On Saturday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian mercenary who heads the Wagner Group, claimed that his forces seized control over Bakhmut. The city in the eastern Donetsk region has been the site of fierce fighting for months.

"We have completely taken the whole city, from house to house. I want to say thank you, to the Russian people who supported us and to those who died in this war," he said, noting that he would give over the city to Putin's forces by May 25, according to Newsweek.

The US and Israeli anti-Semitism envoys have taken opposing positions on whether supporters or critics of Jewish financier George Soros is anti-Semitic. The argument kicked off when Twitter CEO Elon Musk compared Soros to a cartoon supervillain.

In a tweet on Monday, Musk said that Soros reminds him of “Magneto,” a mutant-supremacist scientist from Marvel’s ‘X-Men’ universe. When a commenter pointed out that Magneto was depicted – like Soros – as a Holocaust survivor and that both have “good intentions,” Musk doubled down.

“You assume they are good intentions,” he wrote. “They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”

The authorities in the French city of Avignon have opened an investigation after posters appeared on the streets comparing President Emmanuel Macron to Adolf Hitler, AFP reports, citing the office of the city’s public prosecutor, Florence Galtier.

According to officials, the offenders will face two months in prison and a fine of €7,500 ($8,110) for “provocation to rebellion,” as well as a fine of €12,000 for insulting the president. 

Around 30 anti-Macron posters glued to advertising boards were discovered on Thursday. They showed the French president with graying hair and the number 49.3 on his face, which looked like a small black mustache. It is a reference to Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, which the government invoked in March to ram through its controversial pension reform without securing the support of the parliament (the National Assembly).

May 20 marks the fourth anniversary of Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration as Ukraine’s president. Speaking to Sputnik, Nikolay Azarov, a veteran politician with over 20 years of experience in Ukrainian politics under his belt, opened up on Zelensky’s political origins, his disastrous tenure in office, and his unenviable future.

Nikolay Azarov knows a thing or two about the inner workings of Ukraine’s politics. First elected to parliament in 1994, the politician quickly proved his mettle as an administrator, becoming an advisor to the cabinet of ministers in 1995, tapped to serve as chairman of Ukraine’s tax administration between 1996 and 2002, laboring as finance and deputy prime minister (2002-2005 and 2006-2007, respectively), and working as prime minister from March 2010 until January 2014.

Azarov presided over the most successful period of economic expansion in post-Soviet Ukraine’s history, with the nation’s GDP growing consecutively during each of his four years in office, reaching a high of $190.5 billion in 2013 (a record which was not surpassed, even in nominal terms, until 2021). His technocratic government’s strategy focused on trying to expand economic cooperation with both Russia and the European Union, while striving to expand Ukraine’s use of its domestic energy base.

Demonstrations and protests are taking place in the Japanese city of Hiroshima where the G7 summit opened early Friday, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

People holding banners such as "Never allow US-Japanese aggressive war on China!" and "No G7! No imperialist summit! No nuclear war!" marched through the streets of Hiroshima in a tight police ring. The number of police officers on the streets seemed to outnumber the demonstrators, the correspondent said.

Police officers were exercising restraint, but there were cases when demonstrators were pushed in the back to speed up or were snatched from the crowd. The protesters, in turn, chained themselves together and continued their way down the streets in rows.

"About 350 people gathered today. About one-third are students. We launched the action yesterday and will continue every day. Today, there will be one more rally, after which the demonstration will head toward the Atomic Bomb Dome [an exhibition facility in Hiroshima Prefecture until 1945, the only building that survived the atomic bombing]," Hiroshima citizen Ryo Miyahara, the head of the executive committee of the "Hiroshima against Atomic War" rally and the organizer of the protests, told Sputnik.

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived on a French government plane at Hiroshima Airport in Japan, where the G7 leaders' summit is taking place.

Hiroshima bombing survivor Kunihiko Sakuma, who heads the Association of Hiroshima Atomic-bomb Survivors, told at a press conference that he could not accept Volodymyr Zelensky's visit in the present political climate.

"In the future he could come, see Hiroshima, learn about the bombing. But in the present political conditions, the motive of political bargaining is very strong in coming to Hiroshima, and in these conditions with visiting Hiroshima, I don't know as for you, but I can't agree," Sakuma said.

The Russian air defense units have intercepted 12 US-made HIMARS rockets and UK-made Storm Shadow missiles over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

"Air defense forces intercepted 12 rockets of HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles, as well as one US-made GBU-32 guided aerial bomb over the past day," the ministry said.

A total of 18 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles have been destroyed in the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR).

