Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

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“Loser.” That whisper above — vicious in its simplicity is Donald Trump’s biggest fear We all have our worries and fears, and they can vary tremendously. Donald Trump does not fear breaking the law, as we’ve seen time and time again. “Loser.”

He does not fear the inability to give and receive love — affection, and friendship, as we’ve seen time and again. “Loser.”

No. What he fears is that one word. He fears its soft and silken viciousness, its meaning and its possible attachment to — him. “Loser.”

This one word, so weightless and yet so horrifying, is the stuff that Donald’s nightmares are made of. He fears it as the GOP fears him. What if Trump laughs at us? What if we lose voters?

All the GOP’s fears swirl, and the Donald’s too, loom large. And the editorial board of the Kansas City star has called the GOP out on their fears as well as using the one word that Trump never could bear hearing. “Loser.”

In the editorial, the Star completely eviscerates republicans for their mousy and obsequious ways and their meek obedience. “Aren’t you sick of being scared of whatever idiocy Donald Trump is going to drag you into next?” They demand.

“Why on earth aren’t you coming together as a party and taking the chance to formally renounce this historic loser once and for all?”

“Historic loser.” Those two words will be imprinted on Donald’s brain once he sees this editorial. And for the Star, in one single op-ed, they have called upon two cowards — Trump and the GOP — taking on their biggest fears.

And wiping the floor with them. They singled out Josh Hawley, and that was good to see. It is so very good to see this calling out. The GOP is scared of their own shadows. Donald Trump is terrified of his own loser-hood. And this editorial showed that both the GOP and the Donald are precisely that which they so fear.

The post LOSER! appeared first on Palmer Report.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. government said Wednesday it is appealing a court ruling that would otherwise lift asylum restrictions that have become the cornerstone of border enforcement in recent years.

The disputed enforcement rule first took effect in March 2020, denying migrants’ rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The Homeland Security Department said it would file an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, challenging a November ruling by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan that ordered President Joe Biden’s administration to lift the asylum restrictions.

The restrictions were put in place under former President Donald Trump at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The practice was authorized under Title 42 of a broader 1944 law covering public health, and has been used to expel migrants more than 2.4 million times.

The appeal could scuttle a Dec. 21 deadline set by Sullivan for his order to go into effect.

Sullivan has called the expulsion of migrants under the rule “arbitrary and capricious.”

And immigrant rights’ groups have argued that the use of Title 42 unjustly harms people fleeing persecution and that the pandemic was a pretext used by the Trump administration to curb immigration.

“The Biden administration’s decision to appeal is unsurprising given its vigorous defense of the policy for the past two years,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the ACLU and lead counsel on its Title 42 litigation, in an email.

A coalition of conservative-leaning states wants to keep in place the Trump-era public health rule that allows many asylum seekers to be turned away at the southern U.S. border.

The ban has been unevenly enforced by nationality, falling largely on migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador — as well as Mexicans — because Mexico allows them to be returned from the United States. Last month, Mexico began accepting Venezuelans who are expelled from the United States under Title 42, causing a sharp drop in Venezuelans seeking asylum at the U.S. border.

The asylum rule has been used by the Biden administration to expel migrant families and single adults, though not children traveling alone.

U.S. anti-corruption groups are pushing Congress to attach sweeping new money-laundering rules to a year-end bill funding the government that lawmakers aim to pass in the coming weeks, according to aides and lobbyists.

The bipartisan measure, known as the ENABLERS Act, got a boost this week when the White House publicly came out in support of the bill.

“It’s going to really matter that the administration makes absolutely clear that this is a genuine serious priority for them,” Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the bill’s main sponsors, said on Wednesday.

The measure would require professionals who handle money on behalf of clients – including investment managers and some lawyers – to conduct due diligence on the funds’ origins, as banks are typically required to do.

Boosters and opponents say the measure would be the most ambitious overhaul of the nation’s money laundering framework in at least 20 years.

“The ENABLERS Act is the U.S. anti-corruption community’s top priority right now,” said Scott Greytak, director of advocacy at Transparency International’s U.S. branch.

