Three killed in Ukrainian attacks on airfields inside Russia – MOD

Two airbases in regions far from the border were targeted by drones, Moscow says

A Ukrainian drone strike on two Russian airbases in the Ryazan and Saratov regions has resulted in the deaths of three service members and minor damage to two airplanes, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.

A number of “Soviet-made” jet drones, flying at low altitude, targeted the long-range strategic aviation assets at the Dyagilevo airfield in Ryazan Region and Engels airfield in Saratov Region, the ministry said. While they were detected and shot down by air defenses, the debris impacted the airfields “slightly” damaging two aircraft.

Three service members were “fatally injured” while four more were taken to military hospitals for treatment.

The “terrorist act” did nothing to disrupt the work of Russian strategic aviation, the ministry added, noting that a “massive strike” was carried out against Ukrainian energy, defense industry, communication and military command centers on Monday afternoon local time. The strikes successfully disrupted the rail transport of Ukrainian troops, foreign-supplied weapons, equipment and ammunition to the front lines.

“All 17 assigned objectives were hit,” the ministry stated.

Ukrainian drones have previously attacked the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol and targeted the Russian navy in Crimea, but Monday’s attack reached deep inside Russia. The Dyagilevo airfield is more than 500 km from Ukrainian-controlled territory, while Engels is about 700 km away.

https://www.rt.com/russia/567712-ukraine-attacks-russian-regions/

FBI Warned Twitter Of 'Hack-And-Leak' Operation Before Hunter Biden Story Censored

Facebook wasn't the only company that received a tap on the shoulder from the FBI shortly before the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop bombshell.

According to a declaration filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) in December 2020, the FBI and several other agencies warned Twitter's former head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, that "state actors" may attempt to leak hacked materials shortly before the 2020 election in an effort to influence the results.

According to Roth, the conversation happened during weekly meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.

"These expectations of hack-and-leak operations were discussed throughout 2020. I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden," Roth claimed in the declaration.

As the Daily Caller notes, it's unclear when the discussion between Roth and the intelligence agencies occurred - but on Oct. 14, 2020 Twitter prohibited the story from being shared under the platform's former "hacked materials" policy.

As we knew from the beginning based on the Post's original reporting, the answer is much less nefarious; Hunter Biden, a crackhead, abandoned his laptop at a Wilmington, Delaware repair shop on April 12, 2019. The owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, walked into the Albuquerque FBI office, where he explained what he had, but was rebuffed by agents. He was told basically, get lost. This was mid-September 2019.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-warned-twitter-hack-and-leak-operation-hunter-biden-story-censored

Brazil Military Kills “Red Command” Cartel Leaders, Prepares Take Over

In an unusual step for the military, the Army has invaded favelas of Rio de Janeiro and killed top leaders of the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) drug cartel, which supports the Communist criminal Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Observers take this to indicate the beginning of a federal military intervention. The drug gangs were the only ones to celebrate the alleged election victory by criminal Lula Oct. 30, firing automatic weapons in the air in the favelas. President Bolsonaro cracked down hard on the Brazilian drug gangs.

“The heads of drug trafficking of Morro do Juramento and Juramentinho, identified as Rodrigo Barbosa Marinho, known as Rolinha or Titio Rolinha, and Hevelton Nascimento Júnior, the “Bad Boy”, respectively, were killed during a Military Police operation in Vicente de Carvalho on Thursday (1st). Three other suspects died in the action and one, who was also injured, is imprisoned in custody in the hospital” O Dia reports.

The drug cartels are the armed wing of the Communists. Comando Vermelho controls parts of Rio de Janeiro and was formed 1979 as an alliance between cartels and Communists. If they are eliminated, the risk 0f a civil war will be significantly reduced.

Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, will be in Brasilia today Monday 5 for a meeting with corrupt criminal Lula and members of his coup. “The main item on the agenda is the charge for the Brazilian government to clearly condemn the war in Ukraine and engage with the U.S. and European partners in the supply of weapons to the Zelenski regime”, O Antagonista reports. The CIA has been undermining election integrity in Brazil since last year at least, with Sullivan and Biden’s CIA director William Burns visiting Brazilia to threaten President Bolsonaro directly.

Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians were protesting again on the weekend, standing outside army bases and pleading for the miltary to save their country from the Communists and cartels.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/brazil-military-kills-red-command-cartel-leaders-prepares-take/

Dirty Mitch McConnell Joins Pelosi and Schumer to Agree to Pass JCPA Media Cartel Bailout that Allows Censorship of Conservative Media

It should be clear to you at this point that Mitch McConnell is on the other side.

