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Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.), who has accused Republicans of enabling Russia, took maximum campaign donations from a top lobbyist for Nord Stream 2 AG, the company behind an oil transportation project dubbed "Putin’s pipeline." Swalwell, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, received $2,900 last year from Vincent Roberti Sr., the chairman of lobbying powerhouse Roberti Global. Roberti gave $5,400 to Swalwell’s campaign in 2018. Roberti Global received $2.4 million in 2021 from Nord Stream 2 AG, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Russian oil giant Gazprom. Critics of the 761-mile pipeline have long said it would allow Vladimir Putin to...

NOTE: See video embedded in article. As Western allies levy increasingly harsher economic sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the latest target involves Russia's access to SWIFT. An acronym for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, SWIFT is a messaging system founded in 1973 that allows large financial institutions to send money to each other. The Belgian-based cooperative is used by more than 11,000 banks and financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories, including Russia. It handles 42 million messages a day, facilitating trillions of dollars worth of transactions. Russia accounted for 1.5% of SWIFT transactions...

Everyday bravery is on display in Ukraine as powerful video harkening back to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests shows Ukrainians trying to stop Russian tanks with only their bodies. Video filmed in the northeastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmach shows unnamed men confronting a line of invading Russian tanks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is “furious” that his invasion of Ukraine hasn’t been “easy” after Russian troops have been unable to take even one major city in three days of fighting, according to a member of the European Union Parliament who said he was citing Ukrainian intelligence reports. “Putin is furious, he thought that the whole war would be easy and everything would be done in 1-4 days,” tweeted Riho Terras, who is also the former defense chief of NATO member Estonia, said in a lengthy thread on Twitter.

A CHEERFUL HEART IS GOOD MEDICINE Proverbs 17:22 A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. Which came first the chicken or the egg? We may never know the answer to this question, but when it comes to living a fulfilled life, the joy precedes the good feelings. As a matter of fact, the joy is the antidote to the woes of life. Humor is great medicine. Humor helps us to see the big picture. It provides us with a new context by which to view our situation. It gives us a...

During an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) argued that President Joe Biden has handled the crisis with Russia and Ukraine “masterfully.” And that while “We should have provided more to Ukraine,” “that’s not President Biden’s fault, that’s the fault of prior administrations.” Wild said, “I think President Biden has been handling this masterfully. I think he has done an excellent job of both leading and unifying our allies, and I’m proud of that. There are a number of mistakes that have been made over the last decade. We should have provided more to Ukraine, and that’s...

The United Nations estimates 150,000 Ukrainian refugees have crossed into neighboring countries, half of them to Poland, and many to Hungary, Moldova, Romania due to the Russian invasion, and that number could easily be in the millions if the situation worsens. “More than 150,000 Ukrainian refugees have now crossed into neighboring countries, half of them to Poland, and many to Hungary, Moldova, Romania, and beyond,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi tweeted on Saturday. More than 150,000 Ukrainian refugees have now crossed into neighbouring countries, half of them to Poland, and many to Hungary, Moldova, Romania and beyond. Displacement in Ukraine...

Sky 2 spotted the stunning sight Thursday night at the corner of Beverly and La Cienega boulevards, near the Beverly Center – a Mobile gas station displaying $6.15 for a gallon of regular gas.

Bill Maher likened Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-MI) planned rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union address to a fellow teammate sacking their own quarterback. During a segment on his HBO Real Time show, Maher said he could not grasp why someone from the president’s own party would give a counter-address.

Commentary It’s tempting to laugh at Biden’s climate czar and devoted private jet customer John Kerry who complained to BBC Arabic that the Ukraine War could “distract the world from the climate change crisis and produce ‘massive emissions’ that will negatively impact the globe.” Only it’s actually tragic—and not for the environment. The truth is that people like Kerry and many of his colleagues and predecessors who have been obsessed with the same supposedly imminent ecological disaster literally for decades now, are to blame as much as anyone—with the exception of Vladimir Putin, of course—for the carnage in Ukraine. This...

