Quote:Giants of Malta | Evidence the Ancient Builders are Hiding Underground Malta is an island rich with history and legends with mysterious megalithic structures that have puzzled archaeologists for centuries. These massive stone temples, some of the oldest in the world, seem almost impossible to have been built by prehistoric farmers. But there's more lurking beneath the surface. Legends say the Nephilim were the giant beings who constructed these incredible structures, and their descendants may still dwell underground today. We investigate the possibility of these giants, examining bones, elongated skulls, and mysterious hidden subterranean chambers called The Hypogeum.

Full title: Bird flu reported in second Michigan farmworker; third human case in U.S.

I felt this needed to get out there, just two cases, but out of three in the entire country. To my paranoid mind that sounds like the beginning of a cluster, that could become an epidemic and then a possible pandemic. It is carried by birds, bears, cattle, cats, dogs, etc., and humans now obviously.

Quote:Bird flu reported in second Michigan farmworker; third human case in U.S.

(CBS DETROIT) - A second case of H5 influenza, also known as bird flu or avian influenza, was detected in another Michigan farmworker, marking the second human case in Michigan, and the third in the country.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says the new case was reported in a farmworker who worked closely with cows that tested positive for bird flu but was employed at a different farm than the worker did in the case they announced on May 22.

The risk to the general public is still low . . . according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

. . . The first case of bird flu in a human was detected in a Texas farmworker who was exposed to infected dairy cattle.

Bird flu was first detected in Michigan in dairy herds that arrived in Michigan from Texas, and have since been found in Clinton, Gratiot and Ionia counties.

Earlier this month, Michigan egg producer Herbuck's Poultry Ranch announced that it was laying off about 400 employees. The company said the virus impacted its hen population at some farms in Ionia County.

Caution: Super lengthy spy novelish article.

Quote:VIENNA — The coup began with the sound of a doorbell.

Just after 8 a.m. on Feb. 28, 2018, Austrian police Commander Wolfgang Preiszler pressed the buzzer at the headquarters of the country’s domestic intelligence service and held his ID up to the security camera.

Within minutes, dozens of his colleagues armed with Glock pistols and a battering ram fanned out through the building in bullet-proof vests and balaclavas, seizing confidential data stored on the agency’s servers and sensitive documents lying on desks.

The incursion — pitting the police against the spy service, known as the BVT — unleashed a firestorm that shattered Austria’s reputation in the intelligence world and led to the agency’s closure.

The incursion — pitting the police against the spy service, known as the BVT — unleashed a firestorm that shattered Austria’s reputation in the intelligence world and led to the agency’s closure.

More than six years later, the true scope of what transpired that day is only now coming into focus. Intelligence officials tell POLITICO that new evidence suggests the raid was part of a Moscow-led operation to discredit Austria’s spy services in order to rebuild them with new leadership under the Kremlin’s influence. Crucial to that effort, they say, was the junior partner in the government coalition at the time: the far-right, pro-Russia Freedom Party (FPÖ), which today is the most popular party in the country.

Last month, Austrian prosecutors revealed that the men believed to have laid the groundwork for the action were Russian agents directed by Jan Marsalek, the fugitive former chief operating officer of the collapsed payment processing firm Wirecard, who authorities say works for Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

The suggestion of a Moscow-led conspiracy is explosive for a number of reasons. For one, it appears to have nearly succeeded. Were it not for the so-called Ibiza scandal in 2019 (in which the FPÖ’s then-leader was caught on video trying to sell political influence to a woman he believed to be the niece of a Russian oligarch), there may have been nothing to stop the plan from coming to fruition. Instead, the Ibiza affair triggered the government’s collapse, pushing the FPÖ into opposition where it has remained since.

Most worrying, however, is that the man ultimately responsible for the BVT raid, then-Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, now heads the FPÖ — which makes him a leading candidate to become Austria’s next chancellor after elections later this year. Though seasoned political observers insist Austria won’t become a Russian vassal under the FPÖ, a Kickl chancellorship would still play into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hands, allowing the Kremlin to exert more influence over the country behind the scenes, and echoing its success in co-opting the likes of Hungary and Serbia. 

“Putin would naturally be pleased by the ambiguity about Austria’s position on Ukraine and the EU that Kickl would bring,” said Christian Rainer, a veteran Austrian publisher and commentator. “The danger for Austria is that it would be completely isolated.” 

