▶️ Powerful video here: revealing the deep and dark corruption which has been fueling this disastrous proxy war from the first moment of its inception. Zelensky is a media creation - a puppet of the West, designed to empty Ukraine of its sovereignty, and ultimately its resources… pic.twitter.com/5xH0vbGool
eng.mil.ru | Report by Russian Defence Ministry on progress of special military operation (22 February 2025)
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces hit formations of two territorial defence brigades close to Izbitskoye and Volchansk (Kharkov region).
The AFU lost up to 40 troops, an armoured personnel carrier, an artillery gun, and an electronic warfare station.
As a result of decisive actions, the Zapad Group of Forces liberated Novolyubovka (Lugansk People's Republic).
Russian units hit manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades,
an assault brigade of the AFU, and a national guard brigade close to
Topoli, Kondrashovka, Golubovka, Novay Kruglyakovka, Borovaya, Shiykovka
(Kharkov region), Yampol (Donetsk People's Republic) as well as
Serebryansky forestry.
The enemy's losses amounted to more than 200 troops, a U.S.-made M113
armoured personnel carrier, five motor vehicles, and five field
artillery guns, three of them manufactured by NATO countries. Three
electronic warfare stations and an ammunition depot were neutralised.
Units of the Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous
lines and positions. Russian troops engaged manpower and hardware of
four mechanised brigades, an airmobile brigade, two assault brigades of
the AFU, and foreign legion units near Seversk, Reznikovka, Slavyansk,
Vasyukovka, Kramatorsk, Novomarkovo, Belokuzminovka, Chasov Yar,
Stupochki, Konstantinovka, and Ulakly (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 220 troops, an infantry fighting
vehicle, nine motor vehicles, and six field artillery guns including a
U.S.-made 155mm M777 howitzer. One electronic warfare station and one
ammunition depot were neutralised.
Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces improved the
tactical situation. Ten mechanised brigades, a jaeger brigade, an
airmobile brigade, two assault brigades, an assault regiment of the AFU,
a marine brigade, and a national guard brigade near Shcherbinovka,
Dimitrov, Krasnoarmeysk, Udachnoye, Uspenovka, Novoandreyevka, and
Andreyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy lost more than 375 troops, four armoured fighting vehicles
including a U.S.-made MaxxPro armoured vehicle, five motor vehicles, and
seven field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 155mm Paladin
self-propelled artillery system.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing
into the depth of enemy defences. A mechanised brigade, an air assault
brigade of the AFU, and three territorial defence brigades were hit near
Konstantiopol, Bogatyr, Burlatskoye (Donetsk People's Republic),
Temirovka, and Gulyaypole (Zaporozhye region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 160 troops, two tanks including a
German-made Leopard tank, three motor vehicles, and two field artillery
guns.
The Dnepr Group of Forces engaged manpower and hardware
of a mountain assault brigade of the AFU and two territorial defence
brigades close to Malaya Tokmachka, Shcherbaki, Lobkovoye (Zaporozhye
region), Sadovoye, and Dneprovskoye (Kherson region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 85 troops, six motor vehicles, an
artillery gun, three electronic warfare stations, and an ammunition
depot.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile
Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged the
infrastructure of military airfields, strike drones stocking and
training sites, ammunition and fuel depots of the Ukrainian Armed Forces
as well as temporary deployment areas of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in
157 areas.
Russian air defence systems shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 aircraft, two
French-made Hammer guided bombs, two U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles,
and 58 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 656
aircraft, 283 helicopters, 44,190 unmanned aerial vehicles, 596
anti-aircraft missile systems, 21,698 tanks and other armoured fighting
vehicles, 1,521 MLRS combat vehicles, 21,948 field artillery guns and
mortars, and 32,033 units of support military vehicles have been
neutralised.
WaPo | Elon
Musk, the head of the U.S. DOGE Service, announced Friday that he would
rehire a staffer who resigned after he was tied to a social media
account with a history of racist posts.
“He will be brought back,” Musk wrote on X, the platform he owns. “To err is human, to forgive divine.”
CTH | Yes, the Govt is in crisis, and just as
sure as you are reading this, the administrators within the IC already
have the solution ready to roll.”
♦ RESULT
– “We will use advanced technology and non-partisan AI programming, to
make the government more efficient and ensure this level of corruption
and wasteful spending never happens again.”
Every dollar will be tracked, monitored
and oversight will be transparent and available for everyone to see.
