Eastern Europe under Extraordinary Threat from Russia

Posted on January 24, 2022January 24, 2022 by Denise Simon

In part: Russia has been chipping away at the country since at least 2014, when the pro-Russian President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, lost an election, and Putin invaded the Crimea, the peninsula that sticks out into the Black Sea and separates it from the Sea of Azov to its northeast.

Stealth war

As part of Putin’s campaign, a war that isn’t quite a war, most authorities agree that Russian-based hackers mounted a cyberattack called NotPetya back in 2017. It was aimed primarily at Ukrainian institutions, but it also affected thousands of other systems as well. The White House later estimated that NotPetya caused about $10 billion worth of damage worldwide.

Now we come down to this week. On January 15, dozens of Ukrainian government computer systems were infected with malware disguised as ransomware. An infected computer displayed a demand for a certain ransom to be paid in Bitcoin, but what really happened is that the malware “renders the computer system inoperable,” ransom or no ransom.

Microsoft issued a statement saying that they observed these attacks aimed primarily at Ukrainian government agencies and closely-allied organisations, and that they had issued updates that will address the problems. But in the meantime, the Ukraine is suffering yet another cyberattack which appears to be instigated by Russia, although no firm evidence of the source has yet been forthcoming.

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The head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency told Military Times in November that Russia could launch an attack through Belarus.

source

Then there is the matter of Putin working to install a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine.

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) named former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential Kremlin candidate and once again warned Russia of “severe costs” of activities to subvert Ukraine.

“The information being released today shines light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin’s thinking,” UK foreign secretary Liz Truss said in a statement on Saturday.

Russia rejects UK claim

Russia on Sunday rejected a British claim that Russia was seeking to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration.

“The disinformation spread by the British Foreign Office is more evidence that it is the Nato countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, who are escalating tensions around Ukraine,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday. “We call on the British Foreign Office to stop provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense.” source

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Some other disturbing details:

The Russian Navy has announced plan gunnery and missile firing 160 nautical miles off Mizen Head. The exercises, from February 3rd to 8th, are just on the edge of the drop-off into deep water. It is also within Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Coming at a time of heightened tension between Russia and the West, this highlights Ireland’s strategic position.
Of all the world’s ocean, it is interesting that Russia selected this small area in the Irish EEZ. It is far from Russia’s operating bases and regular training areas. So the location seems chosen for strategic or political reasons.
Germany is actively collaborating with Russian armed aggression against Ukraine. The Estonians will tell the Germans to go to hell and the rest of NATO will back Estonia against the Moscow-Berlin axis.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is still in force. The Russian regime of state terrorism and the Putinversteher faction in Germany are allied to destroy the freedom and independence of Eastern Europe.
Germany has no business being in NATO when it aggressively thwarts the principle of collective security on which the alliance was founded. Germany has gone full Soviet with the new Chancellor.
Russian ally Germany refuses to permit Estonia to transfer artillery to Ukraine, giving a boost to the Russian army which is mobilized for an offensive.
The U.S. has ordered all family members of its embassy in Ukraine to evacuate amid rising tensions of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. State Department also said non-essential personnel could also leave the country at the U.S. government’s expense.

One more item. Since President Biden halted the United States from being energy independent which was achieved under President Trump, the United States no longer exports energy to Europe. In fact, conditions are so dire that the United States is actually buying dirty oil from Russia. Think of that. If Russia decides to punish the U.S. even more….you can bet the cost of gasoline at the pump with reach $8.00 to $10.00 a gallon.

Then there is the threat of the United States versus Russia in the Arctic and in Space…imagine escalating hostilities in those battle-spaces…

Meanwhile…Ukrainians are drilling for safety in fallout shelters.

Will Justice Sotomayor Recuse on the Mandate Cases?

