Ukraine is now being blamed for the Nord Stream attack...

 

The aftermath of the attack. BBC/Reuters. 

Ukraine has denied involvement in the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines after two reports in western media have blamed them for the incident. BBC. A report from the New York Times blamed the attack on a pro-Ukraine group. The report also absolved Ukrainian President Zelenskyy of any knowledge of the attack. A German newspaper, Die Zeit, claimed that it had discovered a boat that was supposedly involved in the attack was hired from Poland by two Ukrainians, though who actually used the boat or ordered the attack was a mystery. The Nord Stream pipelines supplied Russian natural gas to Europe and its destruction has had a major effect on countries like Germany. 

My Comment:

It's not often that I defend Ukraine but I sincerely doubt that they had anything to do with the Nord Stream attack. When the attack happened I largely dismissed the possibility for what should be obvious reasons. Ukraine doesn't have a navy anymore and I doubt they have the kind of experienced divers that could pull this off. 

Is it possible? Sure. The pipelines were not that deep in the water and the idea that Ukraine could subcontract it out isn't impossible. What is unbelievable is that some non-state affiliated group could have done this without approval from Zelenskyy. Since this was an act of war against not only Russia, but also Ukraine's supposed ally, Germany, I can't see them doing this as a rogue action. 

Of course the BBC report ignored the claims made by Seymour Hersh that it was America and Norway that took out the pipeline. I know that Hersh is persona non-grata in the news industry due to relying on anonymous sources (which the national media is just as guilty of) but the report was at least as plausible as the reporting on Ukraine being the one responsible. 

I personally think that the United States was the obvious suspect in this attack because they are one of only a few countries that would gain much from it. Obviously Russia isn't going to blow up their own pipeline and Germany isn't either. Ukraine would gain from it but I just don't see them pulling it off. That leaves the United States as a prime suspect, along with the gas-rich Scandinavian countries, and Poland. 

My guess is these reports are an attempt to distract against the allegations by Hersh and others that the United States was behind the attack. The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline would provide a casus belli for both Russia and Germany against whoever committed the attack. The United States needs plausible deniability for responsibility of the attack and what better fall guy than Ukraine? They are already at war with Russia and they probably hope that Russia will fall for the scheme. That's my take on it anyways. 

SPLC attorney among 23 charged for domestic terrorism in "cop city" attack.

 

Construction equipment burning at the site of the Atlanta police training facility. New York Post/Fox News. 

A lawyer with the Southern Poverty Law Center was among 23 people charged for domestic terrorism for an attack on a police training facility in Atlanta Georgia. New York Post. Thomas Webb Jurgens was one of many attackers that tried to destroy the police training facility, dubbed "cop city" by its detractors. Jurgens is a staff lawyer for the SPLC, a far left group that labels right wing groups as hate groups. The majority of the people charged in the attack were not from Georgia, with only Jurgens and one other man hailing for the state. The attackers used Molotov cocktails and fireworks to attack officers and set construction equipment on fire. The attackers also used green lasers to attempt to blind officers as well. 

My Comment:

I can't even pretend to understand the motivations for this attack. Given all the complaints of untrained officers causing problems you would think that a new training facility would be something these people would support. But instead they tried to destroy the training facility because... actually I don't have any clue. It makes zero sense to me. 

These people just hate police. All police, regardless if their actions are justified or not. Some police are bad and even some organizations, like the FBI and ATF, are fundamentally flawed, but I won't ever understand those that just hate police in general. Indeed, one of these antifa thugs died in the attacks against this facility in January. That makes zero sense, dying for a cause this stupid. 

I am very comfortable calling these people terrorists. They were using arson and violence to advance their political cause, as inexplicable and idiotic as it is. If that isn't terrorism than nothing is. Many of them were also charged with domestic terrorism so it's factually accurate. 

The fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center was involved in this attack is devastating for the organization. The determination of who is a terrorist or hate group has long been delegated to the SPLC by both the media and the government themselves. This has led to the SPLC calling anyone to the right of Bill Clinton as a terrorist or bigot. They have also long avoided calling antifa a terror group despite them being both racist and extremely involved in both riots and terror attacks. 

Having a lawyer for the organization committing terrorism should, in a sane world, ruin whatever credibility the SPLC has left. Indeed, if things were fair, the SPLC would be designated a hate or terror group. You know they would do the same if the political alignment of Mr. Jurgens was reversed. 

It's unclear what Jurgens role was in this attack. I know that left wing groups often have lawyers on call to help bail out their members and that might have been what Jurgens was doing here. But he appears to have gone further than simply advising the attackers and was actively participating in the attack.

My sincere hope is that that these people get the book thrown at them. That appears to be what the Governor of Georgia wants, but it is unclear what will happen. These people have a lot of infrastructure behind them and they tend to get bailed out and have charged dropped, regardless of how egregious their behavior is. It's also people like Jurgens that tend to do this as well... 

