My idea of Cheney is not like the Democrats, or even Charlie Kirk. YES! He is wrong on his views of Donald Trump, and, I have debunked many of these lies over the years stated in the video. However, the point is that DEMOCRATS BELIEVE THIS … until 2-seconds ago.
Here are some of my posts for the record:
Dispelling the “CIA Trained-Funded Bin Laden/Taliban” Myth/Mantra
This was originally a printed booklet made for my sons then freshmen classmates/friends who thought Loose Change was legit (2006’ish). I printed three booklets — and all the editing and color photos and binding was $250 out of pocket. As I was paying for it, the guy at the counter said he saw the plane hit the Pentagon. He was at his dads work (he was a federal agent), in his office, which had a view of the Pentagon. Right after it hit, the place (he said) turned into a war-zone… in that he said they were literally suiting up with body armor, he said it seemed like they were pulling guns out of the walls. A very interesting discussion to confirm what I was printing.
I updated this post today (9-4-2011) to reflect a recent challenge that there is no evidence a 757 hit the Pentagon. In order to bolster the claim that a passenger plane hit the Pentagon, I added some photos of human remains at the end (from the Pentagon). These are graphic, but unfortunately required to refute these nutters. So as you proceed, there is a warning that some of the images are graphic.
The conspiracies surrounding the Pentagon have come up in recent conversation so I figured I would add this to the liteny of responses I have give on my .com as well as at my older Blogspot site. For now this is almost a straight import (small changes added in this edition). I will add to this later and “spruce it up.” I originally spent $250 dollars on this project during the compilation of info met a young man who was in a federal building with his father and they both saw a passenger plane fly into the building. Personally. His story is an amazing memory for him because as soon as the plane hit, his father and many in the office building he was in went into emergency mode. Bullet proof vests went on and weapons were taken off the wall. Enjoy this critique.
The Loose Change guys say no plane hit the Pentagon. Take note of the very large piece boxed off in red (below). Hello, McFly. There is a worldwide movement against freedom, and it isn’t coming from Bush. It’s coming from Revolutionaries who use propaganda — like the PROOF I just showed you Loose Change used — to change a government they do not like.
Take note that bodies, luggage, and other parts of the plane were all calfdozered. In the above photo there is a red box which I enlarged to the right (click to increase in size). These guys are in hazard type suits because of the decomposing and burnt body parts that they meticulously had to find as rubble was moved. Another ingenuous insertion in Loose Change was this photo they say was the largest portion of the plane found. They make the piece look small by isolating it by itself with showing guys walking around picking up small pieces. Again, perspective is everything. Here is the piece pictured (the original is to the left) next to something else for comparison (right). Obviously one can see the wool [literally] being pulled over one’s eyes. But people gobble this stuff up like Pac-Man, to hell with the facts!
The question is, why did they choose this photo over the others? I will tell you why, they want the viewer to think only one way so they selectively used photos to make sure the viewer agrees with them. They say “look, this piece is small,” but fail to tell you it is as large as a fender on a truckThis is known as propaganda, and willingly and knowingly telling a lie by deselecting the truth. Loose Change also neglects to show how a semi-truck sized generator was struck (skimmed) by the engine of the plane right before it struck the Pentagon. The photo below shows where the generator was by marking where it should have been with a yellow outline. It was moved 45-degrees by the engine of the 757, which is evidenced by the huge gouge mark in the generator itself (caused by the engine of the plane).
Here is a picture of what these generators look like, intact:
Here is the view of the damaged trailers:
Here are the views and commentary on the damaged trailers fitting with an airliner flying close to the ground:
Another photo that irked me was one of the spools just sitting in front of the Pentagon nice and neat. The problem is that some of these spools had been stacked neatly by this fenced area. As you can see, one of the engines hanging closer to the ground ripped through this area and spread the spools you see pictured. I would be interested to know also if the firemen moved the spools out of the way later in the day fighting the fires.
One should take note that in the right hand side of this photo is the semi-truck sized generators and spools were located allowing more perspective (MOUSE OVER for highlighted area):
And finally, another thing that was so obviously a cover up by Loose Change to make the viewer sympathetic was the bit about the windows not being broken in the Pentagon right near where the wing of the plane hit. First of all, the only real strong part of a plane like the 757 is the underbelly, and the structures of the wings can be clearly seen in the following two pictures after that:
Of issue as well is the size of the hole a 757 would make in the Pentagon (again, see commentary above in the stripped down L1011). Conspirators say the hole is tiny. I agree! But many do not realize what the diameter of a 757 is. The question becomes then….
WHAT IS THE DIAMETER OF A 757?? ANSWER: 16.5 FEET
Here are some rendered photos often with outlines to show the impact are fitting well with an airliner hitting the Pentagon:
This footage is of a test conducted on April 19, 1988, at a rocket sled facility at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in which an actual F-4 Phantom aircraft was impacted at a nominal velocity of 500 miles per hour into a rigid block of concrete. This was accomplished by supporting the F-4 on four struts that were attached to the sled track by carriage shoes to direct the path of the aircraft. Propulsion was accomplished by two stages of rockets. The concrete target was ‘floated’ on a set of air bearings. Results: An atomized plane. Cool.
[MISSING PICS]
Another point of “conspiratorial contention” are the intact “windows” in the surrounding impact area of the impact zone. OBVIOUSLY if this wing hit our house the windows would shatter. But the Pentagon wouldn’t have windows like yours or my house.
Duh.
Click on the thumbnail below (you can click once more to zoom even further) and read for yourself about these windows… and then ask yourself: how was I ever duped by such easily falsifiable rhetoric? (Click to enlarge):
You see, they had already begun to retrofit and upgrade the Pentagon in various sections, this are being one:
Here I am going to ad (3-29-07) some simulation videos, it shows the planes thin shell and frame (built that way to make it light as possible for flight) reacting to a high-speed impact with the Pentagon:
Here I will add only one response from the original post, as all are included in my WTC-7 post for further reading. This small response by me should sum up my feeling and journey along the path of going from a conspiracy nut myself to actually dealing with the facts. I deal somewhat with this conspiratorial view of history and my change towards an accidental view of history in my chapter of my book. While most of this chapter I deal with theology, it starts out dealing with some other finite issues. The section worth focusing in on are around pages 7-10 in the section entitled “Learning Curves.”
PHOTOS TO REFUTE SOME CRITICS
This next shot is a hole where an engine entered the Pentagon
All these pieces had to of punch holes…
Below is a 757 wheel
And here are the same pieces at the Pentagon
Here is a landing gear and other parts
Why Weren’t more pieces found?
Here is a COMPLETELY destroyed fuselage
How bout this plane which was almost completely destroyed?
Here is almost no debris left when a A C-130
(a four-engine turboprop aircraft) hit as building
Caution, Pics Below are GRAPHIC!
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…
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Here are some photos of human remains (from the Pentagon)
DEBUNKING 9/11 CONSPIRACIES is a resource kept up by METABUNK. It is dated and many links are bad and almost no media appears on it any longer, but still good reading.
POPULAR MECHANICS has and excellent article dealing with some issues as well.
I also have a decent C-O-N-spiracy PAGE to start at for multiple conspiracy matters. (These posts are old, so media and/or links may be dead once you reach a post of mine.)
JUDGE NAPOLITANO AND GERALDO RIVERA (WTC-7)
(HOTAIRhat-tip) The Judge and Geraldo Rivera Truthers!? Building Seven’s collapse was explained then as it is now and below.
I was not surprised to find out the Judge is a truther… people cannot be convinced that mankind is finite and saturated with failure and stupidity to explain away our missteps. The would rather believe in a very complex set of steps to leading to irrationality than that. “There HAS to be something more… a grand conspiracy to fool the intellectual prowess we all possess.
This is a many years update and additional media and pictures added (2023-09-05) to keep this post alive and well. The debate on Tower 7 still rages, and I must say, it is fun to show how awkward the counter position is.
STEVE SPAK
Before starting this “funfest,” I will say that one of the best refutations of the truther movement was a video done by fireman and photographer, Steve Spak. I used his mini-documentary for a while, until it was removed from his video account.
I tracked him down and we talked over the phone (many years ago now). I asked him why he would pull such a great resource off the internet. He responded that these nutters would come by his work and interrupt his daily life… so he just didn’t want to deal with all the nonsense.
I did track down — finally — an interview with Steve where much of this pertinent information comes out. So this is the first time Steve (God Bless Him) is back on my site in what? Seven years (April 10, 2011) Enjoy:
STEVE SPAKwas partly in charge of the firefighting efforts around WTC-7, and was one of the main persons involved in the decision to let it burn. I had heard a previous interview years before this one, but Steve pulled it from the internet. His reason? 9/11 Truther crazies would show up at his station and interfear with every day work firefighters do around their station. They would yell at him, call him a liar, etc. He said he had had enough of these nuts and went silent. I believe this interview is after he retired.
I am starting to get some truther (e.g., 9/11 conspiracy theorists) traffic so I will post a Tower Seven resource blog for those who wish to come here and see for themselves (or to send a friend).
EDWARD CURRENT 1
The last word on the collapse of the original 7 World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Running down the mainstream engineering explanation, debunking common Truther myths, and answering frequently asked questions. Comments may be intentionally demolished…make your own video if you want to spread misinformation about this engineering disaster, or about anything else.
