The Europeans have taken yet more 'counter-Russia' actions amid widespread allegations that Moscow has sponsored sabotage campaigns targeting EU communications infrastructure.
Finnish authorities have newly detained a cargo ship suspected of damaging an undersea communications cable. The vessel has been identified as the Fitburg, and had departed St. Petersburg, Russia and was traveling toward Israel when it was intercepted by Finnish authorities.
Security officials have since confirmed, "Finnish authorities have taken control of the vessel as part of a joint operation."
The cable in question links Helsinki with Tallinn and is operated by the Finnish telecom company Elisa. Like with other similar cable cutting allegations, officials admit there's no smoking gun proof at this point.
Prior similar instances of Russia's 'shadow fleet' supposedly engaged in cable cutting activity have generated ample headlines but nothing in the way of proof.
Bloomberg and European media have reported that fourteen crew members are currently being held by authorities - which includes nationals of Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan.
The Finnish police and the Border Guard have accused the vessel dragging its anchor along the seabed, after which it entered Finnish territorial waters at the request of authorities, whereupon it was taken into custody.
"At this stage, the police are investigating the incident as aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage, and aggravated interference with telecommunications," the police said.
The Finnish coast guard tracked has charged that "The ship's anchor chain had been lowered into the water." This after it was taken into custody.
Finland's President Alexander Stubb says he's closely monitoring the situation amid a pending investigation. "Finland is prepared for various security challenges and responds to them in the manner the situation requires," he said on X.
This kind of thing has occurred in the Baltic Sea region, allegedly many times since the Ukraine war began. CNN writes that "At least 10 undersea cables have been cut or damaged in the Baltic Sea since 2023."
Sometimes the vessels at the center of these controversies were already under Western sanctions, and have been boarded by authorities from various EU and NATO countries.
Residents in five states receiving federal food assistance will face new restrictions on their benefits when it comes to purchasing soda, candy, and other items categorized as unhealthy starting Thursday, marking the first push to overhaul the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP)Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, and West Virginia are leading the charge on the new restrictions through waivers approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Former FBI agent Nicole Parker explains how DEI split the agency and led to disaster: ‘They were hiring idiots’
President Trump’s heralded decision to make DEI DOA couldn’t come a moment too soon for Nicole Parker.
The so-called diversity, equity and inclusion initiative was a boondoggle that wrought incalculable damage across every sphere of employment in the country.
No one knows that better than Parker, a former FBI special agent of 12 years who described how a civil war brewed inside the once-venerable agency, with “lines drawn” between two clashing factions she termed “FBI 1 versus FBI 2.”
One side represents “integrity, meritocracy and protecting the American people” while the other force pushes “personal agendas and identity politics, DEI and politically motivated cases” in lieu of serious crime investigations and “the upholding of law and order replaced by performative posturing.”
The top legal reporter for Politico.com apparently suggested Tuesday a person can be legally shot for asking questions at the doorsteps of businesses.
“At some point, the amateur effort to knock on doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand-your-ground laws,”saida X message from Josh Gerstein, Politico’s “Senior Legal Affairs Reporter.”
The threat was likely aimed at independent journalist Nick Shirley, who has precipitated a storm in the mainstream media about large-scale fraud and corruption by ethnic Somali business owners in Minnesota. Many establishment sites, including Politico, have ignored or downplayed the report, which has been widely reported on mainstream media sites and has reached more than 100 million views on X.
Amid the storm of condemnation and more than 10,000 hostile comments, Gerstein later defended himself with a second message, saying: “To observe that something is likely to happen or there’s a serious risk of it happening is not to advocate for it happeni
ng.”The White House’s RapidResponse47 social media account described Gerstein as a “sicko.”
“Hey politico, come get your guy who is advocating the murder of American journalists,” said a response from political activist Chris Rufo.
“imagine the insanity needed to say ‘you could be shot for knocking on the doors of a legitimate business during a time period required to be open by your license and saying ‘I’d like to enroll my son here,'” said a response from an account named “Murray Rothbard.”
The reaction to Gerstain’s tweet is unsurprising. Many progressives have made death threats against mainstream Americans since Trump was first elected in 2016. But these threats are multiplying — and a sniper murdered conservative leader Charlie Kirk in September.
Politico is a pro-establishment media outlet in Washington, DC. It is owned by a pro-establishment German firm, Axel Springer SE.
“@politico appears perfectly fine with its reporters insinuating that journalists simply doing their jobs could lawfully be shot and killed,” responded Tennessee Rep. Jeremy Faison.
“I’m sorry? Wut? Are you advising Somalis to shoot amateur reporters for knocking on their door?” answered Fox News columnist David Marcus.
“You would think a ‘Senior Legal Affairs Reporter’ for POLITICO would know better than to tweet something inciting violence against federal agents,” responded the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
An abusive boyfriend viciously stabbed and strangled the mother of his children to death while out on bail — which was posted by a Portland defund-the-police group, authorities said Wednesday.
Mohamed Adan, 36, had been behind bars for repeatedly beating his girlfriend, Racheal Abraham, in August 2022, when the now-defunct group of police abolitionists set him free, according to oregonlive.com
“The Portland Freedom Fund, thinking it knew better than law enforcement professionals, decided to bail him out,” senior prosecutor Melissa Marrero said at his sentencing hearing Tuesday. “It cost her her life.”
Mohamed Adan, 36, had been behind bars for repeatedly beating his girlfriend in August 2022, when the now-defunct police abolitionist group set him free. Multnomah County Sheriff's Office
Abraham, 36, who had two kids with Adan, had begged a judge not to release him after he strangled and punched her twice in the head while high on methamphetamine and cocaine in May 2022, the paper reported.
“Statistics show that strangulation cases lead to homicide,” Abraham said in a statement, read aloud in court roughly two months before she was murdered. “I don’t want to be a victim.”
Democratic Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger has appointed a chief diversity officer who previously appeared to agree with comments about parts of the U.S. Constitution needing to be dismantled.
Spanbergerannouncedthe appointment of Dr. Sesha Joi Moon to serve as the Commonwealth of Virginia’s chief diversity officer and director of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on Tuesday, saying in a statement that Moon’s “experience across government, education, and the nonprofit sectors gives her firsthand insight into the ways in which we can build a stronger, safer, and more prosperous Virginia for every family.” However, during part of an August 2024 appearance on Raben’s “The Ask” podcast, Moon appeared to agree with Whitney Tome, the managing principal at Raben, after Tome claimed that she thinks some parts of the U.S. Constitution should be dismantled. (RELATED: Spanberger Puts Author Of FBI’s Infamous ‘Radical Catholic’ Memo In Charge Of Public Safety)
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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