WWIII Watch: Ukraine Bombs Oil Field Inside Russia the Same Day Biden, Democrats and RINOs Signs Ukraine War Funding Bill

 

Ukrainian drone swarm strikes a major Russian oil depot in the Smolensk region of Russia on Friday.

Ukraine bombed the Russian oil field in the Smolensk region inside Russia on Wednesday.

This was the same day that Speaker Mike Johnson, Democrats, RINOs, and Joe Biden signed over another $60 billion to the eastern European nation in its now — offensive campaign — against Russia.

Joe Biden signed into law on Wednesday an aid package providing crucial military assistance to Ukraine, capping months of negotiations and debate.

Then Ukraine blew up a Russian oil field.

The Biden regime, Mike Johson, RINOs and Democrats support this war.

 

Only President Donald Trump can put an end to this madness.
Only Trump can prevent World War III.

BREAKING:

Ukrainian drone swarm strikes a major Russian oil depot in the Smolensk region of Russia.

Ukraine continues its intensified campaign against Russian oil and gas infrastructure.

pic.twitter.com/bLHJK2bEax

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 24, 2024

Drones sent by Ukraine's SBU security service struck two Rosneft-owned oil depots in Russia's Smolensk region in an overnight attack, a Ukrainian intelligence source said https://t.co/vR1uLXcxLEpic.twitter.com/K5wlfdd912

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 24, 2024

Business Insider reported:

Ukraine launched a new wave of long-range drone strikes on oil depots in Russia this week as part of a campaign targeting the Kremlin’s critical infrastructure.

Drones sent by Ukraine’s security service hit two Rosneft-owned oil depots in Russia’s Smolensk region on Wednesday, multiple outlets reported, citing a Ukrainian intelligence source.

A source in the Ukrainian defense sector told Agence France-Presse that the depots stored 26,000 cubic meters of fuel.

Metallurgical and pharmaceutical plants in Lipetsk in southwest Russia have also been attacked, reports say.

Bidenomics: GDP Drops Lower than Expected in First Quarter as Inflation Rises to 3.7%

 The GDP dropped faster than expected in the first quarter of 2024. Real GDP increased 1.6% after rising 3.7% in the fourth quarter of 2023 based on government spending. 

Meanwhile, inflation rose to 3.7% in the first quarter – squeezing consumers who are already strapped in the Biden economy.

Zero Hedge described the seriousness of this latest economic news to consumers.

Abysmal economic data released on Thursday painted a not-so-rosy picture for the US economy. In the last 3 post-pandemic years, nominal growth has been positive while quality of life has deteriorated behind the scenes of officially released data, and the latest data continues the trend.

GDP growth slowed from 3.4% to 1.6%—missing economist expectations by 90 basis points (0.9%). Not bad enough? Core PCE inflation has also accelerated (on a quarterly basis) from 2% to 3.7%. I wouldn’t weigh these numbers as gospel, since they are not yearly figures, but the fact remains that nominal growth is sputtering and consumer prices, the most sticky ones, are red hot:

FOX Business Network reported:

 

U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) dropped faster than expected in the first quarter, but a key metric used by the Federal Reserve to measure inflation kept rising, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). 

Real GDP increased at an annual rate of 1.6% for the January-through-March period after rising 3.4% in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) advance estimate released Thursday. Economic forecasts had called for a deceleration of growth over the previous month, with the expectation that the economy would expand by 2.4%, according to a Reuters report.

Compared to the fourth quarter, the deceleration in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected decelerations in consumer spending, exports and state and local government spending and a downturn in federal government spending. This slowdown was partly offset by an acceleration in residential fixed investment…

…The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, excluding food and energy prices — a key metric the Federal Reserve tracks to measure inflation — increased by 3.7% after rising to 2% in the fourth quarter.

‘Zero Evidence’: Biden Slammed For Once Again Lying About Driving ‘An 18-Wheeler’

 President Joe Biden has been slammed for telling yet another lie — and it’s one he’s repeated several times after claiming that he used to “drive an 18-wheeler” truck.

At a speech in Florida at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa Bay, Biden made the false claim about his biography, telling the crowd, “I used to drive an 18-wheeler.”