Just ignore the part where the same efficiency system is monitoring your
real ID, connecting your personage to the new govt and private sector
interfaces, and click “I agree” on your next federal tax filing. Trust
us Comrade citizen, the new technologically advanced DODGE approved govt
system cares about responsible stewardship and you. Swear.”
The process starts by downloading government data to an AI enhanced database for review and filtration.
Good Stuff – […] Trump created DOGE through
a day one executive order with a stated mission to cut government
waste. Musk and his aides have assumed control of federal IT
infrastructure as his team swiftly blitzes through departments and
agencies. Trump, with Musk’s guidance, this week gutted the
United States Agency for International Development and merged it into
the State Department. The president has signaled he might try to eliminate the Department of Education by executive order next.
“They’re
putting a shot across the administrative state’s bow,” Steve Bannon,
Trump’s former chief strategist, said last week of the mass federal
buyout plan on his “War Room” podcast. “That’s DOGE signaling to you
that they’ve got a plan of how to take the personnel down.”
[…] Federal
employees who want to remain in the federal workforce were told in the
“Fork in the Road” email they must return to in-person work, embrace new
“performance standards” and be “reliable, loyal and trustworthy” in
their work. The email also warned that most federal departments and
agencies will be “downsized through restructurings, realignments, and
reductions in force.”
Some federal employees said they were alarmed at the short timeframe they were given to make their decisions.
“I
have invested way too much time and energy and interest into my career
to just say, ‘hell with it’ and leave when I only have, like, five to 10
years left before I retire,” one federal worker said. “I’m not taking
the resigning bait. So, I guess I’ll essentially just ride down with the
ship if they decide to get rid of us,” the worker added, though he
acknowledged some less experienced colleagues might take the buyout. (more)
The streamlining and
downsizing of government through the use of AI systems is a good thing,
perhaps a very good thing. However, watch out for deployment into the
DHS apparatus because that will give rise to the newly expanded
Surveillance State.
Peaceniks don’t build
bombs; and those who genuinely believe in liberty do not build nor
support domestic surveillance networks that can be weaponized depending
on who is in power.
JONATHAN TURLEY ON DOGE: THE TERROR ALERT IN WASHINGTON IS QUITE ASTONISHING
“You have people all over the Beltway breathing in paper bags right now because of the idea that they could bring in these people, and that they're going to think outside the box.
pro publica | On President Donald Trump’s authority alone, Elon Musk, the world’s
richest man, has been unleashed on federal agencies. Employees from
Musk’s companies and those of his allies, as well as young staffers he’s
recruited, are wresting authority from career workers and commandeering
computer systems.
While some have been public about their
involvement, others have attempted to keep their roles secret, scrubbing
LinkedIn pages and other sources of data. With little information from
the White House, ProPublica is attempting to document who is involved
and what they are doing.
Musk’s team, known as the Department of
Government Efficiency, has already thrown entire swaths of the federal
government and its programs into disarray — programs that serve millions
of Americans.
Musk himself has made no secret of his intentions,
saying that DOGE is a “wood chipper for bureaucracy” and that he is
“deleting” agencies.
A White House spokesperson wrote, “Those
leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with
federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the
relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities.” None of the
people identified responded to requests for comment.
wired | As one of his first acts after being sworn in, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by reorganizing and renaming an existing entity, the US Digital Services (USDS), as the US DOGE Service. And while some have noted that this version of DOGE moves away from the sweeping vision of deregulation outlined
in a November Wall Street Journal op-ed, it's a move that will give
centibillionaire Elon Musk and his allies seemingly unprecedented
insight across the government, and access to troves of federal data.
“It’s
quite a clever way of integrating DOGE into the federal government that
I think will work, in the sense of giving it a platform for
surveillance and recommendations,” says Richard Pierce, a law professor
at George Washington University.
Soon after his election victory, Trump announced that he would form DOGE, led by Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, to provide
"advice and guidance from outside the government"—something that
would generally require it be formed as a federal advisory committee.
The idea was that DOGE would provide recommendations for how to cut some
$2 trillion from the federal budget. (Shortly before Trump’s
inauguration, Ramaswamy exited the DOGE project.)
But
under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, committees of the sort DOGE
seemed to be shaping up to have several legal requirements, including
making all meetings publicly accessible and requiring a diversity of
perspectives on the committee itself. By repurposing the USDS, which was
already part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Trump
managed to skirt both the requirements of a formal advisory committee
and the Congressional oversight required when creating a new federal
agency. In short, it meant DOGE would get more access to sensitive data
than an advisory committee would likely have, while offering less
transparency.
