According to a report from Middle East Eye, the US and Iran are near a deal that would reduce Iran’s uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief, although it’s not certain that a final agreement will be reached.

Sources told MEE that direct talks between US and Iranian officials have been taking place on US soil, which marks a significant diplomatic development between the two nations as previous negotiations were indirect and took place in Vienna.

President Biden’s special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, has been leading the US delegation. The Iranian delegation has been led by Amir Saeed Iravani, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations.

The MEE report said that the US wasn’t interested in restoring the original 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, but an interim agreement is on the table. The deal would involve Iran stopping enriching uranium at 60%.

This week’s bombshell news that the CIA knew of Ukraine’s plans to sabotage the Nord Stream pipeline three months before it blew up hasn’t given pause to some Western political leaders and commentators who are already suggesting that Russia might be behind the Kakhovka Dam explosion in Ukraine on Tuesday.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg blamed Russia without blaming Russia Wednesday, saying “this is an outrageous act, which demonstrates — once again — the brutality of Russia’s war against Ukraine.” An unnamed “senior NATO official” later told NBC that Russia would stand to benefit.

German chancellor Olaf Sholz was a bit more direct, saying he saw the attack as a “new dimension” of Russia’s war, and again, without coming right out and blaming Russia, said that it “fits the way Putin is waging this war.” 

While it may be too soon to make “a definitive judgment,” said UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, if proven an intentional act, “it would represent the largest attack on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine since the start of the war” and “demonstrate new lows” on behalf of Russia, he told reporters Wednesday as he embarked on a trip to meet with President Biden in Washington. 

Two recent reports have uncovered billions in trade between members of the North Atlantic alliance and Russia since the Kremlin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year. 

Corisk, a Norwegian risk-management firm, issued a report in May detailing billions in trade between Russia and Western states that transited through a third nation. “This report presents total estimates of Western circumventions of sanctions against Russia.” The report states, “Through a combination of top-down and bottom-up methodological approaches, we estimate the indirect trade of 16 Western countries with Russia at 8 billion Euros of indirect exports via third countries, and the indirect imports at 6 billion Euros via third countries in 2022.”

Corisk believes third-party counties are used to circumvent sanctions on Moscow. “This means that the indirect exports, largely likely to be circumventing sanctions, represented almost one-fifth of all Western exports ending up in Russia.” It continued, “The main Western countries behind most indirect exports to Russia in 2022 were Germany (2.05 billion Euros), Lithuania (1.45 billion), the United States (980 million), Poland (725 million), Japan (575 million), Czech Republic (490 million), France (400 million), and the Netherlands (290 million).”

Aaron Maté has been among a handful of reporters to whom Elon Musk granted access to Twitter records to uncover efforts by the United States government along with Twitter to censor communication on the social media platform in the time before Musk gained control over it. The newest revelations from Maté concern the US government, via the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), having acted as an assistant to the Ukraine government’s main intelligence agency, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), to seek censorship of 163 targeted Twitter accounts — Maté’s included — as well as personal information related to those Twitter accounts.

Maté’s chilling revelations here.

It is bad enough that the US government has been seeking to censor social media communication to advance the goals of power-hungry politicians, businessmen, and bureaucrats here in America. Now, comes revelations that, on top of that, the US government has been seeking to advance the censorship goals of, and hand over personal information of individuals using social media to, the government of Ukraine. Keep in mind that Ukraine is an intensely corrupt government, is overrun with nazis, and is apparently comfortable with targeting for assassination foreign individuals merely because those individuals have expressed views judged intolerable regarding Ukraine or its war with Russia.

The Department of Homeland Security’s controversial social media censorship effort during the 2020 election was propped up by a partisan billionaire. 

Newly obtained documents, acquired through a public records request, confirm that Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder of eBay, financed a specialized portal maintained by the Center for Internet Security (CIS). This portal was used to facilitate the swift removal of predominantly conservative messages on Twitter and Facebook during the previous presidential election.

Omidyar, previously identified as one of the largest donors to campaign groups supporting Joe Biden's presidential bid, donated $45 million to the "Sixteen Thirty Fund" in 2020. This dark money group mobilized Democratic voters and financed pro-Biden Super PACs. However, Omidyar's direct involvement in the DHS partnership, which is now facing increased scrutiny, remained undisclosed until now.