Supporters said they hope to attach the measure to a $1.5 trillion-plus “omnibus” funding bill. The initial deadline for that is Dec. 16, though lawmakers could extend it through a short-term continuing resolution, a possibility which appears increasingly likely.

Failing that, a standalone bill is possible next year, though that could be tougher in a divided Congress with a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-controlled Senate.

Groups from Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and elsewhere have thrown their support behind the measure, according to an October letter to congressional leaders seen by Reuters. These groups see ENABLERS as a way to cut illicit Russian capital out of the U.S. financial system.

Industry associations counter that it would create onerous requirements for small businesses who never cross paths with Russian oligarchs or narcotics kingpins. Bar associations argue that lawyers would be obligated to share potentially privileged information about their clients with the government.

Organizations that have lobbied against the bill, according to lobbying disclosures, include cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and auction house operator Sotheby’s.

Retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who has expressed skepticism about the measure, said it should not be tacked onto a spending bill – a legislative shortcut – and should instead be considered on a stand-alone basis.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that his army could be fighting in Ukraine for a long time, but for now there will be no second call-up of soldiers.

Putin has rarely spoken about the likely duration of a war that he began more than nine months ago, and in a televised meeting with loyalists on Wednesday, he said, “This can be a long process.”

Russia has been forced into a series of significant retreats in the face of Ukrainian counter-offensives, waged with increasing stocks of Western weaponry, in the east and south since July.

Russia launched what it calls its “special military operation” in February, saying Ukraine’s deepening ties with the West posed a security threat. Kyiv and its allies say the invasion amounts to an imperialist land grab.

In his remarks Putin said the risk of a nuclear war was growing – the latest in a series of such warnings apparently meant to deter Kyiv’s Western backers from more robust involvement – but that Russia would not threaten recklessly to use such weapons.

“We haven’t gone mad, we realise what nuclear weapons are,” Putin said. “We have these means in more advanced and modern form than any other nuclear country … But we aren’t about to run around the world brandishing this weapon like a razor.”

Around 150,000 of the 300,000 reservists called up in September and October were deployed in Ukraine, 77,000 in combat units, he said. The remaining 150,000 were still at training centres.

“Under these conditions, talk about any additional mobilisation measures simply makes no sense,” Putin said.

Russia’s economy has overcome the short-term slump caused by the partial mobilisation order, but the disinflationary impact it had in reducing consumer demand has practically disappeared, the central bank said on Wednesday.

Despite recent retreats on the battlefield, including the loss of Kherson, the one Ukrainian provincial capital Russia captured, Putin has said he has no regrets about launching a war that is Europe’s most devastating since World War Two.

He said Russia had already achieved a “significant result” with the acquisition of “new territories” – a reference to the annexation of four partly occupied regions in September that Ukraine and most members of the United Nations condemned as illegal.

Russian forces have fired more than 1,000 rockets and missiles at Ukraine’s power grid, which is still working despite taking major damage, Interfax Ukraine news agency reported on Wednesday, citing Volodymyr Kudrytsky, chief executive of the Ukrenergo grid operator.

Eight recent waves of Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure have seriously damaged the grid and led to emergency and planned outages across the country, including in the capital Kyiv, a city of three million.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko warned of an “apocalypse” scenario without power, running water or heat this winter if Russian air strikes on infrastructure continue. He said there was no need for residents to evacuate now, though they should be ready to do so.

Kyiv could be left without central heating at a time when temperatures can fall as low as -15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit), Klitschko said in an interview with Reuters.

Russia’s ally Belarus said it was moving troops and military hardware to counteract what it called a threat of terrorism, amid signs that Moscow may be pressing Minsk to open a new front in Ukraine as the war has bogged down.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who relied on Russian troops to put down a popular revolt two years ago, has so far kept his own army from joining the war in Ukraine. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu flew unannounced to the capital Minsk on Saturday, and he and Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin signed amendments to the two countries’ security cooperation agreement, without disclosing the new terms.

On Wednesday, the Belarusian Security Council, quoted by state news agency Belta, said troops and hardware would be moving in the country over the next two days, with imitation weapons used for training. It provided no details about the number of troops or types of hardware that would be moved.

