Reader’s Links for February 2, 2023

Here is a link to the VladTepesBlog social media Mastodon Pod. Please feel free to check it out and sign up for an account if you are sufficiently annoyed with Twitter and Facebook to try something new.

Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

73 Replies to “Reader’s Links for February 2, 2023”

  1. Jay Powell’s dovish tone sent the market up yesterday, including precious metals. This means the market smells capitulation by the Fed towards easing the price of money. Pressure from Dems seems to be responsible. These most leftist politicians don’t understand the damage they are doing, and have done, for years, yet the beat goes on. Nothing illustrates the catch-22 the Fed has placed itself in better than yesterday. Continuing to raise interest rates threatens to crash the economy putting millions of Americans out of work. Dropping rates creates more inflation, raising the cost of living to intolerable levels. In the end there is little net difference in the effects for the average Joe.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/powells-dovish-presser-sparks-bid-bonds-big-tech-bitcoin-bullion

    • Either way we get a massive economic crash. This crash will cause governments to fall and civil wars to start. The resulting chaos is what the left wants, they think they can use it to seize control of all nations.

      Keep your musket clean, your powder dry and watch your back.

    • It’s blackmail, how do you think his procurer has managed to stay alive?

      The tapes will surface when this will help the person(s) who are holding.

      Did all of the people mentioned go to the island or did they hitch a ride from one place to another on the mainland.

      Koo Stark (the porn actress) is suppose to be the person that dated Andrew that the Queen liked the best. Was she the person that introduced Andrew to Epstein or did he introduce her to Epstein?

  2. BREAKING: Hunter Biden Asks Joe Biden’s Asst. AG, Delaware AG and IRS to Go After Individuals Close to President Trump Who Shared Information from His Laptop
    By Joe Hoft
    Published February 1, 2023 at 8:05pm
    1654 Comments

    Hunter Biden is asking the Federal Government and the Delaware AG to go after individuals who shared personal information from his laptop.

    Hunter Biden is going after John Paul Mac Isaac, Rudy Giuliani, his attorney Robert Costello, Stephen K. Bannon, Garrett Ziegler, Jack Maxey and Yaacov Apelbaum.

    Advertisement – story continues below

    Hunter Biden lost custody of his computers after he abandoned them at a computer repair shop owned by John Paul Mac Isaac in Delaware in April, 2019.

    Associated Press reports:

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/breaking-hunter-biden-asks-federal-government-delaware-ag-irs-go-individuals-close-president-trump-shared-information-laptop/

  3. Black GOP Congressman Reacts To Adam Schiff’s Diatribe On Border Invasion: “Sir, I’m Not A Racist”
    By ProTrumpNews Staff
    Published February 2, 2023 at 9:15am
    60 Comments

    The Democrats’ phony racism smears are no longer working.

    Adam Schiff smeared Republicans during Wednesday’s hearing on the border accusing them of “demonizing migrant families and asylum seekers.”

    Advertisement –

    Adam Schiff
    @RepAdamSchiff
    ·
    Follow
    Republicans are intent on demonizing migrant families and asylum seekers.

    Spreading lies and falsehoods.

    When the truth is, refugees are vulnerable individuals fleeing political persecution and torture.

    And our country is better off for having welcomed them here

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/black-gop-congressman-reacts-adam-schiffs-diatribe-border-invasion-sir-not-racist/

  4. Canadian Government Forces Dairy Farmer to Dump 30,000 Liters of Milk Because He Exceeded His Quota (VIDEO)
    By Jim Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 8:45am
    167 Comments

    A dairy farmer from Southern Ontario, Canada has spoken out about how the Canadian government makes farms dump thousands of liters of fresh milk because they have gone over the quota.

    In a video shared on TikTok by Travis Huigen, Canadian dairy farmer Jerry Human expresses his outrage at the Canadian government and the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) for wasting hundreds of liters of fresh milk despite inflation

    Right now, during the winter months, you milk quite a bit more milk because the feed is very consistent. And if you do a good job, you will produce quite a bit of milk. But right now, we’re over our quota, and it’s regulated by the government, and [implemented] by the DFO,” said Human.

    “Look at this milk running away. It’s the end of the month [and] I dump 30,000 liters of milk and it breaks my heart. This year Canadian milk is $7 a liter.”

    TRENDING: BREAKING:

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/canadian-government-forces-dairy-farm-dump-30000-liters-milk-gone-quota-video/

    • the conservative tree house –The CORE, the ESSENCE, the CORNERSTONE of Globalism – The “Exfiltration of Wealth” – One Exceptional Example

      February 2, 2023 | Sundance | 60 Comments

      This is so critically important to the understanding of the core, central element where the globalism atom splits and the resulting destruction begins, that I must pause all personal recovery efforts -immediately- and explain. This is an incredible example of where corporations and government merge. This is the atom split. This is the root, the nub, the place where “trillions at stake” takes context.

      Strong HatTip to Gateway Pundit for this exceptional video and example {Direct Rumble Link Here}. The understanding comes via a Canadian dairy farmer, who, like thousands of other farmers around the world, is a private business under government control. This example is about dairy, specifically milk, however, the underlying premise goes much further.

      This is modern corporatism, the nexus of govt intervention, regulations and the multinational exploitation of industry. This is also the globalist example that shows how the concepts of “capitalism” and “free markets” have been destroyed. First, watch the video:

      https://rumble.com/v2820m4-canadian-government-forces-dairy-farm-dump-30000l-of-milk-because-they-have.html

      What you are witnessing in that video is something we have talked about at length for years.

      Influential people, politicians (rules) and corporate leaders (profits), both with vested financial interests in the process, have sold a narrative that global manufacturing, global sourcing, and global production is the inherent way of the future. The same voices claimed the American economy was/is consigned to become a “service-driven economy.”

      What was always missed in these discussions is that advocates selling this global-economy message have a vested financial and ideological interest in convincing the information consumer it is all just a natural outcome of economic progress.

      It’s not.

      It’s not natural at all. It is a process that is entirely controlled, promoted and utilized by large conglomerates, lobbyists, purchased politicians and massive multinational corporations.

      more :

      https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/02/02/the-core-the-essence-the-cornerstone-of-globalism-the-exfiltration-of-wealth-one-exceptional-example/#more-242820

  5. WATCH: At Least 517 Voters Left The Long Lines In Maricopa County AFTER Polls Closed On Election Day – Nearly DOUBLE Margin Of Victory In Abe Hamadeh’s Race – Estimated 8,327 Did Not Cast Ballots Due To Tabulator Failures And Long Lines
    By Jordan Conradson
    Published February 2, 2023 at 8:15am
    98 Comments

    We The People AZ Alliance’s Shelby Busch presented more findings in the group’s investigation into election mechanics and voter disenfranchisement on Monday in the Arizona Senate Elections Committee.

    The committee is chaired by Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers

    The Gateway Pundit reported on part one of Busch’s presentation on January 23 and the shocking findings, including Election Day tabulators reportedly rejecting nearly 1/4 million vote attempts on election day and nearly 300,000 mismatched or fraudulent mail-in ballot signatures in Maricopa County’s 2022 Election.

    Busch presented more flaws in the 2022 Election this week, including adjudicated ballot discrepancies, Election Day lines and malfunctions that disenfranchised THOUSANDS of voters, shady voter registration modifications, and missing chain of custody on hundreds of thousands of ballots.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/watch-least-517-voters-left-long-lines-maricopa-county-polls-closed-election-day-nearly-double-margin-victory-abe-hamadehs-race-estimated-8327-not-cast-ballots-due/

  6. Ukraine Raids Oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky’s Home Who Has Ties to Zelensky and Hunter Biden
    By Richard Abelson
    Published February 2, 2023 at 8:00am
    238 Comments

    The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Economic Security Bureau raided the house of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky in Dnipro on the morning of Feb. 1, Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported, according to Kyiv Independent, citing anonymous law enforcement sources.

    “The sources told the media outlet that the oligarch is allegedly accused of evading customs payments and embezzling oil products worth $1 billion”, Kyiv Independent reports. “The case involving Kolomoisky concerns oil company Ukrnafta. Companies associated with Kolomoisky reportedly owned about 42% of Ukrnafta until 2022. In October 2022, Kolomoisky, a former owner of Ukraine’s largest lender PrivatBank, was interrogated by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).”

    The Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, which paid Hunter Biden $1 Million a year between 2014 and the end of Joe Biden’s term as Vice-President, is officially owned by former environmental minister Mykola Zlotchevsy.

    However, writing in “Secret Empires“, Peter Schweizer noted that Ihor Kolomoisky was possibly the real owner of Burisma Holdings: In 2011, “the ownership structure of Burisma had been quietly transferred to a Cyprus-based company called Brociti Investments. … Zlochevsky’s name was still attached to the company, but Burisma’s major subsidiaries now listed the same business address as the natural gas firm controlled by a controversial Ukrainian oligarch named Ihor Kolomoisky.”

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/ukraine-raids-oligarch-ihor-kolomoiskys-home-ties-zelensky-hunter-biden/

  7. General Flynn: Vice President Biden Visited Ukraine 12-13 Times in His Last Year as VP – ALL OF THESE Trips Need to be Investigated! (AUDIO)
    By Jim Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 7:30am
    113 Comments

    Earlier on Wednesday The Gateway Pundit’s Jim and Joe Hoft interviewed General Michael Flynn on the Hunter Biden laptop.

    During our conversation, General Flynn pointed out that Joe Biden visited Ukraine 12 or 13 times his last year as vice president. Why? And why did Obama allow this? Obama is as much at fault as Joe Biden.

    General Flynn is calling on Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan to investigate every single one of these trips.

