Comment: According to the Omsk doctor who treated Navalny (before he was shipped off to Germany, before multiple agencies tested his blood finding nothing, and before one government-associated lab "identified" novichok in his sample), if Navalny was poisoned with the alleged Soviet novichok, others around him would have been affected too. He reiterated that no traces of toxic substances were found in his kidneys, liver, lungs.

But NATO and EU leaders are calling on Russia to conduct a full and transparent investigation into the alleged poisoning. Biden (via whoever writes his tweets) jumped on the idiot train with this:

Yes, hold the Putin regime accountable for whatever we say they did (truth about the matter in question be damned).

That said, once more Russia is backed into a corner and put on the defensive because of western-created narratives brought to you by their intelligence services. Paul Robinson, for example, argues that it is now in Russia's best interest to conduct such an investigation. Regardless of the Russian government's guilt or innocence, those against Putin (both outside and within Russia) will use any continued denials that Navalny wasn't poisoned, and any refusals to investigate, as evidence of guilt. If Navalny was poisoned, and it was either some rogue element of the Russian system, or some private individual or group, Robinson writes:

Either option must be highly disturbing to the authorities. No state wants private individuals to be going around attacking each other with high grade poisons. Again, therefore, this explanation requires a strong government response.

Regardless of which explanation is correct, Russia's leaders have a serious problem. On the one hand, they face the prospect of being blamed for trying to kill a prominent critic. And on the other hand, if they themselves are not responsible, they find themselves having to deal with unknown people poisoning citizens of their country with military grade nerve agents. Either way, only very firm and visible action to get to the bottom of the case can help the Kremlin dig itself out of the hole it now finds itself in.

Or, more likely, as with the Skripals, he was never poisoned with novichok in the first place, and the blood samples were contaminated by military/intelligence agencies who got their hands on the samples for "testing". But in this case, again as with the Skripals, it becomes almost impossible to defend yourself against such accusations because the culprits have "catapulted the propaganda" and already determined the narrative.

See also:

• If Navalny was poisoned, unlikely it was by Putin: Italian professor dismisses 'state-sponsored assassination theory UPDATES
• Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny may have had poison sprinkled in underwear
• UK's Johnson reprises Skripal saga for Navalny 'poisoning'
• Navalny: When useless idiots become useful (dead) idiots

Comment: The inevitable Twitter response:



Rules for thee, but not for me. This comes at the same time as the mayor of Philadelphia was seen dining indoors while city's restaurants can only serve outside. They know there's no danger, they just want to make everyone else suffer while they enjoy their special privileges. Hypocrites, the lot of them.


UPDATES: More Trump Twitter from yesterday:


Of course, Nancy didn't take responsibility; she blamed the salon owner for "setting her up". She even had the gall to demand an apology.


The salon owner's response, on Tucker:

Though her stylist says Kious has been operating 'illegally' since April:

In a statement released by his lawyers, DeNardo claimed that Kious "made several vitriolic and incendiary comments about Speaker Pelosi," before authorizing the appointment.

After the session, DeNardo said that Kious released the footage to Fox News to "set up" Pelosi, as she blamed the speaker for the closure of her business. "It appears Ms. Kious is furthering a set-up of Speaker Pelosi for her own vain aspirations," the statement read.

Unsurprisingly, network evening news (ABC, NBC, CBS) didn't cover the controversy until Pelosi claimed she was set up.

Here's Sara Carter on Pelosi's behavior:

Pelosi is the kind of person that gets what she wants. She doesn't care if other people suffer because of her rules. Look at how little she cares about her own state of California and her beautiful historic city of San Francisco. It's a city that is now mired in poverty, feces and homelessness.

Look at how she fights against a border wall but has an enormous wall surrounding her palatial estate in the city. Look at her hypocrisy and then the answer is pretty clear: she is Marxist light (meaning she talks a big we should all be equal game) but doesn't believe it one bit. She's a limousine liberal and our country is full of them.

See also:

• Australian businesses to sue government for losses over "arbitrary" lockdown
• New lockdown 'unnecessary' as 91% of England has seen no Covid cases for 4 weeks
• Eight in 10 poorer UK families feel worse off since lockdown, selling possessions to make ends meet
• 'Reckless, fearmongering spin': Australia's female entrepreneurs slam tyrannical lockdown measures
• Enough! Time to seriously loosen lockdown rules for restaurants and others
• 13 dead after police raid disco during lockdown in Peru
• Three Weeks for the Lockdown ... But They Were All of Them Deceived
• From Lockdown to Police State: The 'Great Reset' Rolls Out

Comment: In this ever-changing saga to determine the cause(s) of Navalny's medical issues, there are more than enough bogus theories to go around - including revisiting already debunked explanations:

Update, 2/9/2020 The Novichok theory:

If Alexey Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, he'd be dead already. That's according to the creators of the lethal chemical, who say the Russian opposition figure's symptoms suggest German assertions on Wednesday are inaccurate.