The Ukrainian armed forces lost up to 210 troops in the Donetsk direction over the past day, as well as eight units of military equipment, including one tank, five vehicles, a Polish-made Krab self-propelled tracked howitzer and a D-20 howitzer. This is in addition to over 300 Ukrainian troops destroyed in other combat areas, according to the Russia ministry's statement.

Wired.com’s now-infamous profile of Buttigieg sought to reassure the public that “infrastructure occupies just a sliver of his voluminous mind … his cabinet job requires only a modest portion of his cognitive powers.”

Reporter Virginia Heffernan gushed over the fact that Buttigieg keeps a copy of Homer’s Iliad in his office — a classic, no doubt, but also a book that I read to my five-year-old son to pass the time during the pandemic.

It is a suitable story for Buttigieg to have on hand, because the hero, Achilles, can barely be bothered to do anything; and because it takes the other main character, Odysseus, ten years to get back home from the Trojan War.

If you’ve tried to travel recently, you can relate.

Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev sees no point in conducting negotiations on the situation in Ukraine and around it at the moment, because talks should be conducted only with the Kiev government’s ‘masters’ in Washington and only about post-conflict world order.

Commenting on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s latest remarks against equal negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel on Friday that he would "find it difficult to disagree" with her in this regard.

"This is certainly so. How can you engage in equal talks with a half-decayed neo-Nazi country, which is under external governance? Talks are possible only with its masters, namely with Washington. There is no one else to talk to," Medvedev wrote.

"Hillary, you're running again?" Yarhi-Milo asks.

"Well, I sure am, Keren," Clinton responds. "I just got here early for the new class we're teaching together on foreign policy decision-making."

"I wanted to be prepared, Keren," she adds. "When it comes to crisis situations, you've always got to be prepared."

The course is titled "Inside the Situation Room," according to a Wednesday press release from Columbia.

The FBI just got a huge surprise—and now the investigators are being put under the microscope themselves. 

The FBI Director, Christopher Wray, oversaw several operations that have been accused of targeting American citizens for investigation with political bias.

This time, the FBI’s latest witch-hunt has backfired on them big-time. And conservative firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene is making that happen.  From The Daily Caller: 

Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will introduce articles of impeachment against Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray…

“Under Wray’s watch, the FBI has intimidated, harassed, and entrapped American citizens that have been deemed enemies of the Biden regime. As such, Director Wray has turned the FBI into Joe Biden and Merrick Garland’s personal police force. The Soviet-style tactics used by the FBI against normal Americans are unprecedented in this country.”…

If you thought an investigation of Joe Biden wouldn’t amount to anything, you’re in for a surprise. After a lot of talk and no action, we’re finally getting some real movement against the President. 

Biden has been stonewalling investigators looking into his involvement with Hunter, but the GOP just made its move, and Joe is not going to like this.

From Breitbart:

The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed phone records of a phone belonging to President Joe Biden that Hunter Biden’s business paid for, according to Peter Schweizer, Government Accountability Institute president in an interview on Tuesday.[…]

Schweizer called the reported removal of the investigative team at the IRS looking into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax evasion “very troubling.” The removal came in alleged retaliation to a whistleblower who had contacted Congress about a possible cover-up going on at the IRS on the case.

Taxpayers in the state of California are being stung with a $300,000 bill for their elected officials attempts to coerce religious doctors to help kill patients.

The bill comes from a court fight over the state's attempt to order physicians to offer assisted suicide.

"Our clients seek to live out their faith in their medical practice, and that includes valuing every human life entrusted to their care. Participating in physician-assisted suicide very clearly would violate their consciences," said Kevin Theriot, a lawyer for the ADF, which worked on the case.

"This is a significant victory for religious and conscientious physicians in California. The government can’t force any health care professional to act against his faith or medical ethics."

Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, has pledged to purge its white, male employees in an effort to have a “more diverse and inclusive environment,” according to footage found on the company’s website. The company has seen its sales collapse since the disastrous Dylan Mulvaney advertisement campaign which wiped billions off the firm’s value, and chased millions of customers away.

In the video, one employee of Anheuser-Busch explains, “we’re still 40 percent women, and 60 percent men, still predominantly white: so there’s still work to be done.” The “work” to be “done” is apparently replacing white male workers with alternatives.

In doing this, another employee says, “I feel like I finally found my voice as a black woman, and I’m not prepared to lose it.”

On Sunday Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer joined Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures and revealed that NINE Biden family members received foreign payments totaling more than $10 million.

