As young children went back to school across Sweden last month, many of their teachers were putting a new emphasis on printed books, quiet reading time and handwriting practice and devoting less time to tablets, independent online research and keyboarding skills.

The return to more traditional ways of learning is a response to politicians and experts questioning whether the country’s hyper-digitalized approach to education, including the introduction of tablets in nursery schools, had led to a decline in basic skills.

Swedish Minister for Schools Lotta Edholm, who took office 11 months ago as part of a new center-right coalition government, was one of the biggest critics of the all-out embrace of technology.

“Sweden´s students need more textbooks,” Edholm said in March. “Physical books are important for student learning.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Sunday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive could only have 30-45 days left before the assault is hindered by weather.

“There’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren’t done,” Milley told BBC. “There’s battles not done… they haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish.”

He said it was still too early to tell if the counteroffensive had failed and claimed Ukrainian forces were “progressing at a very steady pace through the Russian front lines.” But since the assault was launched in early June, Ukraine has not regained a significant amount of territory.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said his Western backers failed to supply Ukraine with weapons in a timely manner, allowing Russia to build up its defenses. The delay is responsible for Ukraine’s lack of progress during its three-month-long counteroffensive. 

In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Zelensy explained, “We — look, we waited too long. It’s true. No, I’m thankful to partners, to the United States, EU, other partners,” he said. “I’m thankful very much to President Biden and to Congress, but we have to understand: We waited too long, they put mines.”

He added that Western arms often do not arrive in Kiev for some time after Western nations announce they plan to provide the weapons. “Then when we been ready from the point of view of our partners because the decision to give us, for example, Bradley [Fighting Vehicles] and other kind of weapons, the decision, it doesn’t mean the result,” Zelensky explained. 

In a recently released assessment of Ukraine’s military in February, former defense minister Oleksii Reznikov believed his army only had supplies for two to two and a half months of fighting remaining in Kiev’s stockpiles. “Our army would have been physically exhausted,” Reznikov reported.

Good evening. I have two sets of introductory comments.

First, my aim tonight is not to prove each of my assertions with a wealth of evidence but to survey four cases briefly in order to reveal a pattern. If you feel I may be on to something it will be up to you to look at these cases in more detail.

Secondly, as a Canadian addressing other Canadians, I want to note that I am aware of the taboos this talk is violating. I will be making claims, and pointing out patterns, that are unwelcome in mainstream society today in Canada. The taboos are held in place with heavy silence and with ridicule, and they are, in my opinion, crucial to the maintenance of the “War on Terror”.

The taboos are strong in the media, the universities, and in all sectors of government. Since my theme today has to do with legislatures, and since we have just experienced a federal election in Canada, I will give two recent examples from the political arena.

Although the two examples concern the Liberal Party, I am not implying this party is alone in its observance of this taboo. As far as I can discover the taboo is found in all of Canada’s major political parties.

While the election campaign was in full swing there was much searching through the records of all candidates (their social media records, for example) by opposing parties for material that could be used to discredit them. It turned out that two Liberal candidates had at one point in the past expressed skepticism about the official account of 9/11. The discovery of this material immediately created a crisis. Both candidates quickly made formal public statements:

In related news, the sky will fall on Earth. 

Germany is not daunted by the prospect of a protracted conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and will back Kiev for the next decade, Brigadier General Christian Freuding has said. He added that Germany is seeking to ensure that Ukraine retakes all the territory within its 1991 borders. Appearing at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum on Sunday, Freuding was asked whether Germany was prepared to support Ukraine if the hostilities with Russia ended up becoming a “long war” spanning several more years. The German military official replied by saying it was unrealistic to expect the conflict to end in the near future. Freuding went on to claim that “we’ve got the support of our parliament… for our military support for our Ukrainian friends up to the year 2032.” “We are ready and we are prepared to give long-term support… and we are ready to make time… our ally, and not time become [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s ally,” he added.

Somebody needs to check the head of this idiot as well as heads of imbeciles who named the Ukie organized gathering Yalta European Strategy forgetting that it was at Yalta in 1945 where the decision on partition of Germany was reached, as well as more actions coordinated to finish off Nazism. The irony got lost on these creeps. But then again, what do you expect from them. 

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaled that the U.S. would not stop Ukraine from using American-made, long-range missiles to attack targets inside of Russia.

“In terms of their targeting decisions, it’s their decision, not ours,” Blinken told ABC before adding that “we haven’t encouraged and we haven’t enabled any use of weapons outside of Ukraine’s territory.”

