Companies Linked to Putin’s Pipeline Contributed to Schumer Campaign . . . Senate majority leader blocked sanctions on the Kremlin-backed project. Affiliates of two European companies that fund Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline contributed to the campaign of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), who Republicans say has blocked sanctions on the Kremlin-backed project. ENGIE North America and BASF Corporation each gave $2,500 to Schumer in September through their corporate political action committees, according to newly disclosed Federal Election Commission records. ENGIE North America's parent company and a BASF subsidiary are part of a consortium of five companies that finance Nord Stream 2, which will transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. While President Joe Biden has called the pipeline a geopolitical threat to Europe that helps Russian president Vladimir Putin, last year he waived sanctions on the project. Washington Free Beacon

 

Ron Klain had the perfect résumé. His first year showed the limits of that experience . . . As Joe Biden closed in on the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, top advisers approached him with a careful process for choosing and vetting a potential White House chief of staff. Biden cut them short, pointing to one man whose experience in government outstripped anyone else: “I want Ron.” He drew the ire of two key Democrats in Congress, antagonizing Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) amid disputes over legislative strategy and policy. On the single biggest challenge facing the White House — battling the pandemic — he at times irked the administration’s top official in charge of the coronavirus response, pushing Jeff Zients and his team to move faster in ways they found counterproductive. (Klain and Zients denied any tension.) Klain, 60, is praised by many in the White House and on Capitol Hill for his responsiveness and organizational abilities, and most important, is said by close associates of President Biden to retain his confidence. But even some allies suggest Klain’s approach is not necessarily producing the desired results. Washington Post

 

 

US puts 8,500 troops on alert as Nato leaders meet over Ukraine . . . The US has placed about 8,500 troops on standby for possible deployment to central and eastern Europe to shore up Nato’s defences as western leaders pledged to form a united front against the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Pentagon’s announcement that it was prepared to move additional personnel to Nato’s eastern flank came as the US and its allies hardened their response to Russia’s build-up of forces along the Ukrainian border. “At the direction of the president and following recommendations made by secretary [Lloyd] Austin, the United States has taken steps to heighten the readiness of its forces at home and abroad,” said John Kirby, Pentagon spokesperson. “They are prepared to respond to a range of contingencies, including support to the Nato Response Force, if it is activated,” he added. Financial Times

 

Putin’s Threat to Ukraine Isn’t Limited to Invasion . . . Washington believes Russia will invade Ukraine. “My guess is he will move in,” President Biden said of Vladimir Putin last week. The view in Kyiv is different. Current and former senior officials, military and defense experts and businessmen say they don’t expect a full military invasion anytime soon. But other serious perils loom as Mr. Putin seeks to subjugate Ukraine. Mr. Putin has amassed some 100,000 troops on the northern, eastern and southern borders of Ukraine. But Ukraine has at least 250,000 active troops, says former Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk. That includes about 150,000 ready to fight, some with experience from the brutal war that has raged in Eastern Ukraine since 2014. An additional 100,000 Ukrainian troops stand ready to provide support. Several hundred thousand more also stand ready to fight as trained reservists. Mr. Putin also can expect tough resistance from ordinary Ukrainians, who say they are ready to fight back if Russian tanks roll in. Iraqis and Afghans have demonstrated the cost a scrappy insurgency can impose even against a great power. Wall Street Journal

 

China denies discouraging Putin from attacking Ukraine . . . Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping has not discouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin from launching a major attack on Ukraine, according to Chinese and Russian officials. “It seeks not only to smear and drive a wedge in China-Russia relations but also to deliberately disrupt and undermine the Beijing Winter Olympics,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters when asked by Russian state media if Xi had discouraged such an assault. “Such a despicable trick cannot fool the international community.”

