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Diplomatic war with Moscow a bad idea after all? 'Understaffed & overstretched' US Embassy gets rebuke from Russia after complaint

us embassy
© Sputnik / Evgenya Novozhenina
A Washington Post story bemoaning the state of the US Embassy in Moscow, and blaming Russia for causing a visa war, has been shot down by the Russian diplomatic mission in Washington with a reminder as to who started it all.

The Russian Embassy in Washington pointed the finger at the US late on Friday for initiating the tensions between the two countries. Its statement was released followed the publication of an article in the Washington Post reporting that the US Embassy in Moscow is "understaffed and overstretched" following recent expulsions and due to a protracted diplomatic visa application system.

In particular, the American diplomatic staff had complained that they couldn't even get visas for specialists to repair faulty equipment, such as elevators and fire alarms.

"The authors once again mislead their readers and seek to place all the blame for problems related to consular and visa matters on the Russian side," the Russian Embassy responded. "The information contained in the article does not correspond to the real state of affairs."

Briefcase

Austria's Constitutional Court rules mask mandate in schools is illegal

mask
© Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Austria's Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday that two government measures to fight the spread of coronavirus in schools, compulsory mask-wearing and splitting classes into two halves to be taught in alternate shifts, were illegal.

The split classes system meant that some pupils had lessons on Mondays and Tuesdays and others on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

At all other times they were to stay at home.

"In addition, it was decided that all persons present in school buildings, apart from during teaching time, had to wear a mask over their mouth and nose," a statement from the court said.

Sherlock

NYPD probing bomb threat against Empire State Building

empire state building
© Getty Images
The NYPD received a bomb threat targeting the Empire State Building on Sunday but have since deemed it bogus, police said.

At 11 a.m., cops received a 911 call saying a bomb would detonate at the Manhattan landmark at noon, according to the NYPD. An ensuing police investigation found no explosives at the site, they said. The call is still under investigation.

The incident comes two days after an explosives-packed RV blaring a recording with a detonation countdown exploded in downtown Nashville.

The blast, which left at least three people injured, is being probed as a possible suicide attack.

Yellow Vest

UK radio host under fire for highlighting low Covid-19 mortality among healthy & young and calling for them to 'carry on living'

covid
© REUTERS / Leon Neal
A British journalist was accused of callousness and stupidity after sharing NHS figures showing that Covid-19 "mostly kills the very old & the very sick," and arguing that the young and healthy should go on with their lives.

Talkradio host Julia Hartley-Brewer drew fire and fury online by injecting some statistics into the incendiary 'lives v the economy' debate. "Just 377 healthy people under 60 have died of Covid. That's not a typo. There are no zeros missing," she tweeted, sharing a post by columnist Paul Embery.

The figure is accurate, if outdated. The latest weekly update from the National Health Service (NHS) England, up to December 23, puts the number of people under 60 who have died from Covid-19 in hospitals, and had no prior conditions, slightly higher - at 388.

Despite the difference, Hartley-Brewer's point still stands, which is: "help the millions of old & sick to shield while allowing the young & healthy (& our economy) to carry on living."

Hearts

'You just have to be more chill,' says 101yo Russian woman who beat Covid-19

kazan covid survivor
© Ruptly
On Saturday, an old lady in Kazan who has beaten Covid-19 was discharged from hospital after celebrating her 101st birthday. Doctors say the woman pulled through thanks to her positive attitude - and she has advice to share.

The woman, named Mariam Nadershina, was admitted to a hospital in the capital of Russia's Tatarstan Republic with moderate symptoms, including a cough, a high temperature, and mild breathing problems, her doctor, Guzel Mingazova told RT's video agency, Ruptly. A CT scan revealed she had 25-percent lung damage.

Comment: See also:


Question

Nashville bombing 'person of interest', 63, mysteriously gave his house away one month before blast

nashville bombing suspect house Quinn warner
© Google Maps
Anthony Quinn Warner - the man identified as a person of interest in the Nashville Christmas Day bombing- gave his $160,000 house away for nothing a month before the blast, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal. The property is pictured with a white RV out front on Google Street View prior to the explosion
The man identified as a person of interest in the Nashville Christmas Day bombing gave his house away for nothing a month before the blast, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, signed the property away via a quitclaim deed to Lisa Swing, a 29-year-old woman living in Los Angeles, for $0.00, according to county records.

