RTFri, 21 Mar 2025 17:27 UTC
© Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images
Elon Musk has described as "crazy" a federal initiative which allegedly sought to silence US citizens under the guise of fighting foreign disinformation. The Global Engagement Center (GEC), part of the US State Department, was launched in 2016 under President Barack Obama and operated until its closure in December 2024.
The GEC is the subject of an investigation by the conservative advocacy group America First Legal (AFL) published on Thursday.
The report scrutinized GEC communications with Washington's primary funding channel for political projects abroad, the US Agency for International Development (USAID); the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO); and various "media censorship organizations," including Poynter and NewsGuard — both of which brand themselves as watchdogs against misinformation, the latter boasting former CIA staff among its founders and board.According to AFL, the entities allegedly "work[ed] in lock-step to manipulate public discourse, control media narratives, and suppress free speech," based on documents obtained through litigation against the GEC.
Gwyn Topham Jamie Grierson Elias Visontay and Kate Lamb
The GuardianFri, 21 Mar 2025 17:21 UTC
© London Fire Brigade/Reuters)Fire, which wiped out power and closed Heathrow Airport on Friday, rises at the North Hyde Electricity Substation in Hayes, Britain
Counter terror police are leading the investigation into the "unprecedented" electrical substation fire that has closed down London Heathrow, stopping more than 1,300 flights as engineers tried to restore power to the airport on Friday.
Airlines face days of disruption with hundreds of thousands of scheduled passengers already unable to fly in and out of Europe's busiest airport, after what ministers said was an "unusual and unprecedented incident".
London fire brigade was called shortly after 11pm on Thursday to a fire at an electrical substation in Hayes, west London, with power also cut to thousands of homes.More than 70 firefighters tackled the blaze, which the brigade said at 8am was under control, with more than 20,000 litres of oil having caught fire in a transformer. Officers said that despite the acrid smell, there was no air quality danger to the public.
RTThu, 20 Mar 2025 12:26 UTC
© Getty Images / Sean GallupCo-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Alice Weidel.
Eurozone stability is under threat due to Berlin's military spending boost and debt brake overhaul, Alice Weidel warns
Berlin's move to overhaul its national debt rules in order to boost military spending has jeopardized the economic stability of the euro area, according to Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Her comments came shortly after the federal legislature approved the measure.
On Tuesday, the Bundestag backed an initiative allowing the federal government to unlock a record level of state borrowing for defense and infrastructure. The fiscal package was approved by 513 legislators, while 207 voted against it.
Comment:
That around 70 % or 513/720 of the German lawmakers wish to take more loans to finance the military and "climate investment", is perhaps remarkable, but given the trajectory of politics in most EU nations it is also not surprising. When the annual
EU capital flight tops $300 billion, do the German politicians imagine their decision will attract more investments faster than the money are leaving?
RTFri, 21 Mar 2025 10:29 UTC
© Thierry Monasse/Getty ImagesEuropean Council President Antonio Costa.
Investors are pulling their money out of the bloc amid soaring energy prices and excessive red tape, according to Antonio Costa
Capital outflow from the EU has reached €300 billion ($325 billion) annually as retail and institutional investors move their money into assets outside the region, European Council President Antonio Costa has claimed in a
remarks to the media published on Thursday.
Costa's comment comes as the bloc considers doubling its military aid to Ukraine year-on-year while continuing to fulfil pledges of billions of euros to Kiev.
Comment:
Energy did not become more expensive without the participation of most of the member states, and now the EU has dug a hole for itself that it will be challenging to get out of.
See also:
© Screenshot/MSNBCMSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle and Ali Velshi were forced to make on-air corrections on Tuesday after erroneously reporting that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were "very good friends."
MSNBC hosts corrected their claims Tuesday night that Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump as "very good friends."
The Associated Press (AP)
retracted its initial story making this claim Tuesday and clarified that Gabbard was referring to Trump's friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. During Monday night's airing, MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle and guest host Jonathan Capehart
falsely reported that Gabbard referred to Putin during an
interview with NDTV, an Indian network.
"Last night,
The Last Night reported on excerpts of an interview between the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and an Indian TV news network in which she said that Trump was good friends with the world leader. Now we said that world leader was Vladimir Putin, but the full interview was subsequently released and it showed that Gabbard was referring to Donald Trump and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi," guest host Ali Velshi said.
Comment: Will a little public humiliation make a difference to the MSM? Unfortunately, probably not. They will be counting on the short memories of their viewers. Still, it was nice to see some public accountability, however ephemeral.
© Partners for JusticeKatherine Boasberg
The radical judge trying to stop President Trump from deporting dangerous illegal aliens has been Loomered.