Blinken’s comments, which come on the heels of reports that the U.S. will soon send long-range missiles to Ukraine, are the latest example of Washington’s slow-moving approach to breaking through Russian red lines in the conflict. President Joe Biden had long argued that providing Kyiv with Army Tactical Missile Systems, better known as ATACMS, would be a bridge too far for the Kremlin, but that view has apparently lost purchase as Moscow has failed to back up its threats of escalation.

Meanwhile, Russian hawks have grown increasingly frustrated with President Vladimir Putin, with many prominent figures arguing that the Russian leader must do more to deter American involvement in the war. This increase in pressure could push Putin to make a drastic move, according to George Beebe of the Quincy Institute.

Shocking video going viral on social media shows a large group of Jewish children cursing and assaulting two Christian female missionaries in Israel with their parents' full support.

"You're going to get hurt," one of the Israeli adults tells the Christian women as a Jewish child says, "You daughter of a bitch!"

The Jewish children are seen throwing objects at the women and kicking them while the group orders them to leave, screaming "Go! Go!"

One of the kids fell to the ground after his foot got caught in the Christian woman's dress he was kicking. Nonetheless, he stood back up and got in her face to intimidate her while shouting, "Go!"

CNN warmonger Jake Tapper on Sunday pressed Secretary of State Antony Blinken on whether or not the "capricious billionaire" Elon Musk will face "repercussions" for "sabotaging" a Ukrainian attack on Crimea.

Webmaster addition: Elon Musk may have just prevented a nuclear war!

This article was originally published by MintPress News on Sep 11, 2019, and is being republished today, on the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, in honor of the victims of the event and the brutal wars that followed it.

Today the event that defined the United States’ foreign policy in the 21st century, and heralded the destruction of whole countries, turns 18. The events of September 11, 2001 remain etched into the memories of Americans and many others, as a collective tragedy that brought Americans together and brought as well a general resolve among them that those responsible be brought to justice.

While the events of that day did unite Americans in these ways for a time, the different trajectories of the official relative to the independent investigations into the September 11 attacks have often led to division in the years since 2001, with vicious attacks or outright dismissals being levied against the latter. 

Yet, with 18 years having come and gone — and with the tireless efforts from victims’ families, first responders, scientists and engineers — the tide appears to be turning as new evidence continues to emerge and calls for new investigations are made. However, American corporate media has remained largely silent, preferring to ignore new developments that could derail the “official story” of one of the most iconic and devastating attacks to ever occur on American soil.

For instance, in late July, commissioners for a New York-area Fire Department, which responded to the attacks and lost one of their own that day, called for a new investigation into the events of September 11. On July 24, the board of commissioners for the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District, which serves a population of around 30,000 near Queens, voted unanimously in their call for a new investigation into the attacks.

While the call for a new investigation from a NY Fire Department involved in the rescue effort would normally seem newsworthy to the media outlets who often rally Americans to “never forget,” the commissioners’ call for a new investigation was met with total silence from the mainstream media. The likely reason for the dearth of coverage on an otherwise newsworthy vote was likely due to the fact that the resolution that called for the new investigation contained the following clause:

Whereas, the overwhelming evidence presented in said petition demonstrates beyond any doubt that pre-planted explosives and/or incendiaries — not just airplanes and the ensuing fires — caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, killing the vast majority of the victims who perished that day;”

When you think of Disney World, do you think of “The Most Magical Place on Earth” or an army of men in Nazi regalia with meticulously rehearsed antisemitic chants? Well for those in the North Orlando area this past weekend, the latter was reality. A mob of neo-Nazis stormed central Florida on Sept. 7 and filled the air with chants of “Heil Hitler” and “Jews won’t replace us!” The group, known as the “Blood Tribe,” traveled all the way from Maine, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Mainstream media has dubbed this event a ragtag showing of far-right Trump supporting Republicans. But that is not the case. It was clear that this event was well organized, likely externally funded and potentially staged. As the next presidential election draws closer, efforts by Democrats to de-legitimize a serious run by former President Donald Trump will ramp up significantly. It is possible that there are secret string pullers calling the shots and organizing staged events like the one outside of Orlando.

Someone chose the Blood Tribe to travel to Florida and host this event because of their neo-Nazi reputation. But what they did not count on was Blood Tribe leader Christopher “Hammer” Pohlhaus emphatically proclaiming he supports Joe Biden. But why? Well, many of the neo-Nazi’s who Pohlhaus claims “are everywhere” have fought in Ukraine for the Azov Battalion, a volunteer paramilitary militia fighting alongside troops supported by the Biden Administration.

