US Inflation Soars to 7.9 Percent, Biggest Spike Since 1982

SEE: https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/inflation/2022/03/10/id/1060547/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Thursday, 10 March 2022 08:31 AM

Propelled by surging costs for gas, food, and housing, consumer inflation jumped 7.9% over the past year, the sharpest spike since 1982 and likely only a harbinger of even higher prices to come.

The increase reported Thursday by the Labor Department reflected the 12 months ending in February and didn’t include most of the oil and gas price increases that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Since then, average gas prices nationally have jumped about 62 cents a gallon to $4.32, according to AAA.

Even before the war further accelerated price increases, robust consumer spending, solid pay raises, and persistent supply shortages had sent U.S. consumer inflation to its highest level in four decades. What’s more, housing costs, which make up about a third of the government’s consumer price index, have risen sharply, a trend that’s unlikely to reverse anytime soon.

The government’s report Thursday also showed that inflation rose 0.8% from January to February, up from the 0.6% increase from December to January.

For most Americans, inflation is running far ahead of the pay raises that many have received in the past year, making it harder for them to afford necessities like food, gas, and rent. As a consequence, inflation has become the top political threat to President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats as the midterm elections draw closer. Small business people say in surveys that it’s their primary economic concern, too.

Seeking to stem the inflation surge, the Federal Reserve is set to raise interest rates several times this year beginning with a modest hike next week. The Fed faces a delicate challenge, though: If it tightens credit too aggressively this year, it risks undercutting the economy and possibly triggering a recession.

Energy prices, which soared after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, jumped again this week after Biden said the United States would bar oil imports from Russia. Oil prices did retreat Wednesday on reports that the United Arab Emirates will urge fellow OPEC members to boost production. U.S. oil was down 12% to $108.70 a barrel, though still up sharply from about $90 before Russia’s invasion.

Yet energy markets have been so volatile that it’s impossible to know if the decline will stick. If Europe were to join the U.S. and the United Kingdom and bar Russian oil imports, analysts estimate that prices could soar as high as $160 a barrel.

The economic consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine have upended a broad assumption among many economists and at the Fed: That inflation would begin to ease this spring because prices rose so much in March and April of 2021 that comparisons to a year ago would show declines.

Should gas prices remain near their current levels, Eric Winograd, senior economist at asset manager AllianceBernstein, estimates that inflation could reach as high as 9% in March or April.

The cost of wheat, corn, cooking oils, and such metals as aluminum and nickel have also soared since the invasion. Ukraine and Russia are leading exporters of those commodities.

Even before Russia’s invasion, inflation was not only rising sharply but also broadening into additional sectors of the economy. Many prices have jumped over the past year because heavy demand has run into short supplies of items like autos, building materials, and household goods.

But even for some services unaffected by the pandemic, like rents, costs are also surging at their fastest pace in decades. Steady job growth and high home prices are encouraging more people to move into apartments, elevating rental costs by the most in two decades. Apartment vacancy rates have reached their lowest level since 1984.

In the final three months of last year, wages and salaries jumped 4.5%, the sharpest such increase in at least 20 years. Those pay raises have, in turn, led many companies to raise prices to offset their higher labor costs.

Soaring energy costs pose a particularly difficult challenge for the Fed. Higher gas prices tend to both accelerate inflation and weaken economic growth. That’s because as their paychecks are eroded at the gas pump, consumers typically spend less in other ways.

That pattern is akin to the “stagflation” dynamic that made the economy of the 1970s miserable for many Americans. Most economists, though, say they think the U.S. economy is growing strongly enough that another recession is unlikely, even with higher inflation. 

Robert Spencer vs. Joseph Puder: How Much Should We Get Involved in Ukraine?

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/03/spencer-vs-puder-should-we-go-war-over-ukraine-frontpagemagcom/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Editors' note: Below is an exchange between Frontpage contributors Robert Spencer and Joseph Puder on Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- and what America and the West must do about it. We hope our readers will find this dialogue/debate between two of Frontpage's finest to be thought-provoking and enlightening.

Joseph Puder: The West Has Not Learned The Lessons of World War II.
We need a Churchill in the White House, not a feeble Chamberlain.

The scenes of the Russian invasion into Ukraine are reminiscent of 81 years ago when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in what was called “Operation Barbarossa.” Nazi troops stormed the Ukraine fields with thousands of tanks and Stuka dive bombers. Behind them was Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen, SS murderers set out to murder every Jew in the territories of Ukraine that the Nazi army occupied.  

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, has copied the same tactics. Claiming his armies were merely on military maneuvers and that he had no intention of invading Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, he ordered his armies with thousands of soldiers, tanks, and jets to invade Ukraine. In 1939, Adolf Hitler, who had committed Germany not to attack the Soviet Union under the Treaty of Non-Aggression known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement, broke the treaty and invaded the Soviet Union with massive force. And, like the murderous Nazi Einsatzgruppen, Putin sent a similar group of Chechen murderers to assassinate Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, and members of his government.   

Hitler, in the summer of 1941, already had Europe almost entirely under his brutal boot, but his “lebensraum” or living space concept, which he specified in his book, “Mein Kampf,” and speeches, required him, in his mind to remove the Slavic and other so-called non-Aryan peoples in Eastern Europe from their land and populate them with German people. So naturally, Hitler was not going to stop anywhere ‘while the going was good.’    

Let us be clear, Putin is not Hitler, he is not the sadist and antisemitic murderer that Hitler was. Nevertheless, he too has a dream of restoring to Russia the title of the super-power that the Soviet Union became after World War II. He is a Russian nationalist whose formative years in the Soviet Union were spent absorbing Soviet propaganda and subsequently becoming a KGB officer. It made him a staunch believer in Russian power. His father fought with the Red Army in WWII, and his native Leningrad suffered enormously during World War II. He also learned from the example that Hitler had provided, that when your potential enemies are weak, it is time to strike.  

Hitler had British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to deal with. An appeaser who desperately wanted to avoid war at all costs, and indeed, the costs were much higher for Britain and the world for not recognizing that evil can only be stopped by force and not by appeasement. Had the allies stopped Hitler early on in 1936 when he occupied the Rhineland, World War II would never have occurred. Even in 1938, before Hitler annexed by force the Czechoslovakian territory of the Sudetenland under the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Chamberlain sold out the Czechs, and got in return World War II. Had the western powers used the military option, the German military High Command (the Wehrmacht) would have removed Hitler from power, as was revealed in later years.   

Putin, like Hitler, views US President Joe Biden as weak and feeble, just as Hitler saw Chamberlain. A person who refuses to use the military option with the radical regime of the Ayatollahs in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and would certainly not dare to challenge Russia’s military might. Putin figures that Biden and the Western leaders would scream ‘bloody murder,’ but won’t challenge him militarily, not even using a ‘no-fly zone’ over the Ukrainian civilian population, for fear of entanglement with Russia. Putin doesn’t want a nuclear war any more than Biden, Johnson, or Macron. He knows, however, that he is dealing with Chamberlains, not with Churchills.  

It is apparent to Putin that President Biden and the other major western leaders fear him enough not to challenge his actions other than with words and economic sanctions that hitherto have had little impact on Putin and his regime. He took Crimea in March 2014 from Ukraine, and the Obama administration’s reaction was so anemic that it only encouraged him to go further and initiate the separatist violent rebellion against the Ukrainian government in the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine (Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts of Ukraine), less than a month later. As the case of the US imposed sanctions on Iran has proven, sanctions cannot alter the behavior of a radical authoritarian regime, and only the unpleasant choice of a credible threat of Military action will make Russia or Iran change its course.   

There was a time when the US did just that, using the military option. President John F. Kennedy did it during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis; he took military action after diplomacy failed. True, the Soviet missiles in Cuba posed an existential threat to the US… And yet, President Lyndon Johnson did it in the Middle East, when the Soviet Union threatened to send its troops to aid Syria against Israel during the Six-Day War of June 1967.  

Uri Bar-Noi, in a report for the Wilson Center dealing with the Soviet Union and the Six-Day War, had written his article based on revelations from the Polish government archives, “The Soviet Union military took practical steps to assist Syria in stopping the advance of Israeli troops into Syrian territory toward the end of the war. These steps included a naval landing, airborne reinforcement, and air support for ground operations. Military operations were, however, eventually aborted for fear of American retaliation.” President Johnson responded by putting American forces on standby, ready to respond to the Soviet’s moves.   

