Month: February 2022

A new Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS)-Harris Poll survey (conducted between Feb. 23 and Feb. 24 with 2,026 registered voters) released exclusively to The Hill on Friday found that 62% of those polled believed Putin would not be moving against Ukraine if Trump had been president.

The partisan breakdown is even more striking:

85% of Republicans think Putin wouldn’t have invaded if Trump had been president and 38% of Democrats also believed it.

A majority of Americans polled – 59% – also said they believed that the Russian president moved on Ukraine because Putin saw weakness in President Biden.

Of course, the blame for this crisis is already being pitched at the previous administration as, after four years of constant gaslighting over US-Trump collusion the narrative needs to be kept alive. However, as the polls above show, and the following ‘objective’ facts prove, that is entirely false:

Let’s address this objectively. Prior admin:

1. Sanctioned NS2
2. Ended treaties that Russia wanted us in (INF, OST)
3. Grew military
4. Annihilated Russian paramilitaries in Syria
5. Sent lethal aid to Ukraine early as 2017
6. Struck Syrian chem plants despite Russian presence https://t.co/wHN5pVt1G4

— John Noonan (@noonanjo) February 24, 2022

Let’s address this objectively. Prior admin:

1. Sanctioned NS2
2. Ended treaties that Russia wanted us in (INF, OST)
3. Grew military
4. Annihilated Russian paramilitaries in Syria
5. Sent lethal aid to Ukraine early as 2017
6. Struck Syrian chem plants despite Russian presence https://t.co/wHN5pVt1G4

— John Noonan (@noonanjo) February 24, 2022

And this two minute rant over dinner by Trump, blasting NATO leaders (and specifically Germany), should clarify a lot for you – Trump was right… again!

I know CNN & MSNBC never aired this, so I figured I would. Spot on, don’t you think? pic.twitter.com/6V1vRKxP8p

— Justin Pulitzer 🍊 (@JustinPulitzer) February 24, 2022

Finally, it appears the ‘rally around the flag’ bump in Biden’s approval rating is already starting to fade already…

Perhaps the imminent $4 gas price is why?

“On the eve of his State of the Union, the president has hit a new low as inflation and economic anxiety hit new highs. The president is now underwater on every top domestic and foreign policy issue,” said Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey.

The same poll found that 64 percent of registered voters said Biden is “too lenient” with Russia, while 31 percent said he handles Russia “just right.” Five percent said he’s “too tough.”

However, as Rick Moran write at PJMedia.com, the news is even worse in the left-leaning Marist poll which found that most Americans see Biden’s first year as a “failure.”

Majorities of Americans think Biden’s first year in office has been a failure (56%), he is not fulfilling campaign promises (54%), and he is doing more to divide the nation (52%) than to unite it. Americans are more than four times as likely to consider Biden’s first year to be a major failure (36%) than a major success (8%).

We cannot wait to see how the president spins all this in his State of The Union address next Tuesday (which we note will be followed not just by the usual GOP rebuttal, but Democratic “Squad” member Rashida Tlaib will be making a speech to push the progressive agenda on behalf of the Working Families Party following Biden’s speech).

Not exactly ‘unifying’.

“People think nothing could have been done to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine, but that’s absurd,” bravely writes outspoken realist Michael Shellenberger in a Twitter thread that is bound to get him accused of being ‘treasonous’ or promoting ‘Russian propaganda’, instead of merely opening the forum for discussion of other opinions than the one driven into the West’s citizens by an every-ready establishment media.

As Shellenberger points out (obviously to many), “if Putin thought the costs of invasion outweighed the benefits, he wouldn’t have done it. He’s a rational actor not a madman. And today it’s clear Putin calculated correctly.“

Via Threadreaderapp.com,

After Russia invaded, a few people demanded that Europe stop buying its natural gas, but European utilities snatched up long-term Russian contracts…

…and the White House said, “Our sanctions are not designed to cause any disruption to the flow of energy from Russia to the world.”

People who believe that nothing could have been done to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine thus imply that Russia’s chokehold over European energy supplies was inevitable, but it wasn’t. Europe could have easily increased, rather than closed, nuclear plants and natural gas.

Britain could have increased fracking for nat gas but didn’t. Why?

Because Russia pumped $95M into anti-fracking advocacy.