The “truther” would have us believe that the building (WTC 7) received no structural damage. This is just not the case.
FUEL IN WTC-7
Nor do you hear them mention that there was diesel fuel throughout the building:
Tower 7 housed the city’s emergency command center, so there were a number of fuel tanks located throughout the building—including two 6000-gal. tanks in the basement that fed some generators in the building by pressurized lines. “Our working hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time,” according to Sunder. Steel melts at about 2,750 degrees Fahrenheit—but it loses strength at temperatures as low as 400 F. When temperatures break 1000 degrees F, steel loses nearly 50 percent of its strength. It is unknown what temperatures were reached inside WTC7, but fires in the building raged for seven hours before the collapse.
Below are some examples or the damage caused by the collapse of Tower 1 and 2 — that show some of the damage caused by falling debris. What the truthers don’t mention either is that the falling debris from the Twin Towers damaged many of the high-pressure water lines the fire department needed to fight the fires in WTC 7. (As already pointed out above by Steve Spak and Edward Current):
When it was completed in 1973, the World Trade Centre was the tallest building in the world, thanks to many of its revolutionary construction methods. But none of these methods was enough to survive the attacks on September 11th where jet fuel fires led to a weakening of the steel that held the structure together, and ultimately caused both buildings to collapse.
Now I want to show the debris ring and an example (Bankers Trust) of the destruction from the original two towers collapsing:
There are also video examples of some of this debris actually hitting WTC 7:
As an example of how persistent this idea of “demolition” is of WTC-7, here is a chap on X noting this idea as if it is sound. Think of the power tools (noise and lugging them in and out), the noise, the dust (have you fixed your own drywall at any point?) — all unnoticed:
Frankie, below, I think is speaking about the Twin Towers, while I am speaking about Building Seven. The demolition teams required for the Twin Towers would defiantly number 2 teams of 75 people [or more] and take many months of prep with all the associated “mess” noted below — compounded for a larger building and time needed.
My oldest son commented on the above in a series of texts:
The most top notch team in the world !
A clandestine multi point dark demolition mission synchronized with a plane hijacking….while having no correlation to the terrorist who also invested months in training themselves…. [in other words: There’s no evidence of anyone in the demo team coordinating the strike]
Literally be the wildest operation [in our countries history] ever
And no witnesses
You would have to use the Men In Black mind swipers
MY TEXT BACK: And while I was talking about building 7, he was talking about the Twin Towers. So larger teams (doubled), more time and waste n tools, etc
Like magically hiding all the Det cord
And explosives…. are very closely watched via the ATF for demolition people
A building like that takes quality materials
MY TEXT BACK: All under the nose of New York unions
Honestly…. Macro evolution is looking more likely
FREE-FALLING
The times that the truthers originally gave to WTC-7 free-falling [in Loose Change and other sources] did not hold up, as this next video clearly shows:
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conducted an extensive three-year scientific and technical investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, collapse of the 47-story World Trade Center building 7 (WTC 7) in New York City. This video describes the results of this study, which concluded that fires on multiple floors in WTC 7–which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings–caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.
9/11 Debunked: Larry Silverstein’s “Pull It” Explained
I love the truth of a matter; it is the truth that shall set you free, not opinion. Be set free truther’s, be set free.
FIRES BURNED FOR HOURS!
I want to post some pictures and a video here that will curb some of the wild thoughts that the fire in the WTC-7 was small and contained. Often times this is the photo or scene shown on many of the conspiratorial “documentaries” or sites:
Then the Truther will say something like… “Wow! Such a rager of a fire.” HOWEVER, the fire burned for hours, and here are some accompanying pics that should be shared as well:
VIDEO OF FIRE – RPT’s RUMBLE:
Me hunting the WWW…
All Footage of WTC-7 from Steve Spak’s DVD:
“WTC 9-11-01 Day of Disaster”
It is easy to show the fact that there was a massive fire in WTC-7.
But people cannot be convinced easy… especially if they have thought this to be true for years.
MELTING STEEL?
Now I want to switch gears and repost an old blog on “MELTING STEEL,” another fallacy of the 9/11 truthers:
FUEL & STEEL
According to the 9/11 Truthers, gasoline doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel. Remember that the type of heat experienced in the Twin Towers weakened the steel by more than 50%. This aside, what you see below is steel melted by gasoline. Apparently this can happen only in steel beams used in the construction of bridges, but not in buildings. (Watch your volume levels – static)
A newer edition to this “heat vs. bridges” is this one from BRETBART:
A section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, collapsed when a tanker truck went up in flames on Sunday, and officials warned drivers to stay clear of the area.
The truck was hauling a petroleum product when the blaze ignited, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Q & A
These are responses, positive and negative to this post. I am sharing a few over the years as they are me responding to some supposed challenges.
...Dayton Responds
very interesting indeed
...Luke Responds
Dayton introduced me to this blog of yours, and I gotta say, nice work.
...I Respond
Thanks Luke.
For many years I followed the New World Order stuff, reading many, many books on the subject, even going so far as to visit the local John Birch Society meeting once-in-awhile, and after many years I came to realize that if you critically looked into the evidences for this giant conspiracy to fool mankind knowingly, it is shown to be wanting.
Currently the conspiracy to fool mankind is backed by liberals, however, when Clinton was President, it was backed by conservatives. For a theory or model to explain every possible outcome and have completely different backers depending on who’s in office simply means that it is not a true theory or model because it is so elastic. And this is a conclusion that I came to a while back and had solidified by Michael Medved during his monthly Conspiracy Show (around the full moon). elastic.
Let me point something out though. The difference between the lib/con views of the giant conspiracy to fool mankind is that no leading political figure in the Republican Party accepted these crazy conspiracy myths as real. Today however, you have a huge chunk of the Democratic base accepting many of these wild stories and blame America first mentality, as well as many Democrat senators and representatives mentioning these crazy ideas.
Its funny, I can show someone proof that “X” didn’t happen, but “B” in fact did. They will simply respond that that too was a cover up meant to fool the general public, e.g., me. There is no debating such a person. In fact, this was the original reason for my creating a MySpace, was to challenge a few of my oldest sons friends on this exact matter.
As for us Christians . . . I use to think that this giant conspiracy would fool mankind into following the Anti-Christ. Now I think the delusion of this theory will drive many people to accept almost anything . . . even a messianic type figure. In other words, it’s the conspiracy theory ITSELF that breaks down the critical thinking and road to truth that makes accepting incredible claims without evidence, logic, history, and the like, more common place. Which is why having a healthy eschatology as a Christian is very important.
Sorry for the rant, again, glad you enjoyed.
PapaG
BUILDING .. NUMBER .. SEVEN
This was in response to a discussion about the Twin Towers:
...Mark Joins In
You’ve got me almost convinced. But three words still ring in my ear.
Building
number
seven.
Building number 7 of the wtc was not hit by a 747, jet fuel or falling debris (aside from the dust that covered most of NYC) but mysteriously caught fire and imploded.
What – magic?
POPULAR MECHANICS BOOK (DEBUNKING 9/11 MYTHS) | FUEL
...I Respond
Thank you Mark for your interaction here, it is welcomed.
Actually, building seven was hit by a massive amount of debris from Tower 1 or 2 (I will look into which tower when I get the National Geographic DVD, since that has the best shots of falling debris I have seen yet). What you may not know is that building 7 housed the city’s emergency command post. The building was designed to remain operational if power were to be lost. How was this building designed to keep running if power were to go out? This is the part we don’t hear too much about:
…There were a number of fuel tanks throughout the building that may have supplied fuel to the fires for up to seven hours. In addition to smaller “day tanks” on each floor, two 6,000-gallon tanks in the basement fed most of the generators in the building….. Two generators, located on the fifth floor, were connected to the fuel tanks in the basement via a pressurized line. Says Sunder: “Our working hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time”…. (p. 56)
….WTC 7 was built to straddle a Con Edison electrical substation. That required an unusual design in which a number of columns were engineered to carry exceptionally large loads, roughly 2,000 square feet of floor area for each floor. “What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors,” Sunder notes, “it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down.” (p. 55)
(Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts)
Also note that trusses on the fifth and seventh floors were designed (similarly to WTC 1 and 2) to transfer loads from one set of columns to another.
(The following is added for clarity even though already ): I want the skeptic to look here at the damage caused by debris [let alone the fires] from the falling Twin Tower to building 7:
Oooops, I guess the building was damaged after all!
...Ryan Joins In
Do you work for the government? lol… first off just because people have conflicting theories and haven’t figured out everything doesn’t mean there wrong. Ok I am pretty convinced that 9-11 was an inside job from the videos I have seen and you call people who believe in this wacko… not a very good thing if you want people from the other side to listen to you. I haven’t read everything you said yet… I get headaches when I read. Do you have any google videos or something that I could watch that supports your side?
POPULAR MECHANICS BOOK (DEBUNKING 9/11 MYTHS) | BEDFELLOWS
...I Respond
The best bet is to buy The Learning Channel’s video “World Trade Center: Anatomy of the Collapse”, this is a great resource. Dude, you are talking to a guy that is going to recommend books all-day long… so you may want to find someone else to talk to. Some of the largest demolition companies were approached by the authors of the book I recommend, and they said that it would take two-teams of 75-people (each team) months to plant and strip all the supports columns on three floors. This went unnoticed?
