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The brother-in-law of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a Democrat, has been arrested in Florida on charges of human trafficking, battery and lewd or lascivious touching of a minor, according to the Office of the State Attorney for the 13th Judicial Circuit. "Jimmie Gardner, a youth motivational speaker and brother-in-law of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, is facing serious charges of human trafficking and is currently in jail in Hillsborough County with no bond. Gardner is scheduled to face a judge in first [court appearance] in Tampa tomorrow," the office said in a Friday press release. Tampa Police...

Many weapon systems sent to Ukraine or deployed by Russia have been characterised by at least some commentators as potential "game changers." From Javelin to Lancet and the Leopard 2, many new systems have been introduced and/or scaled up in use over the course of the war, and some have entered in dramatic fashion (as with the recent ATACMS strikes). In this episode I review a sample of "game changer" systems, discuss how we might evaluate whether or not a system deserves the title, and figure out what each did, or didn't, do to change the war in Ukraine.

@disclosetv JUST IN - Biden announces $100 million in aid for Gaza, West Bank.

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When a vehicle is captured and then...

Chicago's mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing a 'mansion tax' on sales of homes of more than $1 million, as his administration continues to push higher tax on households earning over $100,000. The newly elected mayor, who took over from his disastrous predecessor Lori Lightfoot in May of this year, wants to push a hike in taxes in order to fight homelessness in the city. Allies of Mayor Johnson, 47, have also announced plans to push a $12-billion plan for the city titled 'First We Get the Money'. The plan, seemingly named after a quote from the 1983 film Scarface, aims...

U.S. COVID vaccine manufacturers set list prices for their shots between $120 and $130 per dose, company executives said at an advisory panel meeting of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. Pfizer and German partner BioNTech set the list price at $120 per dose, while Moderna said the list price for its shot is $129 per dose, for their respective COVID vaccines.

@LindseyGrahamSC Just returned from a very successful and important visit to Ukraine with Senators Blumenthal and Warren. Eighteen months after the invasion, Ukraine is on the offense recapturing land that was illegally seized by Russia, NATO has increased in size, the Russian economy is in decline, the Russian military is being decimated, and Putin is facing an international arrest warrant for war crimes involving children. It is imperative that America continues to support Ukraine’s military. Specifically, the need for long range artillery - ATACMS - is urgent. America should also take over the F-16 transfer program to speed things up....

The assistance that has been provided by the US and its allies to Ukraine is not enough, President Vladimir Zelensky told Brazil’s Globo News broadcaster in an interview last week. As long as Kiev’s conflict with Moscow carries on, no amount of help will be sufficient, he added. “As long as the war continues, nothing can be enough,” Zelensky told Globo, as reported by Russia’s RIA Novosti.

The money will be allocated from Spain’s share of the European Union’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, a fund centred on post-Covid recovery in the bloc. The idea, which has been discussed in industry circles since the 1970s, is to connect Spain and Morocco via an underwater rail tunnel. The project was formalised in the 1980s but suffered many setbacks and was officially dropped in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crash. However, strong signals from governments on both sides of the Gibraltar Straight in 2023 have reignited the discussion. In April, at the first meeting between Spanish...

This might be what the fops and wankers have in mind when they tell Zelensky that he has to go for it with whatever he has now...

The Uniparty will not bend. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) traveled to Kiev again on Friday. Lindsey promised Ukrainian President Zelensky that no matter what Republicans say on the campaign trail to their base, the Uniparty Republicans in the Senate will continue to feed Ukraine with an endless supply of weapons. The elites really, really hate you. (snip) And it was Lindsey and his cohort John McCain who played a role in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