Quinn's signature does not appear on the November 25th transfer and she told DailyMail.com she knew absolutely nothing about it.

FBI agents swarmed the $160,000 property on Saturday morning in their hunt for the mystery RV driver behind the devastating blast outside Nashville's AT&T building.

Comment: Agents are working towards identifying the human remains found at the bomb site, while the media is spinning it as a suicide bombing by Mr. Warner, though no clear facts have yet to be established other than the incident itself.
The investigators are also "vigorously working" to identify suspected fragments of human remains found at the blast site, according to FBI Special Agent in Charge Doug Korneski.

Citing law enforcement sources, media in the meantime speculated that the lead theory is that the suspect died in the blast, with CNN already calling the explosion a "suicide bombing."

An RV exploded early Friday morning in downtown Nashville in what police so far refer to as an "intentional act." The vehicle blared a recorded warning for around an hour, with a 15-minute countdown to an imminent detonation, giving first responders enough time to evacuate local residents. Three people were injured, in addition to the mysterious yet-to-be-identified human remains.

While the RV was parked outside an AT&T transmission building when the bomb went off, severely crippling communications and 911 emergency call centers, authorities have yet to officially identify either a target or a motive for the bombing.
Tennessee's governor has requested emergency funds to help the area recover:
"The severity and magnitude of the current situation is such that effective response is beyond the capabilities of state and affected local governments," Lee said Friday in a letter to Trump. He noted that the resources of state and local governments were depleted after they spent more than $175 million in responding to disasters in 2019 and 2020, including tornadoes and floods.


An RV exploded early Friday morning in downtown Nashville in what police have called an intentional act. Three people were injured, and possible human remains were found near the blast site. Lee said 41 businesses were damaged, and the affected buildings - many of which are historic - will have to be assessed by engineers to determine whether they can be entered safely.

The RV was parked outside an AT&T transmission building when the bomb went off, knocking out landlines and mobile-phone services alike across Tennessee and in parts of Kentucky and northern Alabama, Lee said. The explosion also crippled 20 911 emergency call centers and damaged computer networks, forcing state systems to operate on backup infrastructure.



Bullseye

Wisconsin GOP lawmakers join new lawsuit seeking to overturn presidential election

wisconsin poll workers election fraud
© Steven Potter/WPR
A voter checks in with poll workers at Lakeview Lutheran Church on Madison's north side on Nov. 3, 2020.
Two Republican state lawmakers in Wisconsin have signed onto the latest federal lawsuit seeking to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's victories in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.

State Reps. Jeff Mursau, R-Crivitz and David Seteffen, R-Green Bay, joined a suit filed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the conservative Wisconsin Voters Alliance. It seeks to require the state legislatures in the five states to certify presidential electors before their votes are counted, a requirement that would be without precedent. Also included among the plaintiffs is Debbie Jacques, a Republican who is running to replace outgoing state Rep. John Nygren in the 89th Assembly district.

Comment: On the Amistad Project's legal strategy:
The Amistad Project released a press release stating governors used current federal and state statutes to violate state legislatures' constitutional right to post-election certification of Presidential electors:
Arlington, Virginia/December 22, 2020 - The Amistad Project of the non-partisan Thomas More Society has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia demanding that legislatures in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin be allowed to certify electors prior to congressional certification.

"Kings and Queens dissolve parliaments and legislative bodies, not Governors. At least that was the case until this year. Governors in these contested states have declared themselves to be the law due to COVID and are now actively preventing the state legislatures from exercising their constitutional authority to review the election process," said Phill Kline, Director of the Amistad Project.

"The governor of Pennsylvania is refusing to allow the legislature there to meet, while in Michigan the attorney general is threatening legislators who disagree with certification with criminal investigation, and Gov. Whitmer uses COVID - and later a non-existent threat - as an excuse to prevent Republicans in Michigan legislature from entering the Capitol Building while Democrats were allowed in the building to vote on certification," Kline continued.