Also, the “Loose Change” people have strange bedfellows… something the conspiracists always try to make connections to in regards to Bush and the oil companies…. I would say for them to look at the log in their eye first:
[….]
I am including some edited comments I made from another post to make clear some thinking here:
...Additional Info
Grant,
First off let me welcome you to this site. While I will disagree with you you must keep in mind your opinion is welcome here.
Secondly, did you even read my post? There was a destructive agent involved, and it wasn’t Bush! Could it be… “SATAN?!” No, it was probably the 15,000 gallons of fuel in WTC-7. There are two important things to remember: there hasn’t been a building (1) like the Twin Towers Complex built that had (2) this amount of damage done to them. Keep in mind that the other buildings often used as “caught on fire and didn’t collapse” as proof that the Twin Towers or WTC-7 shouldn’t have were never hit by large debris [and in the case of the TT, planes] and then caught on fire with their particular architecture, 15,000-gallons of fuel in the building, and no water to fight it.
Another important thing to remember is that in those other buildings always mentioned, there was sufficient water to fight the fires and put them out or stop them from spreading. Most of the sites you probably visit do not show the photos and video I will show.
I will first – in the “UPDATE” section [photos shown above] – show the photo most see on conspiracy sites, and then show some video and shots that tell the whole story. But first, let’s review how this is different, than say a plane hitting the Empire State Building:
1) About 15,000 gallons of fuel, some of it high pressured “spouts of flames;”
2) Little to no water pressure to supply the firefighters hoses to fight the fire (damaged from the massive amount of debris from Tower 2);
3) Yes steel used in WTC-7… but no, not same design. The support structure of this building was wildly different than any other building’s design. So the factors of debris, architectural design, and fuel all were a deadly combination to any and all of these buildings.
A LATER UPDATE FAKE VIDEO USED AS PROOF
UFOs and WTC-7
It’s funny because someone just posted this video that Eddie Current made. Here is the video posted on Twitter, with my response:
This video was put together by a well-known Truther on his way out of the movement to make a point. And his point is still being made: https://t.co/LxoKLTVjZW
.
— Papa No Good Very Bad “Ultra-MAGA” Bal Giorgio (@papagiorgio200) July 21, 2023
I guess the guy missed the UFO added as well! LOL:
Many 9/11 “Truthers” weren’t fooled by my ridiculous fake video of 7 World Trade Center being taken down by controlled demolition. But those who were, well….. gullible people are gullible.
A well-known leader in the truther movement, has left the movement — but not before creating a fake video that the 9-11 truthers fell for, hook-line-and-sinker. Here are two videos by him.
HERE IS HIS FIRST VIDEO ABOUT LEAVING THE MOVEMENT:
A semi-comedic — but dead serious — account of my embarrassing brush with the delusional “Truth” movement.
Here is a waaay more in-depth “Pull-It” response.
Pull It
I can’t believe I am revisiting this. At any rate, someone challenged me with the Pull-It “conspiracy,” proving [somehw] that the building was brought down by charges/detonation devices. I was asked to watch this:
This is from one of the best sites on this matter, Debunking 9/11’s post on Pull-It:
Silverstein’s Quote:
“I remember getting a call from the Fire Department commander, telling me they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, you know, ‘We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is just pull it.’ And they made that decision to pull and then we watched the building collapse.“
-Fact which is undisputed by either side, he was talking to the fire commander
-Fact which is undisputed by either side, both are not in the demolition business
Silverstein’s spokesperson, Mr. McQuillan, later clarified:
“In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.“
He could be lying, right? But here is the corroborating evidence…
“They told us to get out of there because they were worried about 7 World Trade Center, which is right behind it, coming down. We were up on the upper floors of the Verizon building looking at it. You could just see the whole bottom corner of the building was gone. We could look right out over to where the Trade Centers were because we were that high up. Looking over the smaller buildings. I just remember it was tremendous, tremendous fires going on. Finally they pulled us out. They said all right, get out of that building because that 7, they were really worried about. They pulled us out of there and then they regrouped everybody on Vesey Street, between the water and West Street. They put everybody back in there. Finally it did come down. From there – this is much later on in the day, because every day we were so worried about that building we didn’t really want to get people close. They were trying to limit the amount of people that were in there. Finally it did come down.” – Richard Banaciski
Here is more evidence they pulled the teams out waiting for a normal collapse from fire…
“The most important operational decision to be made that afternoon was the collapse (Of the WTC towers) had damaged 7 World Trade Center, which is about a 50 story building, at Vesey between West Broadway and Washington Street. It had very heavy fire on many floors and I ordered the evacuation of an area sufficient around to protect our members, so we had to give up some rescue operations that were going on at the time and back the people away far enough so that if 7 World Trade did collapse, we [wouldn’t] lose any more people. We continued to operate on what we could from that distance and approximately an hour and a half after that order was [given], at 5:30 in the afternoon, World Trade Center collapsed completely” – Daniel Nigro, Chief of Department
“Early on, there was concern that 7 World Trade Center might have been both impacted by the collapsing tower and had several fires in it and there was a concern that it might collapse. So we instructed that a collapse area — (Q. A collapse zone?) — Yeah — be set up and maintained so that when the expected collapse of 7 happened, we wouldn’t have people working in it. There was considerable discussion with Con Ed regarding the substation in that building and the feeders and the oil coolants and so on. And their concern was of the type of fire we might have when it collapsed.” – Chief Cruthers
“Then we found out, I guess around 3:00 [o’clock], that they thought 7 was going to collapse. So, of course, [we’ve] got guys all in this pile over here and the main concern was get everybody out, and I guess it took us over an hour and a half, two hours to get everybody out of there. (Q. Initially when you were there, you had said you heard a few Maydays?) Oh, yes. We had Maydays like crazy…. The heat must have been tremendous. There was so much [expletive] fire there. This whole pile was burning like crazy. Just the heat and the smoke from all the other buildings on fire, you [couldn’t] see anything. So it took us a while and we ended up backing everybody out, and [that’s] when 7 collapsed…. Basically, we fell back for 7 to collapse, and then we waited a while and it got a lot more organized, I would guess.” – Lieutenant William Ryan
“Firehouse: Did that chief give an assignment to go to building 7?
Boyle: He gave out an assignment. I didn’t know exactly what it was,but he told the chief that we were heading down to the site.
Firehouse: How many companies?
Boyle: There were four engines and at least three trucks. So we’re heading east on Vesey, we couldn’t see much past Broadway. We couldn’t see Church Street. We couldn’t see what was down there. It was really smoky and dusty.”
But they had a hoseline operating. Like I said, it was hitting the sidewalk across the street, but eventually they pulled back too. Then we received an order from Fellini, we’re going to make a move on 7. That was the first time really my stomach tightened up because the building didn’t look good. I was figuring probably the standpipe systems were shot. There was no hydrant pressure. I wasn’t really keen on the idea. Then this other officer I’m standing next to said, that building doesn’t look straight. So I’m standing there. I’m looking at the building. It didn’t look right, but, well, we’ll go in, we’ll see.
So we gathered up rollups and most of us had masks at that time. We headed toward 7. And just around we were about a hundred yards away and Butch Brandies came running up. He said forget it, nobody’s going into 7, there’s creaking, there are noises coming out of there, so we just stopped. And probably about 10 minutes after that, Visconti, he was on West Street, and I guess he had another report of further damage either in some basements and things like that, so Visconti said nobody goes into 7, so that was the final thing and that was abandoned.
Firehouse: When you looked at the south side, how close were you to the base of that side?
Boyle: I was standing right next to the building, probably right next to it.
Firehouse: When you had fire on the 20 floors, was it in one window or many?
Boyle: There was a huge gaping hole and it was scattered throughout there. It was a huge hole. I would say it was probably about a third of it, right in the middle of it. And so after Visconti came down and said nobody goes in 7, we said all right, we’ll head back to the command post. We lost touch with him. I never saw him again that day.
This proves there was a big hole on the south side of the building. From the photographic evidence and these quotes which aren’t meant to be technical, I suspect there was a large hole in the center of the building which may have gone up 10 stories connected to a large rip on the left side of the building which continued up another 10 or more stories. Together they would make “a hole 20 stories tall“.
Hayden: Yeah. There was enough there and we were marking off. There were a lot of damaged apparatus there that were covered. We tried to get searches in those areas. By now, this is going on into the afternoon, and we were concerned about additional collapse, not only of the Marriott, because there was a good portion of the Marriott still standing,but also we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o’clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse.
Firehouse: Was there heavy fire in there right away?
Hayden: No, not right away, and that’s probably why it stood for so long because it took a while for that fire to develop. It was a heavy body of fire in there and then we didn’t make any attempt to fight it. That was just one of those wars we were just going to lose. We were concerned about the collapse of a 47-story building there. We were worried about additional collapse there of what was remaining standing of the towers and the Marriott, so we started pulling the people back after a couple of hours of surface removal and searches along thesurface of the debris. We started to pull guys back because we were concerned for their safety.
Firehouse: Chief Nigro said they made a collapse zone and wanted everybody away from number 7— did you have to get all of those people out?
