All of the geopolitical deep weeds followers generally agree, if/when the U.S. triggers the first direct military strikes against Russian interests, what one might call the modern Archduke Ferdinand moment, it will likely take place in Moldova.

As a consequence, a very strategically weak and easily influenced Moldovan President, currently Maia Sandu, will be the manipulated leader who next puts her country in harm’s way.

Moldova has a significant population of pro-Russia citizens in the east, which makes the internal domestic dynamic a little strenuous to manage. It is very similar to Ukraine in that regard.

White House – President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met today with Moldovan President Maia Sandu in Warsaw. President Biden reaffirmed strong U.S. support for Moldova’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. He highlighted ongoing US assistance to help Moldova strengthen its political and economic resilience, including its democratic reform agenda and energy security, and to address the effects of Russia’s war against Ukraine. (link)

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Speaking today in Poland, amid carefully managed stage theatrics, lighting and dramatic entrance for emphasis, Joe Biden said:

…”I speak once more to the people of Russia.  The United States and the nations of Europe do not seek to control or destroy Russia.  The West was not planning to attack Russia as Putin said today, and millions of Russian citizens who only want to live in peace with their neighbors are not the enemy”…

Given the reality that every foreign policy statement from the people around Joe Biden carries the exact opposite in both intent and outcome, we should now prepare for the Biden administration, CIA and U.S. State Department to begin open offensive military action directly targeting Russia.  Yes, this statement means it is time to start worrying.

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Matt Taibbi is a smart guy, he’ll get there.  I’m not sure why my gut says to trust him, but it does – and I do. Recently he’s been getting hit by the leftists who are asking why Taibbi is not looking at the Trump administration pressure on social media to control and manipulate public information [Twitter Here].

Taibbi has been hitting back against his detractors by saying, there’s no evidence of Trump doing that; yet there is massive evidence of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) contacting Twitter to do exactly that.

This is interesting to me and CTH readers because we outlined in real time what the SSCI and HPSCI were doing in order to promote the Trump-Russia conspiracy before and after the 2016 election.

What’s fascinating about this… is that the same people who are attacking Taibbi right now, are the same people who received and promoted the propaganda from the SSCI (Burr and Warner) in addition to the HPSCI (Schiff and Swalwell).

In essence, the ancillary media attack hounds are attacking Taibbi because at the end of the research trail Taibbi is following he will find the same names of the ancillary media who are attacking him.

[SEE SHORT THREAD HERE]

In my opinion, Taibbi is on the right trail in following the SSCI and HPSCI manipulation of the social media platforms, specifically Twitter.  In addition to the SSCI creating the structure that supports the intelligence weaponization by DHS and FBI, Senate Intel Chair Richard Burr and then Senate Intel Vice-Chair Mark Warner are at the epicenter of it.

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Yikes, this place was a foundry so you can imagine flying molten metals and debris. Scary stuff.

According to News5 Cleveland, one person was killed, and more than a dozen injured when the I. Schumann & Co, brass and alloy manufacturer plant exploded.  Video footage shows the aftermath {Direct Rumble Link}

News5 – Authorities responded to a manufacturing business near Bedford Monday afternoon after a massive explosion caused fires and blew debris over neighboring businesses, streets and cars. Multiple injuries have been reported.

It happened at I. Schumann & Co., located in the 22500 block of Alexander Road in Oakwood. The business is a brass and bronze alloy manufacturer.

The company released the following statement about the explosion:

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I’m not going to re-write anything. [SEE HERE]  Instead, I’m just dropping this little video snippet into the discussion as a confirmational datapoint.

CNN journalist Alex Marquardt: “I’ve been here for the past five days. I have not heard any explosions. I have not heard any air sirens, until about half an hour ago, right when President Biden was in the center of Kyiv.“

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According to Axios, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Fox News (Paul Ryan) and Tucker Carlson access to the 41,000 hours of CCTV footage.

Presumably Speaker McCarthy figures this approach will support his previous promise to release and “make public” the full unedited House footage.  I’m not sure I would qualify this as fulfilling the pledge.  Why is an intermediary needed?  Why not just release the footage and let people review it raw and unfiltered?

Via Axios – House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Fox News’ Tucker Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6 riot, McCarthy sources tell me.

