If You're Willing To Be Hated By Rich People - You Can Help Your Own People

RT  |   The McCarthy drama shows that a small band of representatives can actually change things in Washington – even if all it leads to is chaos.

Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy just got ousted from his post as the third-highest constitutional officer in Washington after a contingent of Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to remove him.

While the details of this situation are, to be honest, pretty hilarious and indicate a lack of a serious plan by those GOP members, it also reveals what’s possible if elected representatives in America actually hold the establishment’s feet to the fire.

First, a word on what happened. In a nutshell, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz forced a vote on a motion to vacate the office of the speaker after threatening to do so last week because McCarthy apparently acquiesced to Democrats by passing a bipartisan temporary spending bill, funding the government through November 17 and narrowly avoiding a government shutdown.

Where it goes from there is not fully detailed yet, but some emerging reports from the right-wing press, such as Fox News, suggest that even the Republicans who joined Gaetz, first of all, weren’t even sure of their own votes until the very moment they cast them. They also don’t seem to have any sort of plan at all.

Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry adjourned the House, since pretty much the only thing he can do is form a session to specifically vote for a new speaker (this has never happened before and the rules are vague). With the House adjourned, no congressional hearings can happen, subpoenas can’t go through, and committees can’t convene. This is telling because the same Republicans who ousted McCarthy are also leading an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. Without a speaker, the impeachment process is halted. 

Given this, it was foolish for these lawmakers to vote out McCarthy. And that’s especially the case when it took nearly two months of negotiations to install him in the first place back in January. Now, there’s no telling where things will go or how long it will take to cut deals and find a new speaker. If it takes even the same amount of time as before, then a government shutdown would be inevitable. That level of dysfunction from the GOP is not only poor governance but also bad politics, since it would allow Democrats to look good by contrast.

“Follow your heart, but take your brain with you. The American people expect us to govern. I also advise my House colleagues to be sure and take your meds,” Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, a Republican, said to the press after McCarthy was booted. 

At the same time, this situation demonstrates quite clearly that the establishment – especially during a period of intense partisan divide – is not truly safe. Even powerful figures such as McCarthy can be dethroned by a small contingent of representatives. That shows that people like Jimmy Dore, a well-known YouTube personality, are unfortunately correct for once. The so-called comedian called on progressives to refuse to vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker when Democrats controlled the House until a vote was taken on Medicare for All. It turns out he was completely correct on that.

If ‘The Squad’ (a team of relatively young Democratic lawmakers who got into the House on a super-progressive platform) had any backbone, as Gaetz and his gang of rebels have shown, they could have forced a vote on that important issue and many others. They certainly could have squeezed out concessions from Pelosi and the political establishment, making her understand that her position on the pedestal is contingent on the support of progressives and not the other way around. The fact that they, who are supposed to be more savvy and calculated than the MAGA mutineers, didn’t do that indicates, at the very least, a lack of commitment to the values that got them elected. 

For their part, the MAGA wing of the Republican Party is making waves: they have made Ukraine funding a hot-button issue, censured Rep. Adam Schiff (a mortal enemy of their cause), put ‘the border’ and fake allegations of election fraud front and center, shouldered out establishment Republicans such as Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, and they’re building their own media ecosystem. Even though their self-imposed speaker debacle clearly lacks any serious intent, MAGA is flexing its muscles – even if, at times, for nothing.

Will those who are supposedly fighting for the working class in Congress ever exert the same pressure? Doubtful, and it’s also doubtful if these people have any serious commitment to doing that in the first place, since they have the very same tools as Gaetz and his friends yet refuse to wield them. Undoubtedly, however, the political situation in the US is getting a whole hell of a lot more interesting.

 

 

 

Beyond VAIDS (Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency) mRNA May Have Intergenerational Consequences

lewrockwell  |  In early April 2023, microbiologist Kevin McKernan — a former researcher and team leader for the MIT Human Genome project¹ — posted a preprint paper² detailing massive DNA contamination in Pfizer’s and Moderna’s bivalent COVID booster shots.^3,4,5,6 As explained in the abstract:⁷

“Several methods were deployed to assess the nucleic acid composition of four expired vials of the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent mRNA vaccines. Two vials from each vendor were evaluated …

Multiple assays support DNA contamination that exceeds the European Medicines Agency (EMA) 330ng/mg requirement and the FDAs 10ng/dose requirements …”

The highest level of DNA contamination found was 30%, meaning nearly one-third of the content of certain vials was plasmid DNA, the presence of which dramatically increases the likelihood of genomic integration and cancer.

What this means, in plain English, is that the shots could potentially alter your DNA, which is something vaccine makers, health authorities and fact checkers have vehemently denied and written off as “impossible.” Yet here we are, with inconvenient facts staring us in the face yet again.

Regulatory Agencies Were Aware of the Problem

In a May 20, 2023, Substack article,⁸ McKernan pointed out that regulatory agencies were clearly aware of this problem early on, as Pfizer submitted documents to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) showing sampled lots had a broad range of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) in them.

The EMA’s limit for dsDNA is 330 nanograms per milligram (ng/mg), and Pfizer’s data show sampled lots had anywhere from 1 ng/mg to 815 ng/mg of DNA. And, according to McKernan,⁹ the EMA’s limit may be too high to begin with, as “lower limits should be applied if the DNA is packaged in transfection ready lipid nanoparticles,” as they are in the shots.

In a sane regulatory environment, this kind of contamination would have resulted in a massive recall, considering the known and suspected dangers of dsDNA contaminants. Yet nothing was done about it.