Hayden: Yeah, we had to pull everybody back. It was very difficult. We had to be very forceful in getting the guys out. They didn’t want to come out. There were guys going into areas that I wasn’t even really comfortable with, because of the possibility of secondary collapses. We didn’t know how stable any of this area was. We pulled everybody back probably by 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon. We said, this building is going to come down, get back. It came down about 5 o’clock or so, but we had everybody backed away by then. At that point in time, it seemed like a somewhat smaller event, but under any normal circumstances, that’s a major event, a 47-story building collapsing. It seemed like a firecracker after the other ones came down, but I mean that’s a big building, and when it came down, it was quite an event. But having gone through the other two, it didn’t seem so bad. But that’s what we were concerned about. We had said to the guys, we lost as many as 300 guys. We didn’t want to lose any more people that day. And when those numbers start to set in among everybody… My feeling early on was we weren’t going to find any survivors. You either made it out or you didn’t make it out. It was a cataclysmic event. The idea of somebody living in that thing to me would have been only short of a miracle. This thing became geographically sectored because of the collapse. I was at West and Liberty. I couldn’t go further north on West Street. And I couldn’t go further east on Liberty because of the collapse of the south tower, so physically we were boxed in.
WTC Building 7 appears to have suffered significant damage at some point after the WTC Towers had collapsed, according to firefighters at the scene. Firefighter Butch Brandies tells other firefighters that nobody is to go into Building 7 because of creaking and noises coming out of there. [Firehouse Magazine, 8/02 — METABUNK]
Battalion Chief John Norman later recalls, “At the edge of the south face you could see that it is very heavily damaged.” [Firehouse Magazine, 5/02 — METABUNK]
Heavy, thick smoke rises near 7 World Trade Center. Smoke is visible from the upper floors of the 47-story building. Firefighters using transits to determine whether there was any movement in the structure were surprised to discover that is was moving. The area was evacuated and the building collapsed later in the afternoon of Sept. 11.
The conspiracy nuts are out in full force [see pics] regarding the government starting fires [now all the rave in the Maui fire] by “energy weapons.” To one Tweet about the burned out cars aspect of conspiracists ….
TARGETING CARS
…. I responded:
I see burned out cars on the 405 that fire fighters don’t get to in time — because of traffic — that look the same. Alternatively, some person can believe multi-billion energy weapons were used to target each car. Lol. I say each car because the [now] famous “blue car” among conspiratorialists — survived.
Maybe the guy firing these weapons has an affinity to blue? Or, it reminds him of his first car? Either way, a Ghost Ship would have to be circling a long time, or multiple satellites would have to be used. Many in fact. Which makes zero sense.
TARGETING POWERLINES
Another post was of a video of an electrical arch down a powerline ripped from context.
The military is using multi-billion $$ energy weapons to target a…. a …. 40-foot length of powerline? Lol.
Later in the day the Twitter – or X? – community pointed out that the video was from 4-years earlier in Louisianan and not Maui saying this was proof of energy weapons. The original video, as well as more debunking of the above can be found HERE.
TARGETING HOMES
A person simply responded to one of my comments with a picture from the Tubbs Fire that seemed to prove their unstated “energy weapon” position.
So, I responded with a pic from a forum convo via a great website called META BUNK discussing the conspiracies surrounding the Tubbs Fire.
As an aside, my mom believed this about the Santa Rosa, “Tubbs Fire,” God rest her soul. She would have been calling about this Maui Fire for sure. All the same tropes: the blue car, the trees not burnt, some buildings skipped by fire, and the like.
In similar fashion to debunking an aspect of the “Chemtrails” nonsense, which is merely to include pics from before “Chemtrail” knowledge was available. [The picture to the right is from WWII, Battle of the Philippine Sea, June 1944.]
Likewise, in response to the Tubbs Fire picture, I include a picture from the 1961 Bel-Air/Brentwood Fire with the question,
Did they have ‘energy weapons’ in 1961?
(Click on the image for a larger Bel-Air pic)
The L.A. TIMES noted of the fire many years later:
The two-day Bel Air/Brentwood brush fire destroyed nearly 500 homes, but no lives were lost. The fire damaged or destroyed several homes belonging to Hollywood celebrities.
Among the most notorious California wildfires, the Bel-Air/Brentwood fire began in a trash heap…..a blaze that left hundreds of the rich and famous homeless in what LIFE magazine called ‘A Tragedy Trimmed in Mink’ and prompted brush clearance laws and an eventual city ban on wood shingle roofs.
On a warm November morning in 1961, a Sherman Oaks construction crew, working just north of Bel-Air, noticed smoke and flames coming from a nearby pile of rubbish. Within minutes, Santa Ana winds swept burning embers from roof to roof, spreading fire across the affluent enclaves of the Santa Monica Mountains. …
Actor Burt Lancaster, comedian Joe E. Brown, composer Lukas Foss, Nobel laureate chemist Willard Libby and Zsa Zsa Gabor lost homes.
The above photo by George Fry appeared on the front page of the Nov. 7, 1961, Los Angeles Times. This image and several others were recently scanned from the original negatives. An older version of this post was published Nov. 7, 2010.
I have been “muting” people on Twitter… er… X, that seriously think energy weapons were used to start the Maui fire. But il Donaldo Trumpo nailed this with humor!
At today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) questioned Special Counsel John Durham about his report on the FBI and the investigations into former President Trump.
What did Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Loretta Lynch, and James Comey know about Russia-collusion — and when did they know it? John Durham dropped a bombshell in his testimony today at House Oversight, which will go on for at least a couple of hours or more, but this part wasn’t the bombshell. In his special-counsel report, Durham had already revealed that CIA Director John Brennan briefed these four in August 2016 that Hillary Clinton planned to paint Donald Trump as linked to Russian intelligence, presumably to shift attention away from her own e-mail scandal.
That briefing resulted in a “referral memorandum,” and one of its recipients was then-FBI director James Comey. Oversight chair Jim Jordan asks Durham whether Comey ever bothered to share that with the agents assigned to the newly launched Operation Crossfire Hurricane or ever presented to the FISA court when applications were made for domestic surveillance of Trump campaign officials.
[….]
JORDAN: “Did [Comey] share it with the agents…working the Crossfire Hurricane case?!”
DURHAM: “No.”
JORDAN: “Can you tell the committee what happened when you took that referral memo, and shared it with one of those agents?”
DURHAM: “He indicated he had never seen it before. He immediately became emotional…”
JORDAN: “He was ticked off!”
DURHAM: “The information was kept from them.”
Let me expand the truncated transcript on Durham’s recollection:
JORDAN: Can you tell the committee what happened when you took that referral memo, and shared it with one of those agents?
DURHAM: We interviewed the first supervisor on the Crossfire investigation, the operational person. We showed him the intelligence information. He indicated he had never seen it before. He immediately became emotional, and got up and left the room with his lawyer, spent some time in the hallway, came back.
JORDAN: He was ticked off, wasn’t he? He was ticked off because this was something he should have had as an agent on the case. This was important information that the director of the FBI kept from the people doing the investigation.
DURHAM: The information was kept from them.
In other words, the director of the FBI knowingly withheld evidence pertinent to an FBI investigation. That resulted not just in errors made by the agents conducting the investigation that might have resulted ending what turned out to be a witch hunt, but also contributed to misrepresentations to the FISA court about the nature of the evidence they used to conduct surveillance on Trump campaign figures.
Representative Troy Nehls (R-TX) questioned Special Counsel John Durham in the House Judiciary Committee today, spending his time dismantling the absurd claims made by Democrats about the existence of an alleged “Trump Pee Tape.”
Hank Johnson shames John Durham for failing to indict Hunter Biden (but there’s a good reason for that) | TWITCHY
New York governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday called to ban natural gas heating and appliances in the state’s new buildings in an effort to fight climate change. [….] Hochul’s proposal, made during her state-of-the-state address, comes after a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission official sparked outcry by suggesting gas stoves might soon be banned over alleged health risks. However, commission chairman Alexander D. Hoehn-Saric issued a statement Wednesday saying the commission does not plan to ban the appliances. Hochul’s focus, however, was on climate change when she proposed a ban on the use of fossil fuels by 2025 for newly built smaller structures and 2028 for larger ones. The proposal would also see the state ban the sale of new fossil-fuel heating systems beginning in 2030….
New York state may see a ban on gas stoves in new buildings and homes by the end of the decade, as officials seek to combat climate change. [….] If passed, New Yorkers may see only electric stovetops in new developments by 2030. ….
Without any real evidence, Mrs. Obama has claimed that poor Americans are trapped in what she calls “food deserts,” where they must apparently trudge for miles outside of their dismal neighborhoods to buy a piece of fruit or some celery sticks. According to Mrs. Obama, a food desert is an inner city without a grocery store. She envisioned spending millions of federal dollars to plant grocery stores in those blighted areas so the “poor” won’t have to buy food at mini-marts.
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan actually attended Al Sharpton’s National Action Network annual convention in April 2012. There he told an absurd story about how Barack Obama, who attended Harvard University, knows what “it’s like to take a subway or a bus just to find a fresh piece of fruit in a grocery store.” No fruit at Harvard?
The story may be ridiculous, but Michelle Obama was dead serious about extorting $400 million from American taxpayers to solve the nonexistent problem of food deserts.
In reality there are no such things as food deserts. Researcher Roland Sturm at the Rand Corporation studied food desert claims and found that individuals in urban areas can get any kind of food they want within a couple of miles. He suggested we call these areas “food swamps,” rather than food deserts.