 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis visited Ground Zero in New York City on Monday,  speaking with multiple families who lost loved ones during the Islamic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

 Author Walter Isaacson corrected a media narrative that exploded late last week after an excerpt of his forthcoming book “Elon Musk” mischaracterized events that surrounded SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s donation of Starlink’s satellite communications to the Ukrainian military.

 Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said in an interview over the weekend that he is in a relationship with a woman which come as questions have swirled over why he is not married.

 President Joe Biden faced a wave of backlash on social media after he claimed to have visited Ground Zero in New York City one day after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

 The Biden administration has signed off on a deal to release five Iranian prisoners and $6 billion in frozen assets in exchange for five Americans held captive in Iran.

 After New York City Mayor Eric Adams bemoaned the arrival of roughly 10,000 asylum seekers to the Big Apple each month, a journalist shot back with statistics that indicate how that number compares to what officials see at the U.S. border with Mexico.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden used a fourth alias, “auks@att.blackberry.net,” as early as 2010 to communicate with his family, according to the nonprofit Marco Polo, based on information from Hunter Biden’s “Laptop from Hell.”

The House Oversight Committee previously noted only three aliases in its August 17 request to the National Archives for documents related to Joe Biden’s email pseudonyms: “Robert Peters,” “Robin Ware,” and “JRB Ware.”

“Auks” is the mascot of Archmere Academy, a private Roman Catholic college preparatory school in Delaware and the alma mater of Joe and Hunter Biden. 

Joe Biden’s “auks” alias received an email on May 10, 2011, from his niece, Casey Owens, who served as a special assistant for the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue at the Treasury Department. 

Just days before she left the Treasury, Owens emailed “Uncle Joe” at auks@blackberry.net concerning the vice president’s remarks a day prior, during the opening session of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue:

Squatters have taken over a Wyoming city, leaving $1 million worth of damage and 200 kilograms of human feces in their wake.

Bruce Knell, the mayor of Casper, detailed the destructive behaviour of about 200 homeless people who not only ravaged a vacant motel but created a “mess” throughout the city’s parks and streets.

“They destroyed everything,” Knell told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s horrible.”

Casper, the second-largest city in the state, has a population of 60,000, but things have been dicey ever since it has been overrun with homeless people who took over an abandoned Econo Lodge motel that hasn’t operated since November due to flooding and other abandoned properties.

The city had to condemn the motel and the bank that owns the building was forced to board it up to keep squatters out.

Do you think that more than half of the US public may be getting a little irked with “Joe Biden’s” lawfare elf, AG Merrick Garland, as he rolls one innocent J-6 protester after another into decades of hard-time for strolling through the US Capitol building - while the special counsels assigned to only a few of the Biden family crimes play hide-the-salami with due process?

For all their cheap talk about “our democracy,” it’s a little scary to see what Democratic Party lawyers actually think of the legal system that is supposed to allow a society based on liberty to function fairly. Court filings last week indicate that Special Counsel David Weiss is about to indict Hunter Biden on that gun charge they have used as the joker in a three-card Monte game for going on five years.

Last time, they ran the game before Delaware federal judge Maryellen Noreika, she detected a teeny-weeny, sneaky clause in the plea agreement to a watered-down gun charge that would have granted immunity to Hunter B from any other past wrongdoing, including, of course, the entire alleged Biden family racketeering operation that had the First Son acting as prime broker and bag-man for tens of millions of dollars in bribes from foreign actors in countries less than friendly to US interests, funneled into any number of Biden family shell corporations. Judge Noreika nixed the plea agreement.

Now, Mr. Weiss’s crew seems to be saying that the immunity clause is still tied to any plea deal answering a forthcoming September 29 indictment.

The move would appear to be timed to exactly the moment that a House impeachment committee would begin its inquiry into the Biden family’s moneygrubbing activities. In ordinary House committee hearings, DOJ officials like to use the excuse of “an ongoing investigation” to demur from answering questions. Merrick Garland has done this dozens of times.

With the release of the special grand jury final report in Georgia, the nation finally was able to see what foreperson Emily Kohrs last February was giggling about in interviews.

Call it the “Why not?” report.

Back then, when Kohrs was asked if there were recommended charges, she chuckled and said, “Can you imagine doing this for eight months and not coming out with a whole list of recommended indictments? It’s not a short list. It’s not.’”

In addition to nodding at an expected Trump indictment, she added, “There may be some names on that list that you wouldn’t expect.” After all, why not?

The final product did not disappoint. The members recommended 39 people for prosecution, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and former Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.). They also included lawyers who argued for recounts or investigations into alleged election fraud.