Within weeks of the pandemic outbreak, it had become apparent that the standard practice of putting COVID-19 patients on mechanical ventilation was a death sentence; 76.4% of COVID-19 patients (aged 18 to 65) in New York City who were placed on ventilators died. Among patients over age 65 who were vented, the mortality rate was 97.2%

The recommendation to place COVID patients on mechanical ventilation as a first-line response came from the World Health Organization, which allegedly based its guidance on experiences and recommendations from doctors in China. But venting COVID patients wasn’t recommended because it increased survival. It was to protect health care workers by isolating the virus inside the vent machine

Data suggest around 10,000 patients died with COVID in NYC hospitals after being put on ventilators in spring 2020. Other metropolitan areas also saw massive spikes in deaths among younger individuals who were at low risk of dying from COVID. It’s possible many of these deaths were the result of being placed on mechanical ventilation

The WHO must be held accountable for its unethical recommendation to sacrifice suspected COVID patients by using ventilation as an infection mitigation strategy — especially considering they’re now trying to get unilateral power and authority to make pandemic decisions without local input

Joe Biden has yet to be interviewed by the special counsel investigating the stolen classified documents he stored at the Penn Biden Center and in his Delaware garage.

Biden stole SCIF-designated classified documents and improperly stored them at the Penn Biden Center.

Biden also stored classified documents in his garage next to his Corvette where his son Hunter had access to the sensitive materials.

Nine boxes of documents were taken from Joe Biden’s lawyer’s Boston office and we have no idea what is in those boxes because the National Archives is covering up for Biden.

Joe Biden is also withholding information from the Senate Intel Committee.

Earlier today the House Oversight were finally allowed by the corrupt Biden FBI to view an “unclassified” document proving Joe Biden was taking bribes from Ukraine for political favors.

This is the most egregious criminal accusation against any sitting president.

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Thursday emerged from the SCIF and revealed explosive information about the Biden bribery document.

The Ukraine-Biden-bribery evidence was first presented to the FBI by a trusted, highly credible, well paid informant back in 2017. Meanwhile Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden enjoyed a highly lucrative position as a board member of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company. According to MTG, the bribery allegations appear to involve Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian oligarch who hired Hunter Biden to serve on the board of Burisma Holdings.

The GOP Committee on Weaponization on Thursday uncovered new information suggesting the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is targeting Elon Musk’s Twitter.

“The Committee’s oversight has uncovered information suggesting that the FTC took action against Twitter in May 2022 as a result of Elon Musk’s anticipated acquisition of the company. This information only reinforces the Committee’s concerns about the FTC’s actions and underscores the need for relevant documents to inform potential legislative reforms,” the House Judiciary Committee on Weaponization said.

In April 2022 it was revealed Elon Musk’s initial Twitter stock buy is under FTC ‘scrutiny’ over possible failure to report the purchases to antitrust regulators

House Judiciary Chair GOP Rep. Jim Jordan recently subpoenaed the FTC over their actions against Elon Musk’s Twitter.

Tucker Carlson released Episode Two in his Tucker on Twitter Series on Thursday night.

Tucker’s first video has over 100 million views.

In Episode 2 Tucker confronts American taboos including Barack Obama’s creepy marriage and the epidemic of child sexual abuse.

House Republicans alleged on Thursday that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter each received a $5 million payment from the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma to shake off a corruption probe. 

Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Marjorie Taylor Greene were among those given access to an FBI document from June 2020 that detailed testimony given to agents from an informant who had spoken with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky. 

That informant claimed that Zlochevsky said he had doled out $5 million to each Biden to call off an ongoing investigation by the Ukrainian prosecutor general at the time, Viktor Shokin.

A source close to the Republican investigation confirmed to DailyMail.com confirmed the contents of the FBI document that members have been viewing behind closed doors in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility).

Ukrainian prosecutors first launched an investigation into Bursima - the company on which Hunter had a board position for five years - over allegations of money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption in 2012.

A Washington women's spa with compulsory nudity has been ordered by a judge to admit trans women with penises after the owner tried to ban them and an activist complained. 

The Olympus Spa had attempted to sue the Washington State Human Rights Commission (WSHRC) after being ordered to change their rules. 

Trans woman Haven Wilvich had attempted to apply to join the Korean spa but was denied, alleging the spa told her 'transgender women without surgery are not welcome' and complained to the commission.

Now, a Washington District Court has dismissed the lawsuit filed by the spa and upheld the original ruling by the WSHRC.  The Pacific Northwest state is one of several Dem-run areas where trans people are permitted to use facilities which align with their gender without question. 

Webmaster addition: And the rest of the world will rush in to plunder South Africa's mineral wealth!

A 'supervolcano' in a densely populated part of Italy could be on the verge of its first eruption since 1538, researchers have warned. 

The Campi Flegrei volcano near Naples, southern Italy, has become weaker and more prone to rupturing, making an eruption more likely, the experts say. 

Located about nine miles (14.5 km) to the west of Naples, it is one of the few active supervolcanoes in the world.