Since McKernan’s paper was posted, others have confirmed the presence of dsDNA contaminants in the COVID shots. To be clear, DNA should not be present in a commercial product that has been made under good manufacturing practices.

Obviously, Pfizer and Moderna have not perfected their commercial process, or have taken shortcuts they shouldn’t have. As a result, countless millions have been injected with unnecessarily risky COVID shots.

University of South Carolina professor Phillip Buckhaults has since confirmed the presence of dsDNA in the COVID shots. September 13, 2023, he testified¹⁰ to this before the South Carolina Senate Medical Affairs Ad-Hoc Committee on the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).

Buckhaults is a molecular biologist and cancer geneticist with extensive experience in DNA sequencing, and initially set out to debunk McKernan’s claims. To his shock, he replicated McKernan’s findings instead.

In his testimony, he explained how these DNA contaminants can integrate into your genome and disrupt the function of other genes, either long term or permanently, and may be passed on to offspring for generations.

He told the senators he was “alarmed about this DNA being in the vaccine,” as “there is a very real hazard” of the dsDNA integrating into a person’s genome and becoming a “permanent fixture of the cell” that can result in autoimmune problems and cancers.¹¹

Buckhaults suspects high levels of DNA contaminants may also be causing some of the more serious side effects of the jabs, such as lethal cardiac arrest.¹² Of the two lots he analyzed, he found between 5 nanograms and 20 ng of plasmid DNA — ranging from one to 200 base pairs long — per 300 microliter dose, and he points out that having a multitude of tiny fragments is far riskier than having one big piece of DNA.¹³

The risk of genome integration by dsDNA has been known for decades,¹⁴ so the individuals who decided to allow this contamination to remain cannot claim they didn’t know public health would be put at risk.

 

Plans For mRNA Technology Extend Far Beyond COVID-19 Jabs

vigilantnews  |   Soon, mRNA technology will be coming to flu vaccines. Supporters tout that the adaptability of mRNA technology allows for quicker response times in developing vaccines that can more accurately target circulating influenza strains, potentially making yearly flu shots more effective.

Furthermore, work is being done to apply mRNA technology to “treat” various other diseases. It is being explored as a potential treatment for sickle-cell disease and the autoimmune disorder, multiple sclerosis. Additionally, its application in cancer treatment is under investigation, with the aim of harnessing the immune system to combat malignancies.

The fight against HIV, a long-standing global health challenge, is also on mRNA’s radar. Currently, three experimental HIV vaccines, built on an mRNA design akin to the COVID-19 vaccines, are in the early stages of human clinical trials.

The award to Karikó and Weissman is not without controversy.

Dr. Robert Malone, a renowned scientist, medical doctor, and pioneer in mRNA vaccine technology, made some fiery comments on “X.”

He stated, “Kariko and Weissman get the Nobel, not for inventing mRNA vaccines (because I did that) but for adding the pseudouridine that allowed unlimited spike toxins to be manufactured in what could have been a safe and effective vaccine platform, if safely developed.”

Malone further criticized the integrity of the award process, suggesting undue influence from pharmaceutical giants. “Pfizer has been campaigning for this since 2020 - at first, they even claimed (as did Kariko) that she invented the mRNA vaccine platform technology. Pfizer donates heavily to the Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel. Science has been hijacked again by big pharma.”

The decision to honor Karikó and Weissman while omitting key contributors like Dr. Robert Malone raises questions about the narrative that’s being pushed surrounding mRNA technology. One thing is sure: COVID is just the beginning. And what will likely ensue will be subsequent campaigns to get more mRNA injected into every man, woman, and child.

They Must Really Think You're Stupid!!!

attorneycox  |  The “they” is our government (federal and state). The “we” is you and me, and the other 300+ million Americans across our country.

Alas, here we are, entering the final quarter of 2023, and we have the United States government, and many state governments (including New York’s former Governor Andrew Cuomo, current left-wing Governor Kathy Hochul, and the super-majority Dem legislature) proclaiming for all to hear that they did not force anyone to do anything detrimental these past 3.5 years. UNBELIEVABLE! Did you hear this? They are actually saying with straight faces that they didn’t force you to wear a mask, or lockdown and shutter your businesses, or choose between taking an experimental drug or losing your job… Nope! They did none of that. And you - well, you are flat out crazy if you think they did. You are lying. You are exaggerating and totally overreacting.

Unfortunately for Big Brother, ooops, I mean unfortunately for our 100% reliable, never-lies-to-us government, we have actual documents (including lawsuits), news stories, social media posts, and videos of the government at all levels mandating and forcing us to do all of those things, and more. Here’s just one example of Biden himself, the “Big Guy,” mandating the C19 shot:

Biden is not alone. No, no. His entire administration is right there with him. His head of OSHA, Douglas Parker, is also now lying through his teeth about the OSHA mandate that REQUIRED (not suggested) that all employers in the entire nation with 100 or more employees force their employees to get the C19 shot, otherwise they had to wear a mask and test constantly for C19. (That OSHA mandate was struck down by SCOTUS last year because it was unconstitutional, by the way). Then there’s the head of HHS, Xavier Becerra, saying there was never a mask mandate. What?! Another blatant lie.

Please take the 2 minutes to watch this Congressman Kevin Kiley clip. You truly won’t believe your ears with the bullsh#* these Biden agency heads are spewing! As Congressman Kiley says in the video, the government is trying to tell us that “2 + 2 doesn’t equal 4.” You don’t get much more Orwellian than that!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Why are they backtracking now?

Easy answers: 1) they didn’t have the authority to do any of it (all of it was unconstitutional) so they can’t justify and defend it now, and 2) if they can convince you they didn’t do it before, then you won’t mind as much when they do it again.