In addition, researcher Helen Lee at the Public Policy Institute in California found that in poor neighborhoods, citizens had twice as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier neighborhoods had, and more than three times as many corner stores. These areas had twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocery stores as wealthier neighborhoods.
The truth was exactly the opposite of Mrs. Obama’s claim, but hers satisfied the mind-set of the utopians, who believe they alone could solve problems that never existed. Mrs. Obama later began a second crusade to force restaurants and schools to serve “healthy” foods, ban “junk food,” and bully restaurants into serving smaller portions.
Michelle Obama worked in 2010 to get Congress to pass a nutrition bill that would give the Department of Agriculture new powers to regulate school lunches. The bill was passed in December of that year, and now that the regulations have gone into effect, it is having a devastating impact on students and their angry parents.
Under Department of Agriculture edicts, cinnamon rolls and chili are banned. School bands and groups can’t sell candy bars for fund-raising. The government is now mandating portion sizes, including how many tomatoes must go into a salad!
Children are permitted to refuse three items on a tray, but not fruits and vegetables. Of course, the Food Police can’t yet force them to eat their veggies, but it’s not far-fetched to think they might someday. After all, the Obamas have rammed through legislation that initially demanded that nuns buy insurance coverage for contraception and pregnancy. Fortunately the Supreme Court ended that requirement in 2014.
The new federal guidelines, thanks to Michelle Obama, now limit caloric intake to between 750 and 850 a day for schoolchildren. Teenagers require between 2,000 and 3,000 calories a day to be healthy and grow, and high school athletes need up to 5,000 calories per day. In short, the First Lady is responsible for malnourishing kids through the school lunch program.
In 2006 the three-term mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, decided to add the title “Food Police Chief’ to his list of duties in the Big Apple. That year, he banished trans fats from city restaurants and, in 2010, forced food manufacturers to alter their recipes to include less sodium. He failed, however, to remove salt shakers from the tables. Patrons who receive a dish of food at a New York restaurant that they deem not salty enough may still simply add salt.
In spring 2012 Bloomberg decided that New Yorkers had to be protected even more from themselves, so he issued an edict banning soft drinks larger than sixteen ounces. The ban applied to restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums, and arenas.
In August 2012 Bloomberg banned the distribution of baby formula in city hospitals unless it is medically necessary because he, a man, had decided that new mothers should always breast-feed regardless of their weight, professions, or other personal details. Free formula provided to mothers was also eliminated. Bloomberg determined that breast-feeding is best for children and that new mothers should not have a voice in the decision regardless of their circumstances. But Bloomberg did want women to have freedom of choice to kill their young before they are born. He was willing to give moms the option to abort their unborn babies, but not to feed formula to those who are living.
What is next for those like Obama and Bloomberg? Mandated calisthenics each morning at six? Currently the United States seems to be incubating and hatching utopian tyrants at an alarming rate.
A 13-year old article is making it’s rounds and I thought it worthwhile to post it here – in full with links to comments/posts on it. This is from ARCHIVE TODAY via REDDIT: Here are some comments taken from REDDIT before the SUNDAY TIMES article.
The word ‘philanthropist’ now has negative connotations, whenever I see it next to someone’s name I shudder.
The word has always been a whitewash of ‘Robber Baron.’
But Bill Gates is a new breed – the Philanthro-capitalist. He doesn’t give money to charities, he gives money to corporations, so he can use them as part of his plans. Lots of money to media for favorable attention, for example.
i prefer philanthropaths – it has that sinister ring to it
We need to familiarize ourselves with search engine alternatives
John Harlow, Los Angeles, Sunday May 24 2009, 1.00am BST, The Sunday Times
TITLE: Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation:
SUBTITLE: America’s richest people meet to discuss ways of tackling a ‘disastrous’ environmental, social and industrial threat
SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.
The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.
Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.
These members, along with Gates, have given away more than £45 billion since 1996 to causes ranging from health programmes in developing countries to ghetto schools nearer to home.
They gathered at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University, in Manhattan on May 5. The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires’ aides were told they were at “security briefings”.
Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. “We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different – maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,” he said.
Some details were emerging this weekend, however. The billionaires were each given 15 minutes to present their favourite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an “umbrella cause” that could harness their interests.
The issues debated included reforming the supervision of overseas aid spending to setting up rural schools and water systems in developing countries. Taking their cue from Gates they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.
This could result in a challenge to some Third World politicians who believe contraception and female education weaken traditional values.
Gates, 53, who is giving away most of his fortune, argued that healthier families, freed from malaria and extreme poverty, would change their habits and have fewer children within half a generation.
At a conference in Long Beach, California, last February, he had made similar points. “Official projections say the world’s population will peak at 9.3 billion [up from 6.6 billion today] but with charitable initiatives, such as better reproductive healthcare, we think we can cap that at 8.3 billion,” Gates said then.
Patricia Stonesifer, former chief executive of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gives more than £2 billion a year to good causes, attended the Rockefeller summit. She said the billionaires met to “discuss how to increase giving” and they intended to “continue the dialogue” over the next few months.
Another guest said there was “nothing as crude as a vote” but a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.
“This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers,” said the guest. “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.”
Why all the secrecy? “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government,” he said.
On Saturday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk appeared on the All-In podcast and said that “every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true.”
“Is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true?” Musk said. “So far they’ve all turned out to be true, and if not more true than people thought.”
The All-In hosts were asking Musk about the Twitter files, a series of reports detailing conversations at Twitter over several years concerning the company’s efforts towards censorship and collusion with government agencies towards information suppression.
When asked “is there a part of the files that really shocked you” Musk replied that the “FBI stuff is pretty intense.”………
Humanism is man-centered philosophy. Man himself, not God’s glory, is the primary concern and our world’s problems can be solved by the intelligent effort of man. They gladly point to the United Nations [or: World Economic Forum; G20; CDC, or the like] to exemplify humanistic accomplishment. Any concept of faith is generally eschewed and supernatural revelation is rejected. They seek no higher source for moral values and do not normally believe in an afterlife. Colossians 1:12-29 clearly condemns their thinking. (See more at: TRUTH & TIDINGS | GOT QUESTIONS)
These three excerpts from the videos below are related in that the New World Order has simply been people in power who want no borders and power to decide for others how they should live and eat for the betterment of the world and their egos. Control of Elections, control of lives – bigger government… the wet dream of the Left throughout history. From Lycurgus (Sparta) to Soros/Schwab. The DNC is onboard for a borderless, “world worker” collective.
The son of famous atheist, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, notes the collective nature of Sparta and man’s search to be like God since the Garden (Genesis 3:1; 5 — “…did God really say…. For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Planning for mankind what man thinks is good/bad apart from God’s revelation.):
The Grecian city-state of Sparta and Plato’s descriptions of the supposedly perfect society in his Republic and in the Laws (a twelve-book series) have been the inspiration for utopian tyrants throughout history. Sparta was a collectivist, centrally planned city-state. Individuality was discouraged, and all were expected to live their lives in obedience to the dictates of the totalitarian leadership. Boys were raised from birth to be soldiers and not much more.
Sparta moved to utopian tyranny under the rule of Lycurgus, who imposed a series of laws on the Spartans around 800 BC. Lycurgus turned Sparta into a disciplined war machine, a country where freedom was nonexistent and where cultural creativity died. Regrettably, his influence over this nation-state lasted some five hundred years. Sparta eventually decayed from within, and outside invasions decimated its population.
Before Lycurgus imposed his draconian laws upon Spartan’s citizens, there had been art and creativity in the city-state’s culture; however, Lycurgus ordered all Spartans to disregard art (with the exception of some martial-style songs, music, and poetry). He taught them to distrust philosophy and to avoid excess in all things. Even their speech patterns were restricted to avoid pointless chatter, gossip, or too much speaking of any kind.
[….]
The historian Plutarch described how Lycurgus traveled to other parts of the known world to study various forms of government and cultures before returning to Sparta to implement his totalitarian plans. lie searched for a society based on virtue and a warrior ethos. Lycurgus then traveled to the Greek Oracle of Delphi (a priestess of the god Apollo) to obtain instructions from the “gods” on how to rule Sparta, or at least claimed that as his purpose.
According to Plutarch, the oracle taught Lycurgus that he himself was a “god” and confirmed his ruthless plans for governing Sparta as purposed by the gods.
With apparent “divine” approval through this mystical oracle, Lycurgus began to remake Sparta in the utopian image he imagined. Plutarch related how he first established a council of elders who would have an equal vote with the two kings who ruled Sparta at the time. According to Plutarch, “eight-and-twenty elders would lend the kings their support in the suppression of democracy, but would use the people to suppress any tendency to despotism.”
Long before Karl Marx, Lycurgus was the ideal collectivist and central planner. He believed that Sparta’s citizens were the property of the state and that they had no higher purpose than to obey the dictates of the rulers throughout their lives. The concept of individual liberty and of freedom of conscience and action soon became nonexistent in Sparta. The state rather than the family was the center of each person’s life.
Unlike Marx or Lenin, Lycurgus never produced an overall doctrine in writing for Sparta. Using this tactic, he could add to the rules or change them as he pleased, just as other despotic rulers over Sparta did who followed after his death.
