-detected-near-nordstream/

Bill Barr Confronted Over Refusal To Help Jan 6th Prisoners

Bill Barr is notorious for ignoring the numerous accusations of election fraud in the 2020 election. Recently, the Gateway Pundit reported on Bill Barr’s failure to investigate any of the hundreds of affidavits alleging fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Barr also excused ballot trafficking at the ballot drop boxes.

Bill Barr refused to do his job. Now he’s out giving excuses.

Author and retired professor of political science Dr. Carol M. Swain confronted former Attorney General William Barr about the January 6th prisoners and his prior statements on the 2020 election.

According to Swain, Barr cut her off the first time she brought up the Jan 6th prisoners and the 2020 election.

She approached him again.

Rather than exposing 2020 election fraud, former Attorney General Bill Barr has attacked Trump for claiming the 2020 election was stolen.

During testimony with the sham Jan 6th panel Barr claimed voter fraud claims by Trump’s legal team were “absolute rubbish.”

The New Yorker reported:

Bill Barr did not think much of Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. According to his videotaped testimony before the House select committee investigating how those lies resulted in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump’s former Attorney General told Trump this to his face. Among his choice words about various claims by the Trump legal team: “bullshit,” “completely bullshit,” “absolute rubbish,” “idiotic,” “bogus,” “stupid,” “crazy,” “crazy stuff,” “complete nonsense,” and “a great, great disservice to the country.” What’s more, Barr added, if Trump actually believed the garbage he was spewing about the election, then he had become dangerously “detached from reality.”

When the committee convened, on Monday, for its second public hearing, Barr, in a pre-recorded video deposition, turned out to be the surprise star witness, debunking his former boss’s fantastical and malicious election falsehoods with a derision that bordered on outright contempt. It was also clear that Barr was hardly alone among the President’s men in that view. The panel produced evidence—sworn, on-the-record evidence—that many other Trump advisers and officials had also known that Trump lost the 2020 election fair and square, had told him so directly, and had recommended against pursuing the bogus lawsuits and inflammatory disinformation campaign that Trump chose to wage anyway. Trump’s campaign lawyers told him this. Trump’s White House lawyers told him this. Trump’s political advisers—including his son-in-law Jared Kushner—told him this. Their statements to that effect were, like Barr’s, shown at Monday’s hearing.

Recent FOIA requests are now showing Barr lied – he sent out a memo saying there should be investigations of the elections.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/bill-barr-confronted-refusal-help-jan-6th-prisoners/

Apple removes Russian social media giant’s apps

Almost all apps owned by the VK holding are no longer available to download from the AppStore

Apple’s AppStore blocked on Monday most applications provided by the Russian VK ecosystem, including the country's largest social networking service, VKontakte. The US tech giant has so far not publicly provided any reasons for the move.

The removal also affected the group’s VK Music, Youla classifieds advertisements board, Domclick real estate platform, and other apps. VK holding (previously known as Mail.ru Group) has confirmed the removal of the apps, assuring users that already installed applications will continue to work on Apple devices.

“VK will continue to develop and support applications for iOS. Our experts do everything to maintain and continue to improve user comfort,” the company said in a statement, admitting, however, that end-users might experience issues with payments.

Apple has remained silent on the matter and provided no reason for the removal of VK’s apps.

Russia’s Ministry of Digital Affairs said it has contacted the company with an official inquiry about the removal of the applications.

“The Ministry of Digital Affairs sent a request to Apple Inc about the reasons for deleting VK applications and developer accounts, underlining the social significance and scale of use of the services provided by the Russian company,” the ministry said, adding that after the company answers the inquiry, an unspecified “plan of action” will follow.

The removal of the applications from the AppStore sent VK shares plummeting on the Russian stock market, losing more than 20% on Monday. The price has somewhat bounced back since then, gaining more than 7.5% on Tuesday.

https://www.rt.com/pop-culture/563610-apple-vk-social-media/

Congressional Negotiators Agree on $12 Billion in New Ukraine Aid

The funds will be included in a government funding bill

Congressional negotiators agreed to include nearly $12 billion in new spending on the war in Ukraine in a stopgap spending bill that will likely be voted on this week, Reuters reported on Monday.

Sources told Reuters that the $12 billion will include $4.5 billion in funding for arms being sent to Ukraine and $2.7 billion for other military and intelligence support for Ukraine. The funding also includes $4.5 billion in direct budgetary aid for the Ukrainian government.

A source told The Associated Press that the stopgap bill is meant to fund the federal government through mid-December and could be brought to the Senate for a vote as soon as Tuesday evening.

The funds for Ukraine largely fall in line with a request made by President Biden. The White House asked Congress to authorize $11.7 billion in spending for Ukraine and for $2 billion for energy spending to offset the cost of the sanctions campaign against Moscow.