On Monday the Durham Report was released that revealed John Brennan, Barack Obama and Joe Biden KNEW the Trump-Russia collusion accusations were completely meritless.  They knew Hillary Clinton was behind this political attack.  The Obama regime and later the DOJ, and FBI ran an attempted coup against President Trump anyway.

We also know the Biden Campaign organized the fraudulent letter with 51 senior intelligence officials who lied and said Russia was behind the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.  They all knew it was a lie at the time.  Not a single official has since had their security clearance revoked for this criminal act.

A phone call from Fox News’ Chief Legal Counsel Viet Dinh has reportedly come to the forefront of Tucker Carlson’s case against the network, according to a report from the Daily Caller.

On May 3, Viet Dinh allegedly called a close associate of Carlson’s and asked to have a message relayed to the former Fox host. Dinh expressed regret over how the days and weeks following Carlson’s termination had transpired, additionally stating that the network was not behind the series of leaks showing behind the scenes footage of Carlson’s tenure at Fox.

The Daily Caller further reported that Dinh relayed that the head of Fox News PR, Irena Briganti, had been warned that she would be fired if she was caught leaking videos.

Most notably, Dinh revealed that Fox executives suspect that a member of the board of directors has been speaking to the press about Carlson without authorization.

Economic security was a major focus on the second day of the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Hiroshima, with leaders outlining actions to counter Beijing’s “economic coercion” and non-market practices.

The G-7 countries—the United States, the UK, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, and Italy—announced on May 20 their plan to address the “disturbing rise in incidents of economic coercion.”

“We will work together to ensure that attempts to weaponize economic dependencies by forcing G7 members and our partners, including small economies to comply and conform will fail and face consequences,” the G-7 leaders’ statement on economic security read.

“We express serious concern over economic coercion and call on all countries to refrain from its use.”

In a world of suffocating snowflakery, ESG hypocrisy and, well... Tranheuser Busch, a corporation telling the truth without fear of reprisals from the Open Society-funded virtue signaling cabal is rarer than an mRNA-injected, genetically engineered hen's teeth. And yet that's what the company hated by every progressive, Exxon Mobil, did this week when it became the first corporation to denounce the insidious and laughable claims that "net zero" is even a remote possibility by 2050.

The US supermajor pushed back against investors pressing the company to report on the risks to its business from restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and potential environmental disasters when in a reply to proxy advisor Glass Lewis, Exxon said the prospect of the world achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 is remote and should not be further evaluated in its financial statements.

A shareholder proposal seeking a report on the cost of having to abandon projects faces a shareholder vote on May 31. Glass Lewis backed the initiative, concluding Exxon could face material financial risks from the net-zero scenario.

Exxon disagreed, and said the world is not on a path to achieve net-zero emissions in 2050 as limiting energy production to levels below consumption demand would lead to a spike in energy prices, as observed in Europe following oil sanctions against Russia over Ukraine.

Central Wisconsin communities are coordinating efforts to shine a light into the flickering shadow cast by a looming wind turbine industry.

“There is a revolt happening here,” attorney Marti Machtan told The Epoch Times. “I’ve never seen our communities engage like this in my life.”

Machtan is a member of Farmland First, an organization that aims to facilitate discussion among community members concerned about reported coercive, predatory tactics used by industrial wind companies to manipulate landowners into signing their property rights away in the name of green energy.

“These companies are sneaky about it,” Tom Wilcox— also a member of Farmland First and chairman of the Town of Green Grove in Owen, Wisconsin—told The Epoch Times. “They don’t want to come right out and say how this will work. In fact, part of the reason why people don’t know this is happening is farmers have to agree to keep their mouth shut on the details of the contract.”

A deal in the coming days to raise the nation’s debt limit won’t necessarily sound an all-clear signal for the U.S. economy.

Sure, it would avert the “economic and financial catastrophe” envisioned by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. That doomsday scenario features global financial markets in turmoil, mortgage rates rising, seniors missing Social Security checks and millions of jobs wiped out.

But an 11th-hour agreement that narrowly averts default but frays nerves, sinks stocks and pushes up interest rates could still do some damage, as did similar standoffs in 2011 and 2013, and even push a frail economy into recession. That’s far more likely than a breach of the debt limit that triggers financial calamity.

“The economy is already very fragile and on the precipice of recession,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, who is among the minority of economists predicting the U.S. will avoid a downturn this year.

In the event of a nail-biting, down-to-the wire agreement that roils already volatile markets, a slump “is very possible,“ Zandi says.

On April 19, 2023, Robert Kennedy Jr. announced his candidacy for Democratic nomination for President of the United States.  Kennedy said after taking the stage.