As a good collectivist, Lycurgus hated wealth and private property, so he decided that wealthy landowners should be stripped of all their property so it could be given to the poor. He engaged in what current collectives describe as “redistributing” the wealth. In the twentieth century, Communists called this land-theft process “agrarian reform.” According to Plutarch, Lycurgus accomplished this without murder:
Lycurgus abolished all the mass of pride, envy, crime, and luxury which flowed from those old and more terrible evils of riches and poverty, by inducing all land-owners to offer their estates for redistribution, and prevailing upon them to live on equal terms one with another, and with equal incomes, striving only to surpass each other in courage and virtue, there being henceforth no social inequalities among them except such as praise or blame can create.
Lycurgus also hated the concept of money because it supposedly resulted in greed and avarice. His solution was to abolish the use of gold and silver money and to make iron money the only legal tender in his city-state. The iron money was so large that it had to be carried by a yoke of oxen. The destruction of the gold and silver standard also made it impossible for Sparta to effectively trade with other countries.
[….]
Lycurgus controlled every aspect of Spartan life. There were even precise regulations as to how a Spartan home could be roofed. The beams of each house had to be constructed with an axe, while the doors had to be built with a saw and no other tools.
[….]
Lycurgus was an advocate of infanticide, which became an institution in Sparta. Whenever a child was born, it was considered state property and, if a boy, he was destined to spend most of his life training or engaging in warfare against Sparta’s enemies. Thus, he had to be strong and indifferent to pain and privation. Babies that appeared to have defects or weakness at birth were eliminated, as they could not serve the Spartan state and thus had no value.
The manner of death of the unwanted babies was not as sterile as it is today at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Newborns were taken to a group of elders for examination. If those elders chose a child for disposal, it was taken to the top of a mountain cliff and thrown off, to be eaten by wild animals.
[….]
crops and services to the Spartan elites. To keep the Helots enslaved and in constant fear, Sparta’s leaders created a secret police much like the Soviet KGB or the Nazi Gestapo to terrorize them on a regular basis. This force was called the Krypteia.
Pfizer has just admitted in a European hearing that they never tested vaccines for preventing transmission before the vaccines entered the market.
In other words, all the pressure put on people to get the vaccine to protect others was manufactured, and many people lost their jobs over refusing to get the vaccines.
[….]
I’m not sure what the ‘speed of science’ means, but clearly the vaccine wasn’t tested for making someone immune to the virus. Which means all of the pressure and fascist policies that Biden put in place, which got many people fired or kicked out of the armed forces, was bunk.
There was never any evidence that the vaccine would make people immune and that’s pretty clear now that many people have gotten COVID multiple times, even after having had all the vaccines and boosters. Including Biden.
TUCKER CARLSON has MEP Rob Roos on
PJ-MEDIAadds what the “Speed of Science” actually is:
…..The speed of science or the speed of greed? Already, as of May 2021, Pfizer had made $3.5 billion of revenue on its COVID vaccine in just three months, almost a quarter of its total revenue, according to Yahoo News. Chinese Communist Party-owned Fosun Pharmaceuticals makes the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine in the U.S., according to Dr. Naomi Wolf.
Multiplestudies recently have warned that the COVID-19 vaccines can cause serious injury and death. Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo just released an analysis showing the relative incidence of cardiac-related death increased84 percent in men ages 18-39 within 28 days of mRNA vaccination. Ladapo recommended that young men not get the COVID vaccine.
Roos commented at the end of his video about Small’s admission, “This is scandalous. Millions of people worldwide felt forced to get vaccinated because of the myth that ‘you do it for others.’ Now, this turned out to be a cheap lie. This should be exposed.”
Science is so fast it is killing men before they reach old age.
…“There’s never been a president as tough on Russia as I have been,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
That might sound like hyperbole, but in this case, there’s actually some basis for the president’s boast.
“When you actually look at the substance of what this administration has done, not the rhetoric but the substance, this administration has been much tougher on Russia than any in the post-Cold War era,” said Daniel Vajdich, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council….
(RED STATE) For five years, CNN has fed us a non-stop string of stories claiming, without — and contrary to — evidence, that President Trump was a tool of Vladimir Putin and that just about every foreign policy move by the US, from confronting North Korea to disarticulating the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force to slaughtering Russian mercenaries in Syria, was actually designed to give Russia some huge but unspecified advantage over the United States.
Now that President Trump seems destined to leave the White House later this month, CNN has openly violated their own editorial policy and decided to take a stab at telling the truth. This is CNN foreign policy wonk and noted plagiarist (yes, plagiarists can still find employment on CNN if nowhere else) Fareed Zakaria on CNN’s New Day on January 1:
…Trump had, the lawmaker noted: 1) Bombed Syria, Russia’s main client, and unleashed the U.S. military in Syria, including against Russians; 2) Armed Ukraine; 3) Weakened the Iran nuclear deal, and would likely soon end it [which Trump later did]; 4) Browbeat NATO allies to increase defense spending; 5) Approved $130 billion in new defense spending; 6) Added low-yield nukes to the U.S. arsenal; 7) Started research and development on a new missile after Russia deployed a missile that did not comply with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; 8)Shut down Russia’s consulate in San Francisco; and 9)Pumped more U.S. oil and gas, making the U.S. more energy independent.
Those were just the reasons at the time, in 2018. As time went on, Trump continued and expanded on all those Russia-limiting moves. Plus, he not only kept in place earlier sanctions against Russia, but he added new ones.
The short version of the story: Trump was right, and the media consensus was wrong….
(I added a Facebook conversational response by myself at the bottom — JUMP)
SEBASTIAN GORKA goes through a few items that is evidence against the idea that Trump is a Russian asset.
If you think Russia spent money to get Trump in office, that was the biggest waste of money in history. Alternatively, if you think Putin has something on Trump, it has failed to dissuade Trump to act in Putin’s favor at all… Putin, then, would be the worse con-artist in history then.
RPT’S FACEBOOK POINTS, LINKED
Bullet Points
This admin reversed the policy of the Obama administration, which stood silently when Putin’s Russia annexed Crimea and attacked Ukraine. The Trump admin has sold the Ukrainians lethal defensive weaponry, including anti-tank missiles designed to destroy Putin’s Russian tanks in the hands of separatist rebels. (THE HILL)
The Trump administration has expelled 60 Russians, labeling them “spies” pretending to be diplomats. (DAILY WIRE)
About 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm (many were Russian special operatives) were either killed (about 200) or injured in Syria on orders from the Trump administration (WASHINGTON TIMES)
Now, President Donald Trump approved sanctions on 38 different Russian companies and entities in response to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, its presence in Ukraine, and support for the Assad regime in Syria. These entities include 7 Russian oligarchs, 12 companies they own and control, 17 Russian senior government officials, and a state owned Russian weapons trading company…. even sanctioning a member of Putin’s family. (DAILY CALLER)
President Trump is pressuring Germany to stop paying Russia BILLIONS of dollars a year via the gas-pipeline deal (YOUTUBE).
Donald Trump employed jawboning to persuade, arm-twist, and threaten NATO member-states if they didn’t raise the level of their spending on defense…. “by the end of next year, NATO allies will add hundred – 100 billion extra U.S. dollars toward defense.” (FOX)
The Obama Administration worked unsuccessfully to persuade the Kremlin to stand down the program through diplomatic talks. The Trump Administration, in contrast, directly confronted the violation by funding development of its own missile. The research is allowed under the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty), and only breaches the deal if that missile is ever tested or deployed (TIME). “We’ll have to develop those weapons, unless Russia comes to us and China comes to us and they all come to us and say let’s really get smart and let’s none of us develop those weapons, but if Russia’s doing it and if China’s doing it, and we’re adhering to the agreement, that’s unacceptable,” Trump told reporters (DAILYWIRE).
After Sergei Skripal’s poisoning, US exports to Russia that could have military uses — so-called dual use technologies, are cut off completely (CNN)
President Trump signed an executive order to improve America’s critical infrastructure against electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks. (EPOCH TIMES)
President Donald Trump called on Russia to pull its troops out of Venezuela on March 27, following reports that two Russian military planes touched down in Caracas over the weekend with about 100 soldiers aboard. “Russia has to get out,”…. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser warned Russia on Friday about its military presence in Venezuela, saying any move to establish or expand operations there would be considered a “direct threat” to international peace.(EPOCH TIMES | REUTERS)
…when oil prices rise above $60-$65 a barrel… fracking increases supply, serving as an effective cap on energy prices. (Broadly speaking, the same principle is true of natural gas prices.) Putin’s government revenue and foreign policy are dependent on high crude prices and foreign nations buying their crude from Russia. Lower prices due to U.S. or other nations’ competition cost him a lot of money, and put the Russian economy and his public support at risk. Even more importantly, it deprives him of the tool of energy blackmail, which he has used to extort other countries into adopting Kremlin-friendly foreign policy choices. This is why Russian intelligence services have been so active in supporting western environmental groups and other interests opposed to fracking. (WASHINGTON EXAMINER — in other words, our energy policy, under Trump, is anti-Putin. By contrast, ALL of the Democratic 2020 candidates energy policies will enrich Putin.)