And the fact that 37 of 48 GOP senators voted to keep him as Senate GOP leader tells you everything you need to know about Senate Republicans.

In 7 of 10 national polls The People’s Pundit conducted this year, more Democrats than Republicans had a “very favorable” view of Mitch McConnell.

On Monday Breitbart reported that Mitch McConnell joined with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to add the JCPA Big Media Bailout Bill to the Defense Authorization Act that will be voted on this month.

According to Breitbart, the JCPA is a transfer of wealth from Silicon Valley to Big Media — the same people who have been lying to the American public about every major story since 2016.

The bill will also allow Big Media to form a joint entity to suppress content from independent competitors.

McConnell stands for this.

He really, really hates you.

Breitbart.com reported:

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell has caved to outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and will allow the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to include the highly controversial media cartel bill the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), sources familiar with the matter told Breitbart News.

Over objections from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, the likely next Speaker of the House come Jan. 3 of next year, other congressional leaders acquiesced to lobbyist pressure and agreed to include the JCPA in the base text of the NDAA. McCarthy was the only member of Congressional leadership to fight back against the inclusion, but was overruled three to one after McConnell caved.

The JCPA has absolutely nothing to do with national defense, so the move—a swan song of sorts for Pelosi, who just announced she is leaving congressional leadership but retaining her House seat after Democrats lost the majority to the GOP in the midterm elections—is an egregious step for an outgoing leader of the past against precedent as the NDAA has generally been reserved just for national security matters…

…The JCPA, essentially a transfer of wealth from Silicon Valley to the discredited and distrusted corporate legacy media, is highly controversial. Beyond the financial payouts to media companies, they will be able to form a “joint negotiating entity” — a cartel, immune from antitrust law — to negotiate with Big Tech companies on the “terms and conditions” for carrying their content.

Censorship is sure to be a frequent demand of media companies. Despite provisions in the bill that purportedly stop media companies from negotiating the suppression of any one competitor, there is nothing to stop them asking their content to be prioritized over broadly-drawn categories that are used as pretexts for censorship, like “disinformation.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/dirty-mitch-mcconnell-joins-pelosi-schumer-pass-jcpa-media-cartel-bailout-allows-censorship-targeting-conservative-media/

Arizona Certifies Rigged 2022 Election, Declares Katie Hobbs Winner

Arizona on Monday officially certified the rigged 2022 election.

Democrat Katie Hobbs, who oversaw her own election as Secretary of State, was declared the winner.

“Arizona had a successful election,” Hobbs said. “But too often throughout the process, powerful voices proliferated misinformation that threatened to disenfranchise voters. Democracy prevailed, but it’s not out of the woods. 2024 will bring a host of challenges from the election denial community that we must prepare for.”

The Hill reported:

Arizona officials certified the state’s vote canvass on Monday, officially declaring winners in the high-profile gubernatorial and Senate races, among other contests, as GOP figures vow to fight the election results in court.

The certification paves the way for automatic recounts to begin in three close races — attorney general, state superintendent and a state House seat near Phoenix — and officials signed certificates of election for the other contests.

Hobbs’s team will now go before a state judge, who is poised to officially order the three recounts.

But Monday’s meeting is also likely to spark multiple GOP-led lawsuits, as gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R), who lost to Hobbs, and attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh (R), who trails his Democratic rival by the slimmest of margins ahead of the automatic recount, promise to take legal action.

Under state law, they have five days to formally contest the results in court.

Republicans are expected to fight the results in court after Election Day tabulators across Maricopa County were not working.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/breaking-arizona-certifies-rigged-2022-election-declares-katie-hobbs-winner/

Local Authorities Shut Down VA Business 2 Years After Violating State COVID Policy — So Owner Matt Strickland Filmed the Entire Raid and Shamed Them for Being Puppets of Regime

Matt Strickland, an Iraq War veteran, is a business owner and candidate for state senator in Virginia.

Strickland owns Gourmeltz, a restaurant in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

On Friday Virginia state sheriff’s deputies and police entered his establishment and told him they were shutting him down.

Strickland refused to shut down during the pandemic two years ago. He had to feed his family and did not want to lose his business.

On Friday the police were sent in to shut him down.

Matt writes on Twitter, “Help me end this tyranny.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/local-authorities-shut-va-business-2-years-violating-state-covid-policy-owner-matt-strickland-filmed-entire-raid-shamed-puppets-regime-video/

Antidotes for Vaccine Shedding

https://www.bitchute.com/video/YR3tJdeciGL3/

FBI Warned Twitter of Hunter Biden ‘Hack-and-Leak Operation’ Before 2020 Election

The FBI warned Twitter explicitly of a “hack-and-leak operation involving Hunter Biden” ahead of the 2020 presidential election, documents filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) show, providing fresh insight around the social media platform’s decision to censor the New York Post’s explosive expose about the contents of a laptop linked to President Joe Biden’s son.