“My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign, and throughout my presidency, will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism on our country.”

To begin to understand this Covid Trojan Horse, Kennedy’s speech in Berlin, on August 29, 2020 to over one million people becomes a critical starting point.

“ I must say one more thing … they have not done a very good job about protecting public health but they have done a very good job of using the quarantine to bring 5G into all of our communities and beginning the process of a digital currency which is the beginning of slavery …“ ” The pandemic is a crisis of convenience for the elites who are dictating these policies.”

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the screening of a 90-minute documentary about the 2018-2019 Gilets Jaunes movement in France.

Shot in and around the city of Toulouse, La Vie de tempête (“life in the storm”) is a very moving account of this important popular uprising against the plutocracy.

It combines thoughtful interviews with a dozen GJ supporters with often-dramatic footage of events on the streets, as the state launched relentless military-style assaults against protesters, using tear gas, water cannon and grenades.

The courage of those who kept going, weekend after weekend, for more than a year – notably one determined woman in a wheelchair – is humbling to behold.

Those who used their Bank of America accounts to purchase a firearm were reportedly bumped to the top of the list handed over to the FBI.

In a report released on May 18, Republicans revealed whistleblower testimony from retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill, who made the allegations.

“The Bank of America, with no directive from the FBI, data-mined its customer base,” Hill testified, saying that this data mining comprised transactions made between Jan. 5, 2021, and Jan. 7, 2021. Specifically, they targeted transactions made in Washington or nearby counties in Maryland and Virginia.

Investigators asked Hill, “It’s anyone who used a Bank of America either debit or credit card to conduct a transaction?”

They lied.

They deceived the public for years, alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. President Trump and his advisors, the agents of Russia, were guilty of treason. The FBI investigation was above reproach, led by career agents and civil servants, and insulated from politics or influence from FBI leadership.

Their sources, anonymous to the public and known to only them, were from within the US intelligence and law enforcement communities. These were the originators of the falsehoods; the journalists were merely vessels. In return for this cynical tradecraft, the media protected – and continues to protect – high ranking current and former US government officials. Anything to keep the information flowing.

The list of publications and “journalists” (for purposes of this exercise, any of these other terms might apply: stenographers or adulators or parasitic hosts) who put out the now-discredit claims of the Trump-Russia hoax is long and distinguished. They were nearly all guilty; the skeptics were few. The volume of lies, spread in print and on TV and on social media, would take months, if not years, to compile. The Columbia Journalism Review’s “The press versus the president”, a thorough analysis of some of the worst Trump-Russia era reporting (including stories from The New York Times and The Washington Post), was a four-part series that only touched the surface.

“The most difficult part,” Satan continued, “was time, simply waiting for the instruments of power to catch up with the human proclivity towards destruction. And now, as you most assuredly can see, that time has arrived. You have succeeded in penetrating and marshaling the forces of the atomic nucleus, you have divined the secrets of the human genome, you have created an electromagnetic web of such potency that nothing can ever be private again, and your leaders, in their quest for transhuman immortality, will sacrifice as many lives and as much blood as they feel they need to achieve their illusionary aims. This so-called virus, the global coordination necessary to shut down your little world, your mania for injecting, for force, for cruelty and division, and the immense concentration of power in the hands of the few … it has only one end. In the past, your murder and mayhem were, shall we say, limited, localized. But no longer.”

With that he finished his drink, adjusted his cuffs with their sparkling links, rose and bowed.

“I like a good game of snooker,” he said.

But before he set off toward the tables, he took my hand, warmly.

“Time was all I needed,” he whispered, “a little time. And as for progress, which also requires time, what will you remember most about your cherished 20th century? Which genocide? And what will your Corona Wars have crowned? A most fitting end after so much misery achieved in the guise of goodness. Well, I’ve won my wager, and, to quote from His very own book – which I know by heart, by the way – even He knows that there is a time to lose.”

The NAACP's national board of directors has issued a formal travel advisory for Florida, warning black and LGBTQ people against visiting the state due to Governor Ron DeSantis' policies. 

'Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals,' states the advisory issued on Saturday night by the civil rights group.

'Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color,' it adds.

The NAACP said the advisory was 'in direct response' to the Florida governor's 'aggressive attempts to erase black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.'

DeSantis, who is expected to announce his presidential campaign later this week, previously responded to the proposal of an NAACP travel advisory against Florida by calling the idea 'a joke'. 

According to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, Trump would have an easy route to victory if the election took place today. In a hypothetical nine-way primary, Trump would take 58 percent of the vote. That number is up three points compared to the poll released last month.