…the truth remains: Democrats are Russian President Vladimir Putin’s best allies. The anti-fossil fuel energy policy promoted by Democrats aligns perfectly with Russia’s economic needs. Russia is highly dependent on fossil fuel exports for revenue, and competition from the U.S.’s vast energy natural resources poses a direct threat to Putin. Restrictions on the development and use of coal, oil, and natural gas resources through heavy-handed federal regulations are the ideal U.S. policy for Putin. Limits on fossil fuel development and regulation were the foundation of Obama’s energy policy, and Clinton did not deviate far from her prior boss’ platform. As with Obama, climate change was the cornerstone of Clinton’s proposed energy policy, and she supported Obama’s war on coal and also sought to replace fossil fuels with so-called “clean energy.” To the dismay of Democrats and Putin, President Trump wants the U.S. to be an energy superpower, and his policies are unleashing our energy natural resources by reducing regulations and opening up areas for development. When President Trump decided to pull the U.S. out of the United Nations’ Paris climate accord, he was blasted by a choir of left-wing politicians, environmental activists, and the agenda driven liberal media. [….] Climate change, blocking pipeline construction, and stopping development of natural gas through fracking were the top priorities of the social media effort under accounts created by the Internet Research Agency in Russia, the same company special counsel Robert Mueller indicted for interfering with the 2016 presidential election. Previously, news reports discussed the possibility that environmental activist groups are being funneled Russian funds to promote government adoption of anti-fossil fuel policies. Clinton and Obama are by far not the only Democrats acting as Putin’s energy useful idiots. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo banned fracking in the state, and his Department of Environmental Conservation has so far blocked the construction of the Constitution Pipeline by denying a water permit to allow the project to move forward. The Constitution Pipeline would transport natural gas from Pennsylvania to upstate New York. New England is running an extreme anti-fossil fuel energy policy that is starving the region of cheap and reliable energy. During last winter’s cold snap, New England’s inadequate natural gas pipeline infrastructure reached its limit, and the region’s power was supplemented by liquefied natural gas from Russia. The pro-fossil fuel energy policy advanced by President Trump is being used to challenge Russia. President Trump is confronting Russia’s energy dominance in eastern Europe by exporting liquefied natural gas to Poland and the Baltic states. In addition, the U.S. is actively trying to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany. When it comes to energy policy, Putin and Democrats are on the same team….(NEWSMAX)
…The strategic implications if the Russian lock on those markets is broken are lost on no one, least of all Putin. His economy is dependent on gas and oil exports, and 76 percent of the gas he pipes out of Russia goes to Germany, Turkey, Italy, France, Britain and other European countries. Already, the fracking revolution in the United States threatens Russian dominance on several fronts. In the last six years, the Americans have become the world’s biggest producer of natural gas, which costs in the United States a small fraction of what it costs in Europe or Asia. The result has been a massive conversion of electrical power generation from coal to gas in the United States; strong economic incentives for manufacturers to bring their factories back onshore; and newly revived American power in the international energy marketplace. Facilities that, ten years ago, were being built to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the United States are now being converted to export it. Moscow tried hard to downplay the challenge. Just a year ago, Alexei Miller, chairman of the Russian energy behemoth Gazprom, said he thought the American shale gas production was “unprofitable” and the boom in the United States would prove to be a “bubble.” But others in his company admitted that after Gazprom had spent hundreds of billions of dollars to develop fields in the Arctic around the Barents Sea, with the idea the gas there would be sold to North America, that market just dried up: the Americans didn’t need the Russian supply anymore…. (THE DAILY BEAST)
…The fact that Kremlin opposition to European fracking has nothing to do with environmental concerns should be clear even to the dullest among us, because Russia has massive fracking projects of its own underway in Siberia. The real goal is to keep Europe dependent upon Russia for its fuel supply. Natural-gas prices in Europe are quadruple those prevailing in the United States, and by maintaining a near-monopoly on overpriced European natural-gas imports, the Putin regime assures itself of a vast source of revenue. This allows it to rule and rearm Russia without permitting the freedom necessary to develop the country’s human potential. Furthermore, so long as Europe is kept critically dependent upon Russia for fuel, Moscow can paralyze and render ineffective any Western response to its plans for conquest, whose initial steps are currently being demonstrated in Ukraine. More, and much worse, is certain to follow so long as Europe remains helpless. In a recent four-hour television appearance in Moscow, Putin explicitly embraced Kremlin fascist ideologue Alexander Dugin’s grand design of creating a united totalitarian Eurasia, “from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” If he can maintain control of Europe’s critical fuel supplies, he just might be able to pull it off. So it should come as no surprise that the Putin regime is pulling out all the stops in fomenting the global anti-fracking movement, with Europe as its central target. Leading the propaganda campaign has been RT News, Russia’s state-owned television network, which broadcasts around the world in English and other languages…. (NATIONAL REVIEW)
The United States is flexing its military muscles as a powerful warning to Russia. CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen got exclusive access as US warships started their own show of force in the Mediterranean Sea (YOUTUBE).
The Trump administration is taking dramatic steps to revamp the nation’s arsenal and prepare for a theoretical nuclear war with Russia in Eastern Europe…. The Pentagon last week took a major step forward by fielding its first new nuclear warhead in decades…. Analysts say that is just the first move in a grand long-term nuclear strategy to counter Russia and contend with an ambitious China… (WASHINGTON TIMES)
The End
Here is HUGH HEWITT noting some of the above and more in a response to Wa-Po’s and others assertion Trump is a Russian agent or mole:
The @realDonaldTrump-as-Russian-mole theory also must include that he has successfully fooled fmr SecDef Mattis, @SecPompeo @AmbJohnBolton.
Helluva spy.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
If Putin paid for Trump, Trump is a smart mother-effer, because he first used Russian interests to get the White House, and then immediately turned on Russia’s interests.
Bottom Line Then:
PUTIN, THEN, IS AN IDIOT, AND TRUMP? THE SMART-AS-HELL-TACTICIAN.
CHRIS WALLACE makes the point that Trump was tough on Russia with CHRIS COONS (Democrat from Intel Committee).
Putin expanded Russian territory under Bush, Obama, and now Biden. NOT Trump.
THE ENTIRE 3-HOURSis magnificent. I wish all Republicans pushed back like this. The truth is on our side!
Sec. Of State Pompeo Schools Dem. Senator On Trump’s Tough Russia Policy
“Just Like Obama, Trump’s Russia Policy Speaks Louder Than His Words”
….The Helsinki summit did not change my view of the Russian president. As I have reiterated many times, Putin is pure evil. There is no doubt in my mind that U.S. intelligence agencies arrived at the correct conclusion: Russia did meddle in the U.S. 2016 election, and Putin himself directed the operation. Again, I speak from personal experience on this topic: In 2012, Russian intelligence services interfered in the Georgian parliamentary elections, boosting the Kremlin’s preferred candidate through disinformation operations.
Thus, my opinion of President Trump’s policy vis-à-vis Russia is perhaps more positive than one might assume from my background. My reasoning is two-fold: After a lifetime of firsthand experience with Russian aggression, I must evaluate Trump’s actions against the proper historical context. In doing so, I have found that Trump’s actions speak for themselves.
The Outrage Seems Selective
On the first point, I consider it unfair that Trump’s performance in Helsinki has garnered harsher criticism than other incidents in recent memory. In 2012, for example, a hot microphone at a global nuclear security summit picked up then-President Barack Obama assuring Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate with Putin after the presidential election.
During a debate with GOP opponent Mitt Romney the same year, Obama casually dismissed the Russian threat, quipping: “The 1980s called; they want their foreign policy back.” Although Trump could certainly have been more forceful by condemning Putin’s crimes, his statements at the Helsinki press conference were nowhere near as concerning as his predecessor’s remarks about Russia.
This brings me to my second point: Trump’s actions toward Russia speak louder than words—and so did his predecessor’s. Indeed, the Obama administration’s foreign policy undermined America’s credibility in my region, which Putin considers Russia’s “backyard.” There are many opinions about Trump’s rhetoric on Crimea, but it is a fact that the Russian land grab in Ukraine happened on Obama’s watch.
How, exactly, did this happen? During and after Ukraine’s revolution of 2014, which ousted a Kremlin-backed dictator, on a daily basis the United States cautioned Ukraine not to escalate in response to Russian aggression. Thus, Putin saw an opportunity to annex Crimea without risking a direct confrontation with the West—and he seized it. Putin is a bully, but not a fool.
What a Difference Two Years Makes
Rather than changing his course after Moscow redrew the borders of Europe by force, Obama doubled down. Despite bipartisan consensus in favor of selling lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, and vocal support from his own administration officials (including Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton), Obama repeatedly refused to authorize the sales.
Instead of anti-tank weapons, the Ukrainians defending their territory from Russian invasion received hot blankets and canned goods from the Obama administration. At the same time, Obama asserted that the Ukraine conflict had “no military solution.” With these words—and more importantly, these actions—he was perceived by some on the Russian side as accepting the Kremlin’s sphere of influence in Ukraine.
Despite my warnings, the Obama administration also essentially turned a blind eye to Russian meddling in Georgia’s 2012 elections. The result was devastating not only for Georgia, but for American interests: A Kremlin-backed oligarch (who has substantial interests in Russian energy firm Gazprom) ascended to power in a strategic U.S. ally. Moreover, Russia’s meddling in Georgia’s elections functioned as a proving ground for information operations later used in the United States. To his credit, Obama accepted this reality in 2016, when he expelled dozens of Russian diplomats, but this response was too little, too late.