Posted on January 8, 2022January 8, 2022 by Denise Simon

If Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor reads the New York Times and watches CNN, then we clearly understand how her alleged knowledge of all things vaccines and mandates are so wrong and exaggerated. This Judge made statements during oral arguments that were wildly wrong. Yeesh. The Justices do gather after arguments are presented and confab on the cases and then collaborate with their clerks. We can only hope Sotomayor gets the memo on how wrong she is or she must recuse from the case(s) dealing with OSHA, vaccines and mandates.

If the Supreme Court rules on the side of the Federal government then the power of the government over all citizens is limitless and tyranny is in stone.

As noted by The Federalist in part for more details –>

Brian Fletcher, U.S. Principal Deputy Solicitor General, representing the federal government in Biden v. Missouri, told justices that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra should be allowed to keep the mandate. Challengers, however, noted that the rule forces a medical procedure on healthcare workers who could leave the workforce, and leave rural and poor populations in need of care vulnerable.

“Exercising this kind of power to force the individual to submit to a medical treatment has never ever been something that has been authorized by Congress or done by an agency on an emergency basis,” Louisiana Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill said. “But I don’t think in this case that justifies them co-opting a quintessential state police power. In fact, the opposite is true.”

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch all seemed skeptical of the vaccine mandate on the grounds that the federal government was extending its reach into state issues. In his questioning, Gorsuch emphasized that the mandate seems less effective as a health and safety protocol and is more of an issue of control.

“Could CMS also implement regulations about exercise regimes?” Gorsuch asked, wondering if “substances that must be ingested by hospital employees” could be implemented “in the name of health and safety?”

Part of this control, Gorsuch hinted, is coming via funding threats.

“These statutes sometimes constitute, we’re told, 10 percent of all the funding state governments receive. This regulation affects, we’re told, 10 million healthcare workers and will cost over a billion dollars for employers to comply with. So what’s your reaction to that? Why isn’t this a regulation that effectively controls the employment and tenure of healthcare workers at hospitals, an issue Congress said the agency didn’t have the authority, that that should be left to the states to regulate?” Gorsuch asked.

In response, Sotomayor asserted her belief that “if you want my money your facility has to do this.”

“This is not an issue of power between the states and federal government. This is an issue of what right does the federal government [have] to dictate what it wants to buy,” Sotomayor said.

“Your Honor, it is a vaccine requirement masquerading as a condition of participation,” Jesus Osete, Missouri Deputy Attorney General, replied.

During the arguments, Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Stephen Breyer, and the counsel arguing in favor of the mandate continued to spew misinformation about COVID-19 and the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. Kagan repeatedly lied that vaccinated workers couldn’t transmit the virus despite numerous admissions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the jab doesn’t stop viral spread and data showing a significant number of breakthrough COVID cases.

“All the Secretary is doing here is to say to providers, you know what? Basically, the one thing you can’t do is to kill your patients. So you have to get vaccinated so that you’re not transmitting the disease that can kill elderly Medicare patients, that can kill sick Medicaid patients,” Kagan said. “I mean, that seems like a pretty basic infection prevention measure. You can’t be the carrier of disease.”

She later claimed, without evidence, that “people are not showing up to hospitals because they’re afraid of getting COVID from staff.”

Breyer, who used rising COVID-19 case numbers to justify his support for the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for the private sector, also lied about the shot and COVID hospitalizations.

“There are 750,000 people got this yesterday, but the hospitals are full to overflowing, that there is a problem worse than diptheria,” Breyer said. “They’re filling up hospital beds and others are dying because they can’t get in. Okay. Now public interest, call it something else, call it what you might, but it seems to me, it’s hard for me to believe, but it seems to me that every minute that these things are not in effect, thousands of more people are getting this disease. And we have some discretionary power.”

Is the U.S. Healthcare System About to Collapse?

Posted on November 22, 2021November 22, 2021 by Denise Simon

There’s a reason a 76-year-old woman with a broken femur had to wait 95 minutes for an ambulance at the main TSA checkpoint in the middle of the nation’s busiest airport over the summer.

Half of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s fleet of fully-staffed EMS ambulances were 500 miles away.

11Alive’s investigative team tracked the airport’s Medic 1 and Medic 2 ambulances to the back lot of a factory in Ohio, where Atlanta Fire & Rescue had sent them for extended rebuilds with no replacements ready.

We were told at the time when those two ambulances went into the shop that they will only take 90 days to get it back in service,” Airport General Manager Balram Bheodari told the Atlanta City Council Transportation Committee on Aug. 11. “However, because of the disruption of the supply chain, we were informed it would take 180 days to get those ambulances back,” Bheodari testified.

But the city was told the ambulances would be out of service for 240 days, according to internal documents obtained by The Reveal through public records requests.

The vendor’s written quote with the 240-day estimate was delivered to the city in November of last year, six months before the ambulances were sent to Ohio. Both Medic 1 and Medic 2 were sent for refurbishment at the same time, further reducing available ambulances at Hartsfield-Jackson, the nation’s busiest airport.

The airport had purchased new ambulances in the past, which can replace the old units with no loss of service. However, it’s not clear why the city chose a lengthy rebuild instead, or why both units were sent to Ohio simultaneously instead of one at a time.

Crazy…but then again…emergency rooms cant handle patients anyway as noted below.

Hospitals battle burnout, compete for nurses as pandemic spurs US staffing woes | S&P Global Market Intelligence

LONG BEACH, Long Island (WABC) — The emergency department at a Nassau County hospital has temporarily closed due to nursing staff shortages as a result of New York’s vaccine mandate.

Officials at Mount Sinai South Nassau said Monday that all other options were exhausted before the decision was made to close the ER, starting at 3 p.m.

Instead, patients in need of emergency care will be directed to the hospital’s main campus in Oceanside. An ambulance will be stationed at the ER at all times for the duration of the closure.

The closure will last for up to four weeks and could be expanded, depending on staff availability.

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Hospitals and nursing homes around the U.S. are bracing for worsening staff shortages as state deadlines arrive for health care workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

With ultimatums taking effect this week in states including New York, California, Rhode Island and Connecticut, the fear is that some employees will quit or let themselves be fired or suspended rather than get the vaccine.

“How this is going to play out, we don’t know. We are concerned about how it will exacerbate an already quite serious staffing problem,” said California Hospital Association spokesperson Jan Emerson-Shea, adding that the organization “absolutely” supports the state’s vaccination requirement. source

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Cyndy O’Brien, an emergency room nurse at Ocean Springs Hospital on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, could not believe her eyes as she arrived for work. There were people sprawled out in their cars gasping for air as three ambulances with gravely ill patients idled in the parking lot. Just inside the front doors, a crush of anxious people jostled to get the attention of an overwhelmed triage nurse.

“It’s like a war zone,” said Ms. O’Brien, who is the patient care coordinator at Singing River, a small health system near the Alabama border that includes Ocean Springs. “We are just barraged with patients and have nowhere to put them.”

The bottleneck, however, has little to do with a lack of space. Nearly 30 percent of Singing River’s 500 beds are empty. With 169 unfilled nursing positions, administrators must keep the beds empty.

Nursing shortages have long vexed hospitals. But in the year and a half since its ferocious debut in the United States, the coronavirus pandemic has stretched the nation’s nurses as never before, testing their skills and stamina as desperately ill patients with a poorly understood malady flooded emergency rooms. They remained steadfast amid a calamitous shortage of personal protective equipment; spurred by a sense of duty, they flocked from across the country to the newest hot zones, sometimes working as volunteers. More than 1,200 of them have died from the virus. source

CVS changing the business model could be a clue of what is to come –>

CVS announced its plans to begin closing its doors–about 900 locations across the country. Though that looks like a lot, it’s only 10 percent of the company’s retail locations. Though don’t expect the remaining 90 percent to look 100 percent like CVS stores as we know them. Because the big news is really less about its closures and more about what’s to come for the future of the pharmaceutical retailer. And that’s the accessibility of healthcare services across the nation. What CVS is doing is exactly what it set out to do when it first launched nearly six decades ago in 1963.

In the words of the company’s mission, its goal is to “make high-quality health and pharmacy services safe, affordable and easy to access.”

This is a crucial reminder to businesses everywhere: growth doesn’t mean getting bigger, it means getting better. That does not mean getting better at everything, as many are compelled to do. But getting better at what matters most: your core offering. Because it’s also the core reason customers choose your business over the alternatives. And in the case of the pharmaceutical retailer, that’s healthcare.

Your local CVS will no longer necessarily be a place to go when you realized you’re out of milk or to pick up a greeting card–and never mind a late-night destination to grab that 6-pack when no other stores nearby are still open. But your local CVS will be turned into “destinations that offer a range of health-care services, from flu shots to diagnostic tests,” according to the company’s news release.

In other words, a place to go for all things health–as one would expect a pharmacy to be. However, it had become a company that wore many hats. Not only does it serve as a drug store, but also as a convenience store, a grocery store, and in some places, even as a liquor store. With so many revenue channels, there were a number of ways in which the company could grow.

For example, in an effort to expand it could have worked to more directly compete with Walmart, which also offers in-store pharmacies. Or it could have gone after the eCommerce giant, Amazon, which acquired PillPack and entered the pharmaceutical space with its own online pharmacy.

But in a wise–and evidently strategic–decision, it opted to expand in terms of depth. In other words, rather than continuing to be a jack of all trades, it will focus on being the master of easily accessible healthcare And to make strides towards this decision that reinforces its mission, it’s stepping away from offering the breadth of its current offerings. After all, cigarettes and scratch tickets aren’t exactly synonymous with health. source

Biden Admin is Forcing Every City/Town to be an Illegal Sanctuary

Posted on November 22, 2021November 22, 2021 by Denise Simon

Where is the compliance to law on this?

Flying into the United States from any foreign country, passengers even though vaccinated with validated proof still go through extreme procedures due to Covid including additional testing, including American citizens returning home. Yet….walking across the Southern border requires….NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING.

According to CDC requirements, all air passengers two years of age or older traveling internationally, regardless of vaccination status, must provide a negative test to the airline before boarding the flight.

Passengers fully vaccinated must provide a negative test no more than three days before the flight’s departure from a foreign country, in addition to showing proof of vaccination.

Passengers over two years of age not fully vaccinated must provide a negative test no more than one day before the flight’s departure. Except in the limited circumstances allowed by CDC, unvaccinated travelers will be US citizens and legal permanent residents.

Those who recently recovered from COVID-19 may travel with documentation of recovery and a letter from a licensed healthcare provider or public health official indicating the patient is cleared for travel.

However, it was just a few months ago that a Federal judge blocked portions of Florida law passed in 2019 preventing the entire state of Florida from being a sanctuary state.

A federal judge in Miami on Tuesday blocked Florida from enforcing a ban on so-called sanctuary cities, declaring portions of a law unconstitutional and tinged with “discriminatory motives.”

The judge’s ruling struck down a key portion of the 2019 law that prohibits local and state officials from adopting “sanctuary” policies for undocumented migrants, a main focus for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who vowed to ban “sanctuary cities” in Florida when running for governor in 2018 even though there were none in the state.

The judge also blocked the state from enforcing a provision in the law that requires law enforcementofficers and agencies to “use best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law” when they are acting within their official duties. But the court allowed other provisions to stand, including one that required state and local law enforcement agencies to comply with immigration detainers — federal requests to hold undocumented immigrants past their release dates so that immigration agents can pick them up. The entire ruling is found here.

So, the Biden administration is taking advantage of this ruling by flying into the State of Florida, secretly and without any warning, several dozens flights full of illegal immigrants. Frankly, Governor De Santis should revoke all landing rights to DHS chartered flights…but read more….

TSA screeners face vaccine deadline with up to 40 percent lacking shots - The Boston Globe Policies and procedures are NOT law by the way…

Under a new policy, federal immigration law enforcement is now largely prohibited from arresting criminal aliens in your neighborhood if you live near a playground, a recreation center, a school, a place of worship or religious study, a location that offers vaccinations (such as a pharmacy), a community-based organization, any location that hosts weddings (such as a civic center, hotel, or park), any location with a school bus stop, any place “where children gather,” and many more places that are common to most towns.

What used to be safe spaces for law-abiding Americans and vulnerable members of society have been transformed into safe spaces for violent offenders with no right to be in the United States.

The scope is virtually limitless and prohibits all of the authorities of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), such as “arrests, civil apprehensions, searches, inspections, seizures, service of charging documents or subpoenas, interviews, and immigration enforcement surveillance.”

Officers are prohibited from doing their job anywhere “near” a so-called “protected area,” an imprecise standard that Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), admits has “no bright-line definition.” Mayorkas, who outlined the new policy last month, claims that putting a sanctuary in every community is a “noble” way to “advance our country’s well-being” and ensure that illegal aliens have access to “essential services” and can engage in “essential activities.”

ICE already had a sensitive locations policy that largely prohibited enforcement in religious institutions, at weddings, at hospitals, and at marked school bus stops when children are present, for example. The Biden administration’s new “protected areas” policy is meant to look similar, but it’s an overbroad, nationwide sanctuary policy in disguise and applies to locations that aren’t even open.

Because it “applies at all times and is not limited by hours or days of operation,” this means that ICE officers are now prohibited from making arrests or even conducting surveillance near any location where a wedding might occur even if a wedding isn’t occurring, or near any location that has an unmarked school bus stop in the middle of summer when school is out, or near a recreation center that’s closed for the winter, for example. When you plot out on a map the locations that are now no-go zones for federal law enforcement, it becomes clear that the real intent of this policy is to transform huge portions of our communities into safe havens for criminal aliens.

Biden’s DHS explains that the limitations don’t apply where there’s an “imminent” risk of harm or a “hot pursuit,” but those are rare circumstances. It means that officers are prohibited from arresting a known child abuser on the same street as a playground unless they observe the alien starting to victimize someone. Of course, officers are prohibited from conducting surveillance near playgrounds anyhow, so officers likely wouldn’t be present to stop an assault from happening.

The Biden administration has already limited which illegal aliens can be arrested; most foreigners who violate our immigration laws, including most criminal aliens, are currently allowed to run free. But even for those violent offenders the Biden administration claims to support arresting, the ability of ICE officers to make a targeted arrest (which often requires surveillance in order to confirm whether a target is at a location) has been dramatically curtailed by this policy. Public safety has taken a backseat to illegal alien advocacy.

To those who live in a neighborhood near a church, a school, a playground, or near any of the dozens of other locations implicated by this policy: Biden’s political appointees have decided that you and your family don’t deserve the protection you once had, and that shielding criminal aliens from the law is the top priority. source

Hunter’s Deal with China on Cobalt, Slaves and Human Rights Violations

Posted on November 22, 2021November 22, 2021 by Denise Simon

It is not just about batteries for electric vehicles, it is really all batteries and the Obama/Biden administration allowed this nefarious deal to happen.

The Biden family began gifting China with anything it wanted and it continues now in the Biden presidency.

Congo and the cobalt mines employ slaves….even child slaves. so, let’s begin here shall we?

Google parent Alphabet, Apple, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla won’t have to face a class action suit claiming the tech giants bear responsibility for the alleged use of child labour in Congo to mine cobalt, a key ingredient of batteries in electric cars and consumer electronics, a federal court in Washington ruled Tuesday.

An NGO called International Rights Advocates launched the suit in December 2019, on behalf of more than a dozen families of children killed or hurt in the artisinal cobalt mines in the Congo, responsible for more than two-thirds of global production of the metal. source

If the whole world wants cobalt, and all the cobalt is in Congo, why are people in the country dying of hunger?

The president’s son was part owner of a venture involved in the $3.8 billion purchase by a Chinese conglomerate of one of the world’s largest cobalt deposits. The metal is a key ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles.

NYT’s: An investment firm where Hunter Biden, the president’s son, was a founding board member helped facilitate a Chinese company’s purchase from an American company of one of the world’s richest cobalt mines, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mr. Biden and two other Americans joined Chinese partners in establishing the firm in 2013, known as BHR and formally named Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Company.

The three Americans, all of whom served on the board, controlled 30 percent of BHR, a private equity firm registered in Shanghai that makes investments and then flips them for a profit. The rest of the company is owned or controlled by Chinese investors that include the Bank of China, according to records filed with Chinese regulators.

One of BHR’s early deals was to help finance an Australian coal-mining company controlled by a Chinese state-owned firm. It also assisted a subsidiary of a Chinese defense conglomerate in buying a Michigan auto parts maker.

The firm made one of its most successful investments in 2016, when it bought and later sold a stake in CATL, a fast-growing Chinese company that is now the world’s biggest maker of batteries for electric vehicles.

The mining deal in Congo also came in 2016, when the Chinese mining outfit China Molybdenum announced that it was paying $2.65 billion to buy Tenke Fungurume, a cobalt and copper mine, from the American company Freeport-McMoRan.

Glencore to Reopen One of World's Biggest Cobalt Mines in Congo - Bloomberg

As part of that deal, China Molybdenum sought a partner to buy out a minority stakeholder in the mine, Lundin Mining of Canada. That is when BHR became involved.

Records in Hong Kong show that the $1.14 billion BHR, through subsidiaries, paid to buy out Lundin came entirely from Chinese state-backed companies.

China Molybdenum lined up about $700 million of that total as loans from Chinese state-backed banks, including China Construction Bank. BHR raised the remaining amount from obscure entities with names like Design Time Limited, an offshore company controlled by China Construction’s investment bank, according to the Hong Kong filings.

Before the deal was done, BHR also signed an agreement that allowed China Molybdenum to buy BHR’s share of the mine, which the company did two years later, the filings show. That purchase gave China Molybdenum 80 percent ownership of the mine. (Congo’s state mining enterprise kept a stake for itself.)

By the time BHR sold its share in 2019, Mr. Biden controlled 10 percent of the firm through Skaneateles L.L.C., a company based in Washington. While Chinese corporate records show Skaneateles remains a part owner of BHR, Chris Clark, a lawyer for Mr. Biden, said that he “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles.” The Chinese records show that Mr. Biden was no longer on BHR’s board as of April 2020. Mr. Biden did not respond to requests for comment.

A former BHR board member told The New York Times that Mr. Biden and the other American founders were not involved in the mine deal and that the firm earned only a nominal fee from it. The money, the former board member said, went into the firm’s operating funds and was not distributed to its owners.

It is unclear how the firm was chosen by China Molybdenum. Current executives at BHR did not return emails and phone calls seeking comment. “We don’t know Hunter Biden, nor are we aware of his involvement in BHR,” Vincent Zhou, a spokesman for China Molybdenum, said in an email.

A dozen executives from companies involved in the deal, including Freeport McMoRan and Lundin, said in interviews that they were not given a reason for BHR’s participation. Most of the executives also said they were unaware during the deal of Mr. Biden’s connection to the firm.

Paul Conibear, Lundin’s chief executive at the time, said it was made clear that China Molybdenum was leading the transaction even though the buyer of Lundin’s stake was BHR.

“I never really understood who they were,” Mr. Conibear said of BHR.

When the mine was sold, Mr. Biden’s father was near the end of his term as vice president. In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Hunter Biden’s business ties in China were widely publicized.

But BHR’s role in the Chinese mine purchase was not a major focus. It has taken on new relevance because the Biden administration warned this year that China might use its growing dominance of cobalt to disrupt America’s retooling of its auto industry to make electric vehicles. The metal is among several key ingredients in electric car batteries.

When asked if the president had been made aware of his son’s connection to the sale, a White House spokesman said, “No.”