Lawmakers say spending deal up to leaders . . . Lawmakers in both parties say it’s time for Congress’s top four leaders to meet face to face to negotiate a yearlong spending deal as talks among the senior members of the Senate and House Appropriations committees have dragged on and government funding will soon lapse. But that may be easier said than done given the lingering resentments among the big four. The four players had central roles in negotiating the last two major budget deals in 2018 and 2019. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) rarely meet in person, and their relationship took another beating last month when Schumer made an all-out push to change the Senate’s filibuster rule. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D) relationship with fellow Californian and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R) is even worse. The Hill

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump to Joe Rogan: ‘Stop apologizing’ and ‘just go about what you do so well’ . . . Former President Donald Trump advised Joe Rogan on Monday night against trying to appease his cancel culture attackers, saying they will never be satisfied.
The popular podcaster has come under increasing fire in recent weeks, first for purported COVID misinformation and then for his direct use of the n-word in some old podcasts. He has responded to the former by agreeing to be more careful and to the latter by apologizing over the weekend and removing some old episodes.
Bad move, Mr. Trump advised. “Joe Rogan is an interesting and popular guy, but he‘s got to stop apologizing to the Fake News and Radical Left maniacs and lunatics. How many ways can you say you’re sorry?” the former president said. Washington Times

 

 

 

The woman behind the State Dept. bureau rushing security aid to Ukraine . . . The Biden administration is under immense pressure to rush security assistance to Ukraine so it can better defend itself against a potential Russian incursion.  Overseeing the flow of that assistance is Jessica Lewis, a longtime congressional staffer who now serves as assistant secretary of State for the department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.  
As the world closely watches the Russia-Ukraine conflict unfold, Lewis says the people in her bureau have been given a chance to shine.  “This has been an extraordinary effort,” Lewis told The Hill in a recent interview. “Our leadership was very clear with us that we needed to make sure that we move all of these defense articles as quickly as possible and get them to Ukraine.” President Biden nominated Lewis for the role in April, and by September she was confirmed, becoming the first woman to hold the position. The Hill

 

 

How Obama and Biden laid groundwork for Afghanistan disaster . . . As his hasty Afghanistan exit looms larger as a strategic blunder, President Biden is still blaming his predecessor for the debacle, arguing the former President Trump tied his hands. It’s Trump’s fault, the administration insists, that Afghanistan has collapsed into a pre-9/11 narco-terrorist state run by medieval mullahs brutalizing women all over again. “The last president signed an agreement to get out,” Biden reminded reporters during last month’s marathon White House press conference. But the truth is, it was the other way around. Trump essentially inherited what Biden started nine years earlier as vice president, according to White House e-mails and U.S. officials who investigated his old office’s secret dealings with the Taliban. New York Post

 

US and Germany struggle to present united front on Nord Stream 2 . . . US president Joe Biden and Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz struggled to present a united front in the stand-off over Russia’s threat to invade Ukraine after a pivotal White House meeting exposed lingering differences over the fate of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. During a joint press conference on Monday afternoon, Biden said that if Russia invaded Ukraine, the pipeline linking Russia with Germany would not become operational. “There will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it,” Biden said. “I promise you, we will be able to do that.” Biden’s comments on Nord Stream 2, which has strained US-German relations for years, were his most forceful to date and represented a hardening of Washington’s position on one of the biggest sticking points in the transatlantic debate over which sanctions to impose against Moscow in the event of an invasion. Financial Times

 

White House national security adviser warns: Russian war looms with ‘enormous human cost’ . . . The Biden administration elevated its warnings Sunday that a Russian invasion of Ukraine may be imminent, saying Moscow could invade “at any time” and create a conflict that will result in “enormous human cost.” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan made the assertions on multiple Sunday news talk shows as Republican leaders in Washington said the threat of invasion could have been avoided if the administration had supported Ukraine more robustly and taken a tougher posture toward Russian President Vladimir Putin months ago. President Biden “laid the predicate for this. The deterrence has not been there,” said Rep. Michael T. McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr. McCaul said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” program that the White House “failed to provide not only the lethal aid to Ukraine but also the sanctions necessary” to stop Mr. Putin. Mr. McCaul referred specifically to Mr. Biden’s waiver last year of Russia sanctions that a bipartisan clutch of lawmakers sought to impose with the goal of stopping Moscow’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany. Washington Times

 

 