In today’s climate of near pacifism in the US and the western world, there are no Churchills to be found. There is however one inspiring Churchill-like person and that is the leader of Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelensky. He alone has stood up to the bullying of Vladimir Putin with the determination of David facing Goliath, and that in spite of the odds facing him. He inspired his people and the world by taking on a nuclear superpower with its enormous military machine and an abundance of natural resources, particularly oil and gas. He alone put into deeds what it means to fight for freedom and human dignity. 

While Biden and others filled the airwaves with platitudes, they fear facing the Russian bear. Fortunately for Winston Churchill, he was able to, after Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) enjoy the benefits of the “Arsenal of Democracy,” Zelensky and Ukraine remain alone in fighting an unrestrained aggressor. Sadly, never has America needed a Churchill more in the White House than now. Instead, we have a feeble Chamberlain. 

Robert Spencer Responds: What Are the Real Lessons of World War II?
It’s true: we need a Churchill, but we don’t need a world war.
It’s interesting that Joseph Puder begins his article calling for the U.S. to stand up much more firmly to Putin than it is doing now by likening the Russian army’s actions in Ukraine to the German army’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Puder doesn’t mention the fact that many Ukrainians fought tenaciously on the side of the Nazis in that conflict; nor does he mention that fighting in Ukraine now against the Russians is the Azov Battalion, a gang of actual neo-Nazis, not the kind the establishment media sees whenever a guy goes out wearing a MAGA hat. Nor are they some outliers: in 2014, then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called them “our best warriors.”

This is not to say that Russia’s invasion is justified, or that Americans should not support Ukraine’s resistance; it’s only meant to illustrate that sometimes matters are much more complicated than meets the eye, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a quintessential example of that.

Puder is correct that Neville Chamberlain “desperately wanted to avoid war at all costs,” and appeasement failed before World War II and will fail to stop Putin. He is also correct that Putin, like everyone else on the face of the earth, sees Old Joe Biden as “weak and feeble, just as Hitler saw Chamberlain.” According to Puder, Putin “figures that Biden and the Western leaders would scream ‘bloody murder,’ but won’t challenge him militarily, not even using a ‘no-fly zone’ over the Ukrainian civilian population, for fear of entanglement with Russia.” He sees Putin’s statement that this would be considered an act of war as an empty threat: “Putin doesn’t want a nuclear war any more than Biden, Johnson, or Macron. He knows, however, that he is dealing with Chamberlains, not with Churchills.”

It is undoubtedly true that Putin sees Biden as weak. It is less certain that if the U.S. sets up a no-fly zone in Ukraine, the Russians will not see it as a casus belli and start World War III. And as odious as Putin’s actions in Ukraine are, they aren’t our fight. Volodymyr Zelensky, for all his heroism, is tied into the World Economic Forum cabal. Ukraine is a corrupt kleptocracy with still-unexplained ties to the Biden family; it was a Ukrainian energy firm that gave Hunter Biden a high-paying job for which he was completely unqualified, in an obvious case of buying influence. Except for brief periods, Ukraine was part of Russia for a thousand years, until 1991. Putin may go on from Ukraine to menace NATO states, and that could be a legitimate casus belli, but Ukraine is no hill to die on or to start a world war on. It is not actually the United States’ responsibility to solve the problems of all the people in the world, and there will always be tyrants, invasions, and occupations. We can’t fix them all, especially with our woke military spending time on gender theory that it could be spending on learning to fight.

In this connection, it is important to recall that even as the Nazis stormed across Europe in 1939, 1940, and 1941, swiftly conquering Poland, Norway, France, and more, the United States did not enter the war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted very much to get into the war, but he could not sell to the American people the idea that it was the responsibility of the American people to fight for Poland, Norway, or France. It was much more widely understood then than it is now that the United States of America is not the world’s policeman or repairman, and will only expend its resources fruitlessly when it tries to act as such (see, for example, Iraq and Afghanistan).

Roosevelt didn’t enter the war, in fact, until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11. It was at that point, and not before then, that World War II became our fight. Roosevelt had given all manner of aid to the British before Pearl Harbor was bombed, and Biden’s handlers, if they have any spine at all, should do the same in this case, but the idea that, as Puder says, “only the unpleasant choice of a credible threat of Military action will make Russia or Iran change its course” runs the risk of provoking a real war, one that could be far more catastrophic than any war the planet has seen up to now.   

There is no doubt that Puder is right: America needs a Churchill in the White House. But when Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain, the war in Europe had already been raging for eight months. He didn’t start the war by reckless actions in a conflict that did not involve his country. We need a prudent leader of his type now, one who will know how much is enough and how much is too much in dealing with Putin. As it is, our feckless State Department and dementia-ridden president are foolishly writing checks their woke military can’t cash.

*Joseph Puder Responds: Evil, If Not Stopped, Will Swallow Us All.

If Vladimir Putin wants a global nuclear war, he could choose multiple reasons to serve as a casus belli and wage war. If pressed hard by western sanctions, including the cutting off of his oil and gas revenues, he is as likely to consider it a casus belli, and turn against the NATO allies. Putin, I have no doubt, feels just as intensely about his economic strangulation as he does about a no-fly zone in and around Lviv, to protect the fleeing Ukrainian refugees, should the US and NATO allies consider imposing it.

Robert Spencer is correct about Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis, and I should add the rabid antisemitism on the part of many Ukrainians during WWII, and even to some extent today. Naturally, there were some Ukrainians who saved Jews as well. My own parents escaped being murdered by Ukrainians during WWII. My mother’s courage and Russian troops nearby saved them from certain death. Modern Ukraine is different, it seeks to be democratic, and share western values, and Volodymyr Zelensky is not Petro Poroshenko. In the late 1930s or 1940s, the thought of a Jewish president in Ukraine would have been impossible. Today, Ukraine looks to the west – not to the east, and it should be embraced.

Spencer isn’t exactly accurate when asserting that “Ukraine was part of Russia for 1,000 years.” In fact, Russia, as we know it today has its roots in Kiev – Ukraine’s capital. The Kievan state existed until the year 1240 when the Mongol hordes crushed it. Actually, Putin has claimed Ukraine for historical and religious (Russian Orthodoxy) reasons. He forgets however that Kiev was the cradle of what we know as Russia. Kiev originated the Cyrillic alphabet and Russian Orthodoxy.

Let’s be clear, I am not advocating a military and possibly a nuclear confrontation with Putin’s Russia; understandably, such a conflict could lead to World War III and an end to life as we know it. We must however understand that Putin is not some crazy monster who is set on incinerating the west, and his Mother Russia. He is though, succeeding in intimidating the west. When he took Crimea and effectively tore the Donbas region out of Ukraine, the Obama administration and its western allies whimpered, and condemned, but did nothing. And when Obama set up a “red line” against the Syrian dictator upon his use of chemical weapons on his people, he pathetically let it slide…President Joe Biden’s responses to foreign aggression is even more pathetic, as we have seen last year in the Afghanistan debacle.  

Putin believes that Russia has some justified reasons to fear the expansion of NATO eastward, and at the same time, he seeks to recreate the former Soviet Union. A child of Soviet propaganda, Putin envisions a superpower Russia with all the natural resources of its former republics such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc. In a 2014 interview with the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he (Gorbachev) stated that he thought that the NATO enlargement and incorporation of former Warsaw Pact countries was a “big mistake,” and a “violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made in 1990.

All of the above notwithstanding, Ukraine held democratic elections, and elected Volodymyr Zelensky as president. The Ukrainian people, moreover, have the right to determine their future, a right Putin does not have. And, if the people of Ukraine choose to join NATO, or the EU, as a sovereign state they have the right to do so.

The real question is where will Putin stop? Will he be satisfied with subjugating Ukraine against the will of most of its people? Poland, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary, all of them border Ukraine; will he push further into these states to punish them for supporting Ukraine? Putin is obviously not deterred by the likes of Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Emanuel Macron, or Olaf Scholz. He recognizes the near pacifism in the western world, and he is not frightened by western economic sanctions, since they have not hitherto impacted him personally, or for that matter, Russia.  