Twitter’s former head of site integrity Yoel Roth made the remarks in a signed declaration (pdf) attached to a Dec. 21, 2020 letter to the FEC’s Office of Complaints Examination and Legal Administration on behalf of Twitter.

That letter came in response to a complaint by the Republican National Committee (RNC) that Twitter had made an “impermissible in-kind contribution” to Biden’s presidential campaign when it removed from its platform articles published by the New York Post about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Roth said in the attached declaration that he was told by the FBI at a series of meetings ahead of the 2020 election that the agency warned of the threat of hacked materials being distributed on social media platforms.

“I was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks and that material obtained through those hacking attacks would likely be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter,” Roth stated in the declaration.

“I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden,” Roth added.

Twitter ‘Has Interfered in Elections’

In the run-up to the 2020 election, the New York Post published a story about a laptop abandoned at a computer repair shop that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden and contained emails suggesting that then-candidate Joe Biden had knowledge of, and was allegedly involved in, his son’s foreign business dealings.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly insisted he had no knowledge of or involvement in his son’s business operations.

Roth said in the declaration that, after reviewing the New York Post’s articles about the laptop, Twitter’s Site Integrity Team determined that they violated the platform’s policies against the distribution of hacked materials and took action on Oct. 14, 2020, to suppress distribution of the articles.

“Per the procedures and sanctions set out in the policies, the Site Integrity Team blocked Twitter users who had previously sent Tweets sharing those articles from sending new Tweets until they deleted the Tweets violating Twitter’s policies,” Roth said.

Roth later acknowledged that it was a mistake for Twitter to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.

“We didn’t know what to believe, we didn’t know what was true, there was smoke—and ultimately for me, it didn’t reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content from Twitter,” Roth said during a recent interview at the Knight Foundation conference.

“But it set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 ‘hack and leak campaign’ alarm bells,” Roth added, referring to a Russian cybercrime operation.

Roth was then asked if he thinks that Twitter blocking the Hunter Biden laptop story was a mistake, and he replied: “In my opinion, yes.”

In the interview, Roth was asked whether he thinks safety on Twitter had improved after Elon Musk’s takeover, to which he replied, “no.”

Musk responded to a news article fearing Roth’s remark by saying that Twitter had long failed in its trust and safety operations and interfered in elections.

“The obvious reality, as long-time users know, is that Twitter has failed in trust & safety for a very long time and has interfered in elections,” Musk said in a post on Twitter.

https://www.ntd.com/fbi-warned-twitter-of-hunter-biden-hack-and-leak-operation-before-2020-election_886245.html

Tampa police chief resigns after trying to wiggle out of golf cart ticket

Tampa’s police chief resigned in disgrace weeks after she tried to use her influence to escape a ticket when her husband was pulled over in an unregistered golf cart.

Mary O’Connor, 51, submitted her resignation effective immediately on Monday after internal affairs found she violated departmental policies when she flashed her badge at a Pinellas County deputy on Nov. 12 and asked him to “just let us go.“

“I never want my personal mistake to stand in the way of the progress I have made in mending relationships between the police department and the community, so for that reason, I am resigning,” her resignation letter said in part, according to Fox 13 News.

The departure came three days after O’Connor was put on leave in connection with the incident after body cam footage of her trying to big-time the deputy in Oldsmar, Fla. was released.

The footage showed that O’Connor was riding in a golf cart without registration driven by her husband in the seaside community about 15 miles outside the city.

“Is your camera on? I’m the police chief in Tampa,” O’Connor said, while flashing her badge.

“I’m hoping that you’ll just let us go tonight,” the law enforcement veteran asked the deputy, according to the footage.

After the cop obliged, O’Connor handed him her card, saying, “If you ever need anything, call me. Serious. Thank you.”

The golf cart traffic stop incident came ten months after O’Connor had been elevated to chief in Tampa.

Prior to her resignation, the former top cop had said she was remorseful about her behavior, which she claimed was a result of “poor judgment.”

“This was the first time we had exited the golf-cart friendly community in which we own property with this vehicle, prompting the need for a license plate.

“In hindsight, I realize how my handling of this matter could be viewed as inappropriate, but that was certainly not my intent,” O’Connor said in a Friday statement.

