"The U.S. says that two Russian aircraft brought down U.S. surveillance drones near Crimea and the U.S. is calling this “unsafe and unprofessional.” The drones were unmanned. Russia refutes this assessment. They claim that the drones were flying towards the Russian border without an active transport, in violation of restrictions. They admit that two Russian craft were following the drones but say that they observed the drones falling on their own.

This incident highlights the U.S. involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The U.S. admits that it has helped Ukraine with surveillance in its fight against Russia. This is a little more than “helping.” This is doing it for them. Now we know it and now we know that Russia knows it. "

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov has slammed US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm’s calls for a refusal to cooperate with Russian in the sphere of peaceful uses of nuclear energy as a manifestation of dishonest competition.

The Russian ambassador on Wednesday commented on Granholm’s article in The Hill newspaper where she called on the world to "penalize" our country with a refusal to cooperate in the sphere of peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

"Frankly speaking, the abovementioned opus does not evoke anything but indignation and resentment. The administration official turns literally everything upside down. She does not feel squeamish about adding some drama to the text so as to touch the hearts of those reading," he said, adding that Mrs. Granholm should better "take a closer look at the situation" and "find out which party to the Ukrainian conflict - with full support by its Western curators - does disregard the principles of nuclear safety and security."

A deliberate attack on a Russian aircraft in neutral airspace would be an open declaration of war against the largest nuclear power, Moscow is not seeking confrontation, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Wednesday.

"Some lawmakers’ calls go far beyond common sense," he said, commenting on US Senator Lindsey Graham’s (from South Carolina) threats to shoot down Russian planes approaching US aircraft in international airspace.

"The Russian Ministry of Defense has explained in detail the reasons and course of actions of Russian pilots during yesterday’s incident over the Black Sea. I repeat, for those who have not gathered themselves to look at the situation objectively: our fighters did not come into contact with the American UAV," he said, commenting on the loss of a MQ-9 American drone. "Russia did everything possible to prevent this kind of incident - it informed the international community in good time about the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation."

Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday reiterated his support to Russia in the fight with "old and new Nazis."

"I want to take advantage of the moment, as this is my first visit since the [start of the] special operation in Ukraine, and reiterate the Syrian position in support of the special operation against the old and new Nazis. I’m saying they are old and new Nazis because the West accepted old Nazis on its soil, and now it supports them again," the Syrian leader said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The European Union obviously wants to make another attempt to form a wide anti-Russian coalition after the West has failed to isolate Russian in the global arena, the Russian mission to the European Union told TASS on Thursday commenting on the EU plans to call the first Schuman Security and Defense Partnership Forum on March 20-21.

Along with the 27 European Union member nations, forty-five more countries and international organizations have been invited.

"Initially, the European Union was sure that it would succeed in isolating Russia in the global arena. But Brussels has failed to do that at once and it could have never done it. And now the European Union seems to grow wiser and is staking on forming various anti-Russian coalitions hiding behind an allegedly unifying agenda. Whereas the European Political Community rests on some sort of ‘democratic values,’ in this case, security matters are in focus," the mission said in a commentary.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson calls out the Biden administration and some Republicans for their response to the Russia-Ukraine war on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

The rocket attack on the U.S. Green Village base was widely seen by observers as a response to the Israeli strikes on Tartus and Hama.

The attack came around a week after General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, paid an unannounced visit to an undisclosed base in northeastern Syria. One of the main goals of the visit was to assess safeguards for American troops against attacks.

Attacks on U.S. bases in Syria will not likely deter Israel. However, they could mount some pressure on Washington. As for now, it appears to be that direct attacks against Israel are off the table for Damascus and its allies, most likely to deny Tel Aviv any excuse it could use to launch a full-blown military operation against Syria.

He was carrying a flag.  He committed no violence. He immediately left when he was asked to leave.  The FBI later raided his home for walking inside the US Capitol.   They searched his home and found a gun they have for protection.  The FBI arrested Matthew because he had a felony on his record from 10 years ago.  They held him without bond and later a court sentenced him to 45-days for parading and picketing in the Capital and an addition 57-months (nearly 5 years) for having an unregistered short barrel rifle when they searched his home.

Matthew’s maximum release date is February 2, 2025.  He may get out in August 2024 thanks to President Trump’s First Step Act.  He is currently serving time at FCI Edgefield, a medium-security prison.

The FBI raided his home and forced his wife on the ground at 6 AM in the morning. And then weeks later the government took his son.

Jussie Smollett’s hoaxers-for-hire Abimbola “Bola” and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo are speaking to the media for the first time since helping the “Empire” actor stage his hate crime in the early morning hours of a snowy January day in 2019.

“Everyone immediately thought ‘This is what Trump’s America is like,” New York Post national correspondent Gabrielle Fonrouge said of the “hate crime” in the newly-released multi-part Fox Nation special, “Anatomy of a Hoax.”

“You had people in MAGA hats chasing after a Black man in the night, tying a rope around his neck calling him racist slurs, calling him homophobic slurs,” she added.