Noted the head of NATO, Russia “engaged actively with environmental organisations… to maintain Europe’s dependence on Russian gas”

Source: The Critic

Europe could have kept operating and expanded its nuclear power plants but instead, under pressure from climate activists, including Greta Thunberg, shut them down…

Here is Greta’s statement, which she says she re-wrote to reflect her opinion, and here is the data that contradicts her pic.twitter.com/GJVt8nGYHO

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) March 28, 2019

Climate activists even forced nuclear-heavy France to throttle its nuclear plants so order to use more industrial wind energy. The result was significant outages over the last few weeks at a time when French nuclear plants were needed most.

Source: Michael Shellenberg’s Substack

Efforts to make Europe less energy independent, and thus more dependent on Russian gas imports, were led by powerful banking interests in coordination with climate activists and center-Left parties around the world.

Source: Michael Shellenbergers’ Substack

Not satisfied with their successful efforts to make Europe dependent on Russia, global elites have sought to deny poor African nations abundant energy.

All of this happened in plain sight at Davos, the European Commission, and U.N. conferences

The United Nations is using a talking dinosaur to urge poor African nations to not use fossil fuels while providing information to global elites about which airports in which they can land their private jets for next week’s climate change meeting pic.twitter.com/EolYI97c2t

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) October 30, 2021

The ideological justification for energy scarcity long predates climate change. In the 1960s, radical Left activists abusing their authority as scientists claimed that the world was running out of energy, despite the fact that nuclear proved that energy supplies are infinite.

The reason pro-scarcity “greens” attacked nuclear was because it debunked the idea that we faced resource scarcity and environmental degradation from overpopulation.

Infinite nuclear energy meant infinite fertilizer, freshwater, and food.

Source: Forbes

Pro-energy scarcity greens hid their motivations.

When asked if he had been worried about nuclear accidents, a Sierra Club anti-nuclear activist said, “No, I really didn’t care because there are too many people anyway … I think that playing dirty if you have a noble end is fine” 

Bankers & renewables companies promote energy scarcity. Three of the largest donors to climate causes are billionaire financial titans Michael Bloomberg, George Soros & Tom Steyer, all of whom have big investments in renewables and fossil fuels.

Shadow bank BlackRock has long promoted renewables. Its senior climate official @BrianDeeseNEC heads the White House National Economic Council

Biden’s “Build Back Better” talking points echoed BlackRock’s pitch for “climate resilient” infrastructure

Source: Forbes.com

Biden and Democrats would like to see the whole of the US follow the California model

California saw electricity prices rise 7x more than the rest of the US over the last decade, is experiencing blackouts, and intends to shut down its last nuclear plant

To avoid blackouts for 2.5M Californians, Gov. ⁦@GavinNewsom⁩ issues emergency declaration allowing for burning of diesel, even as he moves forward with his plan to shut down Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which provides power for 3M https://t.co/kd2Tgzm3yQ

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) August 22, 2021

The goal of Western elites is energy scarcity

The cost of that scarcity is to empower tyrants like Putin who can invade nations like Ukraine with little cost

Western elites are thus Putin’s useful idiots

They are the ones now saying nothing could have prevented invasion

What the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and other Western allies must do is obvious and urgent: we must massively expand nuclear energy and oil and gas production. This will lower energy prices and reduce exposure to Russian use of energy as a weapon of war.

The public needs to understand that Russia could not have taken Ukraine had the West expanded energy production rather than throttled it by closing nuclear plants and reducing oil and gas production.

Source Michael Shellenberger Substack

We need @JoeBiden @SpeakerPelosi @GOPLeader @SenSchumer @LeaderMcConnell take immediate bipartisan action to keep nuclear plants operating and expand oil & gas production for domestic use and export to our allies in Europe & Asia.

We need to see urgent concerted action led by @POTUS Congress & Canada to significantly expand oil, natural gas, and nuclear output from N. America to insure short-and long-term energy security of allies in Europe & Asia, as urged by @pmarca & @esaagar https://t.co/67H5hlWf4k

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 24, 2022

It seems Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal team has actually raised a credible reason for a judge to consider granting the woman known as “Jeffrey Epstein’s madam” a new trial. Because the judge in her case has ordered a hearing during which a juror will be questioned about the veracity of their answers during voir dire.

According to the New York Times, Maxwell Judge Alison Nathan is trying to determine whether a juror who served on Maxwell’s trial may have lied during her initial jury selection interviews and questionnaires. Judge Nathan (the same judge who presided over Maxwell’s original trial, and who is currently expected to sentence Maxwell in June) said she would question the juror, who has been identified as Juror 50, under oath during a hearing set for March 8. This isn’t the first time that we have discussed the possibility of the Maxwell verdict being tossed. But it’s looking increasingly likely now that Judge Nathan has decided to question the juror about some very glaring inconsistencies.