Spencer is correct about FDR wanting to fight Nazi Germany but he could not sell the American people on entering the war to save Poland, France, or other conquered nations. There is a difference however this time around. Article 5 of the NATO charter specifies that the US is committed to fight against any aggression committed against a fellow NATO member. True, Ukraine is not yet a NATO member, and therefore the US has no legal obligation to protect it. But the American people today are far less isolationist than in the 1930s or the period just before Pearl Harbor. Most Americans see it as a moral obligation to defend innocent civilians, and they are aghast by Russia’s naked aggression. I agree with Spencer that “America is not the world’s policeman,” but we must also realize that evil, if not stopped will swallow us all.

While acknowledging Joe Biden's desire for world peace and avoidance of war is understandable, warning Putin with a credible military option against further Russian expansion is essential. At some point, a no-fly zone will become imperative. Sadly, America needs a Churchill in the White House right now. Instead, it seems, we have a Chamberlain.

*Robert Spencer Responds: There's a Fine Line Between Strength and Provocation.

Joseph Puder is certainly correct that if Vladimir Putin wants war with the United States, he could start it now, trumpeting any number of actions by the U.S. and its allies, from expanding NATO ever eastward to arming Ukraine and more, as the reasons why he had no choice but to declare war. It is clear by now that he doesn’t want a world war, which would almost certainly be a nuclear war of unimaginable devastation, any more than Joe Biden and his handlers do. But Puder believes, not without reason, that Biden’s handlers can and should present a much stronger front to Putin, and that doing so would deter the Russian from continuing to pursue his expansionist goals. While strength is always to be preferred to appeasement of a tyrant, however, the current regime of socialist internationalists and spineless dreamers cannot be trusted to know what constitutes a reasonable show of strength and what constitutes an unwarranted provocation.

Take, for example, the expansion of NATO. In his February 24 speech announcing the invasion of Ukraine, Putin said: “In December 2021 we once again made an attempt to agree with the United States and its allies on the principles of ensuring security in Europe and on the non-expansion of NATO. Everything was in vain. The US position did not change. They did not consider it necessary to negotiate with Russia on this important issue for us, continuing to pursue their own goals and disregarding our interests.”

If this is true, it is not hard to imagine Antony Blinken and his team too concerned with making sure the State Department had the right number of racial minorities and proper instruction in Critical Race Theory to concern themselves with Putin’s overtures. They could have and should have known that Russia considers the expansion of NATO into former Soviet republics to be an unacceptable attempt to encircle Russia, as Putin explained in his speech: “I am referring to the expansion of the NATO to the east, moving its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders. It is well known that for 30 years we have persistently and patiently tried to reach an agreement with the leading NATO countries on the principles of equal and inviolable security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we constantly faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts to pressure and blackmail, while NATO, despite all our protests and concerns, continued to steadily expand. The war machine is moving and, I repeat, it is coming close to our borders.”

One doesn’t have to accept Putin’s argument or consider his invasion of Ukraine justified to see that his characterization of Biden’s imperious, elitist State Department is entirely plausible. It is important to point this out now, after the invasion, because the same ham-handed, blinkered, pseudo-intellectual Leftists whose short-sightedness and wrongheadedness let the invasion happen in the first place are still in charge. If a show of strength to Putin can be bungled, they can be counted upon to bungle it.

As for Puder’s claim that it is not accurate to say that “Ukraine was part of Russia for 1,000 years,” he actually demonstrates that it is accurate by noting that “Russia, as we know it today has its roots in Kiev – Ukraine’s capital.” One may quibble over whether Kievan Rus was Russian or Ukrainian, but the telling fact is that it was both and that throughout history the two have been more one people than two. The fact that, as Puder claims I forgot but which was actually the basis of my argument, it is true that “Kiev was the cradle of what we know as Russia,” and that is precisely why Putin believes he has a claim to it. This is not to say that Ukraine should not be independent unless one wishes also to argue that Austria and Germany should be one state, a proposition I am not at all disposed to favor.

Puder says that he is “not advocating a military and possibly a nuclear confrontation with Putin’s Russia,” but the weak and feckless socialist policy wonks who inhabit Biden’s State Department and entire administration have never demonstrated anything comparable to the judiciousness and wisdom of Churchill or anyone else who ever brought a major war to a successful conclusion. Puder is in effect asking that Biden’s gang of arrogant, miseducated children, with no understanding of history, culture, religion, or economics stand up to a canny, unscrupulous, utterly ruthless authoritarian. The consequences of their miscalculation and the hopeless Blinken is certain to miscalculate, would be, as Puder says “World War III and an end to life as we know it.” Putin may not be, as Puder says, “some crazy monster who is set on incinerating the west,” but the foreign policy establishment is a bunch of self-infatuated grad students with no understanding of how the world works; he can and would take advantage of their attempts to draw some “red line” that both he and they would know from the outset was spurious.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is a corrupt kleptocracy that gave Hunter Biden a high-paying job in a field in which he had no experience, in an obvious attempt to curry favor with Joe Biden. It was a phone call with Zelensky that got Trump impeached, in an obvious partisan witch-hunt, the first time. This is not to say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was justified, or that Putin is not a scoundrel, or that the Ukrainians are not noble in resistance, or that Zelensky is not courageous. But once again, this is not our fight, and making it our fight could so easily spiral out of control that it is imperative that we keep a cool head amid all the prevailing war fever. Haven’t we learned the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan yet?

Puder admits that Ukraine is not in NATO and so we have no obligation to defend it, but thinks that we should anyway, for “we must also realize that evil, if not stopped will swallow us all.” Well, yes. But that’s why NATO has members and non-members. We are bound, for better or worse, to defend NATO’s members. If this means that we have an obligation to fight evil anywhere else in the world that it may appear, we might as well bring every country in the world into NATO, so that it is clear that we are obligated to fight for them all and to combat evil wherever and whenever it may break out.

That may be a wonderful sentiment, but it is utterly impracticable. Our resources are not infinite, and our self-serving, corrupt leaders are already pouring out our substance for all manner of boondoggles that benefit the American people not a whit. At some point, the gravy train is going to run out. What we really need is a strong America-First president, who would have made clear to Putin from the outset that his adventurism would have terrible consequences, and who would have always acted in the best interests of the American people. If only there were someone on the scene like that.

Alexandria, Virginia Planned ‘Abortionist Appreciation Day,’ Then Public Awakens

The city hall in Alexandria, Virginia, located just outside Washington, D.C.:

Alexandria City Hall

PRO-LIFE 2019: Speak Out “National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers”

BY WORLD NET DAILY

SEE: https://americanfaith.com/u-s-city-planned-abortionist-appreciation-day-then-public-awakens/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

A city in Virginia has scuttled its plans to mark a day for “appreciation” for abortionists.

Columnist Nicole Russell at the Daily Signal has documented the change in the agenda for Alexandria, Virginia.

The mayor there, Justin Wilson, a Democrat, had proposed to city leaders marking Thursday, March 10, as “National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers".

But he confirmed in an email, “This proclamation has now been pulled from the agenda on Tuesday at my request.”

The column explained how it all started back in 1996 with abortion promoters choosing March 10 to promote the procedures that are designed to leave one of every two patients who arrive dead.

The date was picked “in memory of Dr. David Gunn, an abortion doctor who was slain on that day three years prior,” the column explained.

Social media joined the campaign in 2017 with the #CelebrateAbortionProviders slogan from the Abortion Care Network.

“The Daily Wire reported that the mayor acknowledged that there is ‘controversy associated with the provision of abortion services,’ but insisted he was only trying to recognize health care workers for their efforts,” Russell explained.

“It’s disconcerting to see a city like Alexandria—located just outside Washington, D.C.—with its deep historical roots, publicly claim abortion is health care and view the celebration of abortion as a duty,” she wrote.

She explained, “Alexandria’s Catholic community spoke out against the proposed proclamation as well. The Basilica of St. Mary encouraged its parishioners to contact the city council in protest. Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Catholic Diocese of neighboring Arlington, Virginia, released a statement that condemned the proclamation, and he encouraged Alexandria residents ‘to express their opposition to this proclamation,’ and for everyone else in the diocese to ‘proclaim the Gospel of Life by word and example.'”

One church posted on its website a link that allows people to complain to the city council.

Proposed law in Maryland would allow mothers to kill their babies up to 28 days AFTER birth

Image: Proposed law in Maryland would allow mothers to kill their babies up to 28 days AFTER birth

BY ETHAN HUFF

SEE: https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-03-09-maryland-proposed-law-allows-babies-be-murdered.html;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

(Natural News) Sen. William Smith (D-Md.) has proposed new legislation in Maryland that would legalize “abortion” up to 28 days after a child is born.