    Via The

    General Michael Flynn: “Vice President Biden… I don’t think most people know but Vice President Biden, I think in his last year that he was the Vice President, he visited Ukraine like 12 or 13 times. It’s an incredible amount of times. First of all, there’s only 12 months in a year and for the Vice President of the United States spending that much time in the Ukraine, you have to ask why?

    And every single one of those trips needs to be investigated. How many of them did Hunter participate on? Or how many did Joe Biden bring his brother on? All these kinds of issues, the kinds of questions, the type of questions that need to be asked, and it doesn’t need to be asked in back rooms. It needs to be asked in public.”

    And that’s why I want Jim Jordan to get out there and use this weaponization of government to dig into this corruption into the previous administration, the Obama administration. Everything from what we learned in Russiagate, these fake impeachment. Remember President Trump was impeached over one phone call to Ukraine, a very perfect phone call to Ukraine. He was impeached.
    And we’re talking about the Vice President who is not the “President” of the United States. He’s got multiple trips over to Ukraine for what purpose? What was he doing? I want people to understand that we cannot have two systems of justice in the United States.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/general-flynn-vice-president-biden-visited-ukraine-12-13-times-last-year-vp-trips-need-investigated-audio/

  8. After Lying to the American Public for Years – Biden Family FINALLY Admits Hunter Biden’s Laptop Is His
    By Jim Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 7:45am
    183 Comments

    In 2020, at the second United States presidential debate, Joe Biden lied to the American people and said the Hunter Biden laptop story was a “Russian plant.”

    Joe Biden: Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant. They have said, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes him except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani

    Joe Biden knew this was a lie. Joe Biden knew Hunter was working for the family cutting deals around the world in million-dollar pay-for-play schemes

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/lying-american-public-years-biden-family-finally-admits-hunter-bidens-laptop/

  9. FDA Warns White House Recommendation to Get COVID-19 Booster and Flu Shot At the Same Time May Increase Risk of a Stroke
    By Jim Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 7:15am
    224 Comments

    After three years of the pandemic, looks like the “conspiracy theorists” and “anti-vaxxers” were right again.

    Last week, a small official study reveals that receiving both the flu shot and Pfizer’s Covid bivalent booster at the same time may increase the risk of stroke.

    Advertisement – story continues below

    On December 2022, FDA admitted that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine had been linked to blood clotting in older individuals based on the results of one of the largest studies of elderly persons aged 65 years and above.

    On January 2023, CDC and FDA announced that it is going to investigate the link between Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 booster and ischemic strokes in people aged 65 and older.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/fda-warns-white-house-recommendation-get-covid-19-booster-flu-shot-time-may-increase-risk-stroke/

  10. Over Past Week TGP Uncovered Hunter Biden Crimes and Corruption Related to Classified Docs, Espionage, FARA Violations, and Connections to Biolabs in Ukraine
    By Joe Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 9:30am
    49 Comments

    The Biden crime family made millions off the family name in pay-for-play schemes for several decades. The Bidens did this by illegally handling classified documents, sharing related information overseas (espionage), committing FARA violations, and even participating in the development of Biolabs in Ukraine.

    1. The Gateway Pundit reported last Thursday that the Bidens were using classified information to the benefit of the Hunter Biden family business. This was in response to Miranda Devine’s report at the New York Post where she identified an email with 22 points that was not written by Hunter Biden.

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    2. On Sunday night TGP reported a second email that showed Hunter Biden was sharing classified information with individuals at Burisma in Ukraine, which is the definition of espionage.

    3. On Monday TGP uncovered a third email showing more Biden family crimes related to classified information and espionage.

    The email discovered on Hunter Biden’s laptop was sent from Blue Star Strategies, a firm that has reportedly been under investigation by the DOJ since 2021. The email that was sent in December 2015 had an attachment that included classified information from a White House conference call on Joe Biden’s upcoming trip to Ukraine. This email was also sent to Burisma and it implicates Joe Biden.

    4. On Tuesday TGP uncovered that Hunter had never registered as a foreign agent for years. His work appears to be mostly acting as an agent for foreign entities.

    5. On Wednesday TGP reported that the Biden family is a crime family. The whole world knew that when they wanted something illegal or under the table taken care of, they needed to pay the Biden crime family to get it fixed.

    Read more at

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/past-week-tgp-uncovered-hunter-biden-crimes-corruption-related-classified-docs-espionage-fara-violations-connections-biolabs-ukraine/

  11. UK – the Sun – Men are ‘killing the planet’ because ‘toxic masculinity’ means they won’t go veggie

    MANLY blokes are killing our planet by eating too much meat and shunning vegetarianism, according to a new study.

    A survey of more than 800 people found that self-professed “masculine” men eat more beef and chicken than feminine chaps.

    They’re also less inclined to switch to a plant-based diet than their unmanly counterparts, researchers at UCLA showed.

    Writing in the journal Appetite, they blamed the trend on the widespread perception that “real men eat meat”.

    “Meat is seen as a traditionally masculine food,” study author Daniel Rosenfeld told The Sun.

    “Men who eat vegetarian diets are in fact seen as less masculine.”

    According to the research, this stereotype must change if humanity is to reduce its meat intake to save itself from catastrophic climate change.

    Meat and dairy production contribute heavily to global warming, accounting for 14.5 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

    “Reducing the amount of meat we eat cuts down on water usage, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions,” Rosenfeld said.

    “Of all meats, beef is especially threatening to our planet. Its production uses up the most water and releases the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

    “If we can overcome the stereotype that ‘real men eat meat’, then we can likely reduce how much beef men eat and ultimately improve both human and planetary health.”

    Previous research has shown that, compared to women, men eat more meat and are less open to becoming vegetarian.

    For their study, the UCLA team set out to investigate how men’s beliefs about their own masculinity could explain how much meat they eat.

    They surveyed 813 adult lads to see whether their manliness impacted how much they ate four meats: Beef, pork, chicken and fish.

    Participants were asked to respond on a scale from one (very feminine) to seven (very masculine) to statements such as “I consider myself as …”, and “traditionally, my outer appearance would be considered as …”.

    Their self-identified “masculinity” was then matched up with their eating habits.

    The researchers found that masculine men ate more beef and chicken – but roughly the same amount of fish and pork – as feminine blokes.

    On average, the least masculine men reported eating less than one serving of beef per week whereas the most masculine men reported eating nearly two servings of beef each week.

    Manly men were also more likely to report that they had no intention of becoming vegetarian in future.

    On average, the most masculine men were three times less likely to say that they are open to becoming a vegetarian than were the least masculine men.

    “Meat is stereotyped as a manly food, so that makes men want to eat more meat – it’s a way for them to feel masculine,” Rosenfeld said.

    The results also showed that men in general ate more beef than women, of whom 893 were surveyed by the team.

    In the U.S. and U.K., only about five to 10 per cent of the population is vegetarian.

    The research is likely to reignite the debate surrounding our consumption of meat and its impact on the health of the planet.

    The meat industry contributes to global warming because cows and other animals produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

    And while groups like Greenpeace highlight our diet’s effect on the climate as a reason to quite meat, it’s important to give people a choice.

    The meat industry is also not the biggest greenhouse gas emitter. Transportation is responsible for 29 per cent of emissions, while electricity generation accounts for 25 per cent.

    In other news, KFC is working with a Russian 3D bioprinting company to create vegetarian-friendly chicken nuggets in a lab.

    Pork belly and bacon strips made in a lab have been created by a commercial meat company in the UK.

    And, an aversion to meet is nothing new – early humans ate a vegan diet millions of years ago, according to research.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/15545496/men-killing-planet-toxic-masculinity-veggie/

  12. The UK government has told local authorities to crack down on people using wood-burning stoves to keep warm with fines of £300 or potentially criminal prosecutions for those who continually refuse to abide by state climate diktats.

    Amid the energy crisis in Britain, which came to fruition in large part as a result of the Conservative Party-led governments over the past ten years obsession with implementing globalist green agenda policies while refusing to tap the nation’s more reliable natural resources such as natural gas, the use of wood-burning stoves have soared.

    Now, local authorities have been told by the government in Westminster to use the 2021 Environment Act to impose spot fines of £175 to £300 on those who use wood-fire stoves that do not meet state standards on air pollution, The Times of London reported.

    Local councils were also informed that for those who continually breach the codes, they could also seek criminal prosecutions that could land citizens with a criminal record and fines of £5,000 and an additional £2,500 for every additional day that they use wood to heat their homes.

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Feurope%2F2023%2F02%2F01%2Fgreat-reset-britons-face-300-fine-for-burning-wood-to-keep-warm%2F

  13. al jazeera – Police ban planned Quran burning protest in Norway

    Oslo police Inspector Martin Strand says demonstration in Norwegian capital ‘can’t go ahead due to security concerns’

    Police in Norway have banned a planned protest including the burning of a copy of the Islamic holy book, the Quran, hours after the Turkish foreign ministry summoned the Norwegian ambassador to complain.

    A group of protesters planned to burn a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Oslo on Friday, police said.

    “The police emphasise that burning the Quran is a legal political statement in Norway, but this event can’t go ahead due to security concerns,” Oslo police Inspector Martin Strand said in a statement on Thursday.

    The move came after Turkey’s foreign ministry summoned Norway’s Ambassador Erling Skjonsberg over the planned protest.

    “Upon learning that there will be an attack against our holy book, the Quran, in Norway tomorrow, the Norwegian ambassador to Turkiye [Turkey] has just been summoned to our ministry,” a Turkish diplomatic source told Anadolu Agency earlier on Thursday.