Maxwell was convicted a couple of days before New Year’s Eve on charges including sex trafficking and conspiracy for her role in providing a steady stream of underage girls to Epstein and his powerful coterie of friends.

Judge Nathan confirmed that the reason for the hearing was that Juror 50 had apparently made statements to the media that raised questions about his responses during voir dire.

Judge Nathan said in a brief order on Thursday that after the trial, “Juror 50 made several direct, unambiguous statements to multiple media outlets about his own experience that do not pertain to jury deliberations and that cast doubt on the accuracy of his responses during jury selection.”

She said Juror 50’s statements were “clear, strong, substantial and incontrovertible evidence” that an “impropriety – namely, a false statement during jury selection – has occurred.”

Judge Nathan emphasized that the potential impropriety was not that someone with a history of sexual abuse might have served on the jury.

“Rather,” she wrote, “it is the potential failure to respond truthfully to questions during the jury selection process that asked for that material information so that any potential bias could be explored.”

The incident in question appears to have been an interview with Reuters where the juror said they had quickly completed the jury questionnaires and that they did not recall being asked about sexual abuse history. The juror also said that there was a point during deliberations where they doubted two of Maxwell’s accusers stories, while also opening up about his own history of being sexually abused. Judge Nathan told the NYT that the inconsistencies being reviewed did not pertain to sexual abuse.

Here’s an excerpt from the original Reuters story:

This juror, who asked to be identified only by his first and middle names, said some of the jurors had issues with the credibility of witnesses known as Jane and Carolyn, two of the four women who testified that Maxwell set them up with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein as teenagers.

He said that after some of the jurors questioned the accuracy of the two women’s memories, he decided to share his own experience of being sexually abused as a child. He said that he remembered most important elements of what happened to him, but not every single detail. That swayed some jurors, he said.

“When I shared that, they were able to sort of come around on, they were able to come around on the memory aspect of the sexual abuse,” Scotty David, a 35-year-old Manhattan resident, told Reuters in a phone interview. He gave an earlier interview to The Independent.

In a separate interview with the Daily Mail, the juror allegedly said that he had helped the other jurors understand the subject matter from a survivor’s point of view.

He also told the Mail that after the trial, he had been left with the conclusion that Maxwell was “as guilty as Epstein”.

Maxwell’s motion for a new trial was finally unsealed Thursday. It argued that had Juror 50 “answered truthfully” during the jury selection process “he would have been subject to a challenge for cause.”

Ultimately, Judge Nathan will decide whether a new trial will be called for.

Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Florida man who said he “broke the internet” when photographed carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced Friday to 75 days in jail, a $5,000 fine, and a year of supervised release.

Adam Christian Johnson, 37, of Parrish, Fla., was sentenced by U.S. District Senior Judge Reggie B. Walton on one count of entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, a Class A federal misdemeanor. As part of a plea agreement, two other charges were dismissed.

The stay-at-home father of five children will be allowed to serve the jail sentence at a facility nearest to his home so his children can visit, Judge Walton ruled. With credit for time served, Johnson faces another 60 days in jail. He was free on personal recognizance at the time of sentencing.

“I do consider this to be a very serious offense,” the judge said at the Washington D.C. federal courthouse. “It’s one of the darkest days, I think unfortunately, that this country has ever suffered. … It’s a slippery slope from what happened on that day to what may happen the next time around. I just hope it’s not the case, but the precedent has been set.”

Suggested Bust of Washington as a Battering Ram

Johnson attended President Donald J. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. Prosecutors allege that Johnson ran to the Capitol when he heard rioters had breached police lines.

Johnson was outside the entrance to the House of Representatives as rioters tried to break through the doors. On the other side of the barricaded door stood three plainclothes law enforcement officers with their handguns trained on the broken windows in the doors.

“He was undeterred by his fellow rioters’ attempts to break down the doors to the House Chamber, where Johnson believed members of Congress were still counting votes,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum. “Indeed, he stood by for over ten minutes watching their efforts and even encouraged them to use a bust of George Washington to smash the House doors open.”

Prosecutors said Johnson looked at a bronze bust of President George Washington near the doors and remarked that it would be “a great battering ram.” He did not commit any violent acts or damage property, but he did pick up Speaker Pelosi’s lectern near a spiral staircase, carried it into the Rotunda and posed for pictures. He left the lectern in the Capitol.

“He bragged that he ‘broke the internet’ and was ‘finally famous,’ presumably in reference to the photo of himself carrying the lectern that went viral,” the government’s sentencing memo said.