Senate Bill 669, also called the “Pregnant Person’s Freedom Act of 2022”, provisions that a newborn baby can be left to die for up to a month after being born in the event that the “mother” decides she no longer wants to keep it.

A hearing for the “woke” bill has been scheduled for March 15 when legislators will debate it.

“The bill also proposes a revision of the fetal murder/manslaughter statute that would serve to handcuff the investigation of infant deaths unrelated to abortion,” American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) attorney Olivia Summers pointed out.

The reason for this has to do with wording in the legislation that would prohibit investigations into and criminal prosecutions of women and medical professionals for “failure to act” in relation to a “perinatal death.”

“In other words, a baby born alive and well could be abandoned and left to starve or freeze to death,” Summers said. “And nothing could be done to punish those who participated in that cruel death.”

Why are Democrats so obsessed with murdering babies?

The language of the legislation, Summers warned, is so unclear that it would, in fact, “prevent investigations into the death of infants at least seven days AFTER their birth, and may extend to infants as old as four weeks.”

Maryland code does not currently define “perinatal.” A 2020 law, however, does define “perinatal care” as the “provision of care during pregnancy, labor, delivery and postpartum and neonatal periods.”

According to MedicineNet, the official definition is “the 20th to 28th week of gestation” to “1 to 4 weeks after birth.”

Maryland already has a “Safe Haven” law in place allowing the parents of newborn babies to surrender them to a responsible adult without fear of prosecution. So why the need for SB 669, other than to expand the range of time in which a baby can be murdered?

“Under the Safe Haven law, a distressed parent who is unable or unwilling to care for their infant can safely give up custody of their baby, no questions asked,” said the Maryland Department of Human Services. “Newborns can be left at hospitals or law enforcement stations.”

“There is absolutely no reason for Maryland Senate Bill 669’s attempt to prevent someone who lets their baby die from being investigated,” Summers wrote in an analysis of the bill.

“This bill just further exposes the complete lack of regard abortion advocates have for innocent human life.”

If the Democrats pushing the legislation really want to protect life and women, then all they would have to do is extend the length of the safe harbor provisions that are already in place. Since they are not doing this, it would seem as though they have a different agenda.

This is hardly the first time that left-wing politicians have proposed legislation that aims to increase legal eligibility for baby murder. Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) infamously blocked an amendment proposed by Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) that would have protected newborn survivors of botched abortions from being terminated.

“What about if you do not like your two-year-old?” asked someone at LifeSiteNews. “Is it okay to murder her as well? What about your old grandmother who is not much use to anyone anymore? What about the Christian who opposed gender confusion and indoctrination in the schools? Should they be permanently silenced, too?”

More related news can be found at Abortions.news.

Sources include:

LifeSiteNews.com

NaturalNews.com

____________________________________________________________________

SEE ALSO:

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2022/march/aclj-warns-proposed-maryland-senate-bill-could-legalize-infanticide-up-to-28-days-after-birth

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2022/02/14/jones-seeks-constitutional-amendment-to-strengthen-abortion-rights-in-maryland/

 

Who Needs the Fake Fact-Checkers?

BY DR. JOSEPH MERCOLA

SEE: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2022/03/10/fake-fact-checkers.aspx;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • Facebook has admitted in a court of law that its fact-checkers are not asserting facts but, rather, First Amendment-protected opinions
  • Steve Kirsch, founder of the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund, recorded a phone call with a fact-checker from PolitiFact, showing just how ignorant the fact checker is about the facts, and how unwilling she is to look at the data
  • There are three sources for vaccine injury data: The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wonder site; OpenVAERS; and MedAlerts, created by the National Vaccine Information Center. Of these, MedAlerts has the easiest-to-use interface if you want to search and collate data
  • What makes VAERS so valuable is the fact that you can find important safety signals that would otherwise be missed. This is its intended function, and it works quite well for that
  • Fact-checkers are now trying to dismiss VAERS data as unreliable at best and useless at worst. But they have a serious problem. The U.S. government had a clear duty, enshrined in law, to create a system to detect potential vaccine injuries. If VAERS is useless, then the government broke the law. In their zeal to protect Big Pharma, fact-checkers may be inadvertently throwing government agencies under the bus

If you thought fact-checkers were a source of unbiased facts, think again. Earlier this year, Facebook admitted, in a court of law, that its fact-checkers are not asserting facts but rather “First Amendment-protected opinions.”1,2

A recent telephone recording by Steve Kirsch, founder of the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund, in which he responds to a fact-checker from PolitiFact, is equally revealing. The young woman clearly has no idea what she’s talking about, yet she’s been put into a position where she gets to be the sole and final arbiter of truth.

Why Use MedAlerts?

The PolitiFact fact-checker, Gabrielle Settles, contacted Kirsch with a number of questions. First, she wanted to know why he uses MedAlerts3 as a source rather than the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wonder site.

VAERS was an outgrowth of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, a law that Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), helped fight for. As you likely know, this site and many of you have supported NVIC with donations, which allows them to carry on their terrific work, including their MedAlerts VAERS database query tool.

Between 1990 and 2001, VAERS data were accessible only by filing a Freedom of Information Act request. In 2001, a VAERS website was created,4 and in 2006 the database was moved to CDC Wonder. The MedAlerts VAERS interface was created by the NVIC, which is the reason why fact-checkers attack it. It went online April 9, 2003.

In response to Settles’ question, Kirsch explained that MedAlerts simply has a more user-friendly interface, while providing the same exact data as VAERS and OpenVAERS.

Are VAERS Data Valid?

Settles then moved on to question the validity of VAERS data in general. She pointed out that raw VAERS reports are not vetted and verified for accuracy, and that they cannot be used to prove causation. In other words, the fact that there are more than 24,400 deaths5 reported post-jab does not automatically mean that the shot was the cause of all those deaths.

Kirsch countered by pointing out that what makes VAERS so valuable is the fact that you can find important safety signals that would otherwise be missed. This is its intended function, and it works quite well for that.

For example, looking at the dosing data for myocarditis, you find that after the first dose, there are relatively few myocarditis cases reported, but after the second dose, reports explode. This kind of consistency in the data is very telling and not easily dismissed.

Fact-checkers are now trying to dismiss VAERS data as unreliable at best and useless at worst. But they have a serious problem because the U.S. government had a clear duty, enshrined in law, to create a system to detect potential vaccine injuries.

If they now want to throw VAERS out, then the government is in a real pickle, because that means they did not create a functional and useful system. If VAERS is so seriously flawed as to be useless, then the government has broken the law and is duty-bound to replace it with something that actually works. It’s a real Catch-22. In their zeal to protect Big Pharma, fact-checkers may be inadvertently throwing government agencies under the bus.

Weak Hit Piece Tries to Salvage the Narrative

PolitiFact published its NVIC/MedAlerts article on February 28, 2022, under the title, “How an Alternative Gateway to VAERS Data Helps Fuel Vaccine Misinformation.”6 While clearly meant as a hit piece, it actually provides NVIC some much-needed publicity, even giving links to both its About Us and Reporting Options pages.

The main point of contention, however, is so weak it smacks of desperation. According to Settles, the government’s disclaimer — which states that VAERS reports can include information that is incomplete or inaccurate and doesn’t provide enough information to determine causation — isn’t prominent enough on the MedAlert’s website.

“Users who go to MedAlerts can search through VAERS reports without ever reading a government disclaimer,” Settles contends, adding that “unlike the CDC’s Wonder database, users on MedAlerts who don’t notice or click on the links won’t see the warnings about what they read.”

Without a clear understanding of the limitations of VAERS, MedAlert’s search results are “vulnerable ... to misinterpretation by members of the public who are not trained to evaluate the information,” Settles insists. She goes on, “When government researchers use and interpret VAERS reports, they are not drawing conclusions based on the numbers alone but, rather, looking for patterns that warrant further study.”

The irony is that this is precisely what Kirsch and many others have been doing. VAERS is a tool that can help identify potential safety issues by looking at patterns and trends, but the total number of reports of a specific problem cannot be discounted because it’s part of the signal.

The fact of the matter is that there are many safety signals in the VAERS data, but those tasked with investigating them are refusing to do it. At this point, one wonders whether any U.S. agency can actually be trusted to conduct an unbiased investigation even if they decided to do one.