Putin and Xi have made a great show of “high-level strategic partnership” in recent years, as the Russian annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine coincided with China’s assertion of sovereignty over vast swathes of the South China Sea — a claim enforced by the construction of artificial islands that now house Chinese military assets. The diplomatic alignment of Moscow and Beijing culminated in Putin’s decision to seek Xi’s support before revealing his ultimatum to Western officials last month. Washington Examiner

 

China launches internet ‘purification’ campaign for lunar new year . . . China has launched a month-long campaign to clean up online content during next week’s lunar new year festival, in its latest effort to reshape behavior on the internet. The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s top internet regulator, has instructed officials to sweep away “illegal content and information” and target celebrity fan groups, online abuse, money worship, child influencers and the homepages of media sites. The campaign will apply the tradition of cleaning house before the new year, the most important holiday in China, to the internet, envisioning a “purification” of the online world. The edict is the latest step in Beijing’s clampdown on the entertainment industry as authorities purge content deemed immoral, unpatriotic and non-mainstream from online culture. Financial Times

 

 

 

 

 

Surging food prices turn more shoppers into bargain hunters . . . Rising food prices are leading American consumers to fill their shopping carts with cheaper groceries. Shoppers are seeking more discounts and are switching to lower-cost store brands for cooking oil, frozen food and items in other grocery sections, supermarket executives said. To stretch their dollars, people increasingly are comparing prices at various stores and signing up for savings programs such as automatic delivery that give additional discounts. The move marks a shift in consumer behavior after shoppers splurged on food earlier in the pandemic. Food companies have said that unemployment benefits and federal stimulus checks left people with extra cash and that consumers spent more on groceries as they cut back on dining out and travel in 2020. As inflation reaches its highest rate in four decades, shoppers in recent months have started looking for ways to lower their food bills, industry executives and analysts said. Fox New

 

George Soros’ DAs: Billionaire’s cash helped elect two dozen district attorneys across the U.S. . . . George Gascon, Kim Foxx and Larry Krasner get most of the attention, but they are far from the only left-wing prosecutors whose campaigns were bankrolled by Democratic megadonor George Soros. A report from the conservative Capital Research Center revealed that 24 district attorneys have been elected since 2015 with help from political action committees funded by the billionaire activist. Most of them are pursuing liberal policies that critics blame for soaring crime rates. Parker Thayer, the researcher who wrote the report, said Mr. Soros’ “influence on left-wing DA candidates is often wildly underestimated.” Since 2016, he said, Mr. Soros’ “personal network of political action committees formed specifically to back left-wing DA candidates” has doled out at least $29 million. Washington Times

 

 

Fact-Checkers Are Used to Confuse the Public: Sharyl Attkisson . . . Five-time Emmy award-winning journalist Sharyl Attkisson said she has seen an increased effort to manipulate the public to appreciate censorship and disapprove of journalism. One of the strategies that has been employed is the use of third-party fact-checkers, she said. “Nearly every mode of information has been co-opted, if it can be co-opted by some group, [and] fact-checkers are no different,” Attkisson told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.” “Either they’ve been co-opted, in many instances, or created for the purpose of distributing narratives and propaganda,” said Attkisson. “This is all part of a very well-funded, well-organized landscape that dictates and slants the information they want us to have.” Attkisson said she first started to notice news being controlled in the early 2000s when the media company she was working for was actively trying to suppress certain stories. Epoch Times

 

The Army wants someone to make comics about its information warfare doctrine . . . It’s not unusual for the military to seek out specialized contractors with a unique set of skills. But a new solicitation has the Army looking for someone with a more artistic bent — someone who can take technical information about the service’s cyber and weapons of mass destruction strategies and turn them into comic books. According to a SAM.gov notice, the Army Cyber Institute wants to use science-fiction prototyping (SFP) — science-fiction stories, graphic novels/comics, movies and animations to explore the implications of futuristic technologies — to support the service’s and NATO’s research about future operating environments. “This includes: ARCYBER’s research on transforming into an information warfare command, HQDA G3 Protection Teams Insider Threat education initiative, and NATO’s research into emerging destructive technology coupled with the employment of weapons of mass destruction,” according to the notice. “The purpose of these SFPs is to help ARCYBER, DOD and NATO envision operations in the environments of the future (10 years out).” Breaking Defense