‘A Cyber Pearl Harbor’: Putin’s Secret Plan To Defeat America . . . By Rebekah Koffler. Fears of a “Cyber Pearl Harbor” that have been pre-occupying US cybersecurity experts for years have become especially acute, as Putin raises the ante in a potential deadly showdown with the US over Ukraine. Last week, Homeland Security alerted Americans that Putin is readying a cyber strike on US homeland. The potential non-kinetic attack may, as the DHS advisory warned, cause disruptions to public safety. Here’s why the Kremlin chose a cyber-strike to signal to Washington to stay out of Ukraine, on which Putin wants to impose his version of the Monroe Doctrine.
Russia believes cyber warfare is an effective way to weaken the Americans’ will to support their leaders decisions to intervene in conflicts on Russia’s periphery. On his orders, Putin’s strategists developed a sophisticated doctrine called “information confrontation” (информационное  противоборство).

 

This concept envisions a combination of technical cyber intrusions into the adversary’s computer systems — with the intent to disrupt operations, steal secrets, and corrupt or destroy data — and disinformation intended to manipulate the population’s opinion. Moscow believes cyber warfare can serve as a potent non-kinetic tool that can be used to destabilize an opponent’s society, without triggering his military response, and also as a weapon, capable of plunging an entire country into darkness, when war is unavoidable. Daily Wire

 

Putin Targets Germany, NATO’s Weakest Link . . . As the world wonders if Vladimir Putin will invade Ukraine, the battle for the West is already under way. Without firing a shot, Mr. Putin has attacked the trans-Atlantic alliance at its weakest link: Germany. When Chancellor Olaf Scholz visits the White House on Monday, it will be the most important meeting between a U.S. president and a German leader since before the Iraq war.
President Biden’s embrace of Mr. Scholz is only the latest act in the U.S. administration’s courtship of Germany, but the chancellor will arrive with one eye trained on Moscow. Mr. Scholz, who took office in December, is no Putin crony like Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s chancellor between 1998 and 2005. But both are part of the Social Democratic Party, which sees ties to Russia as central to its identity and essential for Germany. To justify their outreach, SDP leaders regularly cite their Cold War mantra, “America is indispensable, but Russia is immovable.” Mr. Scholz has either ignored Mr. Putin’s threats against Ukraine or, when pressed, mused on the value of engagement. Wall Street Journal

 

France says Vladimir Putin is moving towards de-escalating Ukraine crisis . . . French officials said Vladimir Putin had moved towards de-escalating the Ukraine crisis by promising not to undertake any new “military initiatives” and agreeing to withdraw thousands of Russian troops from Belarus after the completion of planned exercises. If an agreement — brokered during talks with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Monday — is confirmed by Putin, it could ease tensions in the region after Russia amassed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders. Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesperson, told the Financial Times that Putin and Macron were “prepared to continue dialogue” on the French proposals but that the discussions had yet to fully assuage Moscow’s concerns. He told reporters on Tuesday that Putin and Macron had yet to reach an agreement. “It’s impossible, because France is a member of the EU, and of Nato, where it is not the leader. A different country in that bloc is the leader. So how can we speak about any ‘agreements’?” Peskov said. Financial Times

CDC is a bureaucratic mess that should be abolished . . . Opinion. By Cheryl Chumley. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just adjusted its recommended dosage schedule for the coronavirus vaccines — in much the same way the agency just adjusted its definitions of “vaccine” and “vaccinations” — in much the same way its bureaucrats have adjusted COVID-19 advisements from this to that, and that to this, for pretty much the entire time of the pandemic.
In other words: The CDC is a mess. A big ball of confusing, conflicting, politicized bureaucracy. Once upon a time, conservatives called for the dismantling of the federal Education Department. Perhaps it’s time to consider the same fate for the federal health agency. Here’s the latest: The CDC, which — not to understate — has kinda downplayed adverse health impacts from the vaccines, is now saying that hey, maybe, potentially, perhaps there should be an increased time between initial shot and booster, or boosters, as the case may be, so as to lower the risk of heart inflammation. You know, that lil’l ol’ myocarditis thang that struck some vaccine takers, particularly, the youthful male vaccine takers? Washington Times

 

 

Covid-19 Relief Funds Drive Up Nurse Pay, Hospitals Say . . . Hospitals and lawmakers are pressing the Biden administration to review federal pandemic-relief programs that they say have distorted pay rates for travel nurses. Many nurses are making twice what they did before the pandemic or more on assignments at hospitals paying top dollar to fill big holes in their workforces. Some hospitals are using federal Covid-19 relief funds to cover part of the difference between rates for travel nurses and staff salaries. Health-industry trade groups and some members of Congress say staffing agencies matching workers with hospitals are capitalizing on a tight labor market, as many nurses have left during the pandemic, often because of burnout and fatigue. Wall Street Journal