Settles also attacks Kirsch personally, dismissing his safety concerns by stating that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has chalked his claims up as being “not based in science.” Essentially, Settles’ article can be summed up as a desperate attempt to redirect people back to the CDC and FDA propaganda, which dismisses the now outlandishly large number of post-jab VAERS reports as being of no consequence.

Post-Jab Neurological Issues Were Under Investigation in 2021

Meanwhile, The Epoch Times recently reported7 that “Two U.S. agencies have been quietly studying neurological problems that have appeared in people who have had COVID-19 vaccines.”

According to emails reviewed by The Epoch Times, Dr. Janet Woodcock, principal deputy director of the FDA, “has been personally evaluating neurologic side effects from the COVID-19 vaccines since at least Sept. 13, 2021.” In a November 16, 2021, email, Woodcock wrote:8

“We are having difficulty pinning down these nervous system-related events that have been brought to our attention. I’ve asked for specific searches of the reports we get both from here and ex-U.S. (as these vaccines have been used in many countries) as well as from trials, where oversight of participants is greater.”

Emails from Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which is in charge of the regulation of vaccines, suggest other FDA epidemiologists were also looking into it, as were a team at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), which belongs to the National Institutes of Health. The NINDS supposedly started seeing vaccine-injured patients in early 2021. According to The Epoch Times:9

“Dr. Avindra Nath, clinical director of the NIH’s NINDS, headed a team that examined patients who experienced serious neurological issues ... Nath and Dr. Farinaz Safavi, one of Nath’s top deputies, have said they believe the issues are linked to the vaccines.

‘We started an effort at NIH to look at neurological side effects of COVID-19 vaccines,’ Safavi said in an email to one of the patients on March 3, 2021. ‘We believe the symptoms to be real. That is the reason we have been treating patients,’ Nath said in a different message on July 27, 2021.”

Were Patients Abandoned to Protect Big Pharma Profits?

While it’s tempting to see this as good news, there’s something really strange going on. For starters, none of these investigations was ever publicly announced. Why not?

What’s worse, as 2021 wore on, the research appears to have stalled and then been abandoned altogether. It’s hard to find another explanation for this other than they don’t want to do anything that might force them to take the COVID jab off the market.

“Even among those examined, the excitement of connecting with top researchers and government officials turned to disappointment and frustration when repeated queries yielded few signs of progress on research into post-vaccination problems,” The Epoch Times writes.10

“Woodcock and Marks would often only provide updates after being prodded ... Nath and Safavi also grew distant as 2021 wore on. They eventually stopped examining patients.”

Brianne Dressen, who had been examined by Nath and given a diagnosis of “post-vaccine neuropathy,” suddenly hit a dead end as 2021 drew to a close. Nath would do no more for her, and also told her to stop referring patients to him, saying they did “not have any clinical trial for vaccine-related complications.” Epoch Times writes:

“Dressen responded in January that she will ‘always be indebted to you and what you did for me,’ crediting Nath ... with keeping her alive. However, she added, her ‘heart is shattered.’

‘I am more confused now than ever about what my active and willing engagement in the scientific process actually meant, or has led to,’ she wrote ... ‘Looking back on this, I can see how unethical it was even when they were helping us,’ Dressen told The Epoch Times.”

Another vaccine-injured patient, Dr. Danice Hertz, who was seen virtually by NIH experts in early 2021, expressed similar feelings to The Epoch Times.

“Hertz described being shocked about the lack of public acknowledgement of the post-vaccination issues by the FDA ... ‘They refuse to acknowledge what’s happening to so many thousands of people,’ Hertz told The Epoch Times. ‘We’ve been completely abandoned. And we’re despondent over it.’”11

Who Is Responsible to Investigate and Treat Side Effects?

People who have been injured by the COVID jab are now in an incredibly tough situation, as doctors, government agencies, and vaccine makers are all refusing responsibility. In a September 16, 2021, email to Dressen, Nath wrote:12

“Ordinarily when any drug is released, it is the manufacturers responsibility to investigate and treat the side effects. Where are the vaccine manufacturers in all of this? Have you tried contacting them? It cannot be the government’s responsibility to pick up after them. They are a [for] profit company and they should be the ones taking change [sic]. Don’t you think?”

But vaccine makers are not investigating or treating side effects either. Why would they? They’ve been granted total immunity against liability. The only way they can be held responsible for damages is if they’re found guilty of willful misconduct or fraud.

Unfortunately, the FDA, CDC, and NIH aren’t looking for misconduct or fraud. They’re covering it up. And mainstream media, including so-called “fact” checkers, have been bought wholesale by an industry that has every intention of obfuscating and hiding the truth about their products.

Why Media Have Embraced Censorship

As noted by independent journalist Paul Thacker,13 mainstream media are refusing to call big tech censorship for what it is, in large part because they support, and indeed need, fake fact checks:

“Disinformation doesn’t have to be sophisticated when people believe what they read. Once this belief is established, censors ensure that disinformation remains strong, followed by denial that there is censoring. That way inconvenient facts do not mar the chosen story.”

In the COVID era, the chosen story includes the fantasy that the COVID jabs are safe and effective and have harmed no one, and there’s simply no way to prop up that story without fake fact checks.

Who Funds the Fake Fact Checkers?

It should come as no surprise then that fact-checking organizations are funded by Big Pharma and Big Pharma PR companies like the Publicis Groupe, which also happens to be a partner of both Google14,15 and the World Economic Forum (WEF).16

Pfizer, for example, funds Facebook’s fact-checking operation.17 Is it any wonder then that Facebook rejects anything that criticizes the COVID jabs? Pfizer also has significant conflicts of interest with Reuters. Reuters chairman (and former CEO) James Smith is both a top investor and board member of Pfizer.18 Might he have a vested interest in keeping Pfizer’s media record clear of incriminating details?

Many fact-checking organizations also belong to the International Fact-Checking Network,19 which is financed by George Soros (through his Open Society Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy), Google, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation20 — all of whom are part of the WEF’s technocratic cabal that is pushing for a Great Reset.

Truth Tellers Have Data, Liars Have None

To end where we began, with the fact check on Kirsch and the NVIC’s MedAlert, a few days after posting his conversation with Settles, he received an email from PolitiFact’s editor-in-chief, Angie Holan, asking him to remove the recording. He refused. In a February 25, 2022, Substack post, Kirsch wrote:21

“Gabrielle asked if she could record the call and I consented, so that entitles all parties to record the call. PolitiFact did not deny that we both consented. She wrote, ‘I am not in the least embarrassed by how she conducted the interview. I'm asking that you remove the video as a professional courtesy because the reporter did not consent to be recorded.’

First of all, she should be embarrassed by the interview. The interviewer was clearly focused on proving an agenda and showed no interest in exploring evidence that was counter her agenda. I gave her the story of the century if she would just follow up on what I suggested she do.

Secondly with respect to permission, by asking me if it was OK to record the call, she is giving implied consent for the call to be recorded since she is doing the asking. All parties on the call consented to being recorded meaning the conversation is no longer private and all parties can record the call.

I then raised the stakes: I challenged PolitiFact to a debate to settle the matter once and for all in front of a live Internet audience as to who are the liars and who are the truth tellers ...

Of course, the problem with a debate is that usually one side wins. If it is the misinformation spreaders, the narrative is crushed. This is why nobody wants a debate: they can’t take the risk.

PolitiFact can’t win a fair debate. There is way too much information out now on how dangerous the vaccines are that is impossible for them to explain. This is why I don’t think that there is a snowball’s chance in hell they will accept.”

Indeed, the chances of PolitiFact accepting an invitation to debate someone like Kirsch, who has all of his ducks in a row, is slim to none. In fact, it’s probably because of the excellent data analysis of Kirsch and others that the CDC has started withholding certain data on COVID jab injuries and hospitalizations. The reason given is that “they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective.” But as noted by Kirsch:22

“The only way the vaccine data could be interpreted as ineffective by us ‘misinformation spreaders’ is if the data shows the vaccines don’t work ... The CDC long-standing policy is that no information can be released that may threaten the national vaccination initiative.

This isn’t about public safety. This is about not letting the public know the vaccines are killing them ... Let’s be clear. The CDC hid the data because the data proves they were lying to us. That’s the real reason.”