This should make your blood boil. It’s particularly infuriating to those of us who were speaking out from basically day one trying to tell people that the lockdowns, the masking, the shots, the limited number of people at your wedding or at your Thanksgiving table were all violations of the Constitution and our basic human rights!

There Isn’t A Single Working mRNA Covid Vaccine Right Now...,

This picture is worth a thousand words:

The Nobel Prize laureates do not trust their own 'innovation' and instead rely on pseudoscience—face diapers. https://t.co/pudNl9wIq9 pic.twitter.com/klgoBiklOo

— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) October 2, 2023

There isn’t a single working mRNA vaccine right now...,

How can you give a Nobel Prize for it?

Reduce transmission? – you seriously must be kidding at this point. I could never even dream to make that claim with a straight face at this point. Seriously, this is the kind of thing that is causing the damage to the reputation of medicine to be hyper-driven.

Morbidity – Given the number of instant severe problems that many patients had with the vaccine – even in the early days. Blood clots, pulmonary emboli, autoimmune and neurological issues…. And now that it is becoming obvious that it is the multiply boosted and vaxxed that seem to be having many more problems with getting infected over and over again – multiple studies are now showing this.

Again – if someone can please answer the question – If it seems that the multiply boosted are getting infected more often – and it seems that multiple infections increase the incidence of all kinds of problems – how are the vaccines helping?

Extreme morbidity and mortality – hospitalizations, etc. —– in the first year of the pandemic, this may have been so. However, as with any mitigation scheme, one must keep track over the entire event – and one also must keep track of those being harmed by the mitigation procedure.

The overwhelming majority of patients who are being admitted right now are vaxxed/boosted. I think the claim of improvement in morbidity early on was justified. I am not seeing this now. When taken in its entirety – I am not certain that we can make the claim that this vaccine program has been a success. It is going to take the entirety of the raw data over the entire country/world to really ascertain this. But yet, the authorities are completely unwilling to do so. Can you explain to me why that is? What about releasing all raw data is so problematic? Especially for “The Scientists”?

With regard to Nobel prizes. We all must remember that the Medicine Prize went to the gentleman who pioneered frontal lobotomies. The Peace Prize went to Obama who spent the next 8 years bombing weddings with drones. Sometimes Nobel prizes go pear-shaped.

It should truly be an award for those whose work has stood the test of time. I wonder what will be thought of this one awarded yesterday a generation from now.

It is significant that the Nobel recipients were not involved with the development of the mRNA spike protein vaccines. Their work was in developing a mechanism for repressing the immune system response to allow cells to absorb mRNA. This mechanism was then utilized by Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer in their vaccines.

I think this was simply a way to award “The Nobel Prize” to the vaccines without actually giving it directly to Big Pharma. – i.e. it is a propaganda move.  Heaven forbid we get into the DAPRA project with Moderna concerning the Pathogen Protection Platform, which was to use mRNA to spur antibodies to send soldiers into an environment where the pathogen of interest was used as weapon. That was 2013, and DARPA stopped.

Why?

This Is A Test Of The Emergency Broadcast System, This Is Only A Test...,

 reuters  | Summary

• Russia holds public warning tests
• Russia says: Please remain calm
• United States also to hold public warning test

MOSCOW, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Russia tested its emergency public warning systems across the country on Wednesday, blaring out sirens and interrupting some television and radio broadcasts to warn the population to stay calm.

The test, first conducted in 2020, is part of a new initiative that requires authorities to conduct tests twice a year, starting from Sept. 1.

It comes, though, amid the war in Ukraine that has triggered the deepest crisis in Russia's relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

At around 10:40 a.m. Moscow time (0740 GMT), sirens wailed across some parts of Russia and stern announcements demanded "Attention everyone!".

"The readiness of warning systems is being checked, please remain calm," speakers said in a stern male Russian voice.

"When you hear the sound of a siren, you need to remain calm and not panic, turn on the TV - any publicly accessible channel or radio - and listen to the information message," the Ministry of Emergency Situations said in a statement.

"The warning system is designed to timely convey a signal to the population in the event of a threat or emergency of a natural or man-made nature."

The United States was also conducting a large-scale test of its public warning systems on Wednesday, via U.S. mobile phones and TV and radio stations.

The purpose of the U.S. test is to ensure that the systems "continue to be effective in alerting the public to emergencies, particularly at the national level", the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, said in a press release.

Many other countries have also conducted alert system tests for crises and disasters in recent years.

The Russian test falls on the 91st anniversary of the creation of Russia's civil defence system and follows nationwide educational drills in August on practicing actions and procedures in emergency situations, Russian media reported.

The goal of Russia's tests is to assess the warning systems, the readiness of personnel responsible for launching them and raise public awareness, the emergency ministry said.

 

 

Bought And Paid For By The CIA: International Fascism And Anglo-American Foreign Policy

cynthiachung  |  [This is a chapter from my newly released book ‘The Empire on Which the Black Sun Never Set: the Birth of International Fascism and Anglo-American Foreign Policy.’ For further details on different formats and how to purchase click here.] The audio version of this chapter is available here.

Read full story

However, this is not the only blunder that the Canadian government has made recently and has blamed “ze Russians” for.

On February 27, 2022, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland held a scarf bearing the slogan “Slava Ukraini,” meaning “Glory to Ukraine,” with the “Blood and Soil” colors of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) (who collaborated with the Nazis during WWII and massacred Jews and Poles).