The honeytrap: How Russia recruited Jan Marsalek

In Marsalek, a well-spoken polyglot who had a taste for adventure and didn’t mind getting his hands dirty, the Russians found a perfect vehicle to infiltrate Austria’s security establishment.

The Vienna-born executive had an unorthodox CV for the No. 2 position in a blue-chip company.  After leaving home and ditching school at 19, he joined Wirecard as its chief technology officer in 2000, when the firm’s core business was processing payments for online gambling and pornography.



Like many an espionage career, Marsalek’s began with what is known in the trade as a “honeytrap.” A lifelong bachelor with a reputation as a thrill seeker (one of his Russian handlers later took him to Palmyra in Syria to see the war there up close), Marsalek, then in his mid-30s, was ripe for the taking.

Her name was “Natasha.” An erotic model who had once played a Russian agent in a vampire B-movie called “Red Lips II-Blood Lust,” Natasha, aka Natalia Zlobina, met Marsalek in 2013.

Wirecard’s CEO had dispatched Marsalek to Moscow to drum up business, and he traveled there frequently. A Russian business contact suggested Natasha could help him, and the two hit it off. Investigators suspect that Natasha, with whom Marsalek enjoyed a jet-set life traveling around Europe from St. Tropez to Santorini, played a central role in his recruitment. 

At first, Russian intelligence was primarily interested in Marsalek for his connection to Wirecard. Investigators believe the Russians used the firm to launder money, pay off mercenaries and fund other illicit activities. Over time, however, they began to grasp the value of Marsalek’s Austrian connections.

As the capital of a neutral country at the crossroads between East and West, and one that hosts important branches of the United Nations, OPEC and other international organizations, Vienna had long been a hotbed for global espionage. That explains why Russia has more accredited diplomats and Russian support staff in the city — 258 — than almost anywhere else in the world. About one-third, intelligence experts say, are likely spies.

Moreover, Russia likely wanted to spy not just in Austria, but on Austria, for a simple reason: Despite its lack of political clout on the world stage, the country belongs to the EU and has long been within the Western fold (while not a member of NATO, Austria collaborates with the alliance), giving it access to the kind of information Moscow covets.

“Austria is interesting for the Russians because they can use it as a platform for spying operations against other European countries,” said Thomas Riegler, a Vienna-based historian who has written extensively on Austrian intelligence.

Marsalek quickly proved himself willing and able to deliver just what the Russians wanted.

The infiltration of Austria’s spy service

The Austrian executive was officially based at Wirecard’s offices in Munich, but from his shadow headquarters — a 19th-century, neo-baroque villa that once belonged to a Bavarian prince — he maintained close ties to his homeland and its political elite. 

The villa, situated across the street from the Russian consulate, helped burnish Marsalek’s reputation as a serious player. After meetings there, he liked to treat his guests to a meal at nearby Käfer, an exclusive Munich eatery. At one such gathering, Marsalek brought together ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel’s former top security adviser, Erich Vad, and Wolfgang Schüssel, the former chancellor of Austria.

By 2015 Marsalek’s connections had led to Martin Weiss, then head of operations for BVT, the domestic intelligence agency. Exactly when and where they met isn’t clear (Weiss claims he first encountered Marsalek in 2015 at a conference organized by the interior ministry), but the relationship would prove fateful for both.

As the head of the agency’s “Section 2,” its operations arm and largest and most important division, Weiss was arguably the best-informed intelligence official in Austria. He and another senior official at the agency, Egisto Ott, would eventually be accused by investigators of funneling information to Marsalek and onward to Moscow. 

Ott was arrested on Good Friday this year on suspicion of spying for Russia at Marsalek’s behest. Weiss, Ott’s ex-boss, remains at large in Dubai, where he fled in 2021 with Marsalek’s help. Ott, who is being held in preventive custody, denies any wrongdoing. Weiss could not be reached for comment.

Like most officials at the BVT, Weiss and Ott had a background in law enforcement. Housed within the interior ministry, the BVT’s primary mission was to protect Austria’s constitutional authorities and identify terror threats (hence its unwieldy name: the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combatting Terrorism).

Both men began their careers as uniformed policemen in the 1980s and worked their way up the ranks, each joining a special anti-terror unit in the 1990s, where they met. Both came from humble beginnings.

Named for the Greek mythological figure Aegisthus (a notorious schemer), Ott was born to an Italian mother and an Austrian father. Though well-liked among his foreign counterparts, who readily shared confidential information with him, he was less popular within the BVT. Former colleagues describe him as abrasive and a “know-it-all.”