RNC’s Zach Parkinson, who is also the director of RNC Research, posted the video on X of Biden and said, “There is *zero evidence* that Biden ‘used to drive an 18 wheeler.’”

“The extent of Biden’s trucking experience is that he **rode in** a truck once, for one night in 1973 (he made sure to return home by plane though),” he added, sharing a newspaper clip of Biden’s ride in a truck.

“Biden has always been a chronic liar — now, coupled with his cognitive decline, he’s a national security risk,” the official account for RNC Research wrote on X.

CNN ended up fact checking the claim, too, and admitted it is fictional, despite the repeated times the president has used the debunked tale.

“Biden’s claim remains untrue. There is no evidence he ever drove an 18-wheeler,” the outlet reported.

 

In 2021, during a tour of the Mack Trucks facility, the president claimed, “I used to drive an 18-wheeler, man. I got to,” the Daily Mail noted.

That same year at another event, he told college students, “I used to drive a tractor-trailer. I only did it for part of a summer, but I got my license anyway,” the Daily Mail noted.

Last week, Biden claimed that his uncle Ambrose Finnegan — “Uncle Bosie” — “flew those single-engine planes as reconnaissance over war zones, and he got shot down in [Papua] New Guinea. They never found the body because there used to be, there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea.”

Megyn Kelly, the host of “The Megyn Kelly Show” podcast, reacted to Biden’s “Uncle Bosie” tale and said, “He can’t go two seconds with telling another familial lie, something about his background, his son. … The latest one is about Uncle Bosie.”

Kelly then played a clip of Biden’s claim of cannibalism. “Okay, so virtually none of that was true,” she added. “There is a dead uncle. Died in WWII. Was not in a single engine, he was in a double engine plane. Was not shot down. Officials say they don’t know what happened to the plane, both engines failed.”

“There were no cannibals,” Kelly continued, recalling what the survivor of the crash said, “and went on to tell us what happened.”

New York Appeals Court Tosses Harvey Weinstein Rape Conviction

 A New York appeals court moved on Thursday to overturn the 2020 rape conviction of former Miramax producer Harvey Weinstein, citing “egregious” rulings that allowed allegations unrelated to the charges to be introduced in testimony.

The court’s 4-3 ruling came down in Weinstein’s favor, leaving it up to prosecutors whether or not they will try him again.

“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes,” the decision read in part. “The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”

“It is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant’s character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them,” the decision continued.

The virtual flood of accusations against Weinstein — whose accusers included “Charmed” star Rose McGowan and others — cascaded in 2017 following a New Yorker exposé written by Ronan Farrow. What followed was a slew of additional accusations against Weinstein, which sparked the #MeToo movement.

Judge Madeline Singas penned a dissent on behalf of the minority, saying that the decision meant the court was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative,” following a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”

 

“The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” she wrote.

Weinstein will remain in prison — despite the New York conviction being overturned — because his 2022 conviction in Los Angeles still stands.

Chinese Company ByteDance Appears To Ignore Threat Of U.S. Ban, Says It ‘Has No Plans’ To Sell TikTok: Report

 According to Toutaio, a news and information content platform that is a core product of the Chinese company ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance has no plans to sell TikTok.

Last weekend, Congress passed a measure that gave ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok or it will be banned in the United States. If a sale is in progress during those nine months, an additional three months would be added. On Wednesday, President Biden signed the measure into law.

“Foreign media reports that ByteDance is exploring the sale of TikTok are untrue. ByteDance has no plans to sell TikTok,” Toutaio stated on Thursday.

TikTok had responded to Biden signing the bill with a statement on X:

This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court. We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail. The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation. This ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans.

Despite the fact that Biden signed the measure into law, his reelection campaign informed NBC News Wednesday that it still uses TikTok to appeal to voters for another year.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), an outspoken critic of TikTok who has been fighting against its influence for years, called for a Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review of TikTok back in 2019. He stated:

For years, we’ve allowed the Chinese Communist Party to control one of the most popular apps in America. That was dangerously shortsighted, but thankfully we are waking up to the threat China-controlled companies pose to America. We must move more quickly in the future when we encounter similar threats, because China won’t give up. There will be lawsuits, new apps, and new plots from Beijing.