According to Freeland’s press secretary, this was just another case of a “classic KGB disinformation smear… accusing Ukrainians and Ukrainian-Canadians of being far right extremists or fascists or Nazis,” which is a confusing statement on multiple levels.

It is not clear how this was a case of “Russian disinformation,” since the picture is indeed authentic, Freeland did not deny this. And she was indeed holding a “Blood and Soil” emblem, which originated with the Nazis, clear for everyone to see. Lastly, it is confusing as to why the Canadian government seems to be unaware that the KGB no longer exists. Are they also under the impression that the Soviet Union still exists?

Not irrelevant in all of this is the fact that Freeland’s grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper during WWII in Galicia and that she is indeed aware of this and apparently unapologetic. Whenever she is questioned about this, she does not deny anything, but simply blames such a focus of inquiry on Russian disinformation with the intent to “destabilize Western democracies.”

Interestingly, it was the Canadian newspaper “The Globe and Mail” who reported this story, titled “Freeland knew her grandfather was editor of Nazi newspaper,” thus, not a Russian publication last time I checked. And upon whom did they base such information? None other than Freeland’s own uncle, John-Paul Himka, who was at the time professor emeritus at the University of Alberta.

 

THEY Take A Deep Dive Into The Ukro-Canadian Nazi's Family And Background

forward  |  After the Forward article about Hunka’s past was picked up by news outlets around the world, Canadian lawmakers and Jewish groups rushed to condemn House Speaker Rota for inviting him. In his mea culpa, Rota made it sound like Hunka was a constituent from his district (called a “riding”) whom he did not know much about. “This initiative was entirely my own,“ Rota said, “the individual in question being from my riding and having been brought to my attention.” 

But Rejean Venne, an independent Canadian journalist, wrote in his Substack newsletter this week that Rota and Hunka family members have had numerous chances to cross paths over the years. Among Venne’s examples:

• One of Hunka’s sons, Martin, was chief financial officer of Redpath Mining, a multinational corporation headquartered in Rota’s district. Redpath has contributed to Rota’s campaigns and Rota has provided government funding for recreational facilities operated by Redpath. (The company did not respond to inquiries from the Forward made Thursday.)
• Martin Hunka has also served as chair of the board of trustees for North Bay Hospital, which is located in Rota’s district and which Rota has supported. Hunka’s name can no longer be found on the hospital’s website and social media posts. (The hospital did not respond to a request for comment emailed Thursday.) 
• North Bay Pride, an LGBTQ+ organization, gave an award to Rota nine months after Yaroslav’s granddaughter Leshya Lecappelain joined its board of directors. In 2022 and 2023, North Bay Pride received more than $100,000 in funding from Rota. (Asked about this, a spokesperson for North Bay Pride said Lecappelain had not been on its board for several years.)

“Rota’s response that this was a last-minute request doesn’t add up,” Venne said in an email interview. “The Hunka family appears well connected in Rota’s district.” 

The Forward could not determine whether Hunka and Rota met before he was honored at Parliament. Rota and others at the House of Commons did not respond to several requests for comment sent Wednesday and Thursday. 

Efforts to reach Yaroslav, Martin and Peter Hunka, Lecappelain and other members of the family for comment were also unsuccessful.

Endowments honoring Hunka and others tied to the SS

On Wednesday, the University of Alberta said it would return the CA$30,000 endowment that Hunka’s sons donated in 2019 in their father’s honor. The money was intended to fund research at the school’s Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies.

But Per Anders Rudling, a university alumnus and expert on Ukrainian nationalism who teaches at Sweden’s Lund University, said the Hunka fund is just “the top of an iceberg.” 

In an email to the Forward, Rudling said the University of Alberta has “much larger endowments” honoring other figures connected to the Waffen SS unit. The “most problematic,” he said, is the Volodymyr and Daria Kubijovych Memorial Endowment Fund. At CA$450,000 — about $334,000 — it’s 15 times larger than the Hunka fund the university is returning.

Rudling described Kubijovych as Ukraine’s chief collaborator with Hans Frank, the Nazi governor of occupied Poland. Kubijovych played a crucial role in convincing the Third Reich to create SS Galichina. He also lobbied for Ukrainians to seize Jewish property and advocated for ethnic cleansing. 

In comparison to Kubijovych, Rudling said, Hunka is “small fry.” 

In a Facebook post Thursday, Rudling also questioned university endowments named for other Galichina Division veterans, including Roman Kolisnyk, Levko Babij and Edward Brodacky.

Pointing to research he published in The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Rudling said, “I have tried to raise this issue in the past, to no avail.” 

Asked about Rudling’s concerns, Michael Brown, a spokesperson for the University of Alberta, reiterated a statement in which interim provost Verna Yiu said the school is “reviewing its general naming policies and procedures, including those for endowments, to ensure alignment with our values.” Yiu also expressed the school’s “commitment to address anti-Semitism in any of its manifestations, including the ways in which the Holocaust continues to resonate in the present.” 

The honors given to SS Galichina fighters extend beyond academia. One of the University of Alberta’s endowments is for its former chancellor Peter Savaryn, another SS Galichina member. In 1987, Savaryn was awarded the Order of Canada, among the nation’s highest honors, bestowed by Canada’s governor general, the representative of the British Crown. Mary Simon, the current governor general, has condemned the Hunka scandal as “a shock and an embarrassment.”

Controversial church leaders 

When the Hunka endowment was announced in 2020, the university said it would fund research on two “leaders of the underground Ukrainian Catholic Church,” Cardinal Josyf Slipyj and Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. (A metropolitan is akin to a bishop.)