Weiss, meanwhile, was regarded as a shrewd analyst but a distant figure driven by his ambition to reach the top of the agency. Why he decided to collaborate with Marsalek, as authorities allege, remains a mystery.

What is known is that in 2015, Ott, who reported directly to Weiss, began making unauthorized queries in police computers, often inventing fake case numbers to hide his tracks, according to Austrian investigators. The searches typically involved the location of exiled Russians, especially those who had fallen out of favor with the Kremlin.

Weiss would receive requests from Marsalek and pass them on to Ott, who would report back to Weiss, according to investigative files seen by POLITICO. In one case described by investigators, Ott used his network to track down a Russian intelligence officer who defected by circulating his fingerprints and claiming the man was a terror suspect. Though Ott ultimately discovered the former Russian agent’s fake identity, the man managed to avoid assassination.

According to texts he exchanged with Weiss, Ott needed money. Over the years he received hundreds of thousands of euros for providing information, authorities believe. Ott denies this.

Marsalek’s Austro-Russian network and a secret dossier

In late 2015 Weiss went on sick leave after injuring his back. Though he was out of commission for more than a year, during which he had to relinquish control of Section 2, the flow of information continued, with Ott making hundreds of unauthorized queries for Marsalek via Weiss, according to the authorities.

In 2017, after Weiss returned to BVT in a different senior role, the two men undertook a more complicated mission for Marsalek, authorities allege.



It was a delicate moment in Austrian politics. The country was in the middle of an election season that promised to remake its political landscape.

After years of a grand coalition led by the Social Democrats, the center-right People’s Party, under a charismatic young leader named Sebastian Kurz, was favored to win the October ballot. Kurz’s likely coalition partner, the far-right FPÖ, was keen to take control of the interior ministry and, with it, the BVT.

For Marsalek, the power shift represented a chance to deepen Russia’s influence at the agency. And he knew just which buttons to push.

Founded in the 1950s by SS veterans, the FPÖ has always deeply resented the political establishment. If Marsalek wanted the FPÖ to go after the BVT, then, all he had to do was convince the party’s leadership that the intelligence deep state was out to get them.

Ott and Weiss, both with their own gripes against the BVT and its leaders, were perfect for the job. In April 2017 an anonymous dossier, which investigators believe was compiled by one or both of the men, began landing in the mailboxes of journalists and prosecutors in installments. The anonymous authors accused the agency’s leadership of corruption on a grand scale, including the mishandling of privileged data and the misuse of public funds for sex parties and other unorthodox pursuits.

Laced with authentic insider details about BVT operations and naming dozens of agency personnel, the dossier seemed credible at first glance, but the accusations didn’t stand up to scrutiny. 

Michael Nikbakhsh, one of Austria’s top investigative journalists and a recipient of the dossier, spent weeks probing it only to reach a sobering conclusion. “It was bullshit,” he said. “It all sounded plausible, but it was a mix of fact and fiction.”

For Marsalek, “plausible” was good enough. He had just the vehicle to promote the dossier’s conclusions: the Austro-Russian Friendship Society, of which he was a prominent member.

Founded in the late 1990s to promote closer ties between the two countries, the Friendship Society’s membership included the CEOs of some of Austria’s biggest companies, including oil and gas conglomerate OMV, as well as prominent lawyers, lobbyists, at least one Habsburg, and senior politicians from the country’s major parties, including the FPÖ.

The main target of Marsalek’s campaign was the leader of the FPÖ’s parliamentary group, Johann Gudenus, an impressionable Russophile close to Heinz-Christian Strache, then the party’s leader.

As coalition talks between the People’s Party and the FPÖ were underway, Marsalek peppered Gudenus with negative information about the BVT’s leadership, warning his friend that powerful forces within the security service and aligned with Kurz’s party were trying to undermine the far-right group. To keep his communications secret, Marsalek sent Gudenus messages via one of the founders of the Friendship Society, Florian Stermann.

The FPÖ, Gudenus and Stermann did not respond to requests for comment.


Austria’s far-right vs. the deep state

Marsalek had good reason to undermine the BVT. Ott, his trusty source within the agency, had just been suspended, following a tip from the CIA that he had forwarded work emails to his private account.  The authorities had yet to find a smoking gun, but they were closing in.