While the report expressly claims that the Fulton County District Attorney’s office did not create the list, it was the office of Fani Willis that presented the law, the evidence and potential targets to the special grand jury. During that process, these members concluded that politicians voicing support for the former president and his allegations could be criminally charged for doing so.

The news that Willis did not indict Graham and others infuriated many on the left. Liberal websites were inundated with comments like “I want all the enablers charged, tried, and given long sentences as traitors to our country” and asking why the list did not include Senators Grassley, Cruz, Lee and “147 current and former members of the House, just to name a few.”

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has launched major war games in the Baltic region with a stated intent to simulate a "realistic scenario" in which NATO is under threat.

The war games, dubbed Northern Coasts, kicked off Saturday and will go for two weeks, and further simulate a scenario in which NATO triggers its Article 5 mutual defense clause. Thus the games simulate a US military intervention in Europe. 

The drills, happening off the Latvian and Estonian coasts, are intended to send a clear message to Russia, with Acting NATO Spokesperson Dylan White saying, "Credible deterrence must include the ability to attack." White then emphasized that "Exercises like these send a clear message that NATO stands ready to defend every inch of Allied territory."

"Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has radically altered the security situation in the Baltic Sea," White said further.

Germany is leading the exercises, alongside the US, and significantly newest NATO member Finland is participating, as well as non-member Sweden. In total 14 countries are involved. 

German Navy chief Vice Admiral Jan Christian Kaack spelled out to Reuters: "We are sending a clear message of vigilance to Russia: Not on our watch," he said.

Powerful Democratic billionaire donor Michael Bloomberg on Monday ratcheted up the pressure on President Biden over the migrant crisis — skewering him for turning a blind eye to the US’s broken border laws.

Bloomberg — while heaping praise on New York City Mayor Eric Adams for doing an “admirable job” trying to cope with the lack of federal support over the debacle — raged in a column that the White House will be responsible for sweeping Democratic losses up and down the ticket in 2024 if the Biden administration doesn’t wake up.

“Think about it: We have a system that essentially allows an unlimited number of people to cross our borders, forbids them from working, offers them free housing, and grants them seven years of residency before ruling on whether they can legally stay,” the news tech titan-turned philanthropist and former Big Apple mayor, 81, wrote in the New York Times.

“It would be hard to devise a more backward and self-defeating system,” Bloomberg said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has warned that people who refuse to accept the WEF’s new digital ID scheme will be excluded from participating in society.

During an appearance at a G20 Summit session, dubbed “One Future,” Von der Leyen declared our collective future to be digital, governed by globalist organizations such as the WEF.

Summit.news reports: Von der Leyen, in her position as the EU Commission President, touched on AI and the digital landscape in her address. She acknowledged the potential dangers and gargantuan opportunities linked with advancing AI technology and emphasized the importance of channeling such explosive technology.

Many analysts and commentators have been speculating about how the US and NATO will find their way to an endgame in the Ukraine conflict. Some focus, for humanitarian or pragmatic reasons, on a negotiated settlement between the US and Russia. Even though as a matter of form Ukraine would be party to such a deal, with Ukraine now fully dependent on Western arms and funding, there’s no pretending who is really driving this train.

We described earlier how the various factions in the US/NATO side would spend huge amounts of time arguing among themselves to come up with ideas for how exit the conflict that they’d developed in a vacuum, with no substantive exchange with Russia and not even any real consideration of repeated statements by Russian officials, including draft treaties presented in December 2021 and in the aborted peace talks in Marcy 2022.

The new peace chatter seems to amount to:

Ceasefire > *Magic* > Russia goes away with its tail enough between its legs that we and Ukraine can declare victory

At first we thought this dynamic was the result of splits among various key parties. After all, multiparty negotiations are messy.

But upon further reflection, it may be that the West has effectively set boundary conditions for itself that make ending the war impossible... absent changes in leaders of key governments that result in a willingness to relax boundary conditions and/or such a visible collapse of Ukraine’s military that the West has to rethink its self-imposed constraints.

Earlier this year, we discussed the 'big profitability squeeze' on auto dealerships and the subsequent failure of a subprime dealership with dozens of locations. Now, another dealership has failed as cracks across the industry worsen. 

A popular used car dealership in South Florida, called "Off Lease Only," filed for Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code in the District of Delaware last Thursday, citing "unprecedented changes to the automotive-retail landscape."

"The industry has been impacted by inventory scarcity, and vehicle price inflation stemming from supply chain disruptions and multi-year declines in new vehicle production," the company wrote in a press release. 