Slipyi was a deputy in Ukraine’s 1941 self-proclaimed government, which pledged to work closely with Germany under Hitler’s leadership. Slipyi also assigned chaplains to SS Galichina and celebrated the unit’s inaugural Mass. After the war, the Soviets sent him to gulag prison camps.

But Sheptytsky’s legacy is layered. He helped “dozens of Jews find refuge in his monasteries and even in his own home,” according to Yad Vashem, while also supporting “the German army as the savior of the Ukrainians from the Soviets.” 

Harvard University also houses a Ukrainian Research Institute. Asked, after Alberta’s announcement, whether that institute’s funding would be scrutinized for Nazi ties, the university said in a statement that the institute had never received money from the Hunkas, nor had it received donations designated for research related to SS Galichina. 

Harvard did, however, in 1974 establish a fellowship and faculty position in European studies with money from a foundation named for Alfred Krupp, who was convicted of war crimes for using slave laborers from Auschwitz to build and work in a factory.

NYTimes Still Out'Chere Peddling Utterly Discredited Russiagate Burraschidt...,

Mary Katharine Ham tries to cure Bill Maher and Sam Harris from their Trump derangement syndrome. pic.twitter.com/J51lcATOxO

— Turncoat Don (@TurncoatD) October 1, 2023

NYTimes  | Russia’s strategy to win the war in Ukraine is to outlast the West.

But how does Vladimir Putin plan to do that?

American officials said they are convinced that Mr. Putin intends to try to end U.S. and European support for Ukraine by using his spy agencies to push propaganda supporting pro-Russian political parties and by stoking conspiracy theories with new technologies.

The Russia disinformation aims to increase support for candidates opposing Ukraine aid with the ultimate goal of stopping international military assistance to Kyiv.

Russia has been frustrated that the United States and Europe have largely remained united on continued military and economic support for Ukraine, American officials said.

That military aid has kept Ukraine in the fight, put Russia’s original goals of taking Kyiv and Odesa out of reach and even halted its more modest objective to control all of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

But Mr. Putin believes he can influence American politics to weaken support for Ukraine and potentially restore his battlefield advantage, U.S. officials said.

Mr. Putin, the officials said, appears to be closely watching U.S. political debates over Ukraine assistance. Republican opposition to sending more money to Kyiv forced congressional leaders to pass a stopgap spending bill on Saturday that did not include additional aid for the country.

Moscow is also likely to try to boost pro-Russian candidates in Europe, seeing potential fertile ground with recent results. A pro-Russian candidate won Slovakia’s parliamentary elections on Sunday. In addition to national elections, Russia could seek to influence the European parliamentary vote next year, officials said.

Russia has long used its intelligence services to influence democratic politics around the world.

U.S. intelligence assessments in 2017 and 2021 concluded that Russia had tried to influence elections in favor of Donald J. Trump. In 2016, Russia hacked and leaked Democratic National Committee emails that hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign and pushed divisive messages on social media. In 2020, Russia sought to spread information denigrating Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Though many Republicans in Congress argued Russia’s goal was to intensify political fights, not support Mr. Trump.)

Racist American Transexual Is Ukraine's Defence Spokes_____....,

Ukraine's official English-language spokesperson/ propagandist, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo [she/ her]:

"The reality is Russians are not European...Russians have a different culture. Russians are Asian and ultimately they do come from the Moguols. They come from a grouping of people… pic.twitter.com/6kCnmH30Dp

— Jeremy Loffredo (@loffredojeremy) September 27, 2023

DW  |  If you are an English speaker keeping up with the news of the Ukraine war, you have probably heard of Sarah Ashton-Cirillo. The US national arrived in Ukraine shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February last year. A freelance journalist, Ashton-Cirillo wanted to report from the front lines. Not long after arriving in Ukraine, she developed close ties with the army before deciding to join Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces (TDF), where she was wounded on the battlefield in February 2023. Following her recovery, Ashton-Cirillo was assigned to work on English-language media for the TDF and was later appointed one of their spokespeople. Her firebrand statements, combined with her transgender identity, made her a favorite target of Russian propagandists and pro-Russian trolls online.

In an interview with DW, Ashton-Cirillo said that the hate directed at her on social media is a sign her work is effective.

"The words of Russian haters are meaningless," she told DW's Anna Pshemyska. "I've been at the front lines, all of my colleagues have been at the front lines, and I don't just mean as journalists. We have fought at the front.  And we have seen life and we have seen death."

"Words don't matter when you are understanding that your actions will help contribute to not just the liberation of Ukraine, but the saving of Ukrainian lives as well as Russian lives."

But Ashton-Cirillo's words do matter. Evidenced by the ongoing controversy which was sparked after she posted a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, in which she said that Russia's "war criminal propagandists will all be hunted down."

Last week, the former journalist vowed to hunt down a "Kremlin propagandist" saying, "next week, the teeth of the Russian devils will gnash ever harder, their rabid mouths will foam in an uncontrollable frenzy as the world will see a favorite Kremlin propagandist pay for their crimes," Ashton-Cirillo added, without naming the person in question.

"And this puppet of Putin is only the first," she said, addressing the public from a TDF studio. 

Pressure from US senator

Ashton-Cirillo's comments reached Washington. US Senator J. D. Vance, who opposes further US military aid to Ukraine, said the former journalist "threatens physical violence to anyone who circulates 'Russian propaganda.'"

"I worry American resources could be supporting violence or the threat of violence against people for speaking their mind," the senator added. "Notably, any critic of America's incoherent policy in Ukraine has been slandered as propagandists, including multiple presidential candidates and American journalists. While we can debate the merits of these accusations, engaging in protected speech should not invite threats of violence," he added.