With the clock ticking, Marsalek made a risky move. In November 2017 he forwarded Gudenus a confidential BVT case number, encouraging him to get his hands on the file and falsely claiming it held sensitive information the agency had collected on the FPÖ.

By the time the FPÖ took control of the interior ministry at the end of 2017, the party’s leadership was convinced the BVT was actively trying to undermine it.

In January 2018, Peter Goldgruber, the newly installed No. 2 official at the interior ministry who reported directly to Kickl, told a prosecutor who handled corruption cases that he had been ordered to “clean up” the ministry, according to notes the prosecutor took on the meeting. His first target: the BVT.

Goldgruber encouraged the prosecutor to pursue a case against the agency’s leaders on the basis of the information contained in Marsalek’s dossier. Though the accusations were vague, a key witness had come forward: Martin Weiss. Ultimately, the prosecutor signed off on a raid.

The next task was to find police officers to carry out the operation. All of the country’s elite units had ties to the BVT leadership, meaning there was a great risk the agency would catch wind of the raid before it happened. Goldgruber settled on Commander Preiszler, a local FPÖ politician who ran a special street-crime unit.

“Good morning, comrade, we’re here for a meeting,” Preiszler told the BVT security guard after he rang the bell. Once inside the first gate, Preiszler’s tone turned less friendly, according to eyewitness accounts, and he ordered the guards to hand over a master key and electronic pass for the premises.

Preiszler knew his destination: “Where is the entrance to Section 2?” he barked at the guards. Once there, he and his officers made a beeline for the unit that investigates right-wing extremism, including organizations with strong ties to the FPÖ, such as the so-called identitarian movement.

The officers didn’t know what to look for, so they grabbed everything they could find, from printed documents to servers and thumb drives. A printout on the desk of the unit’s director was likely of particular interest to Preiszler — an invitation to an event sent by convicted Austrian neo-Nazi Gottfried Küssel, with Preiszler among the invitees. (A former head of the BVT unit described the document, which has gone missing, during a recent parliamentary hearing.)

No shots were fired, but by the time Preiszler’s team finished its work that evening, the real target of the operation — the BVT — had been neutralized.

The trouble was that Preiszler’s unit, which spent most of its time chasing drug dealers, was ill-prepared for a search that involved highly classified information.

Among the 40,000 gigabytes of data seized by police during the BVT raid was a copy of the “Neptune Databank,” a hard drive containing years of top-secret information shared with the Austrians by other Western intelligence agencies, including the CIA, MI5 and Mossad. (Whether the Russians managed to make a copy of the drive in the chaos that followed the raid isn’t clear.)

If the cloud of suspicion unleashed by the action wasn’t bad enough, the seizure of a top-secret hard drive with information from partner services was crippling. In the fraternity of global intelligence, such an indiscretion, regardless of the circumstances, was unforgivable. The Austrians were soon cut off by their partners.

Marsalek’s plan to remake Austria’s spy services

Marsalek had every reason to be pleased with himself. 

The agency was discredited. Its director, Peter Gridling, had been suspended amid the investigation, and Weiss had left the BVT and gone to work for Marsalek directly in Munich out of his villa. Finally, in an unrelated decision, an Austrian court had lifted Ott’s suspension.

Though Ott had been reassigned to another corner of the interior ministry, he still had access to the information Marsalek wanted, and the relationship between the two men continued to pay high dividends.

In the wake of the Salisbury poisoning of Russian defector Sergei Skripal, a former military intelligence officer, and his daughter by a nerve agent known as Novichok, the Hague-based Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons commissioned an analysis.

The Russians were eager to know what the OPCW knew about Novichok. Moscow dispatched several agents to The Hague in early October 2018, according to Dutch authorities. They tried to hack into the OPCW’s computer system but failed.

Ott had more luck. Shortly after the failed Russian effort, he secured a copy of the report, which included the OPCW’s breakdown of the formula for Novichok. Authorities believe Ott handed the report, a copy of which was found on his phone, to Marsalek.

Amid the chaos at the BVT, Moscow moved to fully infiltrate Austria’s security services, the intelligence sources say. Whether the sources based their conclusion on hard evidence or inference isn’t clear. What is clear is that Marsalek was working behind the scenes to reconfigure Austria’s intelligence services under a single “national secret services coordinator.”