A “substantial aggravating factor” in the case, prosecutors said, was the fact that Johnson deleted most of the content on his phone on Jan. 7. Johnson said he began receiving death threats at that time. Part of the motivation to delete information was out of fear for his life, he told Judge Walton.

“There were things there that happened that should never happen again, and I am ashamed to have been a part of it,” Johnson said.

Johnson denied the judge’s suggestion that if he had found the door to Pelosi’s office open, he would have harmed the Speaker. “I’ve been asked, ‘What would you have (done) if you did find her,” Jones said. “I don’t know, probably ask for a photo with her.”

At-Home Parenting Isn’t Work?

Prosecutors, noting Johnson is a stay-at-home dad whose wife works as a physician, wrote that “their financial situation is so favorable that Johnson has not had to work for the past 11 years.”

Defense attorney Dan Eckhart took umbrage at the notion stay-at-home parents don’t work, or that Johnson “is an entitled or privileged person and he hadn’t worked for 11 years.”

“Nothing could be farther from the truth,” Eckhart said. Johnson was a nearly 4.0 grade-point-average student at the University of South Florida in pre-med studies. “So Mr. Johnson decided to give everything up, gave up his whole career. …Instead of going to med school, being a doctor, he’s a stay-at-home dad.”

Judge Walton did not agree with the government’s assessment. “I respect a man who forsakes his career to raise his children. I’ve no problem with that,” he said. “I think that’s a great thing. Five boys, I know it’s a hard job.

“A lot of people think a parent … staying at home taking care of kids is an easy job,” the judge said. “I know it’s not, so I commend you for that.”

However, as a father Johnson should have thought about what kind of example he set for his boys on Jan. 6, Judge Walton said.

“It’s mind-boggling to me how somebody who has that responsibility and has what is purported the intellectual capacity you have, to find yourself coming all the way up here to Washington to do something like you did,” Walton said.

Johnson said he talked to his children about what occurred. “The night I was taken into custody to serve my time in Pinellas (jail), I brought the boys downstairs and had a conversation about it,” Johnson said. “I told them, ‘I’m going to jail because I broke the law, I did something wrong.’”

Prosecutors—who recommended Johnson serve 90 days in jail—wrote they might have sought more time behind bars if not for Johnson’s “early and robust cooperation” that “weighed heavily in the government’s determination of its sentencing recommendation.”

Following a full-court press by western nations, the handful of European holdouts – those most reliant on Russian energy supplies and continued Russian capital flows, such as Germany, Hungary, Italy and Cyprus – who have been adverse to expelling Russia from the SWIFT electronic payment-messaging system, are one by one folding on their objections.

Overnight, Italy joined the growing consensus seeking to kick Russia out of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication global banking system to punish it for the invasion of Ukraine as the European Union weighs up the impact of such an action. Also on Saturday, Poland’s prime minister said he had spoken again with his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orban, who had assured him of Budapest’s support for far-reaching sanctions against Russia.

“I talked today again with Prime Minister of Hungary V. (Victor – PAP) Orban. Once again he assured me of support for far-reaching sanctions directed towards Russia. Also including blocking the SWIFT system,” Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Twitter.

Rozmawiałem dzisiaj ponownie z premierem Węgier V. Orbanem. I po raz kolejny zapewnił mnie o poparciu dla daleko idących sankcji skierowanych wobec Rosji. W tym także o zablokowaniu systemu SWIFT.

— Mateusz Morawiecki (@MorawieckiM) February 26, 2022

Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jabłoński also said on Saturday he had spoken to Hungarian Ambassador Orsolya Zsuzsanna Kovacs and that “Hungary will not block any sanctions against Russia, also including concerning the SWIFT system.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday that Cyprus, which it was thought may have held out against the move, had confirmed it would not block the decision to withdraw Russia from SWIFT.

We did it. Cyprus confirmed it will not block the decision to ban Russia from SWIFT. Ukrainian diplomacy keeps working 24/7 to achieve important decisions and protect Ukraine from Russian invaders.

— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) February 26, 2022

Finally, Bloomberg reports that Germany has “upended years of policy” and agreed to supply weapons to Kyiv and “look into ways” to shut out Russia from the SWIFT financial messaging system, which however is still a long way away from agreeing to expel Russia.

The German government said in a statement Saturday that it has agreed to the supply of 400 German-made rocket propelled grenades to Ukraine via the Netherlands, along with 14 armored personnel carriers, as well as 1000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles. It will also supply 10,000 tonnes of fuel via Poland. Further supplies to Ukraine are currently being considered, it said.

