“If Someone Wants to Come Here and Beat Us and Draw Us Through Our Legs and Our Hands We Are Ready” – Ukrainian Monks Call Out to International Christian Community After Persecution by Zelensky Regime

In May 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law No. 7172-1 that will ban opposition parties and seize their property. The law targets opposition parties if they deny the armed aggression against Ukraine.

The law includes actions that support the Russian Federation and Republic of Belarus, the two invading countries.

The news was first published on the Ukrainian news website UKRinform. This news was reported the same day US GOP Senators paid him a visit in Kyiv to show their support.

Zelenskyy also closed all of the TV stations and consolidated them into one state-run channel.

“Ukraine has had to take extraordinary measures to fight Russia’s invasion. Among them, the government has consolidated the country’s television outlets and dissolved rival political parties. It says it needs to do this to maintain a united front in fighting Russia,” NPR reported.

In December, after banning all TV platforms in Ukraine into one state broadcast, jailing political rivals, and restricting political parties, Zelensky then banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“A meeting of the NSDC (National Security Defense Council) was held today,” said Zelensky. “A meeting at which we examined numerous facts of the ties of certain religious circles in Ukraine with the aggressor state.”

“It is necessary to create such conditions in which any figures dependent on the aggressor country will not be able to manipulate Ukrainians and weaken Ukraine from within,” he continued, referring to Russia, which invaded Ukraine in late February.

“The NSDC instructed the government to submit to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) a bill on the impossibility of the activities of religious organizations affiliated with the centers of influence in the Russian Federation in Ukraine,” added Zelensky.

“In addition, the state Service for Ethnopolitics and freedom of Conscience has been instructed to ensure the religious studies examination of the Statute on the Management of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for the presence of a church-canonical connection with the Moscow Patriarchate and if necessary, apply the measures provided for by law.”

Ukrainian Orthodox Christian monks speak to Christians from all over the world.

The Orthodox monks from Ukraine recently released a video where they call out to the international Christian community following their persecution by the Zelensky regime.

Orthodox Monk: “We will be hear until the end. If someone wants to come here and beat us and draw us through our legs and hands we are ready. We aren’t afraid. Everything that the people condemned us, we did not do it against our Church, we did not do it against our country, our Ukraine. We pray to God about our country, about our nation.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/if-someone-wants-to-come-here-and-beat-us-and-draw-us-through-our-legs-and-our-hands-we-are-ready-ukrainian-monks-call-out-to-international-christian-community-after-persecution-by-zelensky-regi/

Pornhub Acquired By Canadian Private Equity Firm 'Ethical Capital Partners'

The parent company of controversial website Pornhub - which has allowed all sorts of child sexual abuse on the platform despite repeated efforts to remove such content - has been sold to Canadian private equity firm, Ethical Capital Partners, which was formed last year and says it's focused on technology businesses that "have legal and regulatory complexity and that put a value on transparency and accountability."

The purchase is ECP's first transaction. The company is led by "cannabis entrepreneur Rocco Meliambro and criminal lawyer Fady Mansour, who is listed as managing partner. Derek Ogden, a retired chief superintendent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, is also a partner at the firm," according to Bloomberg.

The move comes amid a lawsuit against the parent company, MindGeek, over sexually explicit videos of minors found on its 'tube' sites, the Financial Times reports.

Luxembourg-registered MindGeek has towered over the adult industry since the advent of video streaming. Its most recently published figures show revenues in 2018 reached $460mn while profit margins have at times neared 50 per cent, according to people familiar with the matter.

The identity of MindGeek’s former majority owner Bernd Bergmair — an ex-Goldman Sachs banker who also uses the name Bernard Bergemar — was first revealed by an FT investigation.

Pornhub's multiple scandals has led to the departure of its top management team, and restricted access to payment platforms Visa and Mastercard - which almost led to the site's collapse in late 2020 following investigations that identified illegal content on the platform.

According to ECP co-founder and attorney, Solomon Friedman, the lawsuits and criticism of MindGeek 'stemmed from a misunderstanding' of how the company is now safeguarding its content - which he says changed after the previous owners departed.

"I want to engage regularly with stakeholders, including the media," said Friedman, adding that the new owners 'wanted to exercise transparency.'