• • Carlson TV producers were on Capitol Hill last week to begin digging through the trove, which includes multiple camera angles from all over Capitol grounds. Excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks.

Why it matters: Carlson has repeatedly questioned official accounts of 1/6, downplaying the insurrection as “vandalism.”

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I must admit that sometimes I scratch my puzzler, when I watch geopolitical influence agents say the quiet part out loud, and yet no one seems to pay any attention.

In case you missed it – a few days ago (2/14/23), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stepped in front of the cameras for an impromptu presser following a meeting of the NATO Defence Ministers at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

General Stoltenberg openly tells western media that NATO has been in a war against Russia since 2014. That’s when the combined effort of western political leadership, led by the U.S. State Department and NATO forces, overthrew the former Ukraine government and established the country as the center for strategic military operations against Russia. This isn’t the first time Stoltenberg has made this admission.

Against this backdrop, the February 2022 military incursion by Russia into eastern Ukraine (Donbas region), can be viewed as a counter-offensive against the NATO advancement; yet, almost no one in western media seems to hold these NATO admissions as a reference point in their outlines of the conflict.  WATCH (06:07) Prompted:

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The Washington Post is framing this as a potential Ronna McDaniel requirement, however given the RNC under Reince Preibus ended up having the same 2016 pre-debate loyalty demand, the requirement is more likely an institutional Big Club proposal and not the idea of the chair.  The board and RNC charter members of the professionally Republican apparatus are the ones creating the litmus tests.

Essentially, you will remember in 2015 and 2016 the RNC demanded that all of the candidates swear an oath to whomever won the GOP nomination.  In the first Fox News debate of August 2015, the candidates were told to raise their hand if they were not willing to swear or affirm their intent to support the eventual nominee.  Everyone except Donald Trump (and Ben Carson) lied.  WATCH:

The construct of the loyalty oath was predicated around the fact the RNC institution did not support an outsider like Donald Trump using their club system to achieve the office of the presidency.  Trump was independent minded and held his own platform positions on trade, economics, border security and immigration that ran counter to the approved policy positions of professionally Republican members.

The RNC, as an institution of life-long tenured club members, viewed Donald Trump as not an acceptable RNC candidate, and therefore were worried he would mount an independent run if the RNC effort to remove him from their party was successful. The alternative fifteen candidates were all previously approved by the RNC establishment, except Donald Trump.

As a consequence, in the 2016 contest the RNC sought to portray Donald Trump as unapproved, yet they simultaneously needed to keep up the false pretense that U.S. politics was not subject to the whims and approvals of two monopolistic private corporations (RNC and DNC).  In the decade that preceded the 2016 election, CTH was one of the few places not pretending about this dynamic.

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The White House is trying to put the best spin on the Chinese spy balloon events by claiming the U.S. military jammed the electronics attached rendering the ability of the surveillance equipment incapable of transmission to relays (satellites) or mainland China.

Additionally, according to the White House strategic communications spokesperson John Kirby, the main structure of the electronics, optics and surveillance system has been recovered by the U.S. military and the equipment is now being studied and reverse engineered. WATCH (05:18 Prompted):

(Via Reuters) – The United States said on Friday it had successfully concluded recovery efforts off South Carolina to collect sensors and other debris from a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon shot down by a U.S. fighter jet on Feb. 4, and investigators are now analyzing its “guts.”

The last of the debris fro the Chinese balloon, which was downed by a Sidewinder missile, is heading to an FBI laboratory in Virginia for analysis, the U.S. military’s Northern Command said in a statement.

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When Ohio Senator JD Vance was briefing the press earlier today, he was asked about East Palestine residents being required to sign indemnity waivers, releasing Norfolk Southern Railway from legal liability, as a requirement of having their water/air tests conducted on their property.

Senator Vance said he talked to a resident about it, then reviewed the contract and confirmed the indemnity demand.  Vance then immediately called Norfolk Southern Railroad officials and asked them about it.  According to Vance, the response from Norfolk Southern Railway was that the liability waiver was accidentally presented.  WATCH (@24:54 Prompted):

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Does anyone really believe the contingency waivers were “accidentally” presented to the residents?

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