    “[Norway’s] approach not to prevent the planned provocative act, which is clearly a hate crime … is unacceptable and we expect this act not to be allowed,” the source added.

    The incident follows a protest in Sweden’s capital last month near the Turkish embassy, where far-right Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan burned a copy of the Quran.

    Turkey denounced Sweden for the Quran burning, as well as for a separate demonstration by Kurdish activists supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that has waged an uprising against the Turkish state since 1984 and that Turkey, the European Union and the United States have designated a “terrorist” group.

    Following the protests, Turkey cancelled a visit by Sweden’s defence minister aimed at overcoming Ankara’s objections to its NATO membership.

    Sweden and Finland had made progress towards an agreement with Turkey on the Nordic countries’ admission to the military alliance, but disagreements have cast doubt over the process.

    Stockholm on Thursday said it would tighten laws covering membership of “terrorist” organisations months after an agreement with Turkey on fighting “terrorism”, which was aimed at overcoming its objections to Swedish NATO membership.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Ankara’s position on Finland was “positive”, but it was “not positive” on Sweden.

    Swedish foreign minister Tobias Billstrom responded by saying that his country would not compromise on freedom of expression, which was not part of the stipulated pact.

    The Nordic countries submitted applications to join NATO on May 18, overturning their decades-long policies of non-alignment.

    Norway is a founding member of the NATO alliance, which has 30 members and was created in 1949. In order for a country to join the NATO alliance, unanimous approval of all members is required.

    Separately on Thursday, Turkey summoned the ambassadors and top envoys of nine countries to condemn the closures of several European consulates in Istanbul due to security concerns.

    The United States and several European powers have advised citizens not to attend mass events and avoid tourist hotspots in central Istanbul because of a heightened terror threat.

    At least seven European countries have closed their Istanbul consulates to the general public as a precaution. The US consulate, which is not located in the city centre, remains open.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/2/turkey-summons-norwegian-ambassador-over-protest-permission

  14. New Jersey councilwoman shot and killed in possible targeted attack outside her home
    She was shot while inside her white SUV.

    ByAaron Katersky and Jon Haworth
    February 2, 2023, 9:42 AM

    A 30-year-old woman found fatally shot in her Sayreville townhouse complex has been identified by local officials as Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour.

    She was shot while inside her white SUV, which appears to have then crashed on Samuel Circle at around 7:22 p.m. Wednesday night, authorities said.

    She sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. She lived in the townhouse complex where she was killed, just steps from her home.

    She preliminarily appears to have been the target of the gunfire but a motive for the shooting was not immediately disclosed.

    Mahesh Chitnis, who serves on Sayreville’s Human Relations Commission, posted on Facebook that the victim, who was also his neighbor, was “killed 300 feet from my home … She was shot while returning back home. She was a woman full of life.”

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-jersey-councilwoman-shot-killed-targeted-attack-home/story?id=96844342

  15. globe and mail –Putin evokes Stalingrad to predict victory in Ukraine

    President Vladimir Putin evoked the spirit of the Soviet army that defeated Nazi German forces at Stalingrad 80 years ago to declare on Thursday that Russia would defeat a Ukraine supposedly in the grip of a new incarnation of Nazism.

    In a fiery speech in Volgograd, known as Stalingrad until 1961, Putin lambasted Germany for helping to arm Ukraine and said, not for the first time, that he was ready to draw on Russia’s entire arsenal, which includes nuclear weapons.

    “Unfortunately we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country,” Putin told an audience of army officers and members of local patriotic and youth groups.

    “Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective West. It’s incredible but it’s a fact: we are again being threatened with German Leopard tanks with crosses on them.”

    Russian officials have been drawing parallels with the struggle against the Nazis ever since Russian forces entered Ukraine almost a year ago.

    Ukraine – which was part of the Soviet Union and itself suffered devastation at the hands of Hitler’s forces – rejects those parallels as spurious pretexts for a war of imperial conquest.

    Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle of World War Two, when the Soviet Red Army, at a cost of over 1 million casualties, broke the back of German invasion forces in 1942-3.

    Putin evoked what he said was the spirit of the defenders of Stalingrad to explain why he thought Russia would prevail in Ukraine, saying the World War Two battle had become a symbol of “the indestructible nature of our people”.

    “Those who draw European countries, including Germany, into a new war with Russia, and … expect to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield, apparently don’t understand that a modern war with Russia will be quite different for them,” he added.

    “We don’t send our tanks to their borders but we have the means to respond, and it won’t end with the use of armoured vehicles, everyone must understand that.”

    VICTORY PARADE

    As Putin finished speaking, the audience gave him a standing ovation.

    Putin had earlier laid flowers at the grave of the Soviet marshal who oversaw the defence of Stalingrad and visited the city’s main memorial complex, where he held a minute’s silence in honour of those who died during the battle.

    Thousands of people lined Volgograd’s streets to watch a victory parade as planes flew overhead and modern and World War Two-era tanks and armoured vehicles rolled past.

    Some of the modern vehicles had the letter ‘V’ painted on them, a symbol used by Russia’s forces in Ukraine.

    Irina Zolotoreva, a 61-year-old who said her relatives had fought at Stalingrad, saw a parallel with Ukraine.

    “Our country is fighting for justice, for freedom. We got victory in 1942 and that’s an example for today’s generation. I think we’ll win again now whatever happens.”

    The focal point for the commemorations was the Mamayev Kurgan memorial complex, on a hill overlooking the River Volga dominated by a hulking statue called The Motherland Calls – of a woman brandishing a giant sword.

    The five-month-long battle reduced the city that bore Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s name to rubble, while claiming an estimated 2 million dead and wounded on both sides.

    A new bust of Stalin was erected in Volgograd on Wednesday along with two others, of Soviet marshals Georgy Zhukov and Alexander Vasilyevsky.

    Despite Stalin’s record of presiding over a famine that killed millions and political repression that killed hundreds of thousands, Russian politicians and school textbooks have in recent years stressed his role as a successful wartime leader who turned the Soviet Union into a superpower.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-putin-likely-to-channel-stalingrad-victory-at-pivotal-time-in-ukraine/

    ===================================

    DAILY MAIL – Putin issues threat to US: Vladimir says ‘we will deploy more than tanks’ and warns ‘we have friends on American continent’ as he claims Russia is ‘again’ threatened by German tanks at WW2 ceremony

    Russian president threatened the full use of Russia’s arsenal against the West

    The president said today: ‘It’s unbelievable but true. We are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks.

    ‘Unfortunately we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country.

    ‘Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective West. It’s incredible but it’s a fact: we are again being threatened with German Leopard tanks with crosses on them.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11705897/Putin-forces-residents-quarantine-ahead-visit-Stalingrad-anniversary-celebrations.html

    =====================================

      • Vladimir Putin made a speech at the gala concert on the 80th anniversary of the defeat of the German Nazi forces by the Red Army in the Battle of Stalingrad.

        President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Dear veterans and friends,

        Today, we are celebrating one of the most important, fateful dates in the history of our country and the world. Exactly 80 years ago, here on the banks of the great Russian Volga River, the hated, cruel enemy was stopped and sent into irreversible retreat, bringing to a conclusion the long, arduous, fierce battle for Stalingrad.

        This was not merely a battle for a city – the very existence of a tormented but unvanquished country was at stake, as was the outcome of not only the Great Patriotic War but of World War II as a whole. Every person in the trenches and on the home front felt and understood this. And so, as it has happened repeatedly in our history, we united in the decisive battle and won.

        The Battle of Stalingrad justifiably went down in history as a turning point in the Great Patriotic War. In addition to defeating the largest Wehrmacht group and its satellites, the will of the entire Hitler coalition was broken. The European vassals and accomplices of Nazi Germany, many of which fought at Stalingrad, representing practically all countries of subjugated Europe, began feverishly looking for ways to flee, to evade responsibility and shift the blame onto their former masters. Everyone realised what the Soviet people knew from the start – the Nazi plans to destroy our country and Nazi ideas about global domination were doomed to fail.

        For 200 days at Stalingrad, two armies fought to the death amid the ruins of this legendary city. The army that proved stronger of will prevailed. The fierce resistance of our soldiers and their commanders, exceeding what is humanly possible, can only be understood and explained by their loyalty to the Motherland, their firm, absolute belief that the truth was on our side. The willingness to go beyond for the sake of the Motherland and the truth, to do the impossible, has always been and remains in the blood, in the character of our multi-ethnic people. This is what defeated Nazism.

        Stalingrad has forever become a symbol of the invincibility of our people, of the very power of life. This city, its suburbs and nearby villages had to be rebuilt from the ground up, as hardly a tree or intact building was left standing in the city by February 1943.

        The exceptional endurance and self-sacrifice of the defenders and residents of Stalingrad still move us to the core, evoking feelings of the deepest gratitude and respect. It is our moral duty – primarily to the victorious soldiers – to faithfully honour the memory of this feat, to pass it down the generations, and not to let anyone devalue or distort the role of the Battle of Stalingrad in the victory over Nazism and in liberating the entire world from this monstrous evil.

        Now we are seeing that unfortunately, the ideology of Nazism – this time in its modern guise – is again creating direct threats to our national security, and we are, time and again, forced to resist the aggression of the collective West.

        However incredible, it is a fact – we are again being threatened with German Leopard tanks with crosses on board. There is again a plan to fight Russia on Ukrainian land using Hitler’s successors, the Banderites.

        We know that despite the efforts of official bodies and the corrupt propaganda of the unfriendly Western elites, we have many friends all over the world, including the Americas, North America, and Europe.