“I knew my conversation was on video, and my motive was not to put the deputy in an uncomfortable position,” she continued. “I have personally called the Pinellas County Sheriff offering to pay for any potential citation.”

Assistant Chief Lee Bercaw had been named acting chief amid the investigation.

O’Connor had been tapped last winter by Mayor Jane Castor, a former police chief, to fill the vacant top job, but her appointment was not without controversy.

https://nypost.com/2022/12/05/tampa-police-chief-mary-oconnor-resigns-after-golf-car-incident/

Weeks Later, No Evidence Media Companies Have Returned A Dime Of Disgraced Crypto CEO’s Funds

In the weeks following the collapse of former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s business empire, no evidence has emerged of national media companies returning the funds he provided them.

Bankman-Fried provided millions in grant funds and investments to national media outlets primarily through a philanthropic venture, the future of which remains uncertain, according to multiple reports.

His grants and investments to news outlets included the national publications ProPublica, Vox, The Intercept and Semafor before his crypto empire collapsed, Puck News reported on Nov. 11.

None of the outlets indicated they would return the grants from Bankman-Fried’s Building a Stronger Future foundation in responses to questions by the Daily Caller.

Kelly McBride, Chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the nonpartisan Poynter Institute, believes returning “tainted” money should be a “no brainer” for media companies that received it in the form of a grant, she told the Daily Caller.

In the case of Bankman-Fried’s investment in news startup Semafor, she believes it will be more complicated, but they should “figure out a way” to send the funds back, McBride added.

Another media ethics expert, Dr. Nikki Usher, a senior fellow at the Center for Journalism & Liberty at the Open Markets Institute, told the Daily Caller “in this very specific instance where the money itself might be tied up with fraud,” a news organization “might consider” giving the funds back. There are “very few news organizations” that “would ever be in this situation,” Dr. Usher added.

Carol Rose Goforth, a legal expert in crypto assets, told the Daily Caller that Bankman-Fried could be compelled to sell his holdings in for-profit enterprises to pay off his debts. In limited circumstances, a bankruptcy trustee, a legal representative for creditors, can retrieve contributions to a company in a “claw-back” by. It is unclear if Bankman-Fried’s financial situation at the time of the contributions fits the legal criteria.

FTX owes its creditors over $3 billion, the company disclosed in a filing. It may have more than 1 million creditors, according to a Nov. 14, 2022 bankruptcy filing. At least $1 billion of customer funds are allegedly missing from FTX after the company moved the funds to partner trading firm Alameda Research, two sources told Reuters.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/12/05/media-outlets-sam-bankman-fried-grant-funds-crypto-ceo/

https://dailycaller.com/2022/12/05/media-outlets-sam-bankman-fried-grant-funds-crypto-ceo/

California Teacher with Classroom Library of Books About BDSM, Orgies, and Kinks Says It Helps Students Discover Their Identities

A California teacher who maintains a classroom library with books containing explicit sexual imagery and information on BDSM, orgies, and kinks recently claimed those books help students discover “who they are.”

San Juan Hills High School teacher Danielle Serio, who goes by the name “Flint,” had recently angered parents after it was revealed she was allegedly promoting her “queer library” to students in her classroom.

Among the books displayed in the library are titles such as Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera and Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Being Trans (But Were Afraid to Ask) by Brynn Tannehill. The books contained sexually graphic content that depicted “sex between women and BDSM, sexual fetishes, and ‘FetLife’ — a social networking site for kink,” Breitbart News reported in September.

Despite receiving backlash from parents, the teacher doubled down on the sexually explicit library in a video she shared on November 21, Fox News reported.

“People get really mad about my queer library. I have like 200 titles that are specific to the LGBT community that I’ve been curating for over eight years,” Flint said in a video, according to Fox News.

“Don’t get me wrong, my students love that library. It has been very helpful for many students figuring out who they are, how to relate to their peers,” she added.

This is not the first time Flint has responded to parent outrage regarding her TikTok videos and explicit library.

“I want people who follow me to know that I believe very much in what I’m doing, and I think my history as a teacher speaks for itself,” she once stated.

The Capistrano School District responded to the outrage in an email, claiming the books were not promoted in the classroom but were part of an extracurricular club. However, Flint revealed in her own commentary that the library was positioned to be openly available to students in the classroom, Fox News noted.

The San Juan teacher is not the only educator who has promoted perverted “sex education” material in classrooms.

In Philadelphia, the city’s school district invited teachers to a “Trans Wellness” conference in 2021 that discussed topics such as “BDSM,” “masturbation sleeves,” “kink,” “banging beyond binaries,” and “trans sex.”