Thousands of Russian troops have deployed in Belarus since October, Ukraine says, and Belarus authorities have increasingly spoken of a threat of “terrorism” from partisans operating from across the border. Lukashenko has ordered his military to compile information about reservists by the end of this year.

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A pair of Twitter users this week sicced San Francisco building inspectors on the company’s headquarters in an apparent effort to frustrate new CEO Elon Musk.

San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection dispatched agents to the social media company’s headquarters after two anonymous Twitter users tweeted complaints that the company was violating the city’s building codes by setting up office bedrooms for employees. The complaints followed a Monday Forbes article that described how Twitter has set up “modest bedrooms” for workers who spend the night at the office—a not uncommon practice among Silicon Valley tech workers.

The complaints appear to have been motivated by anti-Musk sentiment that has mounted on Twitter since the billionaire acquired the company. Large swaths of liberal pundits, reporters, and celebrities have cried foul at Musk’s decisions to restore shuttered Twitter accounts and work to make the site’s algorithms fairer to conservatives.

The Twitter press team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company’s new troll in chief had a characteristic reaction. Musk tagged San Francisco mayor London Breed (D.) on a link to a story about a baby who suffered a fentanyl overdose in the city.

So city of SF attacks companies providing beds for tired employees instead of making sure kids are safe from fentanyl. Where are your priorities @LondonBreed!?https://t.co/M7QJWP7u0N

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2022

City building inspectors opened an investigation after a Twitter user with the handle @aniccia tagged the city’s planning department in a complaint.

Wonder how much office can be converted to “bedrooms” before it runs afoul of San Francisco code or at least requires a permit and inspections.

AFAIK, the answer is 0, but then I never covertly converted office to residential.

Don’t see new permits for 1355 Market.@sfplanning https://t.co/i3E1dJks4G

— John Berry – Is this my last tweet ever? (@aniccia) December 6, 2022

In a reply to that tweet, a second Twitter user tagged San Francisco’s 311 line and asked the service to investigate.

Hey @sf311 do you know who should be checking this out?

— Mr MR (@21five_public) December 6, 2022

A spokesman for the building inspectors said they will likely start an investigation into Twitter’s office bedrooms within a few days. “There may be fines associated with the enforcement process,” the spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon.

“There are different building code requirements for residential buildings, including those being used for short-term stays,” the building inspection department spokesman said. “These codes make sure people are using spaces safely. Everyone in San Francisco deserves a safe place to live, work, play, and sleep, and no one is above the law.”

Twitter HQ sits in the middle of San Francisco’s epicenter of homelessness and drugs. Cofounder Ev Williams says he decided to move the company to the notoriously downtrodden Tenderloin district in the hopes that Twitter would act as a “revitalizing force.” At the time, San Francisco was luring tech firms to the neighborhood with tax breaks.

The Tenderloin has seen an uptick in crime and homelessness in recent years. Downtown San Francisco has suffered since many white-collar workers began working from home during the pandemic. Prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen on Tuesday commented on the state of the neighborhood, tweeting a side-by-side of the Twitter news with a picture of sidewalk tents that proliferate in the Tenderloin district.

https://t.co/yhysL7oiKy https://t.co/Fuw2abxZwP

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) December 7, 2022

Tech giants for years have prided themselves on making it easy for workers to stay at the office 24-7 with gyms, showers, and other amenities. Facebook and Google have famously built campus housing, and Google employees have bragged about the months they slept in their cars, RVs, or offices at company headquarters.

The post Anti-Musk Twitter Users Sic San Francisco Building Inspectors on Company’s San Francisco HQ appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

An FBI official’s testimony last week is setting up a potential showdown with Twitter over the social media company’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election.

FBI supervisory special agent Elvis Chan disputed former Twitter executive Yoel Roth’s claims that the FBI warned that Russia would likely release Hunter Biden’s emails before the 2020 election. Roth, who led Twitter’s Site Integrity team until he resigned last month, told the Federal Election Commission that the FBI warnings prompted Twitter to censor an Oct. 14, 2020, news article that detailed Biden’s business emails.