        However, those that are dragging European countries, including Germany, into a new war with Russia, and especially those that are irresponsibly talking about it as a fait accompli, those who are hoping to defeat Russia on the battlefield, apparently fail to understand that a modern war against Russia will be a completely different war for them. We do not send our tanks to their borders but we have what to respond with, and it is not limited to the use of armour. Everyone must realise this.

        Obviously, those who are threatening us do not understand a simple truth: all our people, we all grew up and absorbed the traditions of our people at our mothers’ knee – generations of winners who built our country with hard work, sweat and blood, and passed it on to us as a legacy.

        The fortitude of the defenders of Stalingrad is the most important moral and ethical guideline for the Russian Army, for all of us. Our soldiers and officers are loyal to this. The continuity of generations, values, traditions is what distinguishes Russia, makes us strong and self-confident, makes us believe in our rightness and in our victory.

        I warmly congratulate everyone here, all defenders of the Motherland today, all Russians, and compatriots abroad on the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad.

        Happy anniversary to you. Happy celebrations of the triumph of life and justice.

        Thank you for your attention.

        http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70434

      • global news – Russia’s Lavrov claims US directly involved with Nord Stream pipeline explosions

    • politico –Ukraine can’t retake Crimea soon, Pentagon tells lawmakers in classified briefing

      The assessment from the DoD officials is likely to anger Kyiv, which wants to recapture the peninsula from Russia.

      Ukrainian forces are unlikely to be able to recapture Crimea from Russian troops in the near future, four senior Defense Department officials told House Armed Services Committee lawmakers in a classified briefing. The assessment is sure to frustrate leaders in Kyiv who consider taking the peninsula back one of their signature goals.

      It’s unclear what led the briefers to that assessment. But the clear indication, as relayed by three people with direct knowledge of Thursday’s briefing’s contents, was that the Pentagon doesn’t believe Ukraine has — or soon will have — the ability to force Russian troops out of the peninsula Moscow seized nearly a decade ago.

      A fourth person said the briefing was more ambiguous, but the point remained that Ukraine’s victory in an offensive to retake the illegally annexed territory wasn’t assured. All four asked for anonymity in order to disclose details from a classified briefing.

      The briefers included Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, and Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of operations on the Joint Staff.

      “We’re not going to comment on closed-door classified briefings nor will we talk about hypotheticals or speculate on potential future operations,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said. “In terms of Ukraine’s ability to fight and take back sovereign territory, their remarkable performance in repulsing Russian aggression and continued adaptability on the battlefield speaks for itself.”

      A House Armed Services spokesperson declined to comment.

      The assessment from the briefers echoes what Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chair, has alluded to in recent weeks.

      “I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all –– every inch of Ukraine and occupied –– or Russian-occupied Ukraine,” he said during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany on Jan. 20. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’d be very, very difficult.”

      Russian forces have occupied Crimea since 2014, and the peninsula is bristling with air defenses and tens of thousands of troops. Many of those infantry forces are dug into fortified positions stretching hundreds of miles facing off against Ukrainian troops along the Dnipro River.

      The issue of retaking Crimea has been a contentious one for months, as American and European officials insist the peninsula is legally part of Ukraine, while often stopping short of fully equipping Kyiv to push into the area.

      One person familiar with the thinking in Kyiv said the Zelenskyy administration was “furious” with Milley’s remarks, as Ukraine prepares for major offensives this spring. Ukrainians also note that U.S. intelligence about their military abilities have consistently missed the mark throughout the nearly year-long war.

      Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Zelensky adviser Andriy Yermak rejected the idea of a Ukrainian victory without taking Crimea.

      “This is absolutely unacceptable,” Yermak said, adding that victory means restoring Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders “including Donbas and Crimea.”

      https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/01/ukraine-crimea-russia-pentagon-00080799
      ==============================================
      the daily caller – Pentagon Unsure Ukraine Can Retake Crimea Anytime Soon, Lawmakers Learn In Classified Briefing: REPORT

      The Department of Defense expressed doubt over whether Ukraine could retake Crimea in a classified briefing to Congress on Wednesday, Politico reported, citing four people with firsthand knowledge of the briefing.

      Ukraine’s leaders have repeatedly communicated that their war aims include recapturing the entirety of Ukraine, including Crimea, a territory in the east under Russian occupation since 2014. However, Pentagon briefers conveyed to the House Armed Services Committee an assessment that Ukraine likely lacks the capabilities necessary to push the Russians out of Crimea, three of the individuals with knowledge of the briefing told Politico on condition of anonymity.

      A fourth individual said the Pentagon was not so clear cut in expressing skepticism regarding the likelihood of success of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in Crimea, according to Politico. However, that doesn’t mean a reconquest of Crimea is guaranteed, the individual added.

      Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Laura Cooper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Director of Operations Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims participated in the briefing, Politico reported.

      “We’re not going to comment on closed-door classified briefings nor will we talk about hypotheticals or speculate on potential future operations,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told Politico.

      “There’s a school of thought … that Crimea’s got to be a part of it. Russia is never going to quit and give up Crimea,” HASC Chairman Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama told Politico Wednesday without addressing the contents of the briefing.

      The White House and the Pentagon maintain that Crimea is a part of Ukraine and that the U.S. will support Kyiv in achieving whatever operational or strategic objectives it establishes.

      “If they decide to conduct an operation within Crimea they are well in their bounds,” Singh said at a briefing on Jan. 19.

      “This department has said that we will be with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” she added.

      However, military leaders including Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledge that retaking Crimea will be difficult and impose a significant cost on the offensive forces, according to Politico.

      “I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all – every inch of Ukraine and occupied – or Russian-occupied Ukraine,” Milley said in remarks at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group summit in Germany on Jan. 20.

      So far, the U.S. has resisted supporting Ukraine with long-range missile capabilities that would allow Ukrainian forces to penetrate Russian or Russian-occupied territory. The White House is set to announce a new security assistance package including for the first time Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs that carry a range of 94 miles, capable of reaching into Crimea.

      Yet the territory is heavily fortified with Russian air defenses and dug-in defensive positions, according to Politico.

      The National Security Council and Rogers did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

      https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/02/pentagon-ukraine-retake-crimea-house/
      ==================================

      NYT – Hard Drinking and Murky Finances: How an American Veterans Group Imploded in Ukraine

      The Mozart Group was training Ukrainian soldiers and evacuating frontline residents until the money ran out. Its collapse sheds light on the stresses faced by such groups.

      KYIV, Ukraine — Andrew Milburn, a former American Marine colonel and leader of the Mozart Group, stood in a chilly meeting room on the second floor of an apartment building in Kyiv about to deliver some bad news. In front of him sat half a dozen men who had traveled to Ukraine on their own dime to work for him.

      “Guys, I’m gutted,” he said. “The Mozart Group is dead.”

      The men stared back at him with blank faces.

      One asked as he walked toward the door, “What should I do with my helmet?”

      The Mozart Group, one of the most prominent, private American military organizations in Ukraine, has collapsed under a cloud of accusations ranging from financial improprieties to alcohol-addled misjudgments. Its struggles provide a revealing window into the world of foreign volunteer groups that have flocked to Ukraine with noble intentions only to be tripped up by the stresses of managing a complicated enterprise in a war zone.

      “I’ve seen this happen many times,” said one of Mozart’s veteran trainers, who, like many others, spoke only anonymously out of concerns that the Russians might target him. “You got to run these groups like a business. We didn’t do that.”

      Hundreds if not thousands of foreign veterans and volunteers have passed through Ukraine. Many of them, like Mr. Milburn and his group, are hard-living men who have spent their adult lives steeped in violence, solo fliers trying to work together in a very dangerous environment without a lot of structure or rules.

      The Mozart Group thrived at first, training Ukrainian troops, rescuing civilians from the front lines and raising more than a million dollars in donations to finance it all. But then the money began to run out.

      After months struggling to hold itself together, Mozart was plagued by defections, infighting, a break-in at its office headquarters and a lawsuit filed by the company’s chief financial officer, Andrew Bain, seeking the ouster of Mr. Milburn.

      The lawsuit, filed in Wyoming, where Mozart is registered as a limited liability company, is a litany of petty and serious allegations, accusing Mr. Milburn among other things of making derogatory comments about Ukraine’s leadership while “significantly intoxicated,” letting his dog urinate in a borrowed apartment and “diverting company funds” and other financial malfeasance.

      “I’ll be the first to admit that I’m flawed,” said Mr. Milburn, who acknowledged in an interview that he had been drinking when he made the comments on Ukraine. “We all are.” But he denied the more serious allegations about financial improprieties, calling them “utterly ridiculous.”

      When Mr. Milburn showed up in Ukraine in early March last year, the capital, Kyiv, was seemingly on the precipice. Russian forces were blasting their way in from the suburbs and Ukraine was rushing thousands of inexperienced soldiers to the front.

      That’s when, through a mutual friend, Mr. Milburn, 59, met Mr. Bain, 58. Also a former Marine colonel, Mr. Bain had been working in media and marketing in Ukraine for more than 30 years. “The Two Andys,” as Mozart employees would come to call them, shared a vision of doing whatever they could to help Ukraine win the war.

      Mr. Milburn, whose career has tracked America’s wars of the past three decades, from Somalia to Iraq, had both the combat experience and the contacts. He counts Marine heavyweights like the author Bing West and a former defense secretary, Gen. James Mattis, as friends.

      Mr. Bain had the organization. For eight years, since Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014, he had been running the Ukrainian Freedom Fund, a charity he set up that turned donations into desperately needed gear for the Ukrainian military.

      The two founded Mozart, the name a saucy response to the Russian mercenary force that uses the name of another famous composer, the Wagner Group. They also ran a short-lived podcast called “Two Marines in Kyiv.”