In Washington, a school board director in Bellingham hosted a sex education class that promoted topics such as gender identity and “sexual anatomy for pleasure and reproduction” for children at a sex shop she owns. She has also hosted a “Queer Youth Open Mic Night” at the same location.

https://www.breitbart.com/education/2022/12/05/california-teacher-classroom-library-books-bdsm-orgy-kinks-says-it-helps-students-their-identity/

Follow Lockdown Masking Rules to Prevent Cold and Flu, Government Parties Say

Government parties within Germany are now telling the public to follow mask-wearing rules first implemented during COVID in order to slow the spread of cold and flu.

Politicians within the ruling Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) are now telling the German public to follow mask-wearing procedures first put in place during the country’s COVID lockdowns in order to fight cold and flu.

The advice stands in stark contrast to a claim made by the opposition Alternative for Germany party (AfD), which has blamed government lockdowns for causing the current spike in illness the country is reportedly now seeing.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/12/05/follow-lockdown-masking-rules-to-prevent-cold-and-flu-government-parties-say/

Chinese Operatives Ran A Massive TikTok Campaign To Help Dems In The Midterm Elections: REPORT

TikTok accounts operating as voices of Chinese state media promoted messages that appeared to denigrate Republican candidates and favor Democratic ones ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, according to a Forbes investigation.

While the Chinese-owned social media app has verbally affirmed the need to crack down on election disinformation and foreign interference, several news-oriented accounts failed to disclose their affiliation with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) state-owned media on the platform, Forbes found. The accounts racked up tens of millions views on posts that covered divisive topics, such as abortion and race, as well as critical clips that mostly targeted Republican candidates ahead of the 2022 midterms.

“This opens a new dimension for conversation about TikTok,” Conor Healy, director of government research at surveillance research group IPVM, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The accounts are managed by MediaLinks TV, which registered as a foreign agent for China with the Treasury Department in 2019 and distributes the U.S. branch of China Central Television (CCTV), CGTN, according to the company’s LinkedIn page. MediaLinks also operates the CCTV and CGTN apps, according to Apple.

The largest accounts are @Panadorama, @The…Optimist and @NewsTokss, the latter of which expressly covers U.S. national news, according to Forbes.

NewsTokss in particular ran content that overall shone Republican politicians in an unfavorable light and praised Democrats, Forbes found.

A video from July was introduced with the caption “Cruz, Abbott Don’t Care About Us,” referring to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, according to Forbes. Another from October criticized Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for having “Done Absolutely Nothing.”

Some content swayed against Democrats; one NewsTokss video in October asked viewers whether President Joe Biden’s promise to enshrine abortion rights served as a “political manipulation tactic,” Forbes found.

None of the videos clearly disclosed their ties to CGTN or the Chinese government, but the accounts’ profile bios did spell out, “Material distributed by MediaLinks TV LLC on behalf of CCTV. More info at DOJ, D.C.,” Forbes reported.

“That’s not disclosure,” Healy said. Between May 8 and July 6, NewsTokss received 8.3 million views but only 57,600 profile views, suggesting many users who watched the videos may not have realized a foreign government was pushing the content, Forbes reported.

Further, by redirecting users to the Department of Justice (DOJ), MediaLinks shrouded its status as a foreign agent.

http://www.domigood.com/2022/12/chinese-operatives-ran-massive-tiktok_5.html

Biden Admin Says They Drained Strategic Petroleum Reserve To Save ‘Global Economy’

The Biden Administration’s International Energy Affairs advisor Amos Hochstein said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the administration drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in part to help save the “global economy.”

Host Joe Kernen noted the Biden Administration consistently accused oil companies of price gouging, but since gas prices have dropped the administration has moved away from that talking point.

“So if oil companies and refiners were able to control the prices and gouge and profiteering at the higher levels, why does the Biden administration get credit when market forces take over and they do come down?” Kernen asked, adding whether “they just say this stuff to their base?”

“We released from the SPR, I had conversations as did others, my colleagues, with CEOs and other senior executives in the oil industry in the United States,” Hochstein said. “We were told it will take us time to increase production, it would take us six months, seven months to increase production and bring that to market. They thought that would be by the end of the year.”

“We took the action with the SPR in order to save not just the U.S. economy but the global economy from the reactions that Putin was trying to do, he was literally using energy as a weapon against the West and we mitigated that and gave time to the private sector to invest more and to invest in America to increase production,” Hochstein continued.

President Joe Biden authorized the sale of up to 180 million barrels of oil from the reserves in March after Russia invaded Ukraine, while consistently blaming spiking gas prices on Russian President Vladimir Putin. The administration also blamed oil companies for high energy prices.