With Americans Unable to Buy Gas, Biden Wants to Spend $2,000,000,000 on Global Gender Equality

BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

SEE: https://robertspencer.org/2022/03/with-americans-unable-to-buy-gas-biden-wants-to-spend-2b-on-global-gender-equality;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Americans are struggling to pay for gas, buy bread and meat, but the progressive regime always has money to burn on its political causes.

President Biden will request $2.6 billion for foreign assistance programs that promote general equality worldwide, he announced on International Women’s Day on Tuesday.

How about promoting the ability of Americans to work, eat, drive, and be able to pay their bills?

“Ensuring that every woman and girl has that chance isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s also a strategic imperative that advances the prosperity, stability, and security of our nation and the world,” Biden falsely claimed.

No, moving money to assorted leftist international groups is not a strategic imperative for America, just for the Left.

It has nothing to do with our “prosperity, stability, and security”.

If Biden wants to aid our “prosperity, stability, and security,” he can start by stopping the spending machine so that inflation doesn’t eat Americans alive.

And if he wants to help women, he can stop smelling their hair, groping them, and sexually assaulting them.

Brighteon: United States admits having Bioweapon Labs in Ukraine & New York Times busted by Project Veritas

It was a very interesting day in the world of politics. The United States admits of having Bioweapon Labs in Ukraine after they had previously stated that they had none. Also, Tucker Carlson interviews former Wisconsin Justice Michael Gableman about his recent report on 2020 election fraud in his state. We additionally discuss a blockbuster story that Project Veritas released of a New York Times reporter admitting many things about the fake January 6th narrative that his paper has been writing about. We talk about these stories and also more on this latest episode.

Palubulletin Telegram links:https://palbulletin.com/current-politics/social-media-posts/palbulletin-telegram-posts/

https://t.me/palbulletin

If you would like to donate to help us continue making videos: paypal.me/palbulletin

_________________________________________________________________

Tulsi Gabbard reacts to Romney accusing her of 'treasonous lies' about biolabs

UPDATES: MARCH 11, 2022:

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/03/10/u-s-propaganda-game-faltering-as-truth-about-ukraine-bio-labs-seeps-out-n1565329

https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-03-10-neocon-admits-ukraine-has-biological-research-facilities.html

https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-03-10-us-bioweapons-labs-confirmed-as-deep-state-sets-stage-for-biowar-false-flag-event-to-be-blamed-on-russia.html

https://americanfaith.com/u-s-funds-ukrainian-former-bioweapons-facility-handling-dangerous-materials-with-windows-wide-open/

https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-03-11-russia-says-ukraine-littered-us-bioweapons-labs.html

Archived Records Show U.S. Gov't Funded Biolabs in Ukraine for ‘Vaccine Development'

BY NATIONAL FILE

SEE: https://americanfaith.com/archived-records-show-u-s-government-admitted-to-funding-biolabs-in-ukraine-including-for-vaccine-development/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

The United States government admitted to the existence of U.S. Department of Defense-funded biolabs in Ukraine. The Russian government has made stirring allegations regarding the contents of U.S.-funded Ukrainian labs, suggesting that the labs are home to bioweapons research that could be used against enemies of the globalist Western regime. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense has used a base in San Antonio to study human tissue and RNA material exclusively from Caucasian Russians.

U.S. State Department records show that in 2005 the U.S. Department of Defense made an agreement with Ukraine to fund biolabs to conduct research supposedly to stop the construction of bioweapons. The agreement states: “In order to assist Ukraine in preventing the proliferation of technology, pathogens, and expertise that are located at the Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene (Lviv), the Ukrainian Scientific Research Anti-Plague Institute (Odessa), the Central Sanitary Epidemiological Station (Kyiv), and other facilities in Ukraine identified by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, and that could be used in the development of biological weapons, the U.S. Department of Defense shall provide assistance to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine at no cost, subject to the availability of funds appropriated for this purpose, in accordance with the terms of this Agreement.”

On April 22, 2020, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine acknowledged that the U.S. Department of Defense “works with the Ukrainian Government to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern in Ukrainian government facilities, while allowing for peaceful research and vaccine development.” The U.S. Embassy stated: “The U.S. Embassy would like to set the record straight regarding disinformation spreading in some circles in Ukraine that mirrors Russian disinformation regarding the strong U.S.-Ukrainian partnership to reduce biological threats. Here in Ukraine, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program works with the Ukrainian Government to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern in Ukrainian government facilities, while allowing for peaceful research and vaccine development.  We also work with our Ukrainian partners to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats. Our joint efforts help to ensure that dangerous pathogens do not fall into the wrong hands.  We’re proud to partner with the Ministry of Health, State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, and the Ministry of Defense to make us all safer.”

Here is a list of Archived U.S. State Department records obtained by NATIONAL FILE that show the U.S. Department of Defense funding Ukrainian labs (the article continues below after the list of links):

https://web.archive.org/web/20170130193016/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-kharkiv-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20210511164310/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-luhansk-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170221125752/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-dnipropetrovsk-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20210506053014/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-vinnitsa-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170221125752/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-dnipropetrovsk-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170207122550/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-kherson-fact-sheet-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170223011502/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-ternopil-fact-sheet-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170208032526/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-zakarpatska-fact-sheet-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170208032526/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-zakarpatska-fact-sheet-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170202040923/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-lviv-dl-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170201004446/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-lviv-rdvl-eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20161230143004/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-eidss.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20210506212717/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-pathogen-asset-control.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170207153023/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/dtro-dnipropetrovsk-rdvl_eng.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170211022339/https://photos.state.gov/libraries/ukraine/895/pdf/kiev-ivm-fact-sheet-eng.pdf

Biden administration Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told the U.S. Senate: “Ukraine has biological research facilities which in fact we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of, so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.” Nuland then claimed without evidence that Russia would be responsible for any release of biological weapons stemming from the biolabs. But evidence shows that the United States government is actually funding the biolabs.

Patriot Missiles Headed For Poland. U.S. Rejects Polish Plan to Provide Jets to Ukraine

Patriot Missiles Headed For Poland. U.S. Rejects Polish Plan to Provide Jets to Ukraine

Patriot Missile Systems

US moves missile defense systems to Iraq after attacks by Iran-backed insurgents - Track Persia

BY R. CORT KIRKWOOD

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/patriot-missiles-headed-for-poland-u-s-rejects-polish-plan-to-provide-jets-to-ukraine/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Though President Joe Biden has ruled out sending troops to defend Ukraine from Russia, yesterday the government announced it would send two Patriot missile defense batteries to Poland.

Meanwhile, the United States rejected an offer from NATO ally Poland to help transfer MiG fighters to Ukraine, a move Russia might consider as NATO entering the war.

One possible, terrifying result: Russia using nuclear weapons.

No Fighters

The decision to send the Patriot system, which can knock down incoming ballistic and cruise missiles, was announced yesterday.

“Russia has fired at least 670 missiles into Ukraine, a senior defense official said Tuesday, and there are fears that an errant missile could land in Poland, which the Patriot missile system could defend against,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

“This is a prudent force protection measure that underpins our commitment to Article Five and will in no way support any offensive operations,” the U.S. European Command announced. “Every step we take is intended to deter aggression and reassure our allies.”

Article Five says an attack on one NATO member “shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in the exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

The Pentagon quickly rejected Poland’s offer “to deploy — immediately and free of charge — all their MIG-29 jets to the Ramstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America.”

Poland also asked other NATO allies to release their MiGS, and for the United States to provide replacements for the jets it send to Ramstein.

Biden shot down the proposal.

“The prospect of fighter jets ‘at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America’ departing from a U.S./NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said:

It is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it. We will continue to consult with Poland and our other NATO allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents, but we do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one.

Poland offered the jets after Secretary of State Antony Blinken, appearing on CBS’s Face the Nationsaid Poland and NATO can supply Ukraine with fighters:

That gets a green-light. We’re talking with our Polish friends right now about what we might be able to do to backfill their needs if in fact they choose to provide these fighter jets to the Ukrainians. What can we do? How can we help to make sure that they get something to backfill the planes that they are handing over to the Ukrainians?

How Russia would respond is the question.

Last week, Russia’s Defense Ministry warned that countries who offer airfields to deploy “military aircraft and their subsequent use against the Russian armed forces may be regarded as the involvement of these states in an armed conflict.”

What might it think if and when NATO provides fighters?

Nuclear War Ahead?

The answer to that question is likely the reason Biden rejected Poland’s offers to move MiGs to Germany.

“The world should take Russia’s escalating nuclear threats very seriously, senior intelligence officials told lawmakers Tuesday, while noting that they have not yet seen clear indications that Russian leader Vladimir Putin would respond to military setbacks in Ukraine with nukes,” Patrick Tucker reported for Defense One yesterday:

Putin sparked alarm among nuclear watchers last month when he ordered the country’s nuclear forces be put on a “special regime of combat duty.” Speaking to lawmakers on Tuesday, Avril Haines, the director of Office of the Director for National Intelligence, said that move was mostly “signaling” to keep NATO from intervening in Ukraine. 

“He is effectively signaling that he’s attempting to deter and that he has done that in other ways. For example, having the strategic nuclear forces exercise that we indicated had been postponed until February, again, then as a method of effectively deterring,” Haines said.

Other officials agreed, and a former defense official explained how Russia might use its nukes. “Russia has nuclear weapons as part of a warfighting battle plan,” the official said:

The danger is increasing “precisely because the conflict in Ukraine is going badly.” 

The official outlined a scenario in which Putin consolidates some gains in southern Ukraine but fails to install a new puppet regime. 

“Ukrainians may or may not cease and desist. The West may or may not continue to arm the Ukrainian insurgency and [Putin] might decide, ‘OK. I’m going to set off a bomb somewhere in western Ukraine to send a message that I have crossed the nuclear threshold, and you can follow me if you want.’”

Putin likely thinks NATO threatens Russia because the treaty organization expanded so aggressively after the Soviet Union collapsed. Since 1999, 14 countries have joined. Membership now is 30 nations.

In 1997, Biden himself warned that Russia would view that expansion into the Baltic states as a threat.

Second-grader Chastised for Preaching the Gospel to her Classmates

BY BOB ADELMANN

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/second-grader-chastised-for-preaching-the-gospel-to-her-classmates/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

A second-grade student attending North Hill Elementary School in Des Moines, Washington, has been sent to the principal’s office 10 times since the first of the year for witnessing to her classmates on the school’s playground.

When the parents contacted the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), the public-interest law firm sent a letter to the principal reminding him of the student’s First Amendment-protected rights and suggesting that unless the harassment stopped they would be filing suit.

The principal responded by telling ACLJ that the student was scaring her classmates with talks of Satan and hell. She offered religious tracts which some of her classmates took home with them, resulting, as the public relations officer for the school district told CBN News, in “Multiple parents complain[ing] about their children coming home with religious pamphlets.”

The PR officer filled in the blanks: During playtime, the student would stand on a playground table and preach the Gospel. School officials told her she couldn’t “tell other children they’re going to hell and that [she] must stop distributing what the school considers to be unacceptable religious materials.”

The principal said she would be allowed to distribute religious materials but only if the staff decides they’re appropriate.

The ACLJ was astonished after learning from the parents that their daughter was being stopped at the schoolhouse door and having her backpack searched for those “unacceptable religious materials”:

We were astonished when we were first contacted by a second-grade student’s parents who said their little girl had been sent to the principal’s office at North Hill Elementary School no less than 10 times since January 1st for witnessing to classmates on the playground.

But it only gets worse. Not only were they scolding her for talking about Jesus to her classmates outside of instruction time, but they were stopping her at the entrance to the school every morning to inspect her backpack and remove any Christian tracts!

Her mother witnessed this exchange one morning when dropping her daughter off and immediately confronted the principal. The principal told her that her child is not allowed to pass out tracts or crosses to students because it is upsetting parents, and the school wanted her to confirm that there were no tracts in her daughter’s backpack every morning before dropping her off from now on.

Christian tracts were being treated as contraband, as if speaking about Jesus were an illicit drug.

The ACLJ is prepared to defend the student if the school doesn’t back down, declaring that Supreme Court precedent supports her right to share the Gospel with her classmates:

It is well-settled Supreme Court precedent that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969). [Under that ruling] students are free to express their religious views while at school, which includes sharing Bibles, Christian tracts, and crosses.

Since 1969, Tinker has often been cited in cases such as this one. Although the court at the time of the ruling was considered one of the most liberal in judicial history, the majority opinion, penned by Justice Abe Fortas, is comforting:

First Amendment rights … are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.

This has been the unmistakable holding of this Court for almost 50 years.

In this constitutional republic, wrote Fortas, freedoms come with certain inevitable risks. The alternative is tyranny where no expression outside of what the state declares is allowed:

In our system, undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.

Any departure from absolute regimentation may cause trouble.

Any variation from the majority’s opinion may inspire fear.

Any word spoken, in class, in the lunchroom, or on the campus, that deviates from the views of another person may start an argument or cause a disturbance.

But our Constitution says we must take this risk … and our history says that it is this sort of hazardous freedom — this kind of openness — that is the basis of our national strength and of the independence and vigor of Americans who grow up and live in this relatively permissive, often disputatious, society.

If the Highline School District, where North Hill Elementary School is located, decides to accept ACLJ’s challenge, it will have to show that the student’s behavior “materially and substantially interfere[s] with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school,” according to the Tinker ruling.

ACLJ has given the school district until March 14 to respond. The New American will report on any developments in the case. 

Kentucky Sex Camp Taught Kids About “Illicit” Drugs and Kinky Sex

BY R. CORT KIRKWOOD

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/kentucky-sex-camp-taught-kids-about-illicit-drugs-and-kinky-sex/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Brace yourselves for what promises to be a frightening report from the Manhattan Institute’s Chris Rufo, who has done a valuable service uncovering corporate America’s use of Critical Race Theory to brainwash white employees into hating themselves.

Rufo will soon file a lengthy report on a “Sexy Summer Camp” in Hazard, Kentucky, led by a self-confessed “fat, queer magical pleasure worker,” where children learned to masturbate, about bondage and discipline, and how to use illegal drugs during sex.

Rufo offered a preview of his report on the doings on Twitter. From what he has disclosed so far, it appears the camp is a grooming operation to sexualize confused children and bring them “out of the closet.”

Free Condoms, no Questions

“Sexy Sex Ed is a workshop series that compels teenagers and people of all ages to openly discuss personal and political consent, sexual safety, and anatomy,” the outfit’s website says.

Why anyone would need to be compelled, the website doesn’t say, but it did promise to mail free condoms, “no questions asked,” as part of its China Virus response. The camp was virtual because of the virus.

The camp ran on Tuesdays and Thursdays from July 6 through August 24 last year, and opened with a masturbation “workshop” titled “Sex With Me — Self Pleasure.”

The group advertised it this way: 

Participants will explore personal views on self pleasure, as well as learn techniques to make the most out of their masturbation experience. This workshop will include discussion, games, and some hand on practice (on hands!).

A workshop on sex and drugs promised to train participants in “the nuances of engaging in sexual activity while using licit and illicit drugs”:

Together, we will explore why people engage in sexual activity while on drugs; the nuances of substance use and consent; and harm reduction strategies around having sex on substances.

Another workshop was “The Three P’s: Pee, Poop, and Pleasure.”

“Sexy Trans Sex Ed” focused on “language, affirmation, as well as creating spaces for gender exploration and euphoria through sex,” the schedule says:

Topics will include pre sex discussion, language, body diversity, masturbation, sti’s, gender exploration and affirmation, BDSM, and more!

Of course, the workshops also included a lesson on “self-managed abortion.”

Founder Is a Witch

The founder of Sexy Sex Ed, Tanya Turner, isn’t someone you want near your kids. “Tany is a femme, fat, queer, magical pleasure worker, educator, & artist,” her bio says: 

She was raised in rural Kentucky by a host of witchy women alongside sisters and cousins. A coven-like mountain matriarchy, if you will, on Stony Fork. Her craft tools are candles, crystals, oils, plants, music, sex toys, tarot, the Moon, and instincts of a triple water sign (Cancer Sun — Scorpio Moon & Rising.…

Tanya lives high on a Kentucky mountain top with lots of plants, a steamy hot tub, and several furry familiars.

Rufo helpfully included a video of Turner in which she explains the merits of masturbation.

“Masturbation is really healthy and I recommend it to people of all ages,” Turner says. “All ages. As soon as my nephews could talk, they were doing that”:

We have to learn ways to talk to young people about this so they that they know how to explore their body.

Another of the camp leaders was Larah Helayne, a “nonbinary queer” who wears a shirt touting the Mattachine Society, a defunct group of homosexual communists. Communist homosexual and pedophile Harry Hay, a strong supporter of the National Man-Boy Love Association, founded Mattachine.

The shirt also pays homage to boy rapist Harvey Milk, the San Francisco councilman shot to death in 1978. 

Shortly after Rufo’s tweets, the workshop leaders scrubbed their bios from the Sexy Sex Ed website.

The question is whether any of Sexy Sex Ed’s leaders committed a crime under Kentucky law. “Unlawful transaction with a minor in the first degree,” the law says, is a felony:

A person is guilty of unlawful transaction with a minor in the first degree when he or she knowingly induces, assists, or causes a minor to engage in:

(a) Illegal sexual activity; or

(b) Illegal controlled substances activity other than activity involving marijuana or salvia.

The gravity of the felony depends on the child’s age.

The website does contain information about a camp for 2022.

Remote Learning Has Made the Reading Problems of Kids Worse

The Results Are in on the Effectiveness of Remote Learning During COVID

BY RICK MORAN

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/03/09/remote-learning-has-made-the-reading-problems-of-kids-worse-n1565025;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Early reading skills — skills that often make the difference for children in the poorest schools — are at a 20 year low, according to one study. It’s not surprising considering that kindergarten was canceled in most public schools in 2020.

Now those kids have started school woefully underprepared to learn.

According to the New York Times, “In the Boston region, 60 percent of students at some high-poverty schools have been identified as at high risk for reading problems.” That’s twice the number of kids at high risk before the pandemic.

But the pandemic has only laid bare the catastrophic problem of reading in American schools. Sixty-two years ago when I entered first grade, reading was a matter of learning the rules of grammar and phonics. There were exceptions to those rules — “I” before “E” except after “C” was part of the drill — but for the most part, reading was a question of cognitive learning. Logic and memory were important to developing the skill of reading.

Today, kids don’t learn phonics — at least, not the way we used to. And public school districts across the country are desperate to find teachers who know the subjects of phonics and grammar well enough to teach children what they should have been taught years ago.

The literacy crisis did not start with the pandemic. In 2019, results on national and international exams showed stagnant or declining American performance in reading, and widening gaps between high and low performers. The causes are multifaceted, but many experts point to a shortage of educators trained in phonics and phonemic awareness — the foundational skills of linking the sounds of spoken English to the letters that appear on the page.

The pandemic has compounded those issues.

So why haven’t children been taught to “sound words out,” or follow the basic rules of phonics? It’s because back in the 1990s, a new way of teaching kids how to read swept the nation.

Related: Public School Kids Walk Out Nationwide to Protest School Staying Open

APM Reports:

For decades, reading instruction in American schools has been rooted in a flawed theory about how reading works, a theory that was debunked decades ago by cognitive scientists, yet remains deeply embedded in teaching practices and curriculum materials. As a result, the strategies that struggling readers use to get by — memorizing words, using context to guess words, skipping words they don’t know — are the strategies that many beginning readers are taught in school. This makes it harder for many kids to learn how to read, and children who don’t get off to a good start in reading find it difficult to ever master the process.

The theory is called “Three Cueing,” which comes from the notion that readers use three different kinds of information — or “cues” — to identify words as they are reading. It was a dubious assertion from the start, but after it was proposed in 1967 by an education professor named Ken Goodman, it swept the academic education community and is now deeply embedded in the learning process of a majority of American children.

In the paper, Goodman rejected the idea that reading is a precise process that involves an exact or detailed perception of letters or words. Instead, he argued that as people read, they make predictions about the words on the page using these three cues:
  • graphic cues (what do the letters tell you about what the word might be?)
  • syntactic cues (what kind of word could it be, for example, a noun or a verb?)
  • semantic cues (what word would make sense here, based on the context?)

Goodman concluded that:

Skill in reading involves not greater precision, but more accurate first guesses based on better sampling techniques, greater control over language structure, broadened experiences, and increased conceptual development. As the child develops reading skills and speed, he uses increasingly fewer graphic cues.

This academic quack has been exposed as a dangerous charlatan as a result of the pandemic. In fact, for 200 years of American education, kids were taught to recognize sounds of letters and words, which gave them the tools to “sound a word out” themselves. Any parent can tell you that a child who learns this “whole word” approach to learning how to read does better than one who looks for “cues” in a word’s syntax or semantics.

Those opposed to this Three Cueing approach have been shoved to the sidelines despite the dismal results of reading scores over the last 30 years. They’ve been falling. And American public schools are failing catastrophically to fulfill their most important mission: Preparing children for the challenges of adulthood by giving them the most basic tools to succeed.

 

 

U.S. Intelligence Warns of Iran Domestic Threat

U.S. Intelligence Warns of Domestic Threat as Biden Prepares to Sign Iran Nuke Agreement

BY RICK MORAN

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/03/09/u-s-intelligence-warns-of-domestic-threat-as-biden-prepares-to-sign-iran-nuke-agreement-n1564987;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

With everyone’s attention on Ukraine, this seems the opportune time to come to an agreement with the mad mullahs in Iran so we can pretend they won’t build nuclear weapons for a while.

Biden and the U.S. negotiators surely have no illusions about Iran at this point. The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment, published on Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), made that absolutely crystal clear.

The threats aren’t directed at Biden’s people. The Iranians have the hots for Trump and his people.

CBSNews:

CBS News has obtained two persistent threat assessments submitted to Congress by the State Department in January 2022 which cited a “serious and credible threat” on the lives of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Trump administration Iran envoy Brian Hook. These non-public assessments show that throughout 2021, and again in 2022, the State Department assessed the need to provide round-the-clock, U.S.-taxpayer funded diplomatic security details to both men.

The Washington Free Beacon had reported on these blood-chilling threats in January. But the Biden administration doesn’t appear to be too worried — at not least, not worried enough to threaten to walk out of the nuclear talks unless Iran stops targeting American diplomats.

Trying to kill other nations’ diplomats directly contravenes international law, several treaties to which Iran is a signatory, and common decency. But Biden and his crew desperately need a foreign policy win to get his numbers up with Democrats, and making nice with terrorists is very popular in some leftist circles.

On Face the Nation this past Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken sidestepped a question about whether a renewed diplomatic agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program would also address threats on U.S. soil,  including any targeting his predecessor, Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of state when the assassination strike against Soleimani took place. Blinken instead addressed the broad threat posed to U.S. personnel from Iranian malign actors, saying, “We will stand and act against those every single day.”

The secretary has previously said that Iran is weeks away from obtaining enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, hence the U.S. attempts to revive the 2015 international agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which would lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for a temporary cap on its nuclear development. President Trump exited the JCPOA in 2018 by sanctioning Iran, and in July 2019, Iran began nuclear-related activities that exceeded the limits of that agreement. The intelligence community assesses that if Iran does not win sanctions relief, then it will proceed with enriching nuclear fuel to weapons-grade material.

Iran was “weeks away” from being able to construct a weapon back in 2015 when the deal was first signed. That agreement did not slow Iran in its drive to build a bomb. The highly enriched uranium that Iran sent to Russia for “safekeeping” was returned to Tehran a few months later. And while Barack Obama bragged that the deal stopped Iran from improving its centrifuge technology, the Iranians read the deal differently and were installing centrifuge machines that were three times more efficient in enriching uranium.

Now Iran has even better centrifuges—and many more of them.

The crime is that this is no surprise to the Biden administration. They know that Iran isn’t going to stop until they have a working bomb. Now, with the Ukraine War taking everyone’s attention, Biden plans to quickly wrap up the negotiations and announce that he’s brought peace in our time … or something.

“We were very clear when we were in the deal originally that nothing about the deal prevents us from taking action against Iran when it’s engaged in actions that threaten us, threaten our allies and partners. That will very much continue,” Blinken said.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff agrees that the threats do not have to be addressed in any renewed nuclear-related deal with Iran.

“These other malign activities of Iran’s, their plots against the U.S. personnel or Americans around the world we can deal with and have to deal with separately, and we should deal with them aggressively,” Schiff told Face the NationSunday. “We need to go after all of this, not necessarily in one agreement.”

Let’s get this straight: Iran could assassinate Pompeo or any other Trump-era U.S. official and it wouldn’t stop the nuclear deal? That’s a “separate” issue and shouldn’t get in the way of our surrender on the nuclear deal?

Our nation’s security is in the very best of hands.