      But they had very different styles. Mr. Milburn is gregarious, comfortable in the spotlight — he wrote a searing memoir — and by his own admission, hot tempered. Mr. Bain, who studied classics at Yale, is more reserved and cerebral.

      From the beginning, there were tensions, both said. “For 30 minutes he’s the most charming man in the world,” Mr. Bain said of Mr. Milburn. “But at minute 31, you’re like, ‘Wait, something’s not working back there.’”

      Mr. Milburn said that while he did not want to insult Mr. Bain, “the facts speak for themselves, and I can’t give any more insights into his character than what he’s done.”

      With the Ukrainian military desperate for all the Western support it could get, Mozart quickly expanded from a handful of combat vets to more than 50 employees from a dozen countries. The group’s two specialties became last-chance extractions of civilians trapped on the front lines, which was extremely dangerous work, and condensed military training.

      As spring passed to summer, more Ukrainian military units asked Mozart for training. But the Ukrainians could not pay for it, leaving Mozart reliant on a small pool of steady donors, including a group of East Coast financiers with Jewish-Ukrainian roots and a Texas tycoon.

      Everyone involved said it became stressful just making payroll. And several employees said that the way the money flowed into the organization, which was overseen by Mr. Bain, was opaque.

      “I can’t tell you how many people would come up to me at a party and said, “Hey, Marty, I love what you’re doing. I want to give you $10,000,” said Martin Wetterauer, one of Mr. Milburn’s old Marine friends and Mozart’s operations chief. “But we would never know if the money actually came in.”

      Mr. Bain said he did absolutely nothing wrong and provided financial information whenever it was asked for, which was rare.

      On top of that, the people Mozart hired were not the easiest to manage. Many were grizzled combat vets who admitted to struggling with PTSD and heavy drinking. When they weren’t working, they gravitated to Kyiv’s strip clubs, bars and online dating.

      “There was a lot of cursing, a lot of womanizing, a lot of things you wouldn’t want to take to mass,” said another trainer, Rob.

      In September, they lost an important funding stream when a charity called Allied Extract decided to use less expensive Ukrainian teams to rescue civilians. By November, Mozart was so short of cash that Mr. Milburn, Mr. Bain and Mr. Wetterauer gave up their salaries of several hundred dollars a day.

      Mr. Bain, who owned 51 percent of the company then approached Mr. Milburn, who held the other 49 percent, about separating, both men said in interviews. Mr. Bain asked Mr. Milburn to pay $5 million to buy him out but Mr. Milburn refused, saying there was no way he could come up with such a sum. The two soon stopped talking.

      On Dec. 11, a Sunday morning, Mr. Milburn and a couple of employees went to the company’s headquarters, housed in a Kyiv building Mr. Bain owns, to retrieve winter jackets, body armor and some personal luggage locked in a storeroom.

      When a security guard refused to let them in, one of Mr. Milburn’s men pinned him against a wall while Mr. Milburn kicked down the door. He later said they needed the gear for missions in Donbas, the eastern Ukraine region under relentless Russian attack.

      Not long after that, a clip of Mr. Milburn disparaging Ukraine’s leadership circulated widely on social media. “I happen to have a Ukraine flag tied to my bag, but I’m not, ‘Oh my God, Ukraine is so awesome,’” he said. “I understand that there are plenty of screwed-up people running Ukraine.”

      The clip was taken from The Team House podcast, in which guests are invited into a living room setting to drink hard liquor with the hosts. “Of course I shouldn’t have said that,” Mr. Milburn acknowledged.

      As soon as Mr. Bain filed the lawsuit on Jan. 10, an internecine social media battle exploded. Mr. Bain published the allegations on Mozart’s Facebook page, which he controls, and Mr. Milburn fired back nasty comments about Mr. Bain from Mozart’s LinkedIn page, which he controls.

      “It was like a domestic dispute,” Rob said.

      But of more than half a dozen employees interviewed for this article, all expressed sympathy for Mr. Milburn. Even after the final meeting, on Tuesday, several said he was an inspiring leader and they were waiting to see if he could raise the funds to put them back to work.

      Mr. Milburn has rented a new office in Kyiv and says he is determined to resurrect the operation.

      “I dream of going back to Donbas,” he said. “When you’re out there, and you’re scared, everything else shrinks into the shadows. You’re not thinking about money. You’re not thinking about your reputation.”

      But he’s not going back to the front anytime soon.

      Wearing a gray sweatshirt, black sweatpants and running shoes, he spent hours this week in front of his laptop. He’s scouting out new business, such as training courses for hostile environments. He’s writing emails to donors.

      And he’s talking to his lawyers.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/world/europe/american-veterans-ukraine-mozart.html

      • Retaking Crimea would require a lot more trained troops them Ukraine has. Plus from what I have seen I don’t think the Ukrainian Generals are good enough if they had the men who were skilled enough.

    • EU heads to Ukraine for summit to boost integration as anniversary of invasion nears

      One of the EU’s messages is likely to be bitter for Ukraine: there will be no fast-tracking for Ukraine’s bid to become a member.

    • UKRAINE – $ 1 million found in the sofa of the former Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine

      A fabulous sum was found during a search of the former deputy head of the Ministry of Defense of Nezalezhnaya Alexander Mironyuk. A Ukrainian politician thought of hiding $1 million worth of cash in a sofa.

      The search took place back in August, but the footage of the investigative measures appeared at the disposal of the Ukrainian media only now. It was clarified that he appears in the investigation of procurement fraud in the Ministry of Defense. As a result, law enforcement officers found a lot of money in his apartment in different denominations: 17 million hryvnias, 400 thousand dollars and 100 thousand euros.

      https://oopstop.com/1-million-found-in-the-sofa-of-the-former-deputy-minister-of-defense-of-ukraine/

    • FEB 02 2023

      Trump says in interview that Putin never wanted war.

      Peace could be negotiated in 24hrs if given the chance.

      And the true scale of Ukrainian losses is being hidden to paint a false narrative.

      RSBN EXCLUSIVE: Interview with President Donald J. Trump From Mar-a-Lago

      ( 21 min 20 )

      Thursday, February 2, 2023: Join RSBN’s Brian Glenn for a one-on-one sit down conversation with President Trump at his home, Mar-a-Lago.
      The 45th president shares his thoughts on the war in Ukraine, issues at the southern border, the media, and yes, golf!

      • He’s been barking that since day-one: Just give Putin a little taste of what we can do…

        UAF has been targeting the biggest NPP in Europe, taken by RF early in the conflict. Shooting American-made missiles at ZNPP?! That’s *Russian roulette* with a monster of a dirty bomb: exponential Fukushima across a chunk of Europe. The IAEA came to investigate, obtained absolute evidence, then refused to call out the Ukes!

        With a mega-monster like Nuland, and that Schitt-type creature – Farkus? – gurgling to the media, people might be thinking nukes aren’t such a big deal. Stoltenberg is mighty casual about them. The Atlantic Council – Nato’s think-tank – makes the same noises.

        I think RAND is more DoD. Milley got them to write a Whoa! paper recently:
        https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PEA2500/PEA2510-1/RAND_PEA2510-1.pdf

  16. China is losing Europe’s east to Taiwan
    Politics & Current Affairs

    Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Czech President-Elect Petr Pavel had a cordial phone chat Monday, underscoring China’s waning influence in a region that was once under Beijing’s spell. Meanwhile, Taiwanese diplomacy is quietly making its biggest post-Cold War gains, with ties between Kyiv and Taipei increasingly warm.
    Like her call to Trump, this was a big diplomatic win for Tsai, highlighting just how much Taiwan’s international profile has risen in the past six years — Tsai was the second head of state Pavel called post-election, the first being Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

    More importantly, Monday’s call also marks an inflection point in the regional shift among major Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries away from China and toward Taiwan. China’s ongoing tacit support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s parroting of Moscow’s talking points are likely to accelerate this trend. While unofficial in nature, these new friendships in the former Soviet bloc are the biggest diplomatic gains Taiwan has seen since democratizing.

    The first domino: Lithuania

    https://thechinaproject.com/2023/01/31/china-is-losing-europes-east-to-taiwan/

    Richard: this is good news and bad news. It means more people are realizing that they don’t need to suck up to China. It is bad news because it is another reason for China to invade Taiwan before their economy collapses. I don’t know if China’s economy has collapsed to the point that they can’t invade Taiwan. If it hasn’t it is close to that point. This is the point where the danger of invasion is the greatest.)/b>

    • Half the population of Taiwan leans toward CHY-na, the last elections were close. Nerds haven’t been too keen on military service either, according to observers in Singapore who follow the Israeli model.

      Lithuania is THE most rabid of all the yapping chihuahuas. Still high on dreams of the Lithuania-Polish Empire in days of yore. Remember when it briefly blockaded Kaliningrad? The EU had to slap it down chop-chop.

      Last thing the world needs is an aggressive lunatic like the one who shot the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand. Fortunately Putin doesn’t pay attention to those little Baltics, and even Von der Leyen keeps them on a short leash.

  17. 11 U.S. Cities Run by Democrats Listed Among 50 Most Dangerous in World

    Eleven U.S. cities rank among the 50 most dangerous in the world, according to a recent report published by Numbeo, a global quality of life database. All 11 are governed by Democratic mayors.

    Three U.S. cities — Baltimore, Memphis and Detroit — are ranked among the 20 most dangerous cities on the planet.

    The three cities have more in common than just violent crime. All three are run by Democrats.

    Baltimore ranks #15 on the annual dangerous cities list, with Memphis and Detroit close behind at #18 and #19, respectively.