The lawsuit argues that current federal and local statutes interfere with state legislatures' constitutional right to certify Presidential electors, in a direct violation of separation of powers. It also cites an Amistad Project white paper which illustrates how the Electoral College vote deadline of December 14 is arbitrary and does not apply to the contested states.
We'll see what the courts do with this one. So far the courts have refused to look at the 2020 election and perform their constitutional duties. The cases to date have been assigned to Obama judges who have no intention of finding the truth and ruling from the bench accordingly.
Amistad continues to gather allies:
Incoming Rep. Lauren Boebert has officially announced she will object to the Electoral College results on January 6th:


Here is a rough list of GOP Reps who have announced they will object to the electoral votes:
  • Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)
  • Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC)
  • Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC)
  • Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA)
  • Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)
  • Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
  • Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX)
  • Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX)
  • Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX)
Rep. Brian Babin sent a letter to both Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell as well as several committee chairs stating that if there was no investigation by Congress into the 2020 election then he would object.

Nineteen Members of Congress signed Babin's letter — some of whom haven't officially said they would object.


Will a Senator join them?

Maybe incoming Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville?




X

France's health minister: 'Best way to celebrate the New Year is not celebrate it at all'

Paris lights
© Reuters/Gonzlo Fuentes
Paris Christmas lights and social distancing
The authorities in France fear that the New Year holidays may provoke a third wave of coronavirus in the country and they're ready to introduce new restrictions to curb it, the country's health minister Olivier Veran has said.

"The best way to celebrate New Year is not celebrate it at all," was Veran's advice to the population several days before the arrival of 2021. "We can't risk putting the country under weeks of restrictions because of just one night," he explained, in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche.

It'll be clear very soon if the family gatherings and other festive activities during the holidays have worsened the situation with the coronavirus, the minister added.

Comment: It's not just the year that is ending. It's humanity as we know it.


TV

'Pampered BBC diversity chief on £75k salary ripped for 'lecturing' poor, white Brits about 'privilege'

Sarpong
© Getty Images/Awakening/Massimiliano Donati
British television broadcaster June Sarpong in 2018.
BBC Creative Diversity Director June Sarpong claimed even low-income white people experience "benefits" because of their race.

Spiked editor Brendan O'Neill has torn into BBC Creative Diversity Director June Sarpong for lecturing poor, working-class white people on their "privilege," saying she did this despite being "pampered" and highly-paid herself.

Appearing on the talkRADIO show with Kevin O'Sullivan on Sunday, O'Neill responded to Sarpong's claims that even low-income white people experience "benefits" because of their race. O'Neill noted that Sarpong, who is an "accomplished broadcaster," gets paid "£75,000 a year for three days a week of work," before adding, "This is a woman who lives a very nice life, on a wage that is paid for by us."

"Poor white people face criminal sanctions if they don't pay for their TV license and they own a TV. They pay her wages," O'Neill declared, before comparing the current climate of identity politics to "a new form of feudalism."


Comment: Feedback from viewers:



Fire

Explosion hits gas pipeline in Egypt's North Sinai

Pipeline fire
© National Press Services
Blast hits pipeline in Sabika area west of El-Arish, Egypt
A blast hit a gas pipeline in Egypt's restive North Sinai region Thursday, a security source told AFP.

"An explosion occurred (Thursday) evening along the main gas pipeline supplying the city of El-Arish," the source said, referring to the provincial capital. The blast took place in the Sabika area to the city's west, the source added. Witnesses told AFP that smoke and flames from the fire were visible some 30 kilometres (almost 20 miles) away. The cause of the blast was not immediately clear.

Egypt has for years been fighting an Islamist insurgency in North Sinai, which escalated following the military's 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Provincial governor Mohammed Abdel Fadil Shousha said in a statement that the blast did not cause any casualties and "will not impact the gas supply" to the city. Security forces were searching the area and authorities have opened an investigation, the statement added.