Amid the escalating war, Ukraine's wait for fighter jets from its western allies may end soon. Poland has said it is ready to supply fighter jets to Ukraine within weeks. The Polish PM said that his government may hand over its Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets to Kyiv. Last week, Poland's leaders said that sending warplanes would be only done within a larger international coalition. Slovakia has also expressed readiness to supply Kyiv with combat aircraft. However, there are no signs that key allies like the U.S. and UK will agree to send their warplanes.

Whitmer reportedly allotted $1.4 million in CARES Act funds to Michigan State University College of Education, the University of Michigan’s School of Education, and Michigan Virtual to create online social justice courses.

Inside NoVa reports, “the way the program was funded has come under scrutiny from federal oversight agencies. The Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General said in a report released in September that the state could not support the process it used to select Michigan Virtual, MSU and UM to develop the modules.”

“The purpose of the program was to train teachers on how to implement the teacher professional learning standards developed by the Governor’s Education Advisory Council,” said a report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General, which investigated how the state spent the federal pandemic money.

In 2019, Whitmer created the Governor’s Education Advisory Council and chose all 15 people who would serve on it. She personally signed off on granting the money, according to the report.

It’s a rough time for fake news.
Trust in the media is in the sewer.

a new study has found.

In a survey of 5,593 adults, Gallup and the Knight Foundation — which have been publishing reports on trust in news media since 2017 — found only 26% of Americans view news media favorably overall. A full 50% of respondents disagreed with the statement that most national news orgs “do not intend to mislead, misinform, or persuade the public.”

Americans lead the international outcry against fake news.

The US ranks DEAD LAST among 46 countries in a recent study on trust in media.

The US Army released a new ad last week reviving their old "Be All You Can Be" slogan in a bid to attract the "deplorables" they alienated with woke garbage and vax mandates to enlist but they appear to be running into a wee bit of trouble.

WATCH:



Despite the ad being markedly "anti-woke" (when compared to current standards) and trying to appeal to more traditional American values, the comments on the video are overwhelmingly negative with poster after poster asking why any normal American would want to fight for people who hate them.

"Why would I want to fight for people who hate me?" one commenter said.

"I'm never dying for people who hate me. NEVER," said another.

"Nobody in my neighborhood speaks english or flies the American flag," read another post. "Thanks for defending my country."

Record numbers of people ended their lives in Oregon last year in America's most advanced doctor-assisted suicide program, which now lets out-of-state 'death tourists' get lethal drug cocktails on the West Coast.

Last year, 431 people received fatal prescriptions under the state's Death With Dignity Act (DWDA), and 278 people used them to end their lives, Oregon Health Authority said in its annual report.

That's a jump from 383 scripts and 238 deaths the previous year.

The Kyiv Independent, a Western-backed pro-Ukraine propaganda outlet, released a remarkably honest article on Wednesday detailing the bleak outlook for Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut.

From The Kyiv Independent, "Battle of Bakhmut: Ukrainian soldiers worry Russians begin to 'taste victory'":

Just days before heading back to fight in the Battle of Bakhmut, a Ukrainian soldier Volodymyr, 54, said he felt ill-prepared.

"When they drive us to Bakhmut, I already know I'm being sent to death," Volodymyr told the Kyiv Independent during his brief stay in Kramatorsk, a city in Donetsk Oblast some 25 kilometers west of the front line.

Volodymyr, an infantryman from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, said he struggled to eat after fighting in Bakhmut for months. He looked shaken as he talked.

For two months, Volodymyr's unit was tasked with guarding Bakhmut against small Russian assault groups creeping into the city. The brigade was constantly under mortar fire as soldiers were outdoors where shrapnels could wound or kill them at any moment.

"(The Russians) keep firing at us, but we don't have artillery – so we have nothing to attack them back with," Volodymyr said. "I don't know if I will return or not. We are just getting killed."

An earthquake of 7.1 magnitude struck the Kermadec Islands region in New Zealand on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The quake was estimated at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles) USGS added. A tsunami warning was issued after the quake, the U.S. Tsunami Warning System said.

Update (21:00ET): And so, the "bailout" arrives just a few hours before the Europe open, Credit Suisse said it’s planning to borrow from the Swiss National Bank up to CHF50 billion ($54 billion) under a covered loan facility which is "fully collateralized by high quality assets". It wasn't immediately clear what high quality assets CS has left to pledge but in a time of BTFP, we are confident they found something. 

The bank also announced  offers by Credit Suisse International to repurchase certain OpCo senior debt securities for cash of up to about CHF3 billion, which will help the bank pick up a few pennies in bond discount, even as it faces tens of billions in deposit flight.

Dr. Peter McCullough has been a voice of reason in a medical system crazed with COVID hysteria.

As a leading cardiologist, he worked to educate us all on what – and what isn’t – the science behind COVID and the vaccines.

And his warnings about vaccines have been borne out.

Readers will recall that, for the last several months, I have noted that US oil production per the EIA's weekly Petroleum Status Report was inconsistent with the data from the EIA's monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) 

The graph below shows that state of play as of last week.  The two red arrows at right show the contradictory trends, with total oil production essentially flat while shale oil production is shown rising at a healthy clip.  I have noted that this contradiction would have to be resolved by either increasing the weekly numbers or reducing shale oil output.  