In messages to the FPÖ’s Gudenus, Marsalek offered his views on how a new intelligence service should be structured. He even proposed a candidate to lead the new service: the Vienna attorney who had accompanied Weiss when he offered himself up as a witness to the abuses alleged in the dossier.

In addition to “trying to undermine the senior leadership of the BVT, there was an attempt to influence a reform of the BVT in terms of its personnel and organizational structure,” investigators concluded in a summary shared with POLITICO.

At the same time, Ott was working on a blueprint for a new secret service within the foreign ministry, where he would play a central role.  “You will definitely be a part of this,” a senior FPÖ MP close to Kickl told Ott in a text exchange recovered by investigators. “We’re going to find a good solution for everyone who has helped here.”

Austria’s foreign minister at the time was Karin Kneissl, a politician known for her friendly stance toward Russia. That summer, in August 2018, her wedding made global headlines after Putin showed up and waltzed with the bride. 

The most memorable moment came at the end of the dance, when Kneissl stepped back and bowed before the Russian president.

Vienna tries, and fails, to shut Marsalek down

Before Marsalek could complete his grand plan to rebuild Austria’s intelligence service around his agents, however, Ibiza got in the way.

A private detective released a video showing Strache, then FPÖ leader, offering lucrative government contracts in exchange for campaign help from a woman he believed was the niece of a Russian oligarch.

The hours-long, alcohol-fueled encounter at a finca on the Spanish island had been filmed two years earlier in 2017. But the ensuing scandal enveloped the FPÖ like a wildfire, triggering the government’s collapse and forcing the party from power. With his political allies out of office, Marsalek’s operation collapsed.

By then the Wirecard COO also had bigger worries. The Financial Times had published a series of articles pointing to grave irregularities in the firm’s accounting; the authorities were circling, and investors were fleeing. On June 18, 2020 Wirecard acknowledged that nearly €2 billion, one-quarter of its assets, were missing from its accounts.



Later that day, Marsalek met Weiss at an Italian restaurant for dinner, then quietly left Munich headed for Austria. In Vienna the following evening he took a taxi to an airfield outside the city, where Weiss had arranged for a Cessna to fly Marsalek to Belarus. He has yet to return; investigators believe he went from Minsk to Russia, where he remains.

In most spy tales, that would be the end of the story. Marsalek, however, was far from done. He continued to run both his Austrian cell and a separate London-based ring of Bulgarians, authorities say.

In December 2020 Weiss sent Ott a text message asking him to dig up the address of Christo Grozev, the Bulgarian-born investigative reporter who had helped expose the Novichok poisoning. Ott delivered the info, as well as photos from Grozev’s residence; Marsalek’s Bulgarian team subsequently broke into Grozev’s apartment, stealing thumb drives and a computer.

U.S. intelligence didn’t know about the break-in but had other indications that Grozev was in danger and recommended that he leave Austria, where he had lived with his family for 20 years. He now resides in the U.S.

Authorities in Austria didn’t move to shut down Marsalek’s network until 2021, and even then didn’t understand its full scope. After investigators pieced together his escape and discovered that Weiss, with the help of a former FPÖ politician, had arranged the private flight to Minsk, police arrested the former BVT official on Jan. 22 of that year.

Weiss defended his role in helping Marsalek, arguing there wasn’t an arrest warrant out for his boss at the time. He admitted to engaging Ott to dig up information on dozens of names but downplayed the significance. 

After keeping him in custody for two days, the authorities, who didn’t have enough to charge him, let Weiss go under the condition that he cooperate with the investigation. Instead, with Marsalek’s help, he jumped on the next flight to Dubai.

“I just managed to evacuate my Austrian guy to Dubai,” Marsalek wrote to one of his Bulgarian agents that day. “That was quite an adventure as well. We were worried they’d arrest him again at the airport.”


Some in the BVT speculate that Weiss turned against the agency out of anger because he wasn’t promoted to deputy director. But Gridling, the agency’s former chief, says Weiss didn’t even apply for that position. Running Section 2 was the job Weiss spent years trying to land, he said.

“I find it difficult to explain his actions,” Gridling added. “If he had been patient, he could have been director one day.”

Shortly after Weiss was arrested in early 2021, the police also took Ott into custody. After officers broke through the door Ott tried unsuccessfully to destroy his phone, according to police. After six weeks in detention he, too, was released pending an investigation.

Though authorities suspected the Russians had had a hand in Weiss and Ott’s dealings, it wasn’t until late last year that they discovered the depth of Moscow’s involvement. In September, British counterintelligence broke up an alleged U.K.-based spy ring of six Bulgarians that authorities say worked for Marsalek. 

As part of the U.K. probe, investigators stumbled on chat communications between the ring’s alleged leader, Orlin Roussev, and Marsalek that pointed to intensive engagement by Moscow. 

Most surprising was that Ott appeared to have continued to work for Marsalek unabated even after his 2021 arrest. In June 2022, for example, he allegedly handed over three mobile phones that had belonged to senior Austrian officials to Marsalek’s Bulgarian crew. Ott acquired the phones from a former colleague in the BVT, according to Austrian law enforcement. 

According to the chat communications recovered by British authorities, Marsalek was in constant contact with his agents during their Austria visit, even asking one to purchase two Sachertorte, the Viennese chocolate cake, on their way home. 

A few months later, Ott delivered a so-called SINA laptop, a highly encrypted computer used by German intelligence, to Marsalek’s helpers in return for €20,000, authorities say. Police discovered two more of the laptops during a search of Ott’s home.

What an FPÖ government would mean for Europe

Ott, whose latest arrest came as a result of the information U.K. authorities provided to the Austrians, is unlikely to be released from prison soon, Austrian officials say.

That might be wishful thinking.

Kickl, who was interior minister at the time of the BVT raid, now leads the FPÖ; with a national election due before the end of the year, the party has a comfortable lead in the polls.

If the FPÖ wins and forms a government, both Ott and Weiss, who remains in Dubai (which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Austria), may yet get a reprieve.

The bigger question for Europe is what an FPÖ-led government would mean for Vienna and its broader relationship with Moscow. Austria’s critics argue that the country is already dangerously dependent on Russia. The center-right government might take a tough line on Moscow in public, they say, but has dragged its feet when it comes to disentangling Austria’s economy from Russia.



The country has been slow to wean itself off Russian energy despite persistent pressure from Brussels and Washington, for example. In the financial sector, Austrian-owned Raiffeisen Bank International continues to operate one of the largest retail banks in Russia, despite a longstanding pledge to withdraw.


If Moscow really was behind the effort to take over Austria’s spy service, as Western intelligence officials claim, it’s clear that the Russians regard the country as an important prize and are willing to go to great lengths to influence its politics.

In the Kremlin’s effort, Kickl and the FPÖ proved at worst eager accomplices and at best useful idiots. Though Kickl hasn’t been as overtly pro-Russian as some of his colleagues, he has been a vocal opponent of European sanctions against Moscow and critical of Western military support for Ukraine.

With Kickl as chancellor, it’s a safe bet that Vienna would pursue even closer economic ties with Moscow. And with both Slovakia and Hungary already leaning toward Russia, Austria’s entry into the Kremlin’s sphere of influence would create a Putin-friendly bloc stretching from the Carpathians to the Eastern Alps, posing a fundamental challenge to European security.

If the rest of Europe is surprised by the Austrian turn, it shouldn’t be: Putin has never made his interest in the country a secret. In 2018, just months after the BVT raid, he accepted an invitation from the Austro-Russian Friendship Society to celebrate 50 years of Russian gas deliveries to the country. Several weeks later, he returned for Kneissl’s wedding. (Describing herself as a “political refugee,” the former foreign minister has since left Austria and now runs a think tank in St. Petersburg.) 

“We’ve had very good and close relations with Austria for a long time,” Putin told Austrian television just months after the raid on the BVT. “Austria has traditionally been a reliable partner for us in Europe.”

When I see reports like this it does not make me proud nor does it make me sleep better at night. You could fund all kinds of black projects with the insane pricing of America's defense by the MIC that Ike warned us about. Million + dollar missiles to down a $3000 drone fired by a less than third world country. Boy howdy we showed them !! $80,000 dollar an hour operating cost for many of our aircraft not even counting the price of the hardware/aircraft to begin with kinda makes me sick at the waste I see.

Quote:Most of America’s warships set sail packed full of missiles. These include surface-to-air missiles to shoot down everything from drones to ballistic missiles, surface-to-surface missiles used to attack targets on land and sea, and even rocket-delivered torpedoes to defend against prowling submarines. These weapons can be depleted quickly during combat operations, as we have seen in and around the Red Sea recently. So, how much do each of those missiles really cost? We dug into the Pentagon’s budget documents to find out.

I assume most of us have heard the story of the impact that created the Chicxulub crater and wiped out much of the life on earth. This is a Why Files video from almost 3 years ago...I knew already most of this stuff but found this video entertaining and thought provoking. I became a subscriber and have followed their videos ever since.

Quote:The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact - The Day the Dinosaurs Died One of the deepest scars on our planet is hidden beneath the Yucatán Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico. The buried crater, over 90 miles in diameter, was created when a massive asteroid struck the planet 66 million years ago and brought a calamitous end to the reign of dinosaurs. Though dinosaur extinction probably took weeks or months, in just one day, 425 feet of material accumulated where the asteroid hit with the power of 10 billion atomic bombs. The blast ignited trees and plants for thousands of miles -- which were quickly extinguished by mega tsunamis with waves that may have reached as far inland as Illinois. And at the low-end estimate of 10.1 on the Richter scale, the subsequent earthquake would have been more powerful than anything ever measured or experienced by humans. And then things got worse. Let's find out why.

One of the islands is 6 miles off the coast of Red China. I hope the S.F.'s bunkers are deep and reinforced... Also 100s if not thousands of shoulder fired missiles would be nice IMO.. When or if China tries to invade Taiwan I hope sincerely they get beat back in a BIG and total way !

Hi all.

So my mom is 85 , and has been sick (possible stomach bug or food poisoning) , since sunday morning.
I think food poisoning as she said that she had eating some salmon that tasted bad. 

She has not eaten, thrown up a few times (maybe 2 or 3 times), and maybe drinks 2 , maximum 3 glasses of water a day.

She's very skinny and frail as it is, so I'm worried she may be getting dehydrated and lose too much weight.
She seems to go up and down a bit. 
Sunday was bad, yesterday better, and today a bit worse then yesterday again, but a while ago she seemed a bit better again.
She has no fever, though for a little while she had mild feverl.

I'm thinking about getting her some nutrional drink ?  She's pre-diabetic and has to watch sugar, but now off course she hasn't had anything to eat a few days. Would orange juice be safe to give?
Any suggestions?

Thanks

Quote: Wrote:At 18 seconds into this broadcast the agonizing moans of a dying man can be heard loud and clear. His head is being violently removed with what looks to be an 8 inch knife by a right handed assassin. The cameraman pulls back from the close range recording to reveal that the victims arms and legs were removed beforehand. 

Quote: Wrote:A former U.S. Border Patrol agent was sentenced to 87 months in prison Friday after his previous conviction on drug distribution and bribery charges.
“The level of the betrayal here is a reflection of Mr. Hernandez’s greed, of his individual betrayal," said Tara McGrath, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California.
55-year-old Hector Hernandez admitted he took bribes to smuggle narcotics and people across the U.S./Mexico border while on duty.
“Public servants take an oath, and when we take that oath, we honor it and we stand by it,” said McGrath.

The FBI ran a Truman Show on this Chinese spy for 8 years...

Quote:According to court documents, Ma and a blood relative of his (identified as co-conspirator #1 or CC #1) were naturalized U.S. citizens who were born in Hong Kong and Shanghai, respectively. Both Ma and CC #1 worked for the CIA ­­­­— CC #1 from 1967 until 1983, Ma from 1982 until 1989. As CIA officers, both men held top secret security clearances that granted them access to sensitive and classified CIA information, and signed non-disclosure agreements that required them to maintain the secrecy of that information.

As Ma admitted in the plea agreement, in March 2001, when he no longer worked for the CIA, at the request of intelligence officers employed by the PRC’s Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB), Ma convinced CC #1 to meet with SSSB intelligence officers in a Hong Kong hotel room. Over the course of three days, Ma and CC #1 provided the SSSB with a large volume of classified U.S. national defense information. At the conclusion of the third day, the SSSB intelligence officers provided CC #1 with $50,000 in cash, which Ma counted. Ma and CC #1 also agreed at that time to continue to assist the SSSB.

As detailed in the plea agreement, in March 2003, while living in Hawaii, Ma applied for a job as a contract linguist in the FBI Honolulu Field Office. The FBI, aware of Ma’s ties to PRC intelligence, hired Ma, as part of an investigative plan, to work at an off-site location where his activities could be monitored and his contacts with the PRC investigated. Ma worked for the FBI from August 2004 until October 2012.

Ma further admitted that in February 2006, during this monitored employment by the FBI in Honolulu, Ma convinced CC #1 to provide the identities of at least two individuals depicