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Bad Guys

Harris walks back Biden's regime change comments after minutes of ducking the question

Nicole Silverio
The Daily Caller
Fri, 01 Apr 2022 19:12 UTC
kamala harris
© Screenshot/Rumble/MSNBCVice President Kamala Harris was interviewed by MSNBC's Joy Reid, April 1, 2022
Vice President Kamala Harris walked back President Joe Biden's apparent call for regime change after minutes of dodging the question on The ReidOut Friday.

Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power" during his Saturday speech in Warsaw, Poland. The White House then denied the administration's calls for regime change, claiming the president argued that "Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors of the region."

MSNBC host Joy Reid asked Harris if she agrees with the president's previous statement.

"Listen, I think that you frame the point quite accurately and well," Harris began. "That America's policy has been and will continue to be focused on the real issue at hand which is one, the needs of the Ukrainian people, which we will continue to support through humanitarian assistance and security assistance. But also insuring that there's going to be serious consequences for Vladimir Putin and Russian aggression as it relates to Ukraine."

Comment: The Biden administration can't seem keep its messaging straight. How much is due to President Houseplant's addled, unscripted brain thoughts, and how much is due to conflict among the Obama and the Progressive factions in the White House?

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Light Saber

Cawthorn blames 'the left and the media' after intra-GOP furor over sex-and-drugs comments

Olivia Beavers and Craig Howie
Politico
Fri, 01 Apr 2022 18:33 UTC
madison cawthorn congress hallway
© Andrew Harnik/AP Photo“The left and the media want to use my words to divide the GOP. … I will not back down to the mob, and I will not let them win,” Rep. Madison Cawthorn said
Cawthorn has faced widespread public criticism from congressional Republicans and within the North Carolina GOP following his comments on a podcast.

Amid a burgeoning congressional controversy, Rep. Madison Cawthorn on Friday blamed Democrats and the media for amplifying his comments that some of his fellow GOP members engage in orgies and use cocaine.

"My comments on a recent podcast appearance calling out corruption have been used by the left and the media to disparage my Republican colleagues and falsely insinuate their involvement in illicit activities," Cawthorn said in a statement without addressing the substance of his own comments directly.

"The left and the media want to use my words to divide the GOP. ... I will not back down to the mob, and I will not let them win."

Comment: What set the firestorm off:

Madison Cawthorn says DC is orgy-filled, cocaine-fueled 'House of Cards'

Kevin McCarthy: Not exactly a model of moral superiority:

Kevin McCarthy: Madison Cawthorn wrong for calling Zelensky a 'thug'

Cawthorn has broken the Congressional omertà code. How badly will he pay?

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Stock Up

Shaken at first, many anti-war Russians now rally behind Putin on Ukraine

Anton Troianovski, Ivan Nechepurenko and Valeriya Safronova
New York Times
Fri, 01 Apr 2022 17:49 UTC
Moscow theater building
© Yuri Kochetkov/EPA, via ShutterstockA Moscow theater building with the letter Z, signifying support for the war.
The stream of antiwar letters to a St. Petersburg lawmaker has dried up. Some Russians who had criticized the Kremlin have turned into cheerleaders for the war. Those who publicly oppose it have found the word "traitor" scrawled on their apartment door.

Five weeks into President Vladimir V. Putin's invasion of Ukraine, there are signs that the Russian public's initial shock has given way to a mix of support for their troops and anger at the West. On television, entertainment shows have been replaced by extra helpings of propaganda, resulting in an around-the-clock barrage of falsehoods about the "Nazis" who run Ukraine and American-funded Ukrainian bioweapons laboratories.


Comment: They're not falsehoods, and the NYT knows it. Ukraine is the only European nation where self-declared Nazis form their own militias - incorporated into the national military - and have held or currently hold government positions. And yes, those US-funded biolabs exist.


Polls and interviews show that many Russians now accept Mr. Putin's contention that their country is under siege from the West and had no choice but to attack. The war's opponents are leaving the country or keeping quiet.


Comment: Like it or not, this is what Russia is like, and has been like since the Vatican and Poland-Lithuania waged a hybrid war against the Russian empire 400 years ago.


"We are in a time machine, hurtling into the glorious past," an opposition politician in the western Russian region of Kaliningrad, Solomon I. Ginzburg, said in a telephone interview. He portrayed it as a political and economic regression into Soviet times. "I would call it a devolution, or an involution."


Comment: Not Soviet times. This is deep Russian security culture.


The public's endorsement of the war lacks the patriotic groundswell that greeted the annexation of Crimea in 2014. But polls released this week by Russia's most respected independent pollster, Levada, showed Mr. Putin's approval rating hitting 83 percent, up from 69 percent in January. Eighty-one percent said they supported the war, describing the need to protect Russian speakers as its primary justification.

Comment: The fact is, the videos of Ukrainians torturing and killing civilians and POWs has contributed to this. Now many Russians who were apathetic can see what they're fighting against - a level of psychopathic barbarism unseen in Europe for many decades.

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Handcuffs

Former prosecutor on Hunter Biden: 'Anybody else would have been indicted already'


Fox News
Fri, 01 Apr 2022 18:24 UTC
Joe/Hunter Biden
© UnknownFormer VP Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden
Former federal prosecutor Brett Tolman joined Fox & Friends First Friday to discuss the GOP calling for an investigation into Hunter Biden's foreign business activities and how this could involve President Biden. Tolman emphasized the need for FISA warrants and a team of lawyers to investigate these claims. The White House Thursday stood by President Biden's past assertion that "nothing unethical" occurred.

Comment: With such a wealth of evidence, why are matters moving so slowly? Could it be the corruption is so pervasive that the Washington elite would be completely wiped out?

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Megaphone

Best of the Web: Pakistan PM Imran Khan accuses US of meddling & trying to oust him in address to nation

Matthew Lodge
Daily Mail
Thu, 31 Mar 2022 18:39 UTC
Imran Khan
© ANI Photo/PTVPakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan addresses nation in a televised speech on Thursday, March 31, 2022.
The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has accused the United States of trying to oust him from power in an extraordinary TV rant amid the threat of a no-confidence vote in his leadership.

The former cricketer turned politician is currently facing the biggest challenge to his rule since he was elected in 2018, with opposition parties accusing him of economic mismanagement and foreign-policy bungling.

No Pakistan premier has ever seen out a full term, and a debate on a no-confidence motion against him in parliament was postponed.

It comes as the government is also battling to contain a rise in militancy by the Pakistan Taliban, which on Wednesday announced an offensive against security forces during Ramadan, due to begin within days with the sighting of the next new moon.


Comment: The question is whether the 'Pakistan Taliban' are the same as Afghanistan's Taliban, because in Afghanistan the Taliban are under the watch of Russia and China and it's unlikely they would tolerate unfounded aggression towards Pakistan, a partner of theirs. One wonders whether those causing problems in Pakistan is actually under the control of the US.


Comment: The West is getting so desperate that it's sanctioning itself out of the global economy and is messily lashing out at any country showing autonomy:

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Eye 1

The US and its allies are weighing security guarantees for Ukraine, but they're unlikely to give Kyiv what it wants

Natasha Bertrand
CNN
Fri, 01 Apr 2022 11:26 UTC
Kyiv (Kiev)
The US and its allies have been weighing how the West could provide Ukraine with alternative security guarantees should it forgo its NATO membership bid as a concession to Russia to end the war, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The discussions, which have included the Ukrainians directly, are in very early phases because it is not clear to US, Western and Ukrainian officials that the Russian negotiations are anything more than a smokescreen.

But it is unlikely, they noted, that the US and its allies will ultimately offer Ukraine the kinds of legally binding protections it is requesting.

In peace talks with Russia in Istanbul this week, Ukrainian negotiators proposed that Ukraine might be willing to commit to neutrality when it comes to NATO. But at the same time, they want Western countries, including the US and UK, to guarantee via ratified treaties that they would protect Ukraine should Russia invade again in the future.

Such an agreement would mirror NATO's Article V, which states that an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all members. A main impetus for Russia's invasion was a desire to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO; it's unclear whether another collective security agreement would be any more palatable to Moscow.
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Brain

Via clever tactics, Putin gets his way on rubles for energy demand

Mish
Mish Talk
Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:01 UTC
putin close-up
Some reports say Putin backed down on his demand for rubles for energy. Those reports are essentially wrong.

Understanding Putin's Clever Tactic

Russian president Vladimir Putin demanded rubles for energy. His concern was that new EU sanctions that would freeze euro-denominated accounts of Russian energy suppliers.

One of Putin's fear stems from the fact that payments for gas shipped in April get paid later in the month or in May, depending on the contract. A second fear is European sanctions on Gazprombank.

The EU said no to his demand. Yet, the gas will still flow. This prompted misguided reports that "Putin backed down."

Comment: See also:

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Megaphone

Impossible to replace Russian gas with 'expensive' US fuel - Hungary


RT
Fri, 01 Apr 2022 11:42 UTC
orban
© demokracije i autoritarnih režimaViktor Orban
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, on Friday, that there are countries which will not be able to substitute Russian gas with the more expensive American alternative.

Speaking to local radio station Kossuth, ahead of this weekend's parliamentary election, Orban said Russian gas is his country's only option, as Hungary is landlocked and won't be able to directly receive liquified gas from the US.

Orban reiterated that Hungary condemns Russia's attack against Ukraine, and that he understands the efforts of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as his country is in trouble and he is looking out for Ukrainian interests, but stated that Hungary "can't help the Ukrainian people by destroying itself."

"This war is not our war, we can't win here, but we can lose everything. The question is will we have an economy left by the end of it or not."
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Megaphone

Serbian minister warns of possible coup after Serbia's elections because of country's neutral stance towards Russia


RT
Fri, 01 Apr 2022 18:56 UTC
Maidan
FILE PHOTO: A Maidan self-defence activist stand on an armored vehicle in central Kiev
Serbia is holding presidential, parliamentary and local elections on April 3. Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin has stated that the country's pro-western political parties will challenge the vote results and try to organize a 'Maidan'. The 2014 violent unrest in Ukraine, known as the 'Maidan Revolution', ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.

"Immediately after the elections, I expect that pro-Western political parties, already financially and politically encouraged, will plan to challenge the election results, which will end in an attempt to overthrow the government," Vulin said in an interview with Sputnik radio earlier this week. "Western political analysts have been saying that Serbia needs a new Maidan," he added.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Ukraine silent after oil depot in Russia attacked by helicopters, Governor accuses Kiev


RT
Fri, 01 Apr 2022 08:12 UTC
fire oil depot russia
Fire at oil depot in Belgorod Region, Russia.
The fire at an oil facility in Belgorod Region, Russia was caused by a Ukrainian air raid, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Friday morning. The incident was reported amid Russia's military campaign in the neighboring country.

Gladkov said the terminal was struck by "two Ukrainian military helicopters that have entered the territory of Russia while flying at low altitude." The exact details of the incident are yet to be clarified.

The governor said two workers received non-life threatening injuries. The authorities began evacuating people from nearby areas.

Videos from the scene show a large fire raging at the facility.

Comment: Footage of the attack shared on Twitter:







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