“After the shameless attack by Russia, Ukraine must be able to defend itself,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Vice Chancellor Robert Habecksaid in the emailed statement. “It has an inalienable right to self-defense.”

At the same time, the government “is working flat out on how to limit the collateral damage of decoupling from SWIFT in such a way that it affects the right people,” they said. “What we need is a targeted and functional restriction of SWIFT.”

The German statement indicates that Europe’s most important nation, and top importer of Russian gas…

… is still not on the same page as most of its other European peers realizing that an overnight cutoff of Russian gas (something which a SWIFT expulsion would spark) would lead to a crippling hit to the German economy, and instead is seeking a targeted SWIFT cutoff, which course is impossible for the “all or nothing” system. As for the well-known reasons behind Germany’s opposition Erik Meyersson, an economist at Svenska Handelsbanken, put it best: “The EU isn’t on board with removing Russia from SWIFT for one thing because the EU isn’t on board with letting go of Russian energy.”

In effect, the latest German statement is hardly surprising in light of what Germany’s finance minister said on Friday afternoon when he shocked more than a few marketwatchers by saying that ‘we are open to cutting Russia off SWIFT’ with a German government advisor telling RND that “banning Russia from SWIFT is manageable.”

And yet, despite the jawboning Germany is still unwilling (and unable) to pull the plug.

As a reminder, The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication is the financial-messaging infrastructure that links the world’s banks. The Belgium-based system is run by its member banks and handles millions of daily payment instructions across more than 200 countries and territories and 11,000 financial institutions. Iran and North Korea are already cut off from it, although that has not stopped China from buying millions of barrels of Iranian oil despite US sanctions.

Jumping the shark a but early, Ukraine president Zelensky said he was “grateful to everyone for the decision to cut off Russia from SWIFT”, even though such a decision has not been made (at least not yet).

Others followed suit, such as hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who said in a tweet on Saturday that any SWIFT action would likely result in a quick bank run in Russia:

“I wouldn’t want to keep money in a bank that can’t access the SWIFT system. Once a bank can’t transfer or receive funds from other banks, its solvency can be at risk. If I were Russian, I would take my money out now. Bank runs could begin in Russia on Monday.”

I wouldn’t want to keep money in a bank that can’t access the SWIFT system. Once a bank can’t transfer or receive funds from other banks, its solvency can be at risk. If I were Russian, I would take my money out now. Bank runs could begin in Russia on Monday. #StandWithUkraine

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) February 26, 2022

As we reported on Friday, Goldman Sachs’ Allison Nathan asked the question on everyone’s lips: “The removal of Russia from SWIFT – the global electronic payment-messaging system – has been referred to as the “nuclear option” for sanctions. Do you agree with that characterization?”

Eddie Fishman – the former Russia and Europe Lead in the US State Department’s Office of Economic Sanctions Policy and Implementation – responded in a fascinating way:

“No – it’s not even close to being the nuclear option… SWIFT is just a messaging service. If the US and Europe decided to cut Russians banks off from SWIFT without imposing full-blocking sanctions on them, they could still transact with US and European financial institutions – they just couldn’t use SWIFT to do so.”

Fishman went on to point out a potentially even bigger blowback consequence for the West’s actions:

“…and in a perverse way, that may actually increase the demand for SWIFT alternatives, such as Russia’s own System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS).”

And while a decision on SWIFT appears to still be pending, Ackman is certainly correct that is a bank run were to take place it would lead to a deep financial crisis overnight, and may be the reason why – in lieu of a SWIFT expulsion – the U.S. is reportedly weighing sanctions on Russia’s central bank, as Bloomberg reported citing “people familiar with the matter”, a move that would target much of the $643 billion in reserves that Russian President Vladimir Putin had amassed ahead of his invasion of Ukraine.

A final decision hasn’t been made but the Biden administration is urgently considering all options in an attempt to deter Putin from further devastation in Ukraine, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The U.S. aims to make each move in conjunction with allies across Europe for maximum impact, they said.

While Russia has been steadily dedollarizing for the past 4 years, and reducing reliance on western foreign currency (while adding to its holdings of yuan and gold), the central bank still held 16.4% of its holdings in dollars at the end of June 2021, according to the latest official data, down from 22.2% a year earlier. The euro’s share was up at 32.2%.

A sanction on the central bank would be “devastating” for Russia, according to Tim Ash, a strategist at Bluebay Asset Management in London. “We would see the ruble crash.”