    Brandon Scott, just 38 years of age, is the mayor of Baltimore. Jim Strickland Jr., an attorney and politician, is the 64th and current mayor of Memphis, where the Memphis police department has just announced plans to permanently deactivate the unit that five of the officers involved in the vicious beating of Tyre Nichols belonged to. Mike Duggan, meanwhile, is currently serving as the mayor of Detroit.

    Two more U.S. cities run by Democrats appear among the 30 most dangerous in the world: Albuquerque (#23), where 45-year-old Tim Keller serves as the 30th mayor, and St. Louis (#27), where Tishaura Oneda Jones has served as mayor since April of 2021.

    Tracking back for a wider view yields a still grimmer perspective for Democrats, as another six Democrat-run cities rank among the world’s 50 most dangerous: New Orleans (#35), Oakland (#38), Milwaukee (#40), Chicago (#43), Philadelphia (#46), and Houston (#50). Again, all of these cities are run by Democrats.

    Numbeo’s report contains both a Crime Index, which is an estimation of overall levels of crime in a given city, and a Safety index. A city with a high safety index is considered very safe. A city with a high crime index is considered anything but. If a city’s crime levels are lower than 20, for instance, this is considered excellent. Crime levels between 20 and 40 are considered good; crime levels between 40 and 60 are moderate; crime levels between 60 and 80 are considered high. Finally, crime levels higher than 80 are considered dangerously high. The Safety Index, meanwhile, is ranked in the completely opposite way, with scores higher than 80 indicating that a city is very safe, and scores under 20 indicating that a city is borderline uninhabitable.

    Baltimore has a Crime Index score of 75.5 and a Safety Index score of 24.5. “Charm City” finds itself sandwiched between Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, and Rosario, Argentina’s third-most populous city.

    In 2019, then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr referred to Baltimore as the country’s “robbery capital.” Although the comment was deemed controversial by some commentators, it is amply substantiated by crime statistics. Last year, the city of 576,000 experienced a sharp spike in robberies, with robberies of convenience stores jumping by 300%. Baltimore also suffered a sharp increase in homicides.

    Some 900 miles away, in Memphis, overall crime increased by more than 8% last year. By August of 2022, 4,501 crimes had been reported in the downtown area of the city, 600 more than had been reported by August of 2021, according to the city’s Data Hub.

    In Detroit, more than 220 officers left the police department last year. Long known as the automobile capital of the world, Detroit has, in recent times, become more closely associated with assaults, shootings and homicides. On New Year’s Day, for instance, a total of 6 people were shot, one of them fatally. Five days later, a 16-year-old was killed and an 11-year-old was injured in yet another shooting.

    Democrats have often been labeled “soft on crime” by their opponents. The latest Numbeo report will do little to stem such denunciations.

    https://tennesseestar.com/2023/02/01/11-u-s-cities-run-by-democrats-listed-among-50-most-dangerous-in-world/

  18. A Blow to Brotherly Love – BREAKING: Republicans Remove Leftist Radical Ilhan Omar from House Foreign Affairs Committee
    By Jim Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 12:00pm
    49 Comments

    Democrat Ilhan Omar married her brother.

    She allegedly broke up with her first husband. Married her brother to get him in the US. Then she married her first husband again before cheating on him and dumping him for her consultant.

    Ilhan is a very principled Democrat.

    On Thursday Republicans voted to remove Ilhan Omar, a national security threat, from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
    The vote was 218 to 211.

  19. BREAKING: FBI to Search Mike Pence’s Indiana Home For Classified Documents
    By Cristina Laila
    Published February 2, 2023 at 11:30am
    186 Comments

    The FBI will search Mike Pence’s Indiana home for classified documents, the Wall Street Journal reported.

    The Justice Department is in talks with Mike Pence’s lawyers to conduct the search.
    Last Tuesday it was reported that a “small number of documents bearing classified markings” were discovered at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Carmel, Indiana home.

    According to CNN, Mike Pence had one of his lawyers search his residence for classified materials “out of an abundance of caution.”

    Vice President Pence was unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence,” Pence’s rep. Greg Jacob wrote. “Vice President Pence understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry.”

    The National Archives last week asked former presidents and vice presidents to check their records for classified materials.

    “The responsibility to comply with the PRA does not diminish after the end of an administration,” the letter states. “Therefore, we request that you conduct an assessment of any materials held outside of NARA that relate to the Administration for which you serve as a designated representative under the PRA, to determine whether bodies of materials previously assumed to be personal in nature might inadvertently contain Presidential or Vice Presidential records subject to the PRA, whether classified or unclassified.”

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/breaking-fbi-search-mike-pences-indiana-home-classified-documents/

  20. They are Killing Us All With This Now” – Argentinian Mother Outraged After Losing Her 8-Year-Old Daughter After Receiving COVID Vaccine
    By Jim Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 11:12am
    270 Comments

    Yamil Guevara from Mendoza, Argentina expressed her outrage against the COVID-19 shot after the unexpected death of her daughter.

    Yasmina Antonella Guevara, her 8-year-old daughter, died on January 11, 2023, due to vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, which she developed after receiving the COVID shot.

    Advertisement

    “I hope that everyone can take a minute of their time. She is my daughter, Yasmina Antonella Guevara, she passed away on 01/11/2023,” Mrs. Guevara wrote on her Facebook account.

    “My daughter was a healthy girl, she was never sick with anything. Apart from the famous COVID vaccine, my daughter started with problems with body aches and things that she had never had. She was the first patient in Argentina with what was supposedly called vasculitis, and the doctors did not know how to treat her to the point that she passed away, leaving great pain in our family,” she continued.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/killing-us-now-argentinian-mother-outraged-losing-8-year-old-daughter-receiving-covid-vaccine/

  21. APRIL 2021 – FORBES – ‘One Billion Doses On Day One’: Vaccine Company Claims World-Changing Innovation

    It’s hard to flawlessly churn out billions of doses of drugs—and we aren’t doing a great job of it. A Midas List VC pulled together a dream team that says it’s come up with a better, faster way.

    It’s all come down to Pfizer and Moderna. With Johnson & Johnson’s “one-and-done” shot on pause, America’s race against the virus and its variants now relies on our ability to flawlessly manufacture hundreds of millions of doses of the new mRNA vaccines—at warp speed. And previous quality control issues at a Pfizer plant, on top of Emergent BioSolutions’ fiasco with the J&J vaccine, are a stark reminder that manufacturing medicine is not easy.

    Robert Nelsen, the top biotech investor on our annual Midas List of the best venture capitalists, figures there’s got to be a better way.

    As numerous companies started developing Covid-19 vaccines last spring, he was worried that they wouldn’t get manufactured fast enough. That meant there would be lots of avoidable deaths, which made him angry (his Twitter bio ends “F—k Covid-19”). And when Bob Nelsen gets mad, he starts a new company. That firm, National Resilience officially, or just “Resilience,” as it’s known, came out of stealth in November with $800 million in funding from Nelsen’s Arch Venture Partners and a who’s who of top-drawer VC firms and pharmaceutical companies.

    “I started it because I was pissed off, not because I was particularly visionary,” says Nelsen, who is 57. “I was pissed off that things were taking so long. Why was it taking so long to get masks, to get therapies, to get vaccines? It all seemed like a bit of a shit show. That was really what was motivating me, I guess. Most of my really good companies have started because I was pissed off at something.”

    Making complex biotech medicines has all too often been a scientific, lab-based process. San Diego- and Boston-based Resilience wants to industrialize it, with more efficient, scalable processes that resemble how microchips are made. The precise details are a closely guarded secret, but Nelsen started by hiring an all-star team led by vice chairman Pat Yang and CEO Rahul Singhvi, supported by a board that includes Susan Desmond-Hellmann, the former CEO of the Gates Foundation, Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner, and former Senator Bob Kerrey.

    Resilience began by buying existing manufacturing facilities and companies. In February, it acquired an operation near Toronto. In March, it bought a major Sanofi-Genzyme plant in Boston. Then in April, it acquired Alachua, Florida-based Ology Bioservices, a vaccine company with Department of Defense contracts. While Resilience won’t say what it paid for these assets, industry observers say that the startup is acquiring operations on the cheap—often at just one or two times sales. That would mean that Resilience has spent somewhere north of $250 million to date on acquisitions.

    It is also building out two facilities from scratch, one in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and the other in Fremont, California. Both will focus on gene therapy, cell therapy and messenger RNA (mRNA). And both are expected to be operational in 2022.

    Yang, at 73 a legend in biotech manufacturing, predicts Resilience could reach $500 million in annualized revenue this year. A significant portion of that comes from existing contracts that Resilience acquired but they have ambitions that dwarf existing revenues.

    “We’re dealing with 1950s technology, and that’s overstating it,” says Nelsen. He compares what Resilience is doing to Taiwan Semiconductor, Intel and iPhone maker Foxconn, all companies with tens of billions of dollars in revenue and global footprints. “We need to make things more systematic, and more decentralized, and more predictable,” he says. “This is the future of American manufacturing.”

    The chances of a new drug being eventually approved by the FDA are just 10% to 15%. Which means it doesn’t make sense to figure out how to make them at scale while they are still in clinical trials. “We chronically underinvest in manufacturing, and there is no incentive to invest in manufacturing early,” Yang says. Adds Nelsen, “The pharmas view it as a cost center, the biotechs don’t have the money and the universities don’t know how.”

    The traditional approach of setting up manufacturing after successful Phase 2 clinical trials worked fine for therapeutics made with simple molecules, but today’s biologics are far more complex. And many newer drugs—including ones for cancer, as well as the Covid-19 vaccines—have far shorter clinical trials. “There is no time for the manufacturing people to catch up to the product, so we would launch the product with laboratory scale processes,” Yang says. That rush makes sense when lives are at stake but creates problems in the longer term. “Once they launch the product, the process is locked,” he says. “It’s very hard to change manufacturing processes post-approval.”

    Nelsen first broached the idea of building a next-gen biotech manufacturing company with Yang at a February 2020 board meeting of Sana Biotechnology, the cell and gene therapy specialist that is another of Nelsen’s companies. Yang, who had worked in operations at Merck and Genentech before becoming executive vice president at Roche, where he oversaw 21 sites and some 15,000 employees, signed on immediately.

    Yang quickly brought on Singhvi, a 56-year-old engineer with whom he’d worked at Merck. Singhvi grew up in a family of doctors in Jaipur, India, before getting a doctorate in chemical engineering at MIT. At Merck, he focused on vaccine manufacturing, the least sexy part of the industry at a time. “It was the backwater of the pharma industry,” he says. “Nobody paid attention to vaccines, but manufacturing was important there because it’s a low-margin business. It’s the one part of the pharmaceutical business where manufacturing matters.”

    The deal for Ology Bioservices exemplifies what Resilience is looking for in acquisitions. Yang says that it had previously been “starved for capital,” and that by investing in it Resilience can not only double its revenue, but also shift production to high-margin therapeutics like viral vectors and mRNA. Resilience has a number of other potential deals in the works, including carve outs from biotech and pharmaceutical companies and joint ventures with academic manufacturing facilities.

    In the longer term, Resilience plans to layer on cutting-edge technology with the goal of increasing productivity a many-fold—for example, by using new techniques to create viral vectors, the carriers that deliver genetic material into cells. “It’s not just the facilities, but making these products better,” Singhvi says. “It’s faster, cheaper, better. Customers come to us because we have better recipes; the fact that we can take these recipes and put them in our factory is secondary.”

    As one example of how technology could improve biologics manufacturing, Nelsen points to the innovations that spring from universities and small startups like making mRNA on semiconductors. “The next generation in our vision would be chip-based technologies as opposed to stainless steel vessels. On the chip you would do cell assembly. It’s science fiction, totally computer controlled. We have new sensors, and we will use lasers, optical tools, to tweak the cell and manipulate the cell. We will go into the nanoparticle space and perform manufacturing cell by cell instead of with a big bucket of reagent that we used to do.” Yang says. That sci-fi future of making medicines on chips is less than three years away, he says.

    Yang figures that if Resilience had existed a year ago, many of the problems of scaling up the Covid-19 vaccines could have been avoided. “We would have done it faster at scale,” he says. “From day one, we would have been able to supply a billion doses around the world.”

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2021/04/15/one-billion-doses-on-day-one-vaccine-company-claims-world-changing-innovation

    • CBC – ‘I finally got COVID’: CBC host | About That

      ( 14 min 15 )

      After avoiding getting COVID-19 for nearly three years, Andrew Chang catches the virus.

      Now recovered, he’s on a mission to find out how some people, often referred to as ‘NOVIDs,’ have managed not to get infected.

    • city news – FEB 01 2023 – Former vaccine hesitant mother shares story to help others come ‘Back to the Vaxx’

    • city news – Quebec changes its vaccination strategy

      “There’s no need to get vaccinated if you’ve have had COVID and have been vaccinated with at least 2 doses,” says public health director Dr. Luc Boileau, citing ‘hybrid immunity’ for most Quebecers.

    • Neil Oliver ‘…if you thought that was scary just wait & see what’s coming now’

      The 77th Brigade, digital IDs, secret state surveillance, misinformation & propaganda – with the new frameworks that are being put in place by our governments their power to exert control will grow exponentially.

    • Lotsa political noise about biolabs in Ukraine, Kazakstan, etc.
      …….Hello! They’re everywhere. And everybody’s been doing it for decades…….

      This little corner of *Massachusetts* is probably lousy with them. About 20 years ago we pegged as bio-fishy a certain building on Memorial Dr. right next to MIT’s Sloan School. One of the many govt. dark ops that have an ambiguous relationship with the Institute. There are miles of tunnels that connect everything. And a few dead ends.

      I saved an article from 2002: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/scientists-deaths-are-under-the-microscope/article4134797/

      The sheer density of small-scale research centers affiliated with academe, big pharma and start-ups, university specialists collaborating with little regard for intellectual property law, the extremely high proportion of foreign nationals. It’s the culture of a place that takes pride in being an international tech transfer hub. Like Israel.

      Everybody shut up after the Biogen superspreader late February, 2020. Or at least stopped the casual jokes.

  22. New chair of Rhode Island Democratic Women’s Caucus is 69-year-old biological male who came out as trans in 2018
    Anderson ran unopposed after the previous leader stepped down to give birth.

    A trans-identified biological male has been elected to chair the Rhode Island Democratic Women’s Caucus. Donnie Anderson, formerly known as Donald, only came out as a “woman” in 2018 at the age of 69.

    Aside from being a vocal LGBTQ activist, the Providence, RI resident serves as a minister at the Pilgrim United Church of Christ in nearby New Bedford, Massachusetts, Reduxx reports.

    https://thepostmillennial.com/new-chair-of-rhode-island-democratic-womens-caucus-is-69-year-old-biological-male-who-came-out-as-trans-in-2018

  23. JK Rowling secretly donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to rescue female lawyers from the Taliban
    “JK Rowling just said ‘I want to help these women’,” Baroness Kennedy said.

    It has been revealed that world-renowned author and philanthropist JK Rowling donated hundreds of thousands of British pounds to rescue over 100 female lawyers and their families who were facing possible execution in Afghanistan.

    According to the Daily Mail, Rowling made the donation after Britain and the US withdrew from Kabul, leaving hundreds of female judges, prosecutors, and defense counsel at risk of execution by the Taliban

    With the help of fellow philanthropist Lord Michael Hintze, who contributed nearly one million British pounds, as well as large sums from other prominent donors and smaller sums from the public, a total of 508 at-risk Afghans were flown out of the country to safety

    Rowling is known for her generosity, and in fact dropped off the Forbes Billionaire List after donating vast sums of her wealth to various charities.

    “You have a moral responsibility when you’ve been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently,” she once said.

    This particular act of kindness only came to light during a House of Lords debate Thursday when Lord Alton spoke of the “Schindler’s List moment” when the beloved children’s author and Lord Hintze answered a call for help from human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy for urgent funds to save the female legal professionals, most of whom were judges, and their families.

    https://thepostmillennial.com/jk-rowling-secretly-donated-hundreds-of-thousands-of-pounds-to-rescue-female-lawyers-from-the-taliban

  24. GOP Congresswoman Responds to Democrat Meltdown Over Republicans Wearing ‘Assault Weapon Pins’ in Congress
    By Kristinn Taylor
    Published February 2, 2023 at 4:15pm
    25 Comments

    Democrat Rep. Jimmy Gomez (CA) had a meltdown online this week over Republican Congressmen sporting “assault weapon pins” in Congress. The pins, shaped liked a semi-automatic rifle, were worn by at least three Republicans either on the House floor or in committee meetings according to photographs: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (FL), Rep. George Santos (NY) and Rep. Andrew Clyde (GA). Luna’s response (at end of article) was perfect.

    Gomez said, “Where are these assault weapon pins coming from? Who is passing these out?”

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    Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) freaked out, “It’s freaking sick. And they are doing it during #GVSurvivorsWeek.”

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/gop-congresswoman-responds-democrat-meltdown-republicans-wearing-assault-weapon-pins-congress/

  25. MUST WATCH: House Democrats Get Triggered By Matt Gaetz Proposing Members Of The Judiciary Committee Recite Pledge Of Allegiance Before Meetings (VIDEO)
    By Cullen Linebarger
    Published February 2, 2023 at 4:00pm
    155 Comments

    When liberals wonder why conservatives question their patriotism, what happened in the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday explains why.

    Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced a seemingly innocuous amendment requesting members of the Committee recite the Pledge of Allegiance before every meeting. But Democrats threw a tantrum instead.

    Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) dismissed the proposal, saying it was “not the most important amendment in the world.” He also whined about the idea of having to pledge allegiance to our country more than once a day.

    Two members then falsely smeared Gaetz and other Republicans on the committee as insurrectionists. This led to a nasty argument between the Florida Congressman and one of the instigators, deranged Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI).

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/must-watch-house-democrats-get-triggered-matt-gaetz-proposing-members-judiciary-committee-recite-pledge-allegiance-meetings-video/

  26. HUGE! House Oversight Investigating John Kerry for His Private Meetings with Communist China on Deals that Undermined US Economy
    By Jim Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 3:17pm
    279 Comments

    The House Oversight Committee on Thursday called on Joe Biden’s climate czar John Kerry to provide information on his secret negotiations with Communist China to undermine US economic interests.

    These Democrats are all the same – doing anything they can to destroy the country.

    National Review reported:

    In a letter obtained by National Review, committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) accuses Kerry of using his SPEC role — a cabinet-level position that was created by President Biden and does not require Senate confirmation — to engage “in activities that could undermine our economic health, skirt congressional authority, and threaten foreign policy under the guise of climate advocacy

    The Thursday letter represents the second such request for documents related to Kerry’s climate negotiations with America’s chief geopolitical rival; it was sent after Kerry ignored an initial request sent by Comer during the last Congress, according to Comer’s office.

    Kerry has come under fire from the GOP for dismissing the CCP’s egregious human rights record and antagonism toward the U.S. in order to prioritize climate-change mitigation efforts. He has argued China’s abuses should be decoupled from climate agreements in which the U.S. and China would be co-partners.

    In May 2022, Kerry told the Associated Press that he was working with the CCP to establish a group to collaborate on reducing carbon emissions.

    Here is a copy of the letter.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/huge-house-oversight-investigating-john-kerry-private-meetings-communist-china-deals-undermined-us-economy/

  27. WTH? Maricopa County Assistant Election Director Disappeared After Deposition Request Regarding Fraudulent Signature Verification – Special Action Filing Included (VIDEO)
    By Jordan Conradson
    Published February 2, 2023 at 2:30pm
    191 Comments

    We The People AZ Alliance’s Shelby Busch gave another presentation on Monday in the Arizona Senate Elections Committee titled “Election Mechanics Part 2.“

    The Gateway Pundit reported on part one of Busch’s presentation on January 23 and the shocking findings, including Election Day tabulators reportedly rejecting nearly 1/4 million vote attempts on election day and nearly 300,000 mismatched or fraudulent mail-in ballot signatures in Maricopa County’s 2022 Election
    Busch revealed that Maricopa County Assistant Elections Director Celia Nabor suddenly disappeared from the County’s payroll when attorneys for Busch requested her deposition regarding signature verification.

    Busch presented more flaws in the 2022 Election this week, including adjudicated ballot discrepancies, Election Day lines and malfunctions that disenfranchised THOUSANDS of voters, shady voter registration modifications, and missing chain of custody on hundreds of thousands of ballots

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/wth-maricopa-county-assistant-election-director-disappeared-deposition-request-regarding-fraudulent-signature-verification-special-action-filing-included-video/

  28. Department of Energy Proposes Limits on Energy Consumption For Gas Stoves
    By Cristina Laila
    Published February 2, 2023 at 5:05pm
    Comment

    Last month the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said gas-powered stoves are a ‘hidden health hazard.’

    “Natural gas stoves, which are used in about 40% of homes in the US, emit air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter at levels the EPA and World Health Organization have said are unsafe and linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other health conditions, according to reports by groups such as the Institute for Policy Integrity and the American Chemical Society.” – the federal agency said last month.

    Now the Department of Energy is coming for your gas stoves.

    A second federal agency is now proposing limits on energy consumption for gas stoves.

    This approach by DOE could effectively ban gas appliances,” said Jill Notini, a vice president with the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. “We are concerned this approach could eliminate fully featured gas products.”

    The trade group said 95% of the market for gas products would likely not meet the new proposed rules.https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/department-energy-proposes-limits-energy-consumption-gas-stoves/

  29. Brazilian Senator Proposes Legislation that Criminalizes Those Who Refuse to Take the “Mandatory” COVID-19 Shot
    By Jim Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 4:50pm
    68 Comments

    Six bills are currently being introduced in the Brazilian senate that would criminalize those who refuse the mandated dose of COVID shots or who comment negatively about the vaccine’s efficacy and safety, the Rio Times reported.

    Senator Angelo Coronel of the Social Democratic Party of Brazil authored a bill (PL 5555/2020), which proposes adding a one- to three-year prison sentence to the Criminal Code for those “who omit or oppose the mandatory vaccination of children or adolescents” during a declared “public health emergency.”

    Those who choose not to comply with the country’s forced vaccination schedule will face a prison sentence of two to eight years.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/brazilian-senator-proposes-legislation-criminalizes-refuse-take-mandatory-covid-19-vaccine/

  30. UK: TFF FARMING FORUM: ELMS TRYING TO CASH STARVE FARMS INTO CLOSURE
    MEMBER: Bossfarmer
    LOCATION: Between Perth and Inverness
    Having read what’s on offer for grassland farmers in the new English sub system, the governments intentions are now clear in black & white, they want to shut down the UK livestock sector.
    There is nowhere to go now for these farm margins are already incredibly tight, taking away their bps which is essentially most of their profit is disgraceful dress it up how you like.
    This is FACT, a DEFRA advisor on here has brushed over anyone’s attempts to get to the bottom of this, and does nothing but patronise anyone that asks how on earth livestock farmers can recoup their bps.
    Before anyone brings my own farm into the equation I’m in Scotland and my farm is arable ground and arable options are better, the way this reads though civil servants have taken over the UK farming industry and want to kill the livestock sector.
    MEMBER: Muddyroads
    LOCATION: Exeter, Devon
    I went to a meeting yesterday discussing a land use framework for Devon. It started with a slide showing the governments National priorities for land use, around 10-12 of them. Not one of them mentioned food production. Pretty much summed up what we’re up against.
    https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/elms-trying-to-cash-starve-farms-into-closure.384495/

  31. EU
    FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY IN TIMES OF COVID-19 – 2:05:57
    DATE: 01 02 23
    PLACE: European Parliament (Brussels); Room: SPAAK 1A2
    DESCRIPTION OF THE EVENT: The lecture will analyse the restriction of fundamental rights in the COVID-19 pandemic. It will explain, with cases that the speakers have defended, how the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating existing human rights violations and enabling others. They will expose the different forms of violations they have observed in their countries due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, under the guise of extraordinary or emergency measures taken to deal with the pandemic.
    MODERATOR: Margarita de la Pisa
    AGENDA OF THE EVENT
    ? FIRST PANEL: “Impact (Attacks) on democracy during the Covid-19 pandemic”. o Jorge Buxadé (ECR/Spain/VOX) – 5 minutes – Intervention on violations of the rule of law in Spain.
    ? Robert Roos (ECR/JA21/Netherlands) – 5 minutes
    ? Ivan Vilibor Sin?i? (NI/ KLJU? Hrvatske/Croatia) – 5 minutes
    ? Christine Anderson (ID/Alternative für Deutschland/Germany) – 5 minutes
    *2 Minute break to change panellists
    ? SECOND PANEL: “Impact (Attacks) on fundamental rights during the Covid-19 pandemic”.
    ? Luis María Pardo (Liberum/Spain) – 10 minutes – Intervention of their fights and their wins in Spanish courts defending the rule of law and people’s fundamental freedoms on the covid-19 restrictions.
    ? Cristian Terhes (ECR/Partidul Na?ional ??r?nesc Cre?tin Democrat/România) – 5 minutes
    ? Virginie Joron (ID/FN/France) – 5 minutes o Francesca Donato (NI/Italy) – 5 minutes

  32. Pentagon Refuses To Shoot Down Suspected Chinese Spy Balloon Hovering Over Montana for Days
    By Anthony Scott
    Published February 2, 2023 at 5:20pm
    1132 Comments

    The Department of Defense announced on Thursday they have been monitoring a suspected Chinese spy balloon floating over the state of Montana for over two days.

    Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told NBC News, “The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now.”

    Ryder went on to say once the US Government was notified about the floating balloon they immediately started to notify officials in Montana to protect sensitive information.

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    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/biden-refuses-shoot-suspected-chinese-spy-balloon-hovering-montana-days/

  33. Hunter’s Business Partner Eric Schwerin Moved Joe Biden’s Documents from White House to UDel – Not the Only Time Schwerin Handled Government Docs
    By Joe Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 7:15pm
    20 Comments

    Hunter Biden’s business partner and President at Rosemont Seneca, Eric Schwerin, was reportedly in charge of the transfer of Joe Biden’s documents to the University of Delaware.

    This is the same guy TGP reported on two days ago who was involved in transferring classified information to Ukraine.

    Daily Mail reported earlier today:

    Hunter Biden‘s business partner was tasked with transferring sensitive papers from Joe Biden‘s vice presidential office to the University of Delaware – papers that were sensitive enough to require the involvement of White House lawyers, DailyMail.com can reveal

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/hunters-business-partner-eric-schwerin-moved-joe-bidens-documents-white-house-udel-not-time-schwerin-handled-government-docs/

  34. STUNNING ADMISSION: Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Says Resolution Condemning Socialist Tyrants “Undermines” House Democrats’ Agenda
    By Jim Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 6:15pm
    175 Comments

    Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries argued the vote against the horrors of socialism undermined the House Democrats’ agenda.
    Wow!

    Hakeem Jeffries: They’re bringing to the floor of the House of Representatives today a resolution on socialism, to condemn some dictators that we all condemn. But understand the goal of this phony, fake, and fraudulent resolution is just to somehow provide cover for extreme MAGA Republicans to try to undermine an agenda that is designed to lift up the health, safety, and well-being of the American people.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/stunning-admission-democrat-minority-leader-hakeem-jeffries-says-resolution-condemning-socialist-tyrants-undermines-house-democrats-agenda/

  35. OH NO – FBI Agent Recently Arrested for Receiving Bribes from Russian Oligarch Also Ran Unit that May Have Investigated Hunter Biden’s Activities with Chinese Spy Patrick Ho
    By Joe Hoft
    Published February 2, 2023 at 5:40pm
    114 Comments

    Oh No! The FBI agent recently arrested for taking bribes from a Russian oligarch also ran the office that looked into crimes related to Hunter Biden’s illegal representation of Chinese spy Patrick Ho.

    There are no coincidences. The New York Post reported:

    The wife of an ex-FBI agent arrested this week for allegedly helping a Russian oligarch has something in common with Hunter Biden — their lacrosse-playing daughters, data stored on the first son’s infamous laptop reveals.

    Pamela McGonigal and Biden both received at least 29 emails related to the Next Level Lacrosse program and other activities associated with the sport from Oct. 7, 2014, to May 7, 2015, according to a search of the first son’s messages.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/oh-no-fbi-agent-recently-arrested-receiving-bribes-russian-oligarch-also-ran-unit-may-investigated-hunter-bidens-activities-chinese-spy-patrick-ho/