 Although the TDF did not specify which comments made by Ashton-Cirillo resulted in her immediate suspension pending an investigation, it did say her recent remarks "were not approved by the command of the TDF or the command of the [Armed Forces of Ukraine]."

Ashton-Cirillo told DW she stood behind her words and pointed to a peace plan put forward by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which foresees all criminals brought to justice.

"That includes the war criminal propagandists," she said. "War criminals must be hunted down and be brought to justice. We have the international tribunals ready."

She denied she was talking about targeting journalists and was instead focusing on Russia's "information warriors."

What's Driving Oakland's Crime Wave?

public  |  Last May, Oakland police arrested nine teenagers for a string of almost three dozen robberies throughout the East Bay. In one of the robberies, the juveniles brutally attacked a 63-year-old woman in a busy upscale Oakland shopping district, beating her in the head and dragging her by her hair across the sidewalk. Then, they attacked a bystander who tried to intervene.

Within days, the perpetrators were set free with no charges.

When you share stories like this one on social media, by far the most common refrain you hear is, “They voted for this.” And that’s true: Last year, Pamela Price, the far-left District Attorney for Alameda County, won her election by a decisive 53%. Sheng Thao, the current Mayor of Oakland, who once called to defund the police, won by a sliver.

But even the most ardent criminal justice reform voters never imagined they were voting for what Oakland has become. Crime has become a fixture of daily life in the East Bay, and nowhere more than in Oakland. In the most recent crime report available, crime was up 28% in the city over the same week last year, which was itself a huge crime year. Violent crime has increased by 19%, robbery is up 30%, burglary by 44%, and auto theft by 52%. Oakland has had 10,000 car burglaries so far this year, which is about one for every 43 residents.

Now, the explosion of crime, which has impacted just about every Oakland resident’s day-to-day life, is transforming the politics of this famously ultra-progressive city.

“She is on the criminals’ side,” an Oakland resident said of the District Attorney at a town hall meeting on public safety. “To any of you who voted for her: Shame on you, and elections have consequences. She told us what she was going to do, and somehow, the majority of people in this town voted for her anyway.” 

The room exploded in applause.

Price ran on a decarceration platform. She defends her policies as the right thing to do and says she is being unfairly blamed for rising crime. At a recent community meeting, Price said she had let the kids who committed the robbery spree go free because the youths were masked, and her office could not discern which of the thieves was responsible for which of the attacks. 

She went on: “All counties across the state have been asked to decriminalize young people. And so our county has adopted that as a policy.”

The line was not a crowd-pleaser. A friend of the 63-year-old victim, who had witnessed the crime, described putting her friend in an ambulance and sending her to the emergency department. “I just want to say that there must be consequences,” she told Price. The audience clapped and cheered.

Inventory Shrinkage Continues To Grow

WSJ  | You may have heard that a mob of teenagers looted stores in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday night, and Target said the same day it is closing nine stores in four states because of rampant crime. Rack up more victories for progressive prosecutors.

The mobs in Philly hit Apple, Lululemon and Foot Locker stores in Center City, which ought to be a safe space for civilized commerce. The Foot Locker store was “ransacked in a coordinated attack,” said police. Police have made more than 50 arrests and are investigating property damage and theft elsewhere in the city. Some 76 incidents have been reported.

Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford said police are looking into whether “there was possibly a caravan of a number of different vehicles that were going from location to location.” He added, “Everyone in the city should be angry.”

Anger is justified in particular toward District Attorney Larry Krasner, who waves away property crime. His office reports 424 retail theft charges so far in 2023—compared to more than 1,500 by the same date in 2017, the year before he took office. Reports of retail theft in Philly have increased by more than 30%—to 13,330—compared to a year ago, according to the city’s latest weekly crime report.

Retail theft is a nationwide epidemic, according to a National Retail Federation (NRF) survey released Tuesday. For the 2022 fiscal year, retailers reported a “shrink” rate of 1.6%, mostly from theft, which as a percentage of all retail sales would be a $112.1 billion loss for the industry, says NRF.

“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” Target said in explaining its decision to close two stores in Seattle, three in Portland, Ore., three in San Francisco and Oakland, and one in New York. Target said the closures are despite efforts to prevent theft by “adding more security team members, using third-party guard services, and implementing theft-deterrent tools across our business.” CEO Brian Cornell said in May that Target could lose $500 million from shrink.

More than a quarter of retailers in the NRF survey reported closing stores because of violence and crime, and 45% reduced operating hours. Of the cities in Target’s closure list, all but Portland make the NRF survey’s top-10 cities for organized retail crime in 2022.

George Soros and the progressive DAs he finances claim to be helping the poor and minorities, but those communities are the main victim of rampaging theft. The Target store shutting down in New York is in Harlem, which staged a renaissance during the Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg mayoralties. It is now sliding back into crime and disorder.

Time To Declare War On Urban Disorder

thephiladelphiacitizen  |  In the post-mortem press conference of Tuesday night’s looting throughout the city, Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford went to great pains to make clear that those who broke into stores to steal and destroy property had nothing to do with the protest that preceded the marauding mob. That was a peaceful gathering in reaction to Judge Wendy Pew’s mystifying dismissal of all charges for the shooting and killing of Eddie Irizzary by police officer Mark Dial. What followed, Stanford said, was committed by “criminal opportunists” who were “taking advantage of a situation” and trying “to destroy our city … This had nothing to do with the protests.”