As Bloomberg notes, although the decision would be without precedent for an economy the size of Russia’s, the U.S. has previously sanctioned the central banks of adversaries. In 2019, the Treasury Department blacklisted the monetary authorities of Iran and Venezuela for funneling money that supported destabilizing activities in the respective regions. North Korea’s central bank is also blacklisted.

Losing access to funds abroad could handcuff Russia’s central bank as it tries to shore up the ruble in the foreign-exchange market by selling hard currency. The direct interventions, announced earlier this week after Putin ordered his military to attack Ukraine, mark the first time the Bank of Russia waded into the market since 2014.

Russia also kept 22% of its hoard in gold, most of which is held domestically and would be out of reach of western sanctions, while about 13% of the central bank’s holdings were in yuan.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is also debating whether to push for a directive from the European Union needed to ban Russia from SWIFT, though a U.S. and EU decision isn’t imminent especially with Germany still unable to fully make up its mind.

“It appears the Biden administration is gradually coming around to adopting the real hard-hitting sanctions that it should have imposed days ago,” said Marshall Billingslea, who served in the Treasury’s sanctions unit during the Trump administration.

Op-Ed Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

If she is confirmed by the U.S. Senate and becomes the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, and if her judicial track record so far is any guide, Ketanji Brown Jackson will probably be a reliable member of the high court’s three-member liberal bloc.

Jackson’s arrival would maintain the current ideological alignment of the court, which now consists of six conservatives–three of whom were appointed by then-President Donald Trump–and three liberals.

Born Ketanji Onyika Brown, Jackson turns 52 this Sept. 14. She would replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, who will be 84 on Aug. 15. Jackson previously clerked at the Supreme Court for Breyer, who sings her praises. She is related by marriage to former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), who ran for vice president in 2012 opposing the incumbent at the time, Biden. After hearing of the nomination, Ryan said in a Tweet: “Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, and for her integrity, is unequivocal.”

Born in the nation’s capital, Jackson moved with her family to Florida when she was young. Her father was chief attorney for the Miami-Dade County School Board. Her mother was principal at a public magnet school. She attended the same high school as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, where she was student body president and excelled in debating. She graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. She was a reporter and researcher at Time magazine, worked at four elite law firms, and served in three federal judicial clerkships, as well as a lawyer and commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission as it moved to reduce sentences for drug crimes. In an experience not typical for Supreme Court justices, Jackson worked for two years as a public defender, reports Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog.

When the Washington Post reviewed cases Jackson handled as a federal defender, it reported “she won uncommon victories against the government that shortened or erased lengthy prison terms.”

Her experience as a public defender is a selling point for Democrats. “Before Biden became president, only about 1 percent of federal appellate judges had previously done the kind of work Jackson has done,” reports Joel Mathis at The Week.

Jackson was one of the lawyers on a 2001 friend-of-the-court brief arguing in favor of a Massachusetts law that formed a floating “buffer zone” around pedestrians and automobiles nearing abortion clinics. A federal appeals court allowed the law to stand.

Jackson is now a judge on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has served as a kind of farm team for the high court. Eight other judges from the D.C Circuit have gone on to the Supreme Court, among them the late Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The current Supreme Court justices to come from that court are Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Brett Kavanaugh, Ballotpedia reports.

Biden nominated Jackson to the D.C. appellate court on April 19, 2021, and the U.S. Senate confirmed her the following June 14 on a 53-44 vote. She replaced Merrick Garland, who went on to become Biden’s attorney general.

Before that, Jackson was nominated by then-President Barack Obama to be a judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was confirmed by senators on a voice vote. She served in that post from March 2013 to June 2021.

While a district court judge, Jackson found that parts of three of then-President Donald Trump’s executive orders were in conflict with federal employees’ rights to collective bargaining. Her decision was unanimously reversed by the D.C. Circuit.

In 2019, Jackson rejected Trump White House arguments that executive privilege shielded White House Counsel Don McGahn from a congressional subpoena in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. Jackson wrote in a court opinion that “Presidents are not kings” and that for a president’s senior aides “absolute immunity from compelled congressional process simply does not exist.” Trump’s assertion that he could prevent top advisers from testifying “is a proposition that cannot be squared with core constitutional values, and for this reason alone, it cannot be sustained.” Later, congressional investigators and McGahn’s lawyers cut a deal and he agreed to be questioned in a closed-door session, according to a media outlet’s analysis.

On the same court, the same year, Jackson temporarily prevented the Trump administration’s moving forward with plans to enlarge a program that expedited deportation of illegal aliens. Previously, the program had primarily been used to speed up removals of those who were detained shortly after illegally entering the country from Mexico. It bothered Jackson that the government seemed not to be factoring in how the expanded program would affect illegals and their families who had been residing in the country for as long as two years.

“There is no question in this Court’s mind that an agency cannot possibly conduct reasoned, non-arbitrary decision making concerning policies that might impact real people and not take such real life circumstances into account,” Jackson wrote. The D.C. appeals court, that she would later be elevated to, overturned her decision, finding that the Homeland Security secretary had a free hand to ramp up the program.

Also in 2019, Jackson sided with the Trump administration, turning away environmentalists’ arguments that the administration, in its zeal to expand the border wall with Mexico, had failed to follow environmental laws before moving forward with construction.

Soon after arriving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Jackson ruled in favor of government employee unions who were fighting a Trump-era regulation that gave government agencies a freer hand to make changes in the workplace.

It is unclear when the Senate will take up Jackson’s nomination.

Breyer, who was appointed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1994, has said he will retire at the end of the court’s current term, which is expected to end in May or June.

North American liquor stores and bars are pulling Russian vodka off their shelves in solidarity with Ukraine. 

On Friday, Peter Bethlenfalvy, Ontario’s Minister of Finance, directed the provincial’s Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) to remove all Russian vodka from stores. 

“Ontario joins Canada’s allies in condemning the Russian government’s act of aggression against the Ukrainian people, and will direct the LCBO to withdraw all products produced in Russia from store shelves,” Bethlenfalvy said. 

Ontario joins Canada’s allies in condemning the Russian government’s act of aggression against the Ukrainian people, and will direct the LCBO to withdraw all products produced in Russia from store shelves.
#StandwithUkraine

— Peter Bethlenfalvy (@PBethlenfalvy) February 25, 2022

Fox News reports LCBO will remove Russian liquor and other products from 700 stores across the province. 

However, some people question LCBO’s move because “the inventory is already paid for. The LCBO is the only one who suffers while they store this paid inventory. The easiest answer is to stop any future purchases.” 

I don’t get this move. This inventory is already paid for. The @LCBO is the only one who suffers while they store this paid inventory. The easiest answer is to stop any future purchases.
Today.
That’s where the pain is felt. Not taking paid product off the shelf and hiding it.

— Dididothisright? (@MiMTkeMtucker) February 25, 2022

Some question if Canada is willing to ban Russian vodka imports, why not energy products?

Canadian liquor stores are pulling Russian vodka from their shelves.

Now let’s really put a real dent in Putin and ban Russian energy imports.

More than 40% of Russia’s export wealth comes from petroleum. pic.twitter.com/HEHcKa1ihe

— Stephen Taylor (@stephen_taylor) February 25, 2022

Other provinces, including Manitoba, New Brunswick, British Columbia, and Newfoundland, are taking similar action. 

The Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation, which controls sales of alcoholic beverages across Nova Scotia, said Russian vodka has been removed from store shelves and website because of the “terrible events taking place.” 

Just south, in the US, some bars and liquor stores reportedly poured out Russian vodka onto the streets and or removed the products from store shelves. Fox News called it a “vodka rebellion.” 

VODKA REBELLION: Bars, liquor stores in US, Canada say no to Russia’s famous export. https://t.co/STBUJkIOpp pic.twitter.com/V0OFhkO12e

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 26, 2022

“I think the whole world knows by now that Russia’s at war with Ukraine for no apparent reason,” said Jamie Stratton, owner of Jacob Liquor Exchange in Wichita, Kansas, told local news KSNW-TV. He removed more than 100 bottles from his store and poured some on the ground. 

“I guess this is our sanction … and this may be small, but every small thing makes a difference,” Stratton said.

There has yet to be a concerted effort by US state or county liquor boards to ban Russian vodka, just individual stores and bars/restaurants letting their emotions get ahead of themselves by dumping already paid for vodka into the streets as a protest. How does this exactly hurt Russia?

Here’s a novel idea: liquidate the current inventory of Russian vodka instead of wasting it and cancel future purchases. Then switch to domestic brands. 

Anyways, it appears a Russian vodka rebellion is underway and could spread worldwide if the movement goes viral on social media. 

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

We now have a war that the vast majority of us never wanted.  All of our lives are going to be turned upside down, the global economy is going to be absolutely eviscerated, and countless numbers of people are going to die.  I am very angry with Vladimir Putin and the Russians for launching a full-blown invasion, because it didn’t need to happen.  And I am also very angry with the Biden administration because it would have been so easy to find a diplomatic solution to this crisis.  Unfortunately, the time for diplomacy is now over and World War III has begun.

On Thursday, State Department spokesman Ned Price made a stunning admission regarding what this war is really all about.

According to Price, Russia and China “also want a world order”, but he warned that if they win their world order “would be profoundly illiberal”…

China has given “tacit approval” for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine, in the judgment of U.S. officials, as part of a joint effort to undermine the institutions that American and allied leaders established to minimize conflict in the decades following World War II.

“Russia and the PRC also want a world order,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday. “But this is an order that is and would be profoundly illiberal. … It is an order that is, in many ways, destructive rather than additive.”

It would take an entire book to unpack everything that Price said there.

First of all, by stating that Russia and China “also want a world order”, he was tacitly admitting that the United States and other western nations desire to have a “world order” of their own.

And he implied that what we are witnessing is a battle over who will ultimately run the “world order”.

That should deeply alarm all of us.

Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where nobody had global domination as their goal?

I also want to point out that Price used the term “profoundly illiberal” to describe a “world order” led by Russia and China, and that suggests that a “world order” led by the United States and other western nations would be “liberal”.

And that is actually quite an accurate statement.  In virtually every western nation today, even the political parties that are supposed to be “conservative” are extremely liberal.

If you Google the phrase “liberal world order”, you will find that it has been used by elitists for many years.  But I certainly don’t want a “liberal world order” and neither should you.

Of course I don’t want a “world order” run by Russia and China either.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that we get a vote in this.

Now that World War III has begun, things are going to move very quickly.  NBC News is reporting that Joe Biden is considering launching “massive cyberattacks” against Russia…

President Joe Biden has been presented with a menu of options for the U.S. to carry out massive cyberattacks designed to disrupt Russia’s ability to sustain its military operations in Ukraine, four people familiar with the deliberations tell NBC News.

Two U.S. intelligence officials, one Western intelligence official and another person briefed on the matter say no final decisions have been made, but they say U.S. intelligence and military cyber warriors are proposing the use of American cyberweapons on a scale never before contemplated. Among the options: disrupting internet connectivity across Russia, shutting off electric power, and tampering with railroad switches to hamper Russia’s ability to resupply its forces, three of the sources said.

That would be an act of war, and the Russians would inevitably strike back really hard.

And needless to say, we are very vulnerable to cyberattacks.

If we start going back and forth with the Russians, eventually we will be pushed to the brink of nuclear war.

In fact, Vladimir Putin has already raised the possibility of using nukes…

Broadcast live on television at 5.45am Moscow time, President Putin said: “Whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people, must know that the Russian response will be immediate and lead to the consequences you have never seen in history.”

“All relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me.”

When I first saw that, I could hardly believe what I was reading.

But it is right there in black and white.

It is so simple that even a child can understand what he was saying, but this is how Biden responded when he was asked about Putin’s statements…

REPORTER: “Putin said the West will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. Is he threatening a nuclear strike?”

BIDEN: “I have no idea.”

Are you kidding me?

Actually, considering how far Biden’s mental abilities have obviously declined, perhaps it is not surprising that he is utterly clueless at this stage.

The rest of the world can see how weak, corrupt and utterly incompetent Biden and his minions are, and so they simply are not afraid of the United States any longer.

And now that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has gone so smoothly, many are anticipating that it could be just a matter of time before China invades Taiwan…

As Russian tanks roll over Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s crisis will reverberate around the world, possibly most dangerously in the Taiwan Strait. An attempt by Beijing to claim Taiwan by force has just become more likely. That’s not necessarily because there is a direct link between Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s menacing of Taiwan, but because the war for Ukraine is the most unfortunate indication yet of the frightening direction of global geopolitics: Autocrats are striking back.

And if China invades Taiwan, North Korea may decide that is a great moment to launch an invasion of South Korea.

It would be so easy for the dominoes to start falling.

The existing “world order” is starting to come apart at the seams, and a time of great chaos is directly ahead of us.

Ultimately, someone will end up dominating the entire globe once World War III is over, and all of our lives will look very different once we get to that point.

*  *  *

It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

The potential geopolitical, economic, and asset implications of the conflict unfolding between Russia and the West over Ukraine are top of mind for many, but understanding how we got here is crucial.

From independence in 1991 to Nord Stream 1; from Maidan protests to annexing Crimea; and from Nord Stream 2 to now, the last 30 years have been anything but ‘peaceful’ for the eastern European nation…

Source: Goldman Sachs

It’s anyone’s guess what happens next.