Click to read the original PDF here: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040The following version of the PDF has been converted electronically, so some of the formatting has changed.Updated February 27, 2023U.S. Security Assistance to UkraineThe United States has been a leading provider of security assistance to Ukraine, particularly since Russia launched its renewed and expanded invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. From 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine, through February 27, 2023, the United States has committed about $34 billion in security assistance “to help Ukraine preserve its territorial integrity, secure its borders, and improve interoperability with NATO.” Of this amount, the Biden...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing increased pressure to use his authority to unilaterally enact proposals that would dole out billions of dollars to Black residents in reparations as a way to make amends for slavery if the state legislature doesn't act. The California Reparations Task Force, which was created by state legislation in 2020, is considering a proposal to give just under $360,000 per person to approximately 1.8 million Black Californians who had an ancestor enslaved in the U.S., putting the total cost of the program at about $640 billion. **SNIP** The committee was created amid the unrest following...

This week, a lot of attention has been focused on the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank. It is, in fact, a story of faulty accounting practices, poor government oversight, and the effects of government micromanaging markets at the same time that it fails in its oversight responsibilities. And you will be paying for it. Accounting ShenanigansOver at the Wall Street Journal, William L. Silber explains this better than anyone, and in terms anyone who ever purchased a government bond can understand. They are safe. The problem is liquidity:SVB held tens of billions of dollars in long-term government bonds. On...

**SNIP** In more recent years, her net worth has often been disputed. In a recent 2021 financial disclosure examined by Fox News, it is indicated that Omar’s disclosure “does not appear to list any of the congresswoman’s personal bank accounts,” despite this being required by federal law. Four of the five line items listed under “Assets and ‘Unearned Income'” belong to her spouse, Tim Mynett, partner at political consulting firm eStreet Group. “Omar’s campaign paid eStreet Group $3.7 million over the 2020 cycle, according to campaign filings, contributing four-fifths of political payments to her husband’s firm during the election cycle,”...

WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The United States is readying more than $2 billion worth of military aid for Ukraine that is expected to include longer-range rockets for the first time as well as other munitions and weapons, two U.S. officials briefed on the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.The weapons aid is expected to be announced as soon as this week, the officials said. It is also expected to include support equipment for Patriot air defense systems, precision guided munitions and Javelin anti-tank weapons, they added.One of the officials said a portion of the package, expected to be $1.725 billion,...

Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova on Sunday stressed that the billions of dollars in U.S. support to Kyiv in its fight against Russia is being put to good use, as some Republican lawmakers have started to question the aid. “Every U.S. dollar that is given to us, we’re putting it to a good use,” Markarova said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan. “We’re using it as an investment into our joint fight for democracy.”

The Twitter Files, which usually make the top of the headlines when a new edition is released, were bumped to the bottom today as the drama surrounding prospective House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.)’s fight to secure votes dominated headlines. Still, the latest edition, released by independent journalist Matt Taibbi on Tuesday afternoon, may be the most scandalous yet In previous editions, Taibbi and other journalists showcased the cozy relationship between Twitter and government actors such as the FBi and the Pentagon. In the latest batch, Taibbi shows how the relationship was first formed. In the aftermath of the Russiagate scandal,...

In the wake of Russia’s brutal missile attacks on civilians across Ukraine, the mounting evidence of atrocities by Russia’s forces, and the firm and unequivocal rejection by 143 nations at the United Nations of Russia’s illegal attempted annexation of parts of Ukraine, the United States is offering additional military assistance to help Ukraine’s proud defenders protect their country.Pursuant to a delegation of authority from the President, I am authorizing our twenty-third drawdown of U.S. arms and equipment for Ukraine since August 2021. This $725 million drawdown includes additional arms, munitions, and equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories. This drawdown...

"President Biden today announced an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine, bringing the total U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine to $1 billion in just the past week, and a total of $2 billion since the start of the Biden Administration. The assistance will take the form of direct transfers of equipment from the Department of Defense to the Ukrainian military to help them defend their country against Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion."The new $800 million assistance package includes:800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;2,000 Javelin, 1,000 light anti-armor weapons, and 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems;100 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;100 grenade launchers,...