While the purchase price, and where the funds came from, have not been disclosed, the current remaining (anonymous) executives will continue running the company.

"At this point we are not identifying the current executives, as there is an unfortunate stigma [attached to the industry]," said Friedman.

According to MindGeek, Mastercard has reinstated access to its subscription sites, however the company's advertising arm, TrafficJunky, remains cut off following a court ruling that found Visa could be held liable for illegal content.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pornhub-acquired-canadian-private-equity-firm-ethical-capital-partners

Piss take

Pollak: Joe Biden Can Be Impeached for Bribery

News Thursday of payments from a Chinese Communist Party-linked company to members of President Joe Biden’s family amounts to a potential case for bribery, an impeachable offense under the Constitution.

The House Oversight Committee revealed that in 2017, China’s State Energy HK Limited sent $3 million to a company controlled by family associate Robert Walker, who in turn distributed funds to members of Biden’s family: his surviving son, Hunter; his brother, James; his daughter-in-law, Hallie; and an unknown “Biden.”

State Energy HK Limited was linked to CEFC China Energy, whose chairman, Ye Jianming, did business with Hunter Biden. CEFC was also involved in an abandoned joint venture with the Biden family in which someone referred to as the “big guy,” and presumed to be then-former Vice President Biden, was to have a 10% stake.

It is not clear what goods or services, if any, were provided in exchange for these payments.

Hunter Biden’s legal team issued a statement, claiming that he had engaged in a “legitimate” private business venture with a Chinese company: “As part of that joint venture, Hunter received his portion of good faith seed funds which he shared with his uncle, James Biden, and Hallie Biden, with whom he was involved with at the time, and sharing expenses.”

It was not clear what, exactly, that “joint venture” was, or how it was arranged.

Hunter Biden’s overseas business ventures had been recognized as early as 2015 as a potential conflict of interest for his father. Diplomats and journalists questioned Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where he earned $83,333 per month, despite lacking relevant expertise, while his father was in office.

Those concerns were brushed aside, however, by the vice president’s office, and the issue was never resolved. Hunter Biden also connected other foreign business associates with his father, including Chinese associates.

The criminal statute of bribery describes giving “anything of value” to an official to “influence” him or her in performing any “official act.” The fact that the “thing of value” might have flowed to Biden’s friends and family, rather than to Biden himself, would not absolve him — and there is evidence that the senior Biden benefited from his family’s gains.

China’s desire to “influence” is clear; it is less clear what “act” Biden did, or did not do.

However, as Democrats reminded us again and again, throughout both Trump impeachment investigations and trials, it is not necessary that a criminal statute be violated for the president to be impeached and removed.

Many scholars say that a president can be impeached only for acts committed after taking office. But Democrats undermined that standard — not only by arguing that Trump could be impeached for “emoluments” as soon as he took office, but also by holding a second Senate trial for Trump even after he had left office in 2021.

And in this case, it could well be argued that Biden’s foreign policy is an ongoing act affected by past financial benefit.

Bribery is one of two acts — the other is treason — mentioned explicitly by the Constitution as impeachable offenses.

Prior to Thursday, the evidence existed on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Now, however, evidence has emerged from the U.S. Treasury.

The House Oversight Committee should turn its investigation into a full impeachment inquiry, with a congressional vote and all attending subpoena powers. No one is above the law.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/03/16/pollak-joe-biden-can-be-impeached-for-bribery/

Government investigates after another massive fish kill at Menindee, in NSW's far west

Hundreds of thousands of dead fish have been discovered in the Darling River at Menindee, in NSW's far west.

Bony brim make up the majority of the fish species found so far, however, locals have also spotted a large amount of cod and golden perch among the dead.

In 2019, during NSW's devastating drought, millions of dead fish were found in the area, putting the management of the Murray-Darling Basin under the microscope.

NSW's Department of Primary Industries fisheries arm is dispatching officers to the area to assess the problem.

It says the bony brim species normally experience a "boom-bust" population cycle, especially when there is immense flooding.

But never on the scale seen right now.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/menindee-fish-kill-pictures-show-mass-deaths-in-nsw/102110570

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/03/the-just-wont-stop-nyt-pushes-new-claims-by-debunked-anti-russia-propagandist-clint-watts.html#more