If the measure is passed, it will bring the total US expenditures for the war in Ukraine to about $65.6 billion. Including the $2 billion in energy spending to offset sanctions brings the total to $67.6 billion. To put the figure in perspective, Russia’s entire annual military budget for 2021 was $65.9 billion.

The Ukraine aid is not meant to last very long. When requesting the funds, the White House said it was needed for the first three months of the 2023 fiscal year, which starts on October 1 for the federal government. Ukraine is preparing to launch more counteroffensive next year and has asked the US to provide more advanced weaponry.

US support for this proxy war on Russia’s border is entering extremely dangerous territory as Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Moscow could defend its “territorial integrity” with nuclear weapons. Russian territory is set to expand into Ukraine as referendums are being held in Russian-controlled areas.

https://news.antiwar.com/2022/09/26/congressional-negotiators-agree-on-12-billion-in-new-ukraine-aid/

PayPal bans Gays Against Groomers but permits pedophile support group on platform

In an update shared after Gays Against Groomers was permanently banned from using PayPal, the anti-child-sexualization group revealed the payment processing company permits groups that support pedophiles to use its services.

Gays Against Groomers posted screenshots last week that show an organization called the Protasia Foundation is permitted to use both PayPal and Venmo to process donations to its partner the "MAP Support Club." MAP stands for "minor attracted people," a euphemism for pedophiles. Both groups advocate for the acceptance of pedophilia as a sexual orientation, rather than a depraved perversion.

"While we’re not allowed to conduct business on PayPal, guess who is… an organization that offers a support group for 'MAPs,'" Gays Against Groomers tweeted. "@PayPal banned us for being against pedophilia, but allow actual pedophile groups to use their services unabated."

Protasia is a California-based progressive charity that claims to fight child sexual abuse in a "balanced" and "evidence-based" approach that reduces "harms caused to children and others" by "our society's predominantly reactive child protection agenda." The group states that "peer support for stigmatized populations," or pedophiles, is believed by some experts to reduce sexual abuse.

The separate organization MAP Support Club is "a community for minor attracted people to find friendship and understanding among peers." The support club operates a chat-based "peer-support network" for adolescents and adults who feel sexual urges toward children. Protasia partners with MAP Support Club and says it serves as the organization's legal point of contact.

"Since the average age at which minor attracted people discover their attractions is 14 years old and since a large proportion of CSA is committed by adolescents against younger minors, this is an important endeavor in helping teenagers come to terms with their attractions in a harm-free and law-abiding way," Protasia's website states. "Adults and teens cannot message each other on MSC."

MAP Support Club runs its own staff, according to Protasia, which has created open source software to help monitor chatrooms for illegal child pornography "as an additional safeguarding measure."

Critics like Canadian writer Anna Slatz have attacked Protasia's mission, highlighting how the organization seeks to mainstream pedophilia by campaigning against child pornography bans, advocating for the legalization of child sex dolls, and funding research for "fantasy sexual outlets" for pedophiles.

Gays Against Groomers complained that an organization that literally defends pedophiles is permitted to use PayPal and Venmo while their group, which opposes indoctrinating children with "radical gender theory," is accused of hatred, intolerance, and discrimination.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/gays-against-groomers-paypal-protasia

https://www.theblaze.com/news/gays-against-groomers-paypal-protasia

GOP senators demand Wray, AG Garland end FBI whistleblower’s suspension

In a blistering letter accusing FBI leadership of retaliating against a protected whistleblower, the ranking members of two powerful Senate committees have warned Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to step in immediately to shield suspended Special Agent Steve Friend from unlawful reprisals after he filed a complaint with the inspector general last week alleging FBI wrongdoing in domestic terrorism cases.

In the letter sent Monday, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) — ranking members of the Judiciary Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations, respectively — questioned why the FBI suspended Friend without pay last week and demanded that “all other forms of reprisal against him for his protected whistleblowing activity are immediately stopped.”

“The FBI should immediately cease the disciplinary actions it is actively taking to punish Special Agent Friend for his protected whistleblowing activity,” the senators wrote. “These unwarranted actions only serve to chill other employees from reporting wrongdoing, and demonstrate a complete and utter failure by agency leaders to obey the letter and intent of federal whistleblower protection laws.”

“The alleged actions by FBI senior leadership are unacceptable and send exactly the wrong message.

“The FBI should never suspend security clearances as a form of punishment or to retaliate against patriotic whistleblowers for stepping forward to report potential wrongdoing …

“Under federal whistleblower laws, employees of the Federal Government have not only a right but a responsibility to report evidence of potential wrongdoing. That is precisely what Special Agent Friend has done.”

After raising his concerns with his FBI supervisors, Friend made legally protected whistleblower disclosures to the Office of Special Counsel as well as the Office of the Inspector General.

Republican legislators have claimed that more than 20 FBI whistleblowers have come forward with similar allegations of politicization and wrongdoing at the bureau.