He’s no doubt right, on one level. But on another, his analysis begs some deeper context. Judging by the social media chatter, it was anger over the judge’s ruling that at least prompted some chatter about an anti-social response: “WHAT TIME WE GOING SHOPPING?” read one post.

But let’s widen our lens even further. There’s plenty of evidence, which we’ll get to, that civic disorder is viral in nature. Citizenship is, after all, a social compact. We live together voluntarily, and when messages get sent time and again that our once agreed-upon rules no longer apply, or that they only apply to some, we know what happens: The compact breaks. We get anarchy. We get nihilism. We get streets that feel unsafe, even if crime rates are coming down.

We are in a crisis of disorder

Make no mistake: Philadelphia, like other cities, finds itself in a crisis of disorder — the bigger picture Stanford didn’t touch on. Think about the messages Philadelphia sends out every day: Shoplifting under $500 is all but legal now. ATVs can menacingly roar through city streets with impunity, despite a law signed by former Mayor Michael Nutter banning the same. So-called drag racing “meet-ups” are hijacking city roads and highways in the dead of night. In Kensington, police practice a policy of containment when it comes to perhaps the most dystopian scene in the nation. And now, a municipal court judge extends a special privilege and lets a police officer walk for an act that certainly warranted a full hearing in a court of law.

“Our clients never get to argue a justification defense at a preliminary hearing,” Keisha Hudson of the Defender Association of Philadelphia wrote in a statement after Pew’s stunning dismissal of the charges against Dial. “Instead, our clients — all of whom are poor and almost exclusively Black and Brown people — have their cases held for trial, and they sit in jail for months awaiting their day in court.”

Obviously, this is no excuse for looting and rioting and other antisocial acts. But how many times do we have to see that law-breaking is contagious when laws are not enforced? Which brings us back to the broken windows theory of policing, which I’ve written about before.

“We found that when people observe that others violated a certain social norm or legitimate rule, they are more likely to violate even other norms or rules, which causes disorder to spread.” — researchers in a Science study.

Oh, no, he didn’t. Isn’t broken windows discredited? No. A Northeastern University study — which was essentially a study of studies — tried to debunk it, but unwittingly validated it. (“Disorder does not encourage crime, but makes it easier to commit crimes” essentially parrots the theory.) But wasn’t broken windows racist? Hells, no. In the popular debate, broken windows has often erroneously gotten lumped in with stop-and-frisk tactics — and the concomitant legitimate concerns of racial profiling.

Broken windows, which legendary former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton employed to turn around crime rates in both New York and Los Angeles, is a theory of policing that mitigates against the virus of disorder. That’s much needed in a city where a judge refuses to hold a cop accountable, where kids are drag racing at 2am, where shots ring out on crowded streets, and where shoplifters are effectively playing The Price Is Right in retail outlets every day.

Broken windows grew out of an Atlantic magazine article written in 1982 by Harvard’s James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, a criminal justice professor at Rutgers University. At a time when policing was mostly reactive, they argued that small things matter in communities, and that when nothing is done about the small things, they grow to become big things. Prior to his passing a few years ago, Kelling explained in Politico:

We expressed this in a metaphor. Just as a broken window left untended in a building is a sign that nobody cares, leading typically to more broken windows — more damage — so disorderly conditions and behaviors left untended in a community are signs that nobody cares and lead to fear of crime, more serious crime, and urban decay. Good broken windows policing seeks partners to address it: social workers, city code enforcers, business improvement district staff, teachers, medical personnel, clergy, and others. Arrest of an offender is supposed to be a last resort — not the first.

Here’s what’s critical: They came to this conclusion by actually listening to those in poor, mostly minority, communities who were most proximate to the problem. Even in neighborhoods with high murder rates, residents would list comparatively minor transgressions like graffiti, teens drinking beer in public parks, and subway turnstile jumping as their top concerns. Why? Because they’d seen the degree to which, once those conditions ran rampant, gun violence was not far behind. Add drag racing and judges who make up the rules as they go along to that list, right?

 

Everything's Free In Center City Philadelphia With Promo Code: “The Big Guy 2024.”

Everything in Center City Philadelphia is free with promo code: “the Big Guy 2024.”
pic.twitter.com/Ogd8gIFTGg

— Charles R Downs (@TheCharlesDowns) September 27, 2023

endoftheamericandream  |  It can be difficult to believe that the wild scenes that we are witnessing on the streets of America are actually real.  Earlier this week, I wrote an article entitled “What Life Is Really Like In America’s Hellish Inner Cities”.  I wrote that article before the widespread looting that just erupted in Philadelphia.  Just when I think that conditions in our core urban areas have reached a low point, they seem to find a way to get even worse.  Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of this crisis.  As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, countless numbers of people will become very desperate.  And when countless numbers of people become very desperate, our society will descend into a permanent state of chaos.

On Tuesday night, dozens of young people went on a rampage in the city of Philadelphia.

It is being reported that “stores in several areas of Philadelphia” were hit…

Dozens of people faced criminal charges Wednesday after a night of social media-fueled mayhem in which groups of thieves, apparently working together, smashed their way into stores in several areas of Philadelphia, stuffing plastic bags with merchandise and fleeing, authorities said.

A total of 52 arrests have been made so far, police said Wednesday.

Burglary, theft and other counts have been filed so far against at least 30 people, all but three of them adults, according to Jane Roh, spokesperson for the Philadelphia district attorney’s office.

he largest group consisted of approximately 100 young people, and there was violence when the police finally confronted that group outside of a Lululemon store…

Police in the city said that a large group of around 100 juveniles kept moving from store to store and looting them.