We now have the answer.  

The graph below shows the state of play as of March 14th, when the EIA issued the March DPR.  It shows simply massive downward reductions in US shale oil output.  In the March report, shale oil output from the key plays is reduced by 443,000 bpd for January and 250,000 bpd for February.  If we go back one more month to the January DPR, shale oil production has been reduced by 542,000 bpd for December 2022.  This is a huge revision, more than 4% of total US crude and condensate production over a two month period.

With this revision, as the current graph (below) shows, US shale oil production is largely flat over the last four months, and trends in shale oil supply are consistent with the overall US crude oil supply (including conventional onshore wells, Gulf of Mexico offshore, and Alaska).  I need hardly point out that this is not good news, as the visible peak of horizontal oil rigs is now beginning to pair up with plateauing oil production, just as we would expect. 

Remember the mega-hit book The Bonfire of the Vanities? While a work of fiction, the book shone a harsh light on the all-too-real world of lies, corruption, and hypocrisy in high places. In one of my favorite scenes, the power-couple protagonists attend a party at the home of the aptly named Bavardage family, where all the guests blab at each other with deep-fake enthusiasm, making sure to display their “boiling teeth” at all times.

Like the high society portrayed in the book, the Covid regime was replete with rot, from taped-up basketball nets and masked toddlers to vaccine passports and… slogans. Some of the slogans were carefully crafted by governments, while others sprang from the weeds of social media. They all drew from the same playbook, capitalizing on fear and using emotional manipulation to activate people’s guilt circuits. They served as thought-stopping mantras that precluded honest communication about the pandemic. To anyone with even a slightly nuanced worldview, their plodding earnestness grated like an earworm.  

With three years of pandemic history behind us, it’s high time to put these clunkers to bed.

I’ve collected a baker’s dozen of the slogans that have dogged us for the past three years, and explain why they deserve to be torched and thrown into an unmarked grave. 

Never before has it been clearer how useless ESG investing has become than in the case of Silicon Valley Bank. The bank, which donated to Black Lives Matter causes and frequently touted its virtuous diversity and equity policies, has blown a hole directly through "woke" capital allocators who sought it out for this appeal.

...as opposed to...you know...the quality of the bank's assets and its ability to generate cash. 

"Hundreds" of ESG managers have been stung by the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, Bloomberg has reported. A new report says that "915 funds registered under European Union regulations as either 'promoting' ESG or declaring it as their 'objective' had exposure" to the bank. 

The bank "tick[ed] several boxes" for these managers, including a low carbon footprint. However, the "G" in ESG - which stands for governance - seemed to take a back seat to the "E" and the "S". 

Sasja Beslik, a sustainable finance veteran who’s now the chief investment officer at NextGen ESG told Bloomberg: “There are a lot of lazy asset managers taking ESG scores for granted. The bank's failure was a sign that managers who go “all in on carbon are not necessarily managing other risks.”

Webmaster addition: Get woke, go broke, applied on a national scale!

As the Green Party’s fortunes sink, the fortunes of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party rise, with the AfD now polling ahead of the Greens for the first time since 2018 in two separate surveys.

In a survey from YouGov, the AfD jumped to 17 percent, while the Greens were one point behind at 16 percent.

Because of the polarized nature of our political landscape, there is an undeclared competition among municipal officials to make their cities the most extreme, anti-borders advocates in the land. By virtue of its recently passed law that establishes city elections with no meaningful eligibility rules for voters, Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Washington, D.C. City Council have served notice that our nation’s capital takes a backseat to no one in the pro-illegal-alien woke wars.

The D.C. City Council last month passed the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act, which requires only that residents live in the District for 30 days prior to becoming eligible to vote in city elections. There is no citizenship requirement, not even a lawful presence requirement. This represents a new low bar for voter eligibility. Under the act, voting rights would be extended to illegal aliens and even foreign diplomats from countries with regimes that openly despise America such as Iran and North Korea.

Under the D.C. Home Rule Act, Congress reviews all legislation passed by the city council before it can become law and retains authority over the District’s budget. As part of that review process, the GOP-led House passed a resolution to block D.C.’s voting law. Given the slim Democratic majority in the Senate and Joe Biden’s penchant for prioritizing those who violate our laws, however, Republican opposition may be insufficient to torpedo this dangerous change in the law.

In an effort to establish a "world-class" diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program, the United States Air Force is actively recruiting for several senior-level DEI managers at various locations throughout the country.

Fox News Digital reports that since the beginning of March, the Air Force has posted job listings for four high-ranking DEI-related positions, each offering a minimum salary of $82,000.

The Pentagon is providing the most lucrative opportunity, with a salary exceeding $180,000 per annum. In Arlington, Virginia, the Air Force seeks to appoint a DEI official who will serve as a first-level supervisor within the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. This "supervisory diversity equity inclusion and accessibility officer" will receive an annual compensation ranging from $155,700 to $183,500. The role entails ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, meeting customer needs, and implementing world-class DEI initiatives.

Webmaster addition: