>>20740649 After viewing ‘portion’ of classified docs Biden stashed in his basement, Republican congressman calls for ‘damage assessment’PN

After viewing ‘portion’ of classified docs Biden stashed in his basement, Republican congressman calls for ‘damage assessment’

Victor Nava

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) on Wednesday called for a “damage assessment” to be conducted after viewing portions of the classified documents President Biden stored in the basement of his Delaware home.

“I just reviewed a portion of Biden’s classified documents that were taken from his basement by Special Counsel Hur,” the Florida Republican wrote on X.

The material in the documents – which date back to Biden’s long tenure in the Senate and his eight years as vice president – was still pertinent to existing threats, according to Waltz.

“They were HIGHLY CLASSIFIED and relevant to current national security threats,” the House Intelligence Committee member said.

“We need an immediate damage assessment from the Intelligence Community,” he added, calling on federal agencies to review the risks to the nation that Biden’s mishandling of the documents posed.

The documents viewed by Waltz were related to Intelligence Community-derived information provided to Biden, andlawmakers are still fighting for access to White House-derived classified memos and documents, a person familiar told The Post.

In March, Special Counsel Robert Hur announced that he had opted against leveling criminal charges against the 81-year-old president over the scandal in part because Biden would come off as an “elderly man with poor memory’” at trial.

Hur’s investigation uncovered that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” as a private citizen.

“These materials included (1) marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and (2) notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods,” the special counsel’s report stated.

Investigators found that Biden stashed documents classified up to the “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information” level in boxes at his office at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington, DC, his Wilmington, Del., garage and in unlocked drawers and cabinets in the basement den of the home.

https://nypost.com/2024/04/17/us-news/republican-congressman-calls-for-damage-assessment-after-viewing-classified-docs-biden-stashed-in-his-basement/

(Question:how does a familythat scammed & stole millions,that should be living an elegant life, live in such a junk filled, dirty home? Couldn’t they hire a maid or clean up crew?Now I understand the statement, “this family is a pack of feral dogs”.)

18 Apr, 2024 09:36

No more Russian language on air in three months – Kiev

Ukraine’s goal of eradicating bilingual media content has almost been achieved, the government has claimed

Ukraine’s ban on using the Russian language in the media will take full effect three months from now, Kiev’s state language protection commissioner, Taras Kremin, has said.

Since gaining independence,Ukraine has been a bilingual nation, with most citizens able to speak or understand both Russian and Ukrainian. After the US-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, the new nationalist authorities adopted policies aimed at suppressing the Russian language, on the grounds of national unity and security.

The restrictions include a requirement for national media to predominantly use Ukrainian in broadcasts. The permitted share of content in Russian has declined from 40% in 2016 to an almost complete ban, which will come into force in July – the deadline that Kremin referred to in his statement on Wednesday.

“Today national television channels practice bilingual Ukrainian-Russian programming, in which participants use the Russian language without a translation or subtitles,” he said. “Starting on July 17, this practice will end. There will be more Ukrainian language!”

The push by Ukrainian nationalist leaders to impose the state language on Russian-speakers living in the east of the country was a major reason for locals’ rejection of the post-coup authorities. One of the first acts of those who seized power in Kiev was to abolish a law adopted in 2012, which gave the Russian language official regional status.

The new authorities have been adopting laws to eradicate Russian from all spheres of public life, including education, entertainment, and even services provided by private businesses.

In an interview last year,Kremin denied that some Ukrainian citizens could be called Russian-speaking, describing the term was “a marker introduced by Russian ideology,” and declared that “everyone in the country must have a command of the Ukrainian language.”

In contrast, this week theleader of another post-Soviet nation, Kazakhstan, rejected the notionthat one language spoken by his people should be favored over others.

“Young people now are fluent in the state [Kazakh] language, in Russian language, in English and other languages, and that is good,” President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Tuesday. “It’s ridiculous to ramp up hysterics over a language, let alone fight against one, as they did in some other states. We all see what they have now as a result.”

The Kazakh leader did not specify which other nations he was referring to.

(Ukraine’s attempt to silo and make paranoid their people, so they have more control. They have already lost 20 million people that won’t return after the war. Now the rest will be paranoid. Russia and Ukrainian language are very similar, and the majority there are bilingual. But now they are teaching children only one language. It’s all about control. Ukraine is adopting worse restrictions then even Russia did as full Communism. How to brainwash and disable an the current and future generations.)

https://www.rt.com/russia/596162-russian-language-ukrainian-media/

(I knew that would be a problem for insurers, but did the insurers pay the other partners, ie Germany? If they did, then it is an arbitrary punishment on Russia.)

18 Apr, 2024 10:28

Insurers claim ‘government’ could have sabotaged Nord Stream – Kommersant

Lloyd’s of London and Arch Insurance have reportedly refused to pay compensation following the destruction of the gas pipelines

Insurance policies for the Nord Stream gaspipelines sabotaged in 2022 do not cover destruction or damage caused during military hostilities, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on Thursday, citing a claim filed at the High Court in London by two major Western companies.

The reported claim by Lloyd’s of London and Arch Insurance comes in response to a court filing in March by Nord Stream AG, the pipeline’s operator.

The enterprise, which is 51% owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom, alleged at the time that insurers had failed to pay about €400 million ($438 million) for damage caused by the explosions at the pipelines, according to the Financial Times. Nord Stream AG reportedlyestimates it would cost over €1.2 billionto fully repair the infrastructure and replace the lost gas inventory.

In response, the two insurers are said to have claimed that “loss or damage directly or indirectly occasioned by, happening through, or in consequence of war” cannot be covered by the policies. They added that Russia-Ukraine conflict, which began in February 2022, “satisfies the terms war, invasion hostilities or military power.” The insurers also argue the damagecould have beencaused “by or under the order of any government,”according to Kommersant. (Insurance carriers can not guess and then refuse to pay, they have to conclusively prove it. They cannot prove the Russian owners were involved. This is not the end.)

Commenting on the report, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said major concerns have been raised over the credibility of Western insurance giants.Any refusal to pay liabilities adds to a series of hostile acts towards Russia, according to Zakharova, including the seizure of state assets and private property, as well as alleged threats to damage civilian infrastructure.

Built to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea, the Nord Stream pipelines were damaged by unknown perpetrators in a series of explosions in September 2022. The blasts left three out of four pipelines inoperable, causing what is believed to be the largest single methane leak ever.

Shortly after the sabotage, Germany, Denmark and Sweden – in whose economic zones the attack took place – launched separate investigations, although no results have been published. Earlier this year, Denmark and Sweden said they had closed their probes.

The Russian authorities have claimed the US had the most to gain from the sabotage, pointing to the opposition to the pipelines repeatedly voiced by the White House. Moscow has also accused the West of stonewalling the investigation.

Last year, award-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh accused Washington of being behind the bombing, although the White House dismissed the allegations. Several Western media outlets later reported that Ukrainian citizens had been involved in the sabotage. Kiev has denied any connection to the attack.

As a result of the sabotage, gas supplies from Russia to Germany via Nord Stream 1 were halted. Nord Stream 2 had never been put into operation due to EU bureaucratic setbacks.

https://www.rt.com/news/596158-nord-stream-insurers-reject-payment/