 

Google launches bipartisan effort to train candidates, campaigns ahead of 2022 midterms . . . Google is launching a bipartisan effort to provide tools to train candidates and campaign workers in ways to "stay safe online" ahead of the 2022 midterm election cycle. Google announced the establishment of "Campaign Security Project," which was developed with input from organizations across the political spectrum. "We are the first-choice for high risk users like election workers, journalists, and human rights workers," Google wrote in a blog post Tuesday. "Ahead of the upcoming 2022 U.S. midterm elections, we’re expanding our efforts to protect these high risk users."  Google has teamed up with Veterans Campaign, Collective Future, Women’s Public Leadership Network, LGBTQ Victory Institute, Center for American Ideas, the University of San Francisco, Emerge, Latino Victory and more. Fox Business

 

 

GoFundMe’s $10M shutdown of Canadian truckers shows it’s time to rein in Big Tech . . . When GoFundMe shut down funding Friday for the truckers’ Freedom Convoy, it didn’t just clobber Canadian rig drivers. It dealt a blow to the rights of Americans. Silicon Valley executives are trying to limit the causes Americans support, favoring leftist ones and canceling conservatives. Canadian truckers launched a convoy to Ottawa last month, to protest Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s vaccine mandate on all rig drivers. Never mind the absurdity of requiring a truck driver alone behind the wheel for 18 hours a day to be vaccinated. The convoy set up a fundraising site on GoFundMe to pay for fuel, food and lodging. Many Americans rushed to support it. It had reached $10 million in donations when GoFundMe pulled the plug. Nearly one-quarter of Americans donate on crowdfunding sites, according to Pew Research. GoFundMe is the largest. It’s the public square for fundraising, and it should be open to all, regardless of their politics. New York Post

 

House watchdog weighs ‘behavioral monitoring’ to deter internal security threats . . . POLITICO reviewed a draft report titled “Sergeant at Arms Insider Threat Risks,” dated Dec. 30, 2021, and produced by the House’s Office of the Inspector General. The slim document suggested that the House Sergeant at Arms’ office — which leads security for the chamber — start a comprehensive “insider threat” program, which it currently lacks. 
National security officials use the term “insider threats” to describe people who deliberately harm their workplaces and employers. Comprehensive insider threat programs are widely used in the executive branch, particularly in national security agencies, to try to prevent Snowden-style leaks and other security compromises. The programs generally assess typical employee behavior — the average number of pages printed per week, for instance — in an effort to gauge if someone’s online activity has become aberrant. The degrees of scrutiny that these programs level can vary substantially from agency to agency. Politico

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democrats Pushing Gun Registry as Precursor to Gun Ban . . . Federal law explicitly prohibits the creation of a federal firearm registry, but the Biden administration is making one anyway. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has collected nearly one billion firearm purchase records. The government has now created a searchable digital database containing 866 million of these transactions, including some 54 million made in 2021 alone. This massive data collection effort encompasses information on all guns sold by licensed gun dealers, and on all legal gun transfers in states with so-called universal background checks. So, federal officials will have the name of everyone who legally obtained a gun. Now, President Biden wants to make universal background checks nationwide so he can have an even more complete registration list. According to a Rasmussen Reports survey, Democrats support the idea by a 2-1 ratio, while Republicans oppose it by a similar margin. Two-thirds of Republicans believe the policy will lead to gun confiscation, and even 40 percent of Democrats believe the same. Confiscating legally owned firearms, it seems, is not merely a right-wing conspiracy theory. The Epoch Times

 

China's Cultural Manipulation as a Weapon . . . Social media is a tool that China is using shamelessly to bring out the cultural rot in our society. TikTok, the social media platform ruled by influencers and their followers, is having a deleterious effect on the mental health of those who use it. It is especially bad for younger users and teens who are introduced to inappropriate explicit videos, dark content with dangerous and harmful trends, and accounts devoted to the demonic. Most importantly, TikTok is used as a tool for Chinese propaganda. Influencers are rewarded for doing the dumbest, shallowest, and most sordid videos. It’s all part of the plan. In China, the Beijing-based company ByteDance runs the Chinese version of TikTok called Douyin. It is night and day different from the American version. Patriot Post