The company also blamed elevated used car prices and soaring interest rates that "further deteriorated conditions in the automotive retail market, weakening consumer demand and affordability." 

Off Lease Only's demise was due to collapsing demand after used car interest rates skyrocketed while used car prices remained elevated, sparking an affordability crisis. 

Tech entrepreneur and California resident Elon Musk criticized an assembly bill in the state, calling the proposed law to require that parents affirm their child's transgender identify for custody rights "a wolf in sheep’s clothing."

Mr. Musk's comment came as the Democratic-majority State Assembly approved the legislation on Sept. 8, sending it to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk.

The bill, AB 957, incorporates parents' "affirmation of the child’s gender identity or gender expression" into the concept of a child's "health, safety, and welfare." If passed, the bill will require a judge to consider whether a parent affirms a child's ideas about gender transition when determining custody or visitation rights.

"This bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing," Mr. Musk wrote on Friday on X, formerly called Twitter. "What it would actually mean is that if you disagree with the other parent about sterilizing your child, you lose custody. Utter madness!"

The bill was initially introduced by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson, a Democrat, in February. She previously argued the legislation doesn't prioritize a parent's gender-affirming over other judicial criteria that determine custody disputes.

The billionaire co-founder of Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence technology, Mustafa Suleyman, has warned the public that AI is being used for genetic engineering to trigger a “super-pandemic.”

Suleyman warns that an AI-developed super-pandemic is one of the biggest threats facing the human race.

He issued the warning in an episode of the “Diary of a CEO” podcast.

According to Suleyman, scientists are scrambling to engineer a deadly pandemic, such as a modified variant of COVID-19, to unleash before the end of this decade.

The warning from Suleyman comes amid increasing fears that another pandemic may trigger widespread lockdowns and mandates ahead of the 2024 election.

Hurricane Lee formed nearly a week ago (read here) and rapidly intensified into a Category 5 (read here) on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Lee has since been downgraded to a Cat. 3 with risks of restrengthening into a Cat. 4 this week while it churns toward the northeast Caribbean. New computer models show landfall impacts could be across Maine and the rest of New England.

Lee was located about 340 miles north of the northern Leeward Islands, with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, according to a 0500 ET update by the National Hurricane Center. 

"A slow west-northwestward motion is expected during the next couple of days, followed by a gradual turn toward the north by midweek," NHC said. 

Could you imagine the difference if, in the fall of 2020, the Washington Post had accepted a copy of the Hunter Biden hard drive and actually investigated the thousands of emails, photos, text messages, and other evidence that implicated not just Hunter but his father Joe Biden in sundry unethical and criminal enterprises?

What about CBS, NBC, and ABC?

Shouldn’t we as news consumers expect these leviathans “to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved,” as the new owner of the New York Times declared way back in 1896?

Yet in October 2020, when the New York Post wrote a series of stories describing the corrupt nature of the Biden family as exposed by the Hunter Biden laptop, there were few mainstream media outlets that dared to follow.

Or really, not dared, but chose. Because there is nothing daring about doing your job correctly.

You would think that when all the major social media companies like Facebook and Twitter blocked any discussion of the New York Post’s reporting on the laptop, these other major news corporations would have come to the aid of the Post.

If any of them had done their own investigation of the laptop, do you think that Twitter could have continued to censor the news under the false claim that it was Russian disinformation? Hardly.

But no mainstream media outlets were willing to put their own reputations on the line to support free speech – because their reputations are based entirely on being guardians of the left, and protecting Hillary, Barack and the Bidens is more important than fidelity to any chimeric sense of fairness and honor.

BlackRock is closing a China-focused offshore fund amid congressional scrutiny over its alleged role in directing U.S. dollars to blacklisted Chinese firms.

In a recent letter to shareholders, BlackRock Global Funds Chairwoman Denise Voss said the world’s largest money manager will close the China Flexible Equity Fund over a “lack of shareholder interest” and the investment cost to keep the fund running, which she noted is “not in the best interests of shareholders.”

BlackRock intends to liquidate all assets under the fund and redeem any outstanding shares by Nov. 7. Existing shareholders have the options to switch their investments into another fund, sell back their shares ahead of the liquidation date, or receive automatic payments for the shares when the fund closes down.

Opened in October 2017, China Flexible Equity Fund had an asset value of about $21.4 million as of late August. It recorded a negative 16.7 percent return in 2021, a number that nearly doubled in 2022, to negative 30.5 percent.

The fund closure came just a month after the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party initiated a probe into BlackRock and investment index provider MSCI regarding the alleged investments in Chinese companies the U.S. government has deemed problematic.