Grassley and Johnson said Friend contacted their offices “alleging breaches of FBI policy … in active domestic terrorism assessments” and told them that “when he raised these concerns with his FBI supervisors … they questioned whether he had a future with the FBI. They later suspended his security clearance and escorted him out of his assigned FBI Field Office.”

https://nypost.com/2022/09/26/gop-senators-demand-wray-ag-garland-end-fbi-whistleblowers-suspension/

FBI Changes Total Number of Documents Seized From Trump’s Estate

The FBI on Sept. 26 changed the total number of documents it said it seized from former President Donald Trump’s estate.

Sixty-three additional documents or photographs without classification markings were taken from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort than previously listed by the FBI, according to an updated inventory list.

The revised inventory was submitted to the federal court in southern Florida on orders from U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, a Reagan appointee who was inserted into the case as a special master, or an independent third party to handle disputes and other matters.

Dearie ordered a government official “with sufficient knowledge of the matter” to submit a declaration or affidavit stating whether the detailed property inventory released on Sept. 2 “represents the full and accurate extent of the property seized from” Trump’s home in August when FBI agents executed a search warrant there.

An FBI supervisory special agent, whose name was redacted, fulfilled the order. The agent, based in Washington, said he or she leads a squad of special agents, intelligence analysts, and other personnel in carrying out counterintelligence and espionage investigations, and that their team executed the warrant.

The earlier inventory was performed by the agent and workers under their direction but, wanting to make sure the inventory was accurate, “I and FBI personnel working under my direction conducted an additional review and recount of the Seized materials in order to make this declaration,” the agent told Dearie.

An Epoch Times review of the earlier and current inventory list showed the differences included 63 non-classified documents or photographs being added to the total the FBI said it seized. Additionally, the new list contains two fewer magazines/newspapers/press articles and two fewer empty folders with “CLASSIFIED” banners.

Some of the boxes seized from Trump’s home were said to contain more documents now; others were said to contain fewer.

The update, if accurate, means the government seized over 11,200 non-classified materials from Mar-a-Lago.

The agent said he or she declared, under the penalty of perjury, that they were “not aware of” any documents or other materials seized from Trump’s home that are not listed in the updated inventory, with the exception of materials taken by the government’s filter team.

That squad was focused on identifying and segregating materials they thought could fall under attorney-client privilege.

A spokesman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The updated inventory excludes documents marked classified, based on a recent appeals court order that blocked Dearie and Trump’s lawyers from reviewing the said documents. The earlier inventory listed 103 documents with classification markings.

https://www.ntd.com/fbi-changes-total-number-of-documents-seized-from-trumps-estate_846898.html

https://www.ntd.com/fbi-changes-total-number-of-documents-seized-from-trumps-estate_846898.html

First Lawsuit Fired Off Against Biden’s ‘Illegal’ Student Loan Gambit

The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) sued the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday, claiming President Joe Biden’s move to cancel student debt is “flagrantly illegal.”

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, alleges that Biden does not have the authority to forgive more than $400 billion in student loan debt.

“Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt,” PLF attorney Caleb Kruckenberg said. “It’s flagrantly illegal for the executive branch to create a $500 billion program by press release, and without statutory authority or even the basic notice and comment procedure for new regulations.”

Biden announced in August that he would take executive action to cancel $20,000 in student loan debt for Pell Grant recipients, while forgiving $10,000 for all those earning below $125,000 per year. The Congressional Budget Office announced Monday that the plan would likely add $400 billion to the federal debt.

The PLF said Biden’s decision seems to have been executed in a “rushed, haphazard manner” that “certainly seems like an election year ploy.”

Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott claimed the plan would only benefit a “small percentage of the population at the expense of millions of other hardworking Americans.”

“Those who have saved to pay for the education they chose to get, or have no debt at all because they chose a valuable career that doesn’t require a college degree, shouldn’t be on the hook to bail out folks that voluntarily took on debt and now want someone else to pay for it,” Scott said.

To cancel the debt, the Biden administration invoked the 2003 HEROES Act, which gave the executive branch the authority to help borrowers who “suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a war or other military operation or national emergency.”

The legislation was originally meant “to support the members of the United States military,” but the Biden administration took a broader interpretation, arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic qualifies as a “national emergency” and caused “economic hardship” to all borrowers covered by the forgiveness plan.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/09/27/pacific-legal-foundation-sues-education-department-student-loan-debt-forgiveness-biden/

WATCH: Scripted Reality — Establishment Media Goes All in on Parroting Mussolini Smear

Despite her own political enemies in Italy denouncing such claims as “absolutely fake news”, the establishment media has doubled down on the claim that relatively straightforward Christian conservative leader Giorgia Meloni is in fact a reincarnation of Italy’s fascist wartime leader.