The USDS was created by former president Barack Obama to untangle dysfunctional or failing technology across the federal government
in the wake of the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. The Service’s
mandate allows it the wide-ranging ability to enter any government
agency and access its software or technical systems with the goal of
helping to streamline or reform existing systems.
Under
the executive order, DOGE teams, which “will typically include one DOGE
Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one
attorney” will be dispatched to various agencies. They will be granted
“access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT
systems,” ostensibly with the goal of streamlining data sharing across
federal agencies.
A
former USDS employee who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity
called the repurposing of the Digital Service an “A+ bureaucratic
jiu-jitsu move.” But, they say, they’re concerned that DOGE’s access to
sensitive information could be used to do more than just streamline
government operations.
“Is
this technical talent going to be pointed toward using data from the
federal government to track down opponents?” they ask. “To track down
particular populations of interest to this administration for the
purposes of either targeting them or singling them out or whatever it
might end up being?”
NYTimes | President Biden pardoned five members of his family in his last minutes in office, saying in a statement that he did so not because they did anything wrong but because he feared political attacks from incoming President Donald J. Trump.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” he said in his last statement as president. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
Mr. Biden’s action pardoned James B. Biden, his brother; Sara Jones Biden, James’s wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Mr. Biden’s sister; John T. Owens, Ms. Owens’s husband; and Francis W. Biden, Mr. Biden’s brother.
The White House announced the pardons with less than 20 minutes left in Mr. Biden’s presidency, after he had already walked into the Capitol Rotunda to witness the swearing-in of Mr. Trump before leaving the Capitol for the last time as president.
The pardons were a remarkable coda to Mr. Biden’s 50-year political career, underscoring the mistrust and anger that the president feels about Mr. Trump, the man who preceded and will succeed him in office.
Mr. Biden had repeatedly warned that Mr. Trump was a threat to democracy in America. But he also said that he believed in the rule of law, and was confident in the stability of the institutions of law enforcement. The pardons — like one that he did earlier for his son, Hunter Biden, threatened to challenge that assertion.
In his statement, Mr. Biden explained his action.
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” Mr. Biden wrote. “But baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances.”
cbsnews | Why was the Santa Ynez Reservoir empty when the fires broke out?
The reservoir was taken out of service to "meet safe drinking water regulations," the DWP said in a statement. A tear in the reservoir's cover made the water supply subject to contamination, the Los Angeles Times reported, leading the agency to drain it in February.
"The
water system serving the Pacific Palisades area and all of Los Angeles
meets all federal and state fire codes for urban development and
housing," the release said.
DWP representatives did not respond
to further questions about the reservoir from CBS News. The agency's
statement suggested that the fact the reservoir was empty for nearly a
year was in part due to the process of contracting a company to carry
out the repairs.
"To commission the support and resources to
implement repairs to Santa Ynez, LADWP is subject to the city charter's
competitive bidding process which requires time," the statement read.
The reservoir is intended to provide water storage "for domestic use
and fire fighting purposes in the Pacific Palisades area" according to city documents.
DWP
says that the agency is conducting its own investigation on its "water
resiliency." But experts and officials agree that the extent of the wildfires would have put a strain on the city's water supply regardless of whether the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been full.
In his letter to DWP, Newsom wrote, "While water supplies from local
fire hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas,
losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to
protect some homes and evacuation corridors."
David Freyberg,
PhD, a hydrologist and water resources specialist at Stanford
University, told CBS News in an email that while a full Santa Ynez would
have had benefits, it's not clear how much impact it would have had.
"The
reservoirs above Pacific Palisades were not designed to support
fire-fighting at the scale of [this] fire," he wrote. "Water supply
reservoirs are typically designed to cope with house fires, not
wildfires."
He added that the situation has made it clear that larger-scale solutions are necessary.
axios | As devastating wildfires raged across Los Angeles County this week, firefighters battling the blazes encountered fire hydrants that had no water.
Why it matters: The dry fire hydrants sparked political outrage
and illustrated just how unprepared municipal water systems are to
combat the sorts of large-scale urban wildfires that have become more
frequent with climate change.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday ordered an independent investigation
into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), the nation's
largest municipal utility, over hydrants and water supply issues. DWP
provides water for more than four million L.A. residents and serves
Pacific Palisades, a wealthy area of Los Angeles where much of the
destruction took place.
"While water supplies from local fire
hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas,
losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect
some homes and evacuation corridors," Newsom said. "We need answers to
how that happened."