BREAKING: MUST SEE FOOTAGE

This was a coordinated Antifa attack on a police facility in Atlanta, with SPLC support pic.twitter.com/WGhdEqyhUC

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) March 6, 2023

Donald Trump proposes "baby bonus" to help improve birthrate.

 

Donald Trump. White House portrait 

Donald Trump has proposed a "baby bonus" to help improve America's lagging birthrate. Politico. The bonus would give money to young couples to encourage them to have children. Trump says that this could lead to a baby boom and reverse America's sagging birthrate, which is well below the replacement rate. The idea might have bipartisan support as it was also used as a plank of Democrat Corey Booker during his 2020 campaign run. 

#AGENDA47: @realDonaldTrump's plan for a QUANTUM LEAP in the American standard of living:

➡️BUILD FREEDOM CITIES
➡️REVOLUTIONIZE AMERICAN TRANSPORTATION
➡️LOWER THE COST OF LIVING
➡️MAKE AMERICA THE WORLD'S MANUFACTURING SUPERPOWER
➡️LAUNCH A GREAT MODERNIZATION CAMPAIGN pic.twitter.com/NTTGfjL9mG

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) March 3, 2023

(Trump makes the comments about baby bonuses at 2:50 in the above video. 

My Comment:

There is very little information about what exactly Trump is proposing here as he only had the short mention in the above video along with a few comments at his speech at CPAC. Mostly he talked about other big shot ideas like building new cities or (finally) making flying cars a reality. Those mostly seem like long shots to me but the baby bonus seems like something that would be fairly easy to pass and possibly even with Democrat support. 

I have written about the birth rate before and it is a major concern of mine. Generally speaking, population loss is never a good thing, especially when it comes to paying for things like social security. You need a larger, younger generation to pay for the older ones after they retire. If you don't have that you have only two options, neither of which are good. You either cut off the old folks, thus breaking the promises you made to them, or bring in a huge number of immigrants, which has its own severe problems. So far the country has appeared to go with #2 and it has not been working out for us to say the least. 

Of course, the question is why people aren't choosing to have children. Part of it is cultural, after all women are putting off marriage until after college and putting their careers ahead of having kids. This dramatically reduces the amount of children that can be had. And there is some feminist hostility to having children period for reasons I don't pretend to understand. 

But I think the major problem is cost. When you look at all the things you need to buy when it comes to having kids it's absurd. Spending thousands of dollars on medical costs, housing, food and everything else it prices a lot of people out of the market. Of course that doesn't stop poor people having kids but a lot of people in the middle class have to choose between having another kid and paying the mortgage and when that happens most people choose the mortgage. 

Reducing that cost might be a good way to encourage people to have children. It's been tried in the past and from what I understand it has mixed results. It really depends on how Trump wants to execute the policy. Tax breaks might not be enough because families with children already get pretty decent tax breaks (I was pretty shocked to learn how much more my married with three kids coworker gets compared to my single unmarried status tax return). Still, I think part of the problem is the huge cost of having kids and anything that reduces that cost might help.

However, I do think that Trump's idea to encourage low cost housing might be even better. As someone that looked for a house for awhile but gave up after realizing that even in a relatively cheap part of the country home ownership was out of my reach, I can tell you the market is insane right now. What houses that do go up now are huge McMansions that are far out of the reach of first time home buyers. Almost no small two bedroom houses, which are perfect for a small family, get built anymore and it's a major factor as to why people are putting off having children. 

Regardless, I am happy to hear Trump talking about this as it is an issue that is largely getting ignored. People need to get together and have kids and I don't think that has ever been more difficult to do in history. And it's not just people deciding that it's too expensive to have kids, it's the fact that a lot of people aren't getting married or even dating at all. That's a subject for another post but it still means there is a lot of work to do on this aspect of American society. 

Russian civilians attacked in cross border raid by far right group.

 

Map of the region. BBC.

Russian civilians were attacked in a cross border raid by a far right group. BBC. The village of Lyubechane in the Bryansk region, was attacked by militants with the RVC, a group of Russian nationals that fight for Ukraine. Russia claims that the group attacked a civilian car, killing two men and injuring a boy. The militants were pushed back into Ukraine after artillery fire from the Russians. Russia has come under attack by the Ukrainians before, but that was mostly drone warfare. This was the first attack that involved militants crossing the border. Videos released by the RVC showed the leader of the group, Denis Kapustin, involved in the attack. 

⚡️Another video of these saboteurs fighting for Ukraine in Bryansk, Russia pic.twitter.com/ZfFLtoE9zQ

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) March 2, 2023

My Comment:

In normal circumstances this raid would not be a big deal. I am guessing dozens of attacks like this happen in Ukraine every day on both sides of the conflict. Civilians die in warfare, that's just the way warfare works. 