Not sure what to think of the likely new conservative prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni? Worry not! The corporate media has already provided the talking point for you to accept and parrot.

Repeated literally hundreds of times on U.S. and international television in the past 48 hours, nobody on earth can now claim to be ignorant that Italy is backsliding into literal fascism.

Everybody knows that. Except, inconveniently, actual front-line experts on Italian politics. Like Italy’s former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi — a left-leaning globalist who you could absolutely rely on to be as uncharitable about his right-wing opponents as possible — who called this line of attack against Meloni “absolutely fake news”.

If even a literal Italian Prime Minister from the globalist left thinks this is nonsense, you’d expect some moderation from the establishment media. Check out what he told CNN on Monday:

Personally, I was against Giorgia Meloni… we are, and will be, rivals, always… At the same time, I think [Meloni] is not a danger [to] Italian democracy. She is my rival, and we will continue to fight each other, but the idea that now there is a risk of fascism in Italy is absolutely fake news… there is not a danger for fascism in Italy.

Except not. How could it be possible that so many establishment media outlets could get it so identically wrong? When will they be fact checked? As they used to say, this is extremely dangerous to our democracy.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/09/27/watch-scripted-reality-parrot-media-goes-all-in-on-mussolini/

Cloned Border Patrol Vehicle Seized at Border in California

El Centro Sector agents operating a remote video surveillance system observed what they believed to be a cloned Border Patrol vehicle. Agents responded to the area and engaged in a pursuit.

El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino tweeted photos of a Chevrolet Tahoe with a fake U.S. Border Patrol livery. The vehicle also did not have emergency lights.

Agents responded to the area after being notified of the suspicious vehicle by remote camera. The driver fled the scene and engaged the agents in a short pursuit.

The agents arrested the driver and seized the counterfeit vehicle.

It is not clear from the tweet if the vehicle was engaged in drug or human smuggling at the time.

While not a common occurrence, this it not the first time agents found cloned Border Patrol and other emergency vehicles used by smugglers. As far back as 2015, smugglers utilized a fake Border Patrol vehicle, Breitbart Texas reported. Laredo Sector agents found the vehicle near Cotulla, Texas, approximately 65 miles from the border with Mexico.

Tucson Sector agents found ten more migrants being smuggled in a cloned patrol vehicle. In this case, the driver also appeared to be wearing the uniform of a federal agent.

Smugglers also utilize other official-looking vehicles in attempts to sneak their cargo into the U.S. interior.

Last month, Douglas Station agents in the Tucson Sector found a fake fire department vehicle smuggling migrants near the border wall.

Smugglers also used a stolen EMS vehicle in August 2018 to attempt to sneak a load of migrants through the Falfurrias Border Patrol Checkpoint on U.S. Highway 281 in Brooks County, Texas.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2022/09/27/cloned-border-patrol-vehicle-seized-at-border-in-california/

Did the COVID Unvaccinated Fare Better or Worse Than the Vaccinated? The Results Are In

After the fast spread of the pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from China to the Western world, several large pharmaceutical companies quickly invented and manufactured COVID-19 vaccines, which were then made available to the public through emergency use authorization (EUA). And in late 2020, people around the world started to receive these vaccines.

According to Our World in Data, to date, 67.9 percent of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. While only 22.5 percent of people in low-income countries have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the vaccination rates of developed countries are generally high—typically around 80 percent. For instance, the COVID-19 vaccination rates of the G7 countries are: 79.19 percent in the United States, 86.96 percent in Canada, 80.92 percent in France, 77.66 percent in Germany, 85.82 percent in Italy, 83.60 percent in Japan, and 79.97 percent in the UK.

However, in all countries and regions around the world, there are people who elect not to receive the COVID-19 vaccines for various reasons. They are a naturally occurring control group, as opposed to the vaccinated population (i.e. the experimental group). Indeed, the whole COVID-19 vaccine campaigns can be regarded as the unprecedented largest human clinical trials on vaccine safety, by design or not, as the vaccines’ long term safety data was not available when they were provided to people under EUA. Then, the unvaccinated population in different parts of the world are very unique large control groups in such a global clinical trial.

Due to the highly valuable health data of this unvaccinated population, between October 2021 and February 2022, a UK-based organization called Control Group Cooperative (CGC) independently collected their self-reported data on their health status, reasons for declining to receive the COVID-19 vaccines, whether they have been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the severity of their symptoms for the ones that did get infected, and whether they’ve been subject to discrimination or victimization.

These data have then been analyzed by a team of researchers, who are entirely independent of the CGC and have received no funding for interpreting the findings of the CGC survey. Their recent report on their findings has been published on the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, which is a peer-reviewed scholarly open access journal.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-covid-unvaccinated-are-the-control-group-heres-how-they-fared_4745779.html?utm_source=Morningbrief