Videos shared on social media show officers attempting to grab thieves, some of whom are wearing Halloween masks, as they run riot through a Lululemon store.

One officer manages to hit one of the looters with a punch after tackling them to the ground.

Many on social media seem to be quite entertained by videos of the looting, but the truth is that this footage should break all of our hearts.

Come 2024 - Democrats Are Stuck With Biden

nueburger  |  Silver piece is titled: "It's probably too late not to nominate Biden". A bit of an awkward title, but you get the idea. In it he answers the question: Do Democrats have a better chance of winning in 2024 with a different nominee?

• With medium confidence, I think the risks of a serious primary challenge to Biden at this point in time would outweigh the benefits for Democrats.

• With low confidence, I think the risks of Biden volunteering not to run for a second would also outweigh the benefits for Democrats, but this is closer.

• With low confidence, and taking full advantage of hindsight bias, I think Democrats probably would have been better off if Biden had announced 6-12 months ago that he wouldn’t seek a second term.

• I think Biden’s situation is somewhat unprecedented and that these are hard questions for Democrats. Almost no matter what happens, people in 2025 will treat the answers as having been more obvious than they actually were. [emphasis Silver's]

In other words, Silver thinks the Democrats — meaning Biden at this point, since other Dem leaders seem totally deferential — have lost their window to change horses. Here's why he thinks that matters:

[L]et’s imagine that one of the candidate’s on Chris Hayes’s list —Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, JB Pritzker, Raphael Warnock and Gavin Newsom — announces tomorrow that they’re challenging Biden. ... What would happen?

Well, for one thing there would be an absolute media shitstorm. It would displace everything else from the news cycle — yes, even the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce news. Every critique of Biden would be highlighted and validated.

Still, the challenge probably wouldn’t work. The opposing candidate would be very much at a standing start — none of the candidates I mentioned have run for national office before, and a presidential campaign typically takes six months to a year to get up to speed. The value of optionality would be considerably diminished if voters and party elites didn’t have enough time to fully evaluate all their options. So the most likely outcome would be Biden being nominated anyway, but with battle scars that were probably harmful to him in the general election. [emphasis mine]

That's scenario 1. Here’s scenario 2:

Let’s say Biden calls a surprise press conference tomorrow — and he announces that he’s had second thoughts and won’t run for a second term.

This at least eliminates the possibility of primary-challenge-damaged-Biden being the party nominee anyway. However, it creates other issues for Democrats. The main one is what the hell happens to Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris consistency polls worse than Biden does against Trump. But Biden would be under pressure to give her a full-fledged endorsement. Even if Biden believed deep down that she wasn’t the best nominee, a non-endorsement or half-assed endorsement would make for another huge media shitstorm, without the party having little time to navigate out of it.

What if that process did start now? What would be required to maximize the chance of success?

You’d need Biden to stand down, you’d need party leaders to send a clear message that they wanted an open nomination process and not just Harris by default, and you’d need to make sure that Whitmer and/or other candidates the establishment liked were actually interested in running and the choice didn’t feel force-fed to voters. Ideally you’d also want to do all of this without someone leaking to Politico or the Washington Post and upending the process.

Silver dryly concludes "that’s probably too much to ask for." Too much indeed.

I'd Wager That Official Estimates Only Count 1-in-4 Homeless

NYTimes  | Garbage, feces and needles run through the rivers in Missoula, Mont. On the streets of San Francisco, tents are so thick that sidewalks in the Tenderloin neighborhood have become “unofficial open-air public housing.” In Portland, Ore., a blaze shut down an on-ramp to the Steel Bridge for several days in March after campers tunneled through a cinder block wall and lit a campfire to stay warm.

In a surge of legal briefs this week, frustrated leaders from across the political spectrum, including the liberal governor of California and right-wing state legislators in Arizona, charged that homeless encampments were turning their public spaces into pits of squalor, and asked the Supreme Court to revisit lower court decisions that they say have hobbled their ability to bring these camps under control.

The urgent pleas come as leaders across the country, and particularly in the West, have sought to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic and restore normalcy in cities. In more than two dozen briefs filed in an appeal of a decision on homeless policies in a southern Oregon town, officials from nearly every Western state and beyond described desolate scenes related to a proliferation of tent encampments in recent years.

They begged the justices to let them remove people from their streets without running afoul of court rulings that have protected the civil rights of homeless individuals.

“The friction in many communities affected by homelessness is at a breaking point,” the attorneys for Las Vegas, Seattle and more than a dozen other cities, as well as national municipal organizations, wrote in one brief. “Despite massive infusions of public resources, businesses and residents are suffering the increasingly negative effects of long-term urban camping.”

Homeless rights advocates agreed that tent encampments were unsafe both for their vulnerable occupants and the communities around them. But they said the gathering legal campaign was merely an attempt to fall back on timeworn government crackdowns rather than pursue the obvious solutions: more help and more housing.

“They’re seeking to blame and penalize and marginalize the victims rather than take the steps they haven’t found the political will to take,” said Eric Tars, the senior policy director at the National Homelessness Law Center.

Homelessness has increasingly overwhelmed state and local governments across the country. In California alone, more than 170,000 people are homeless, accounting for about one-third of the nation’s homeless population. More than 115,000 of those homeless Californians sleep on the streets, in cars or outdoors in places not intended for habitation, according to a federal tally of homelessness conducted last year.

Five years ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in case from Boise, Idaho, that it was unconstitutional for cities to clear homeless camps and criminally charge campers unless they could offer adequate housing. In the nine Western states covered by the circuit, that ruling has since prompted billions of dollars of public spending on homelessness.