But Chan said in a Dec. 3 deposition that FBI officials did not mention Hunter Biden in their weekly meetings with Twitter prior to the election. “I do not remember us specifically saying ‘Hunter Biden’ in any meeting,” said Chan. “So this would have been something that [Roth] would have just thought of as a hot-button issue on his own that happened in October.”

Chan’s testimony further clouds Twitter’s controversial decision to censor the Hunter Biden story, which detailed emails from the troubled businessman’s laptop. According to Roth’s version of events, the FBI warnings were a factor in Twitter’s decision to censor the story.

“I was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks and that material obtained through those hacking attacks would likely be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter,” Roth said in a Dec. 17, 2020, affidavit to the Federal Election Commission.

“I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.”

Chan testified that he met on a regular basis with officials from Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other tech companies regarding foreign governments’ misinformation campaigns. He continued meeting with Roth until the day after the 2022 midterms, according to his deposition.

Chan said that he and other FBI officials had no evidence of an ongoing hacking operation before the 2020 election but that the bureau was nonetheless concerned about the “potential” for one.

Roth may be grilled about the contradiction should he appear before Congress as part of its investigation into Big Tech’s crackdown on conservatives. Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.), the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, this week called on Roth to testify about his involvement in censorship at the tech giant.

Roth has long been a source of controversy at Twitter. In 2017, he derided Trump White House officials as “ACTUAL NAZIS.” He lashed out at conservative states after Donald Trump’s 2016 election win, writing that “we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason.”

Internal Twitter emails released last week show that executives censored the Hunter Biden story even though they were uncertain whether the story was based on hacked materials.

James Baker, who served as Twitter’s deputy general counsel, advised Twitter to block access to the article even though “we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked.”

New Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced on Tuesday he fired Baker because of his “possible role in the suppression of information important to the public dialogue.”

Baker, who was the FBI’s general counsel before joining Twitter, approved the bureau’s applications for surveillance warrants against a Trump campaign adviser that were based on the fraudulent Steele dossier.

The post FBI Official Casts Doubt on Twitter’s Rationale for Censoring Hunter Biden Laptop Story appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The Pentagon is withholding from Congress critical data on China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, which could outpace the United States’ own supply of the deadly weapons, according to a group of Republican lawmakers.

Four Republicans from the House and Senate Armed Services Committee are asking the Pentagon comply with a statute that mandates it provide unclassified information about China’s military might, including data that could show it is on pace to exceed the United States’ number of intercontinental missiles and nuclear warheads, according to a letter sent to the Pentagon. While a classified version of such data was provided, the Pentagon has yet to furnish the unclassified companion.

The letter comes on the heels of a Pentagon report that China could have around 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, a number that far exceeded past estimates. China already had around 400 nuclear warheads, a number that doubled in just two years, according to the Pentagon. This rapid expansion is fueling concerns in Congress about the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce America’s own stockpile of nuclear weapons amid escalating threats from the CCP.

“I’ve said it many times—we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to China’s growing military might,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.), one of the letter’s signers, wrote on Twitter. “The [Biden administration] must be open and honest with the American people about the threat Beijing poses to global order and our way of life.”

The letter also was signed by Sen. Deb Fischer (R., Neb.), Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.), and Rep. Doug Lamborn (R., Colo.).

The statute created by Congress requires the Pentagon to provide an “unclassified determination” about China’s nuclear warheads, its ballistic missiles, and ballistic missile launchers, according to the letter. If China surpasses the United States in just one category outlined above, the Pentagon must alert Congress in a classified and unclassified format. So far, the Pentagon has only done so in a classified forum.

The House Armed Services Committee’s Republican faction called out President Joe Biden on Twitter over the matter, saying the president must “wake up and properly invest in our defense.”

“China has rapidly accelerated the expansion of its nuclear arsenal,” the committee’s Republicans wrote on Twitter. “The CCP is developing new and more capable nuclear delivery platforms that can range all the United States. Now is the time for President Biden to wake up and properly invest in our defense.”

The post Pentagon Withholds Critical Data on China’s Expanding Nuclear Arsenal, Republicans Say appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.