Around 360,000 people live at Campi Flegrei and may need to evacuate if experts think it's in immediate danger of an eruption, although scientists say there's no guarantee one will occur anytime soon. 

Saudi officials have snubbed US Secretary of State’s latest push for the Kingdom’s normalization of relations with the Israeli regime and his bid to win further concessions on oil prices and Riyadh’s recent resumption of ties with Syria and Iran during his high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.

Speaking in a news conference alongside Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Riyadh on Thursday, the visiting Antony Blinken reiterated that Washington will continue to play an integral role in expanding normalization between the Tel Aviv regime and Saudi Arabia.

Blinken, who was in the kingdom as part of a US push to defuse rows that have touched on oil prices, and Riyadh’s opening to Iran, further insisted that normalizing relations between Israeli regime and its neighbors was a priority for Washington.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink defended the environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards in a 2017 video that has resurfaced on social media, In particular, Fink stressed the need to “force behaviors.”

The aforementioned clip showed Fink boasting how his investment firm forced companies to accept the ESG system alongside the diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) system during a 2017 DealBook conference sponsored by the New York Times.

“Behaviors are going to have to change, and this is one thing we are asking companies. You have to force behaviors – and at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors,” the BlackRock CEO said. “If you don’t force behaviors – whether it’s gender, race, or just any way you want to – say, the composition of your team, you’re [going to] be impacted. That’s not just recruiting; it is development.”

Webmaster addition: First there was the theocratic-state, then the nation-state, and now comes the corporate-state!

“We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.”

—U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has acknowledged that “massive immigration just doesn’t work” as he announced changes to the country’s border control policy that would make it the strictest in the European Union.

Kristersson made the comments to mark the National Day of Sweden as he insisted that it was too easy for migrants who can’t even speak Swedish to obtain citizenship.

“Let me be clear: Massive immigration and poor integration just doesn’t work,” wrote Kristersson.

“That is why we are now changing Sweden’s migration policy and making it the strictest in the EU.”

The Wall Street Journal of March 31, 2023 (page A20, if you must know) featured this headline: “Turkey’s Parliament Ratifies NATO bid.” Here is the first paragraph of this entry:

“The Turkish parliament ratified Finland’s entrance into the NATO on Thursday, removing the last obstacle to a historic expansion of the alliance in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” [Emphasis Added]

Waitasec. If event B is a response to event A, A must necessarily come first in time, B only afterward. If B occurs first, this event can hardly be considered a response to A.

Let us do a little bit of history here. During the Cold War, NATO and the Warsaw Pact contended with one another. Then, in 1991, the Soviet Union ended. What should have then happened, for a true peace, was both military alliances should have disbanded. Or perhaps, turned into an organization that comprised both of them. But the Warsaw Pact dissolved, and NATO remained.

A group of Republican senators on Thursday introduced a bill to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was passed in the wake of the September 11th attacks and is still being used to justify wars today.

The End Endless Wars Act was introduced by Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), JD Vance (R-OH), and Mike Braun (R-IN). The legislation would repeal the 2001 AUMF 180 days after its enactment.

“If there exists any desire to reclaim our Constitutional power and send a message to the world that we are a nation of peace, Congress should pass this bill and repeal the 2001 Authorization for war. After all, the 2001 AUMF never intended to authorize worldwide war, all the time, everywhere, forever,” said Sen. Paul, according to a press release from his office.

Webmaster addition: The AUMF was specific to nations suspected of being behind 9/11, mainly Iraq and was never applicable to any other war. In any event, Biden will veto it.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Thursday that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast as Western media outlets are reporting Ukraine’s counteroffensive has officially begun.

“At 1:30 am, the enemy made an attempt with up to 1,500 troops and 150 pieces of armor from the 47th mechanized brigade to break through our defense,” Shoigu said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

“The enemy was halted in all four directions and retreated with heavy casualties,” the Russian military chief said. He claimed that Ukraine lost “30 tanks, 11 infantry fighting vehicles, and up to 350 personnel.”

Shoigu’s claims haven’t been confirmed as Ukrainian leadership is keeping quiet about its offensive plans. A US official told The New York Times that it appeared the “main thrust” of Ukraine’s counteroffensive has begun.

Las Vegas news station KLAS-TV published a wild investigative story Wednesday — all about a falling flash of light in the night sky captured on video and a 911 call minutes later from a man who told a dispatcher he was looking right at 10-foot-tall "aliens" with "big eyes" in his backyard and that "they are not human."

"I swear to God this is not a joke, this is actually — we’re terrified," the man added to the dispatcher, according to a recording of the call the station obtained.

Around 11:50 p.m. April 30, a Las Vegas Metro police officer’s bodycam recorded something streaking low across the sky, KLAS said, adding that the American Meteor Society said people across eastern California, Nevada, and Utah reported seeing the flash.