The administration again released 10 million barrels from the reserves in October, bringing the reserves to their lowest levels since the 1980’s.

The move was called political by some, however. Daniel Turner, executive director of Power the Future, told the Daily Caller News Foundation Biden was “fleecing taxpayers to save the midterms.”

“We filled the SPR at $60 a barrel … and now we’re looking to replenish at $90, meaning there is still a $30 per barrel delta, and we have sold millions and millions of barrels.”

“If the [Trump administration] had sold this scheme, the media would have crucified him as being in the pocket of ‘big oil.'”

Former President Donald Trump suggested filling up the SPR in March of 2020 to stabilize the oil industry after it took a massive hit during the onset of the pandemic. Oil was $24 per barrel and Republicans suggested spending $3 billion to fill the reserve.

“It puts us in a position that’s very strong and we’re buying it at the right price,” former President Donald Trump said at the time.

http://www.madnesshub.com/2022/12/biden-admin-says-they-drained-strategic.html

Pfizer boss refuses to testify to EU Parliament COVID panel — again

‘We have no further information to share,’ says Albert Bourla, who bailed out of an earlier appointment in October.

Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla has once again declined to testify before the European Parliament’s special COVID committee.

That’s strike two.

"Since the October COVID hearing, we have no further information to share with the Committee, so respectfully decline the invitation to again revisit these issues," states the letter from Bourla dated December 2 and seen by POLITICO.

Bourla previously pulled out of an appointment to testify before the committee in October, at which he was expected to face tough questions on how secretive vaccine deals were struck. That decision followed an audit report into the EU's vaccine procurement strategy that raised new questions about contact between the pharma CEO and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that preceded a multibillion-euro vaccine contract.

On October 14, the European Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed it had an ongoing investigation into the EU's COVID vaccine purchases, but has not yet specified who is being investigated or which of the EU's vaccine contracts are under scrutiny.

At the October 10 COVI hearing, the company’s president of international developed markets, Janine Small, faced repeated questions from the committee on Bourla's absence, one of which was even taped to some MEPs' laptops. She also took questions on vaccine contract negotiations and the jabs themselves, including one from Dutch MEP Robert Roos (ECR group) about whether the vaccine was tested for its ability to prevent transmission before entering the market. That question — and Small's answer — landed Roos an appearance on Tucker Carlson's Fox News talk show.

But, in the end, it seems Small was just no substitute for Bourla.

So, on October 28, the COVID committee extended a second invitation to the CEO.

“Our committee felt that during the previous hearing with representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, where Pfizer was represented by Mrs. Janine Small, important questions regarding the advanced purchase agreements between the European Union and Pfizer, which fall under the responsibility of the CEO and of which only he has the authority to respond to them, remained unanswered,” COVID committee chair Kathleen Van Brempt (S&D group) said in a statement today.

“As chair of the COVI committee, I deeply regret Dr. Bourla’s refusal to discuss this matter with the Members of the European Parliament,” she said. "As a co-legislator of the European budget, the Parliament has the right to obtain full transparency on the modalities of these expenditures and the preliminary negotiations leading up to them."

But for Pfizer, it seems there’s just nothing new to say.

“Pfizer has provided input to the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the wider European Parliament, as it seeks to understand and learn from the pandemic response,” a company spokesperson told POLITICO.

https://www.politico.eu/article/pfizer-coronavirus-albert-bourla-europea-union-refuses-testify/

Raytheon Gets $1.2 Billion Contract to Produce Air Defense System for Ukraine

The contract is for six National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems

The US Army has awarded Raytheon a $1.2 billion contract to produce an air defense system for Ukraine as part of US military aid for the country.

The contract is for six National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), a system the US recently began providing Ukraine. The funds for the contract are coming from the fifth package from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows the US to purchase arms for Kyiv.

NASAMS typically take 24 months to produce, but the US Army said it will work to expedite the timeline. Either way, the systems will likely take at least about two years to deliver, demonstrating how the US is planning to support Ukraine against Russia in the long term.

Raytheon, the former employer of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, has benefited greatly from the US’s Ukraine policy. The company, and other US defense contractors, are getting contracts to make weapons for Ukraine, to replenish US military stockpiles, and for US allies in Europe.

Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes said last week that the US is looking to send NASMS deployed in the Middle East to Ukraine. “There are NASAMS deployed across the Middle East, and some of our NATO allies and we [the US] are actually working with a couple of Middle Eastern countries that currently employ NASAMS and trying to direct those back up to Ukraine,” Hayes said, according to POLITICO.