President-elect Trump has suggested Newsom
was to blame for the dry hydrants — claiming without evidence that he
blocked water supply to the south of the state with the state's fish
conservation efforts. The governor and other experts have sharply
rejected the claims.
"We are looking at a situation that is
just completely not part of any domestic water system design," Marty
Adams, a former DWP general manager and engineer, told The New York Times.
The big picture: Fire
hydrants running out of water isn't unheard of during severe wildfires,
said Faith Kearns, a water and wildfire expert with the Global Futures
Laboratory at Arizona State University. Similar instances were reported
during wildfires in Maui, Colorado and Oregon,
"It's
something that we have definitely started to see as, essentially, these
wildland fires move into urban areas and become urban conflagrations,"
Kearns said.
"Our urban water supply is meant to deal more with things like a single house being on fire," she added.
Why did the fire hydrants run dry?
Firefighters battling the Palisades Fire
earlier this week encountered swaths of fire hydrants with no water
after the three water tanks supplying the Pacific Palisades ran dry by 3
a.m. Wednesday, Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer of the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power, said at a press briefing later that day.
The
area's water system had been pushed "to the extreme," she said. "Four
times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered
our water pressure."
The problem persisted for hours while wildfires ravaged the area, the New York Times reported.
yahoo | Luigi
Mangione, the 26-year-old accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian
Thompson in New York City on Dec. 4, waived his right to extradition at
the Blair County courthouse in Pennsylvania on Thursday morning.
New York City police officers escorted Mangione out of the courthouse and flew him to New York, where he was indicted earlier this week. He is expected to appear in a state court for arraignment in New York either later Thursday or on Friday.
Federal authorities have now filed murder, stalking and weapons charges against Mangione, according to a complaint that was unsealed Thursday. It is unclear when he would appear in court for the federal charges.
By
waiving his extradition hearing, Mangione has voluntarily agreed to put
his Pennsylvania criminal case on hold and return to New York for
prosecution there. Among the charges he will face in New York include
murder as an act of terrorism, which carries a life sentence in prison
without the possibility of parole.
Although neither Mangione nor his New York attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo,
have commented on the situation, David Sarni, a former NYPD detective
and current adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal
Justice, told Yahoo News it’s not unusual that Mangione and Agnifilo
filed to waive extradition in this case.
“Extradition
takes place usually when the case is stronger in the other state and if
the prosecution is willing to do the extradition hearing,” Sarni said.
The Federal charge of Murder Through The Use Of A Firearm makes Mangione eligible for the Federal death penalty....,
Reuters | MOSCOW,
Feb 14 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that
Russian scientists were close to creating vaccines for cancer that could
soon be available to patients.
Putin
said in televised comments that "we have come very close to the
creation of so-called cancer vaccines and immunomodulatory drugs of a
new generation".
"I
hope that soon they will be effectively used as methods of individual
therapy," he added, speaking at a Moscow forum on future technologies.
TASS | MOSCOW, December
15. /TASS/. Russia has developed its own mRNA vaccine against cancer, it
will be distributed to patients free of charge, General Director of the
Radiology Medical Research Center of the Russian Ministry of Health
Andrey Kaprin has told Radio Rossiya.
The vaccine was developed in collaboration with several research
centers. It is planned to launch it in general circulation in early
2025.
Earlier, Director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for
Epidemiology and Microbiology Alexander Gintsburg told TASS that the
vaccine’s pre-clinical trials had shown that it suppresses tumor
development and potential metastases.
NYTimes | Luigi Mangione on Tuesday was formally accused of first-degree murder, a charge that branded him a terrorist and aimed directly at the idea that the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive was a legitimate political act.
“This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation,” said Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, at a news conference on Tuesday.
The assassination of the chief executive, Brian Thompson, on Dec. 4 in the heart of Manhattan set off a dayslong manhunt and captivated Americans, many of whom vented their frustrations on dealings with health insurance companies. Some voiced their support for Mr. Mangione and rooted for him to elude capture.
But on Tuesday, prosecutors said that Mr. Mangione’s actions were meant to further terrorism. They were, prosecutors said, “intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” and to “affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder.”
Mr. Mangione, 26, also faces two counts of second-degree murder and weapons charges in New York in the killing of Mr. Thompson.
A lawyer for Mr. Mangione, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, declined to comment on the new charges on Tuesday.
Mr. Bragg said that they were in response to the “brazen, targeted and premeditated shooting,” adding that he couldn’t think of another office “more equipped to handle a terrorism charge.”
If convicted on the highest charges, Mr. Mangione faces a sentence of life in prison without parole.
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