Webmaster addition:

Tucker Carlson posted a second episode of his new Twitter show on Thursday after dropping an enormously successful inaugural episode on Tuesday.

"Cling to your taboos!" the tweet containing Carlson's new video declared.

In the new episode, Carlson said that American society is "governed by taboos" and that those taboos have been changing, but not naturally. "What we're allowed to dislike is being dictated to us from above, sometimes by force," he said.

He went on to say that while it was previously taboo to target people based on their race, punishing individuals on the basis of skin color is now "mandatory" in the realms of business, government, and higher education, provided that "the victims are white."

He claimed that adultery was once a serious liability in politics that would be viewed as "disqualifying," but said this is no longer the case. Carlson claimed that "Barack Obama had a strange" as well as "highly creepy personal life."

Tucker's Triumph Marred By UFO Talk

The first episode of Tucker Carlson's new Twitter show debuted yesterday, and as ZeroHedge put it, it was a triumph: As of this writing, Tucker's ten minute video was retweeted more than 186,000 times and had nearly 81 million views.

Tucker opened strong, calling out our credulous media for accepting at face value Ukrainian claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin blew up the Kakhovka dam, the destruction of which will threaten Crimea's water supply, as well as the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, among other Russian-held assets. But then he veered into X-Files territory, as ZeroHedge noted: 

Carlson then took the media to task for ignoring yesterday's "bombshell of the millennium,' in which a government whistleblower revealed that craft developed by non-human intelligence has been recovered by governments around the world in an 80-year race to reverse engineer materials for geopolitical advantages.

But as our friend Philippe Lemoine pointed out at Twitter, there's zero evidence any of our current technology originated from aliens. 

It’s turning into a banner year for corporate bankruptcy filings, after years of Easy Money that caused all kinds of excesses, fueled by yield-chasing investors, in an environment where the Fed had repressed yields with all its might. Those yield-chasing investors kept even the most over-indebted zombies supplied with ever-more fresh money. But that era has ended. Interest rates are much higher, and investors are getting a little more prudent, and Easy Money is gone.

At the peak of the Fed’s yield repression in mid-2021, “BB”-rated companies – so these companies are “junk” rated – could borrow at around 3% (my cheat sheet for corporate credit rating scales by ratings agency). Companies are junk rated because they have too much debt and inadequate cash flow to service that debt. In other words, investors risked life and limb to earn 3%, and now these investors are asked to surrender life and limb, so to speak. But that’s how it goes with yield-chasing.

These “BB” junk bond yields have risen to nearly 7%. This means these companies that had trouble producing enough cash flow to service their 3% or 5% debt, have to refinance this debt when it comes due, or add new debt, at 7%. That 7% may still be low, considering inflation running around near that neighborhood, but it puts a lot more strain on those companies.

Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods has urged companies to stop focusing on certain energy sources, such as renewable energy, to save the climate, warning that it would be a “huge mistake to be picking winners and losers and focusing on specific technologies”.

Instead, “we need to look more broadly and let the markets figure out which solutions deliver the most emissions reductions at the lowest cost," Woods told Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of Norway's Wealth Fund,one of the largest mutual funds in the world, on his podcast.

An attempt to move away from oil and gas immediately, with unchanged global demand, could be disastrous for clean energy, Woods suggested, adding that if we produce less LNG, for example, something else–like coal–would have to step in to fill the demand gap. 

As tensions between the U.S. and China continue to ratchet higher, Sequoia Capital isn't waiting for sanctions or interruptions to its business. Instead, it's taking the proactive step of splitting its China business out on its own. 

The firm is going to run its China business as a “completely independent” entity from its US operation, a new report from FT revealed this week. 

In addition to splitting from the main firm, the China business will spot a new name called "HongShan", which is a version of its previous Chinese name, which meant redwood. 

Similarly, Sequoia will reportedly be splitting off its Indian and south-east Asian businesses into another entity, the report says. 

“It really was a very complicated decision. Over the years, we have reassessed the cost-benefit trade-off of this arrangement and whether it was the right structure for the firm. We realised it was time for this," Roelof Botha, managing partner of Sequoia Capital told FT. 

The former civilian head of the NATO alliance is warning that some Eastern European states are prepared to send their soldiers to Ukraine if the bloc does not make significant pledges to Kiev during an upcoming summit. 

Anders Rasmussen, former NATO Secretary-General and current adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is touring Europe and Washington to gauge the level of support Kiev should expect at the Vilnius Summit in July. “I think the Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius,” he said. “We shouldn’t underestimate the Polish feelings, the Poles feel that for too long western Europe did not listen to their warnings against the true Russian mentality.”