As The Gateway Pundit
reported, a federal judge appointed by Barack Obama issued an 'emergency' injunction Saturday night ordering planes already in the air to turn back mid-flight to prevent the deportation of Tren De Agua members to El Salvador.
The case was
brought by the Marxist, America-hating ACLU and Democracy Forward.
But the order came too late. Two flights from the U.S. carrying nearly 300 Venezuelan and other gang members
landed in El Salvador despite Judge James Boasberg's emergency order. This prompted a mocking reply from the country's president, Nayib Bukele.
Prof. Dr. Kai-Alexander Schlevogt
RTWed, 19 Mar 2025 16:48 UTC
© Axel Schmidt/Getty ImagesGermany chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz.
After the US president signaled a tilt from the old continent, Eurobuilders spotted a new chance at aggrandizement - at Germany's expense.
When politicians vow to do "whatever it takes" (WIT), a citizen's alarm bells should ring by default. After all, this ominous set phrase - and a potent mix of catchy metaphors - have been used by many an aspiring Leviathan as a blank cheque for exorbitant, debt-financed bailouts and recovery packages, which are heavily burdening current and future generations.
Comment:
1)
More important than making sure it enters a particular dictionary is the attempt to understand what is meant by the term. To this effort the author is making a sincere contribution, and after all, people all over the world before the time of books and dictionaries, communicated elegantly using complex grammar structures and abstract concepts.
2)
The EU has in recent years turned into more of an undisguised military alliance and now needs the war in Ukraine and the tension with Russia as a platform from where to justify political measures. Increased mainstreaming of the public discussion and an obstruction of power challenging oppositions on a national level, as witnessed in France, Germany and Romania has been a consequence.
3)
"Whatever it takes" is a cover that lends decency to totalitarian politics. But what if one day the table turns, and it is not the Euro-elites alone that proclaim but those they have oppressed and taxed in the name of "Whatever it takes"? The examples from recent European history show such a public response could still a ways off, if it will ever happen. Alternatively, something else will intervene, a new buzz, little more than an updated version of "Whatever it takes" with much of the public latching on to the newest hype as if the pattern had never played out before. The good news is, "Whatever it takes" can in terms of money grabbing and freedom restrictions not go on for ever, but where is the limit? In Ukraine some might say that once life is taken, property confiscated and the family is under pressure to go to the front, then there is little more to take. To this, a religious person might add that as long as the soul is not smashed, there is faith, hope and charity, with charity often understood as love. Another interpretation would be that rather than focusing on what is taken or not, what is the discussion about what is taken or not taken distracting us from seeing about what is going on in general among people, in society and the cosmos that surrounds us.
Allowing children to 'socially transition' at school pushes many of them toward seeking medical interventions like genital mutilation.At least 32 public school districts in Rhode Island have parental exclusion policies and refuse to notify parents if their child begins identifying as a gender different from their own.
According to a
report from Parents Defending Education (PDE), 113,452 Rhode Island students (83%) attend schools that actively hide this information from parents. PDE noted the number is likely higher, as the 32 have their policies publicly available, but the state actually enacted guidance to get all school districts to keep the critical medial information secret.
Authorities said damage at a Tesla service center in Las Vegas on Tuesday, including cars set ablaze, had "some of the hallmarks" of terrorism.
Las Vegas police said the person who used Molotov cocktails and shot rounds into the vehicles at the Tesla Collision Center, 6260 Badura Ave., was still on the loose Tuesday afternoon.
Video that captured the attack showed someone dressed in black damaging at least five Teslas — two of which were engulfed in flames — at 2:45 a.m., police said. The word "resist" was also painted on the front doors of the business, police said, and at least three gunshots were fired into the cars."This was a targeted attack against a Tesla facility," Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren said at a news briefing on Tuesday. "We do believe that it is isolated at this time."However, he said the Metropolitan Police Department had increased its presence at Tesla-related locations in the valley as a precaution.
© CNN
Wen, in a recent video, addresses the fact that many people had questions, particularly about the Covid vaccine, but were afraid to ask those questions because they might be told that their concerns were simply conspiracy theories.
In that video, Wen admits that concerns that were raised about the vaccine's impact on women's menstrual cycles are supported by studies that "have shown that there may be some changes to the menstrual period in the short term."
Comment:
That around 70 % or 513/720 of the German lawmakers wish to take more loans to finance the military and "climate investment", is perhaps remarkable, but given the trajectory of politics in most EU nations it is also not surprising. When the annual EU capital flight tops $300 billion, do the German politicians imagine their decision will attract more investments faster than the money are leaving?