But the fact that it happened in Russia? That's a big deal. It's the first time that has happened since the war begun, at least in terms of actual people crossing the border and not drones. This attack is going to have a major amount of backlash, so much so that even some Ukrainians and Ukrainian supporters are saying it was not a good idea. 

Indeed, there are rumors that Russia may officially declare war on Ukraine because of this. Despite the open conflict the Russians still consider it a "special military operation" and not an actual war. If Russia does declare war they will be able to mobilize more troops and may even use strategic weapons against Ukraine. This is, of course, bad for everyone and raises the chances that the Ukraine war will spiral out of control. 

I, of course, don't believe Ukrainian claims that this was a false flag. I haven't believed a single claim the Ukrainians have made during the war, at least not until I confirm it from more neutral or pro-Russian sources. Not that the Russians are much better, but at least they never made such obviously false claims like the Ghost of Kiev or the nonsense about Snake Island. Plus, most Ukrainian sources have confirmed this attack with how scared they appear to be about the consequences. 

I know little about the group that attacked this village. They appear to be actual Nazis, given the photos I have seen, with many of the attackers having far-right tattoos. The BBC tried to downplay this, as all western media does when Nazis are shown fighting for Ukraine, but it seems very clear from what I have seen that these people are indeed Nazis. Western media can't admit this because it would be an admission that at least one of Russia's war goals, de-Nazifying Ukraine, has at least some truth to it. 

My guess is that this was an attempt to distract from the fact that they are losing and losing badly in Bakhmut. Indeed, I can't believe that they haven't withdrawn from the city already. They are losing hundreds of troops in the battle and can't seem to overcome the Russian artillery advantage. The Russian offensive against Bakhmut has been slow and grinding but it appears to be bearing fruit. 

Since Ukraine's military strategy is to convince western powers to give them further aid by accomplishing headlines as opposed to actual military success, I would not be surprised if that was the goal here. I am sure the NATO people are loving this attack on Russia. 

What really gets me is how counterproductive Ukraine's actions have been. Defending Bakhmut to the last man made very little sense and isn't something I can understand. Attacking Russia directly is the same thing, the blowback will be dramatically worse then whatever propaganda they accomplished. I really wonder what is going on with the leadership in Ukraine. I've also heard rumors that Ukraine is going to attack Transnistria in Moldova, where Russia has a presence. Such a thing would be an act of pure lunacy but it might happened given how desperate the Ukrainian government is right now. 

Dozens of schoolgirls in Iran are poisoned mysteriously.

 

Parents and ambulances arrive at a school in Iran. BBC.

Dozens of schoolgirls in Iran are suffering from poisoning symptoms. BBC. The incidents have occurred at 24 schools across the country with more than 1000 girls suffering from symptoms, including nausea, dizziness, fatigue and respiratory problems. It is unclear who is responsible for the poisonings or if they are even deliberate. This hasn't stopped speculation that it could have been retribution from the government for anti-government protests that rocked the country last year. It is also unclear what chemical is causing the problems.

My Comment:

Disturbing story out of Iran. It seems likely that someone is targeting girls schools in the country, but why and to what end? Poisoning school girls is a line that very few people would cost and given how many schools have been targeted by this, it seems likely that this was an organized plot. 

I think we can probably rule out an accident. I don't see this happening on this large of a scale. There could be chemical problems at a few places but at 24 different schools? The only thing I could think of that would explain that is some kind of mass hysteria which is possible but not very likely. 

I also don't think Iran would poison their own schoolgirls. That makes very little sense since Iran already has no problems with throwing people into prison or even killing them. Why would they poison these schools to stop the protests (which haven't been making the news anymore regardless) when they could just shut the schools down directly? It doesn't make much sense, but then again, not much in Iran does. 

There are other suspects of course. I am sure that Iran will blame Israel and the United States, but that also doesn't seem very likely either. Their main issues with Iran is the nuclear weapons program and though this might re-inflame the anti-government protests, I don't see how it actually stops the nuclear weapons programs. I also can't see Israel poisoning children. I wish I could say the same thing abut the United States, but given our current leadership...

My guess would be ISIS though. ISIS is active in Iran and has conducted attacks there before. They also have some experience with chemical weapons. They are also organized to pull off these kinds of attacks and are totally against both Shia Islam and educating young girls. The only thing that makes me question it is that I don't think they are powerful enough to pull off such a large attack. 

What I really don't understand is why these attacks haven't killed anyone. We don't know what chemical they are using to pull these attacks off, but it must be very weak if nobody has died yet. It might not be from a lack of trying but either way, whoever is responsible for this isn't exactly being very competent about this...