By contrast, Trump authorized the sale of lethal defensive weapons to both Ukraine and Georgia in 2017. The Trump administration went beyond the congressional mandate in sanctioning Russian authorities involved in the annexation of Crimea. Earlier this year, the United States imposed the harshest sanctions yet, targeting Russian oligarchs as well as government officials.
Trump’s rhetoric on energy at the Helsinki summit, which has been largely overlooked, is also a reason for optimism. The backbone of the Russian economy is energy, and Russia’s dependence on fossil fuels is Putin’s Achilles heel. At Monday’s press conference, Trump stated that U.S. liquefied natural gas exports would “compete” with Russian gas in Europe. This reflects Trump’s comments at the NATO summit, where he criticized Germany for supporting the Nord Stream II pipeline. Trump was correct to call attention to this project, which will enrich the Kremlin at the expense of struggling pro-Western allies like Ukraine…..
Again, a more recent FEDERALISTarticle makes ann excellent point regarding the comparison of Trump and Biden:
A recent Harvard-Harris poll found that 62 percent of Americans believe that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Donald Trump were still in the Oval Office. As former senior intelligence officials under President Trump, we agree with that view.
Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 when George W. Bush was president. Russia took Crimea in 2014 when Barack Obama was president. Russia has now invaded Ukraine with Joe Biden as president. However, when Donald Trump was president, Russia did not seize territory from any of its neighbors.
During his four years in office, Trump not only successfully deterred Russia from acting against Ukraine, he effectively deterred a lot of bad behavior across the planet. He focused on ending America’s foreign wars rather than launching new ones. At the same time, he brokered the Abraham Accords to expand peace in the Middle East.
The exercise of American power to deter adversaries is a complicated business. It involves a mix of military, economic, political, and diplomatic strategies and actions that together communicate the costs of threatening U.S. national interests.
Ultimately, the art of statecraft boils down to whether a president projects American strength that deters adversaries, or projects American weakness that emboldens our adversaries.
So how did Trump succeed in containing Putin while the Russian autocrat has run wild with others in the White House? Why was he so successful at spreading peace elsewhere? We believe the long answer begins with these ten ways that Donald Trump projected American strength and kept the bad guys in check:
Rebuilt the American Military
Crusaded for American Energy Dominance
Set the Tone by Launching Surgical Missile Strikes in Syria in Early 2017
Developed Strong Relationships with Middle Eastern Nations Based on Mutual Interests
Was Ruthless with the Taliban While Winding Down the Afghanistan War
Crushed the ISIS Caliphate
Demonstrated a Consistent Willingness to Take out the Bad Guys
Stood Up to China
Strategically Used Unpredictability as an Asset in Foreign Affairs
Advanced Tough Russia Policies and Provided Lethal Aid to Ukraine while Maintaining an Open Dialogue
Each of these points are worthy of unpacking in-depth, but there are several that illustrate the dramatic difference in approach between Trump and Biden, starting with Afghanistan…..
Stuff That Didn’t Age Well
If there was one thing I have learned over the years of attacks against Bush over eight years, and now Trump… the rule of thumb is to wait about a week (or more) for the truth of the situation to come out. This is a prime example. Many who have a visceral hatred for Trump immediately jump on the band wagon [just like BDS, Bush Derangement Syndrome — there is TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome]… and… the below meme is a prime example.
During conversation with a Facebook friend about a meme posted regarding the Dianne Feinstein with Attorney General Bill Barr, I linked theFULL exchange to the exchange. After some talk, the below meme was posted:
After incorrectly reporting that President Trump had discussed former White House counsel Don McGhan’s potential testimony in the House with Russian President Vladimir Putin, NBC News was forced to issue a correction:
CORRECTION (May 3,2019, 1:51 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article incorrectly included one topic that White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Presidents Trump and Putin discussed on Friday. They did not discuss the possibility of former White House counsel Don McGahn appearing before Congress. Sanders was answering a question from reporters about whether McGahn would testify before Congress.
HILARIOUS. I bet “unnamed sources” are at the center of this story. You can add this to theTRUMP IS CHUMMY WITH PUTINconspiracy the Left and NeverTrumpers have:
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said the U.S. has a full range of options available to help oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and didn’t rule out “ultimately” using military action on top of diplomatic, political and other pressure points.
“We’re preparing those for him so that when the situation arises, we’re not flat-footed,’’ Pompeo said on ABC’s “This Week,” one of three scheduled appearances on Sunday morning political shows.
[….]
Trump on Friday said Russian President Vladimir Putin assured him he isn’t seeking to “get involved” in the crisis, although Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton both said earlier in the week that the Kremlin talked Maduro out of leaving Venezuela after U.S.-backed Guaido attempted to end his regime by calling for a military uprising.
“The president has made clear, we want everyone out, and that includes the Russians,” Pompeo said.
Joe Biden, president creampuff, thoroughly fears Putin, and so Ukraine and the world suffers. Trump did not fear Putin in the least, and so Russia did not gain one extra inch of Ukrainian territory from 2017 to 2020.
Lie, Lies, And More Leftist Lies
Along with Colbert, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, and the ‘mainstream’ media continue their non-stop, massive lies about Donald Trump being ‘soft’ on Russia. On June 28, 2020 Pelosi blabbed, “I don’t know what the Russians have on the president,” referring to the “Russian bounty”’ hoax.
The media machine fervently wants you to believe that Russia/Putin “have something on Trump,” which impeded him from taking aggressive action to curtail Putin’s excesses. Concurrently, no U.S. president in recent history was tougher on Russia than Donald Trump.
The U.S. Department of State announced it would provide an additional $10 million in Foreign Military Financing to further build Ukraine’s naval capabilities in response to Russian attacks near the Kerch Strait.
18 Russian individuals were sanctioned for their involvement in a wide range of malign activities, including attempting to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, efforts to undermine international organizations through cyber-enabled means, and the Skripal attack in the United Kingdom.
The U.S. Department of State refuted Russia’s and the Assad regime’s false accusations that the opposition and extremist groups conducted a chlorine attack in northwestern Aleppo.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the U.S. would withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 60 days if Russia did not return to compliance.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley condemned Russia’s decision to intercept, fire on, and seize three Ukrainian navy vessels in the Black Sea.
7 officers of the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) were charged for their involvement in hacking Olympic athletes, anti-doping organizations, and chemical weapons monitors.
33 Russian individuals and entities were sanctioned for their role in U.S. election interference and their involvement in supporting military operations in Syria and Ukraine. A Chinese entity and its director were also sanctioned for purchasing jet fighters and missiles from Russia.
President Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on any nation or individual who authorizes, directs, or sponsors meddling operations in U.S. elections. The order would allow for the freezing of assets and the limiting of foreign access to U.S. financial institutions, as well as a cutoff of U.S. investment in sanctioned companies.
The United States issued a joint statement with France, Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom, reiterating its outrage at the use of a chemical nerve agent in Salisbury and expressing full confidence in the British assessment that the suspects were officers of the Russian military intelligence service (GRU).
2 Russian individuals, a Russian company, and a Slovakian company were sanctioned for helping another Russian company avoid sanctions over the country’s malicious cyber-related activities.
The U.S. administration announced it would restrict remaining sources of foreign assistance and arms sales to Russia, and deny U.S. credit to Russia, including through the Export-Import Bank. Restrictions would also prohibit the export of security-sensitive goods and technology.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a formal policy reaffirming the U.S. rejection of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The announcement was released an hour before his scheduled testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
12 Russian intelligence officers were sanctioned for their involvement in hacking the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton presidential campaign.
7 Russian oligarchs and the companies they own or control, 17 senior Russian government officials, and a state-owned Russian weapons trading company (and a bank it owns) were sanctioned for their roles in advancing Russia’s malign activities – including the continued occupation of Crimea, engaging in cyberattacks, and supporting Assad’s regime.
48 Russian intelligence officers from the Russian embassy in Washington were expelled, and the Russian consulate in Seattle was ordered to close, in response to the Skripal poisoning in the United Kingdom.
12 Russian intelligence officers from the Russian Mission to the United Nations in New York were expelled for actions deemed to be abuses of their privilege of residence.
The Department of Homeland Security and FBI issued a joint Technical Alert on Russian government actions targeting U.S. government entities, as well as organizations in the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.
The United States issued a joint statement with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom strongly condemning the Salisbury nerve agent attack and suggesting Russia was responsible for it.
The U.S. administration issued a statement expressing its solidarity to the United Kingdom over the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, and sharing its assessment that Russia was responsible for it.
The U.S. administration condemned the military offensive that the Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, had been conducting in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta region.
The Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a new rule to ban ABLV Bank AS, Latvia’s third-biggest bank, for its involvement in illicit Russia-related activity.
U.S. troops killed hundreds of Syrian forces backed by Russian mercenaries (as well as Russian private military contractors). The American bombing was launched in response to a surprise attack on a U.S.-held base in the oil-rich Deir Ezzor region in Syria.
The Department of the Treasury released a list of the most significant senior foreign political figures and oligarchs in the Russian Federation that could potentially be at risk of sanctions (114 senior political figures close to Russian President Putin and 96 oligarchs with a net worth of $1 billion or more).