Explanation: Large spiral galaxy NGC 4945 is seen nearly edge-on in this cosmic galaxy close-up. It's almost the size of our Milky Way Galaxy. NGC 4945's own dusty disk, young blue star clusters, and pink star forming regions stand out in the colorful telescopic frame. About 13 million light-years distant toward the expansive southern constellation Centaurus, NGC 4945 is only about six times farther away than Andromeda, the nearest large spiral galaxy to the Milky Way. Though this galaxy's central region is largely hidden from view for optical telescopes, X-ray and infrared observations indicate significant high energy emission and star...

"The reality is that Russia is not the most religious nation in the world as far as…American evangelicals would recognize," ... "I think it's much more a 'the enemy of an enemy is my friend.' Putin's opposition to some of the international forces that some folks on the right in the United States despise the most creates a dynamic where there's a strange new respect for Putin, or sort of perceived understanding of Putin, or a perception that Putin can represent a welcome rebuke to an international order that they dislike." The things they take issue with may range from...

When we shared yesterday that all interested observers should be very wary of the information from media sources around Ukraine, there was a reason for that. Question everything. Take nothing at face value. If you have never experienced the propaganda push surrounding war, the totality of the inbound bullsh*t can be destabilizing, overwhelming and unnerving. It’s one of the reasons why CTH doesn’t share immediate information. Everyone has an agenda.Everything we are seeing in U.S. media surrounding U.S. interests in Ukraine is a massive propaganda operation with the headquarters in the U.S. State Department and U.S. intelligence community. The sense...

We've challenged PolitiFact to a live, recorded debate earlier today. The two parties are polar opposites: one defends the narrative and the other exposes the truth.Steve Kirsch21 hr ago The request from PolitiFact to remove the fact check recordingRecently, I got an email from PolitiFact’s Editor-in-Chief, Angie Holan, requesting I remove the recording of my conversation with their so-called “fact checker,” Gabrielle Settles who was doing a fact check on VAERS.I refused her request.Gabrielle asked if she could record the call and I consented, so that entitles all parties to record the call. PolitiFact did not deny that we both...

Abstract Discovered in the late-1970s, the pioneering drug ivermectin, a dihydro derivative of avermectin—originating solely from a single microorganism isolated at the Kitasato Intitute, Tokyo, Japan from Japanese soil—has had an immeasurably beneficial impact in improving the lives and welfare of billions of people throughout the world. Originally introduced as a veterinary drug, it kills a wide range of internal and external parasites in commercial livestock and companion animals. It was quickly discovered to be ideal in combating two of the world’s most devastating and disfiguring diseases which have plagued the world’s poor throughout the tropics for centuries. It is...

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) confirmed that it shut down nearly 40 businesses during its crackdown on Freedom Convoy protesters opposing COVID-19 mandates and restrictions. In an email to Global News on Feb. 23, Dakota Brasier, a spokesperson for Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney, said the ministry had issued 12 seizure orders to Ontario-based large truck operators which suspended them from being allowed to operate within Canada. The ministry also issued an order to seize all plates registered to them, Brasier said. Outside of Ontario, the ministry also issued 27 seizure orders to out-of-province large truck operators, which stopped...

Very frequently mission mistakes result from a lack of appreciation for, and even ignorance of, the culture in question. It may be that the greatest flaw today in missionary orientation for post-Soviet lands is not its brevity, although that is frequently a serious shortcoming. The greatest flaw may be inadequate to nonexistent country-specific and culture-specific preparation; that is, woefully insufficient study of pertinent languages, literature and history. Ministry training too often focuses on what might be called generic preparation...Greater attention to culture-specific orientation and training... would reap ample dividends in terms of less traumatic culture shock and greater longevity for...

The fight for $18? It’s on, say supporters of raising the minimum wage in California. California’s minimum wage rose in January to $15 an hour for employers with 26 or more employees, and $14 an hour for employers with 25 or fewer. Under a ballot initiative currently being circulated for signatures, the minimum wage would continue increasing by a dollar each year until it hit $18 an hour. Under the proposed initiative, the California governor would have the authority to suspend the annual increase up to two times, such as during periods of decreased economic activity or during a general...

Fake footage from Digital Combat Simulator fueled rumors of Ukrainian super pilot A clip of a Ukrainian fighter jet blowing up a suspected Russian aircraft started trending on social media yesterday. Many believed it was proof of the exploits of a mysterious and unverified ace pilot called the “Ghost of Kyiv.” It was actually fake footage from the 2013 PC game, Digital Combat Simulator: World. ...

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