Rubio said in an August 2023 opinion piece, “TikTok’s public-policy chief blatantly lied under oath when he denied US data is stored in China. … ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent company, was caught in October using the app to spy on American journalists.”

Rubio noted that The New York Times reported TikTok stores Americans’ private information, which includes driver’s licenses, addresses, and device IDs, in China, where they can be accessed by ByteDance employees. He also pointed out that Forbes revealed that the tax information and Social Security numbers of content creators on TikTok are also stored in China.

 

“China’s totalitarian regime hates the United States and is bent on displacing us as the world’s greatest power,” Rubio wrote. “If TikTok users believe their sensitive data are safe in Beijing’s hands — that Beijing wouldn’t use those data to influence, coerce, extort or spy on them in the case of a geopolitical conflict­­ — they need to think again.”

Russia Vetoes UN Resolution To Reaffirm Ban On Nuclear Weapons In Space

 On Wednesday, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution proposed by the United States and Japan reaffirming the obligation of countries that signed the Outer Space Treaty not to place nuclear weapons in orbit around the Earth. The resolution would ban member states from developing nuclear weapons specifically designed to be placed in orbit.

The Outer Space Treaty was signed in 1967. The treaty added new provisions to the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, adopted by the General Assembly in 1963. Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty states:

States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner. The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden. 

“We have heard President Putin say publicly that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space. If that were the case, Russia would not have vetoed this resolution,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated.

“Russia is developing a space-based military capability that members of Congress and U.S. officials worry could pose a significant threat to the United States and its allies, possibly by damaging critical intelligence or communications satellites with a nuclear weapon, according to officials familiar with the matter,” The Washington Post reported in mid-February.

At that time, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby commented, “This is not an active capability that’s been deployed. And though Russia’s pursuit of this particular capability is troubling, there is no immediate threat to anyone’s safety. We are not talking about a weapon that can be used to attack human beings or cause physical destruction here on Earth. That said, we’ve been closely monitoring this Russian activity and we will continue to take it very seriously.”

“Russia conducted a direct-ascent hit-to-kill anti-satellite (ASAT) test on November 15, 2021, striking a Russian satellite and rendering it into more than 1,500 pieces of orbital debris. Reacting to the test, U.S. Space Command commander Army Gen. James Dickinson claimed that Russia is ‘deploying capabilities to actively deny access to and use of space by the United States and its allies,’” the Arms Control  Association noted in March 2022.

DeSantis: Protesters Blocking Roads, Extremists Harassing Others At Colleges Not Tolerated In Florida

 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a press conference this week that some of the images that have gone viral this week of protesters blocking roads and anti-Semites harassing Jews on college campuses will not be tolerated in his state.

“You think about what happened when you have these Hamas demonstrators out. They’re taking over bridges and they’re taking over roads,” he said at a press conference. “First of all, you don’t have a right to do that. You have someone get stuck in traffic … someone may need to get to a hospital, someone may need to pick up a child somewhere, and you’re just gonna commandeer the road because you have this ideological predilection? They tried to do that in Miami and what happened? In 10 minutes, they got dragged off the road where they belong. And we are not gonna tolerate that.”

The governor then transitioned into talking about the anti-Semitic protesters who have expressed support for terrorist groups and have committed acts of violence against Jews on college campuses this week.

“Some of the stuff with the Hamas, I think, is absurd that someone would go out and demonstrate on that,” he said. “But when you’re chasing Jewish students around, when you’re not letting a Jewish professor enter a building, when you’re targeting people like that, that’s not free speech. I mean, that’s harassment, that violates appropriate conduct.”

“And yet at Columbia, at Yale, all these places, those guys, those folks rule the roost,” he continued. “They do whatever they want, and these administrators and the presidents of these universities are weak, they’re scared, and they don’t do anything. You know, you do that in Florida at our universities, we’re showing you the door, you’re gonna be expelled when you’re doing that stuff. And you know what? The minute people start to face consequences, you are not gonna see this nonsense going on.”

 

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