Berlin insists its Bundeswehr [military] laboratory found traces of poison from the Novichok family in the anti-corruption campaigner's system.

But the scientists behind its development - Leonid Rink and Vladimir Uglev - have dismissed the German claims. They say Novichok is supposed to be an extremely deadly nerve agent and there's no way Navalny could have survived its application. Furthermore, Uglev has pointed out that others who interacted with the Moscow protest leader after he fell ill - fellow plane passengers, ambulance crews, etc. - would also have been contaminated.

Rink told media outlet RIA Novosti. According to him, if Novichok was used:

"The symptoms are absolutely not similar, Navalny would have had seizures, and he would have already died, instead of falling into a coma. "He'd be resting at the cemetery for a long time (already), that's all.

"I believe that the use of chemical warfare substances: sarin, soman and Novichok (A-234) can be excluded from the list of possibilities. Apart from Navalny himself, the people around him would be also stricken in one form or another."

According to media reports, Uglev and Rink are among the founders of the Soviet Novichok chemical weapons programme. Until 1991, both of them worked at the Volsk branch of the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology in Shikhany, part of the Saratov Region.

Update, 2/9/2020 The 'someone wanted to silence Navalny' theory:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Moscow to "answer questions that only the Russian government can answer." Describing Navalny as "the leading opposition politician in Russia," an assertion not borne out by Russian polling, she said somebody wanted to "silence" him.

She said she had already held a phone conversation with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and before that - a joint meeting with the ministers of finance, justice, defense and the interior.

[Russian] Foreign Ministry said it was still waiting for Germany to reply to an official request from the office of Russia's Prosecutor General regarding the opposition figure's condition.

Update, 2/9/2020 Another flimsy reason to blame Russia without evidence or facts:

The Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs has published a statement in which it lashed out at Berlin after the German government claimed that Navalny was "poisoned" by "Novichok class nerve agent." Germany has been neglecting bilateral cooperation mechanisms that would allow Russia to investigate the situation, Moscow says.

"It seems that somebody restricts [the] German Justice Ministry, as well as [German] medical workers, from speaking to their Russian colleagues."

Despite the fact that Russian doctors, who managed to save his life in those crucial hours, were also willing to share all their information with their German colleagues, both of the requests have remained unanswered, Moscow says.

"If the goal is to justify certain pre-planned 'response measures' announced earlier, it becomes clear why mouthpiece diplomacy, substitution of proper cooperation with an information campaign, public addresses to EU and NATO and mentioning of the OPCW are being used."

See also:

• Russia launches preliminary inquiry into Navalny's hospitalization
• Poisoning protest leader Navalny 'would not benefit' Moscow, says Russian FM, labels Western allegations 'offensive'
• 'Merkel's guest': Army ambulances, 'deliberate disinfo' at airport reveal details of Navalny's arrival in Germany UPDATES
• Alexey Navalny 'in coma' after falling ill on flight from Siberia, poisoning suspected UPDATES
• Russian doctors say Alexei Navalny wasn't poisoned, refuse transfer

Comment: See also:

• Life imitates art: 'Footloose' comes to New York as Governor Cuomo bans dancing
• Hypocrite Cuomo allows rock stars to bypass New York quarantine to attend VMAs
• Narcissistic tool: Cuomo set to release book on his Covid 'leadership'
• Rand Paul calls for Cuomo to be impeached over coronavirus response
• NY's authoritarian Cuomo calls for national mask mandate & is confronted with photos of himself NOT wearing a mask days earlier
• Cuomo, De Blasio exceeded authority by restricting religious services but condoning protests - Federal ruling
• Gov. Cuomo committed one of the worst atrocities by sending thousands of Covid patients to nursing homes full of vulnerable elderly individuals
• Cuomo's New York: 250 inmates freed from prison have already been rearrested 450 times

Comment: Sex without kissing while masked sounds like the least intimate, dehumanizing sexual experience anyone could ever have. You might as well be using a sex doll or glory hole. If they keep on this tack, they'll have no compliant citizens left in the country before long.

See also:

• Inmates running the asylum: British Columbia officially endorses GLORY HOLES for safer sex in coronavirus times
• Fear-mongering overlords now want Covid-19 to rob us of sex scenes in movies
• Because Covid: People urged to avoid kissing, wear masks during sex, avoid being face to face