If NASMS in the Middle East are sent to Ukraine, Hayes said those systems would then be backfilled with new ones, meaning more contracts for Raytheon. Hayes said that sending already deployed NASMS gets the system into Ukraine’s hands much faster than producing new systems. “Just because it takes 24 months to build, it doesn’t mean it’s going to take 24 months to get in country,” he said.

https://news.antiwar.com/2022/12/04/raytheon-gets-1-2-billion-contract-to-produce-air-defense-system-for-ukraine/

History: US Business Operations with Nazi Germany

Among the Nazis’ first actions after taking power was to dismantle the German trade unions and labour power. By March 1933 the first concentration camp was erected at Dachau, soon to be followed by others, where numerous communists, socialists and other undesirables were interned. The German masses were thereafter transformed largely into devoted followers of Hitler, subjected regularly to Nazi propaganda; much of the techniques of which Gauleiter of Berlin Joseph Goebbels had learnt in the 1920s from Edward Bernays, the influential American propaganda merchant.

The Third Reich’s destruction of the left, along with Hitler’s stated intention to preserve big business, was welcomed by corporate managers. Before Hitler had even come to power, his views had drawn approval abroad from leading industrialists; like the American tycoon Irénée du Pont, a proponent of racial superiority and until 1925 the president of chemical multinational DuPont; and Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, a fervent anti-Semite who in the early 1920s wrote ‘The International Jew: The World’s Problem’.

A number of business moguls in America were overtly anti-Semitic, and Hitler’s rants against the supposed Jewish problem met with their approval. Ford’s writings in fact seem to have influenced Hitler and other Nazis like Baldur von Schirach, future head of the Hitler Youth. At the Nuremberg trials in May 1946, von Schirach said he had read Ford’s above work “and became anti-Semitic. In those days this book made such a deep impression on my friends and myself, because we saw in Henry Ford the representative of success”.

Ford himself was providing funds to the Nazi Party since the 1920s, when it was a miniscule political organisation (1). Hitler kept a life-size portrait of Ford behind his desk in Munich, and in 1931 the Nazi leader told a Detroit news reporter, “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration”. Each year Ford also sent money to Hitler personally on his birthday through Swiss or Swedish banks, between around 10,000 to 20,000 Reichsmarks annually. These payments to Hitler continued until 1944, more than two years after the German declaration of war on America. (2)

However, as Hitler became chancellor on 30 January 1933, the Nazi Party’s coffers were virtually empty and large bills remained unpaid. Just a few weeks before, Goebbels complained in his diary that “financial troubles make all organised work impossible” and “the danger now exists of the whole party going to pieces” (3). This indicates that, up until Hitler took control, the Nazis received rather limited funding from big business. Greater contributions would be forthcoming, almost as soon as Hitler gained the chancellorship.

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https://www.globalresearch.ca/history-us-business-operations-with-nazi-germany/5737005

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Sleeping With The Third Reich: America’s Unspoken “Alliance” with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union

Nazi Germany largely depended on oil shipments from US Standard Oil.

Prescott Bush was a partner of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co and director of Union Banking Corporation which had close relations with German corporate interests including Thyssen Steel, a major company involved in the Third Reich’s weapons industry.

“…[N]ew documents, declassified [in 2003], show that even after America had entered the war [December 8, 1941] and when there was already significant information about the Nazis’ plans and policies, he [Prescott Bush] worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler’s rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty” (The Guardian, September 25, 2004)

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Without US support to Nazi Germany, the Third Reich would not have been able to wage war on the Soviet Union. Germany’s oil production was insufficient to wage a major military campaign. Throughout the war, the Third Reich relied on regular shipments of crude oil from US Standard Oil owned by the Rockefeller family.

The main producing countries in the early 1940s were: the United States (50% of global oil production), the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Iran, Indonesia, and Romania.

Without a steady supply of oil, Germany would not have been able to conduct Operation Barbarossa which was launched on June 22, 1941. The invasion of the Soviet Union was intent upon reaching and taking control of the oil resources of the Soviet Union in the Caucasus and Caspian sea regions: the oil of Baku.

The Unspoken Question. Where did Germany get its oil from?

Prior the December 1941, Texas oil was shipped on a regular basis to Nazi Germany.

While Germany was able to transform coal into fuel, this synthetic production was insufficient. Moreover, Romania’s Ploesti oil resources (under Nazi control until 1944) were minimal. Nazi Germany largely depended on oil shipments from US Standard Oil.

The Attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) occurred barely six months after the launching of Operation Barbarossa (July 1941). The United States enters World War II, declaring war on Japan and the axis countries.

Trading with the Enemy legislation (1917) officially implemented following America’s entry into World War II did not prevent Standard Oil of New Jersey from selling oil to Nazi Germany. This despite the Senate 1942 investigation of US Standard Oil.

While direct US oil shipments were curtailed, Standard Oil would sell US oil through third countries. US oil was shipped to occupied France through Switzerland, and from France it was shipped to Germany:

“… for the duration of the Second World War, Standard Oil, under deals Teagle had overseen, continued to supply Nazi Germany with oil. The shipments went through Spain, Vichy France’s colonies in the West Indies, and Switzerland.”

It should be noted that a large share of Nazi Germany’s oil requirements was met by shipments out of Venezuela which at the time was a de facto US colony.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/sleeping-with-the-third-reich-americas-unspoken-alliance-with-nazi-germany-against-the-soviet-union/5694820

Putin signs law totally banning LGBT propaganda

It is stressed that under the new law, such propaganda is totally prohibited in social networks, the mass media, films and advertisements

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law completely banning propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations, gender reassignment and pedophilia, according to a corresponding entry made in the Russian State Duma (lower parliament database) on Sunday.

Amendments have been made to the law on information, information technologies and information protection and to other documents.

Under the new law, such propaganda is now completely prohibited on social networks, in the mass media, films and advertisements.

A separate provision bans the dissemination of such information among minors, whereas until now the ban applied only to materials about LGBT. There are plans to establish a mechanism to deny access to LBGT-related information on paid sites for minors. Special codes or other actions will be necessary to enter such websites.

The country’s mass media watchdog will be authorized to put websites with the propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations, pedophilia, and gender reassignment on the register of prohibited resources subject to blocking. It will also be authorized to determine the procedure of internet monitoring to spot such sites.

The law also prohibits sale of goods, including imported goods, containing information the distribution of which carries administrative or criminal responsibility.

Concurrently, another law signed by President Putin amends the Code of Administrative Offense to introduce administrative liability for the propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among people of any age, not only children.

According to Alexander Bashkin, a member of the constitutional legislation committee of Russia’s Federation Council (upper parliament house), such propaganda was previously prohibited only among minors whereas now the ban applies to people of any age.

The law comes into effect on the day of its publication.

https://tass.com/politics/1545959

Democrats push to lower voting age to 16

The nationwide campaign is gaining momentum, especially at the local level.

The Democrat-led movement to lower the legal voting age to 16 — or in some cases even younger — is gaining momentum nationwide, scoring local victories while winning the support of lawmakers and activists on the political left.

The campaign's latest win came in Boston, where the City Council on Wednesday approved a petition allowing 16- and 17-year-old residents to vote in municipal elections.

The petition will now be sent to the Massachusetts Legislature for approval, which isn't guaranteed. Several other towns and cities in Massachusetts have voted for similar proposals, which then failed to pass the state House.

Progressive members of the City Council argued that lowering the voting age would help young people build a habit of voting and make them more likely to continue being politically engaged later in life.

"We don't apply a maturity index to the right to vote for any other age," City Councilor Kenzie Bok, who sponsored the petition, told the Boston Globe. "Having the opportunity to vote is what gives our 16- and 17-year-olds a chance to engage meaningfully."

Others argued it's unfair that teenagers can have adult responsibilities and play active roles in society but don't have a say in public life.

"Young people are working, paying taxes," said City Councilor Julia Mejia, who cosponsored the petition. "When it comes to making a decision as to who's going to represent them, that has been denied to them."

Mejia also dismissed the notion that 16- and 17-year-old kids may not be mature enough to make important political decisions, saying that "oftentimes it's young people who are educating their parents and their uncles and aunts and older folks about who's running for office and why they should vote."

The push to allow underage children to vote has prompted outcry and legal challenges from election experts opposed to the effort.

"This is a foolish, cynical move by Boston and other jurisdictions," Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation told Just the News. "Under the law, 16- and 17-year-olds are minors. They can't sign contracts or leases, buy alcohol, join the military, serve on a jury, or engage in a host of other activities that only legal adults are qualified to engage in because we as a society have judged that they have not yet developed the experience and judgment to make such decisions. They aren't even treated as adults when they commit crimes, except under exceptional circumstances, for the very same reason."

If children under 18 can be "trusted in matters affecting our democracy," asked Spakovsky, then when will policymakers change the law to make people legal adults at 16 so minors can make an array of decisions from which they're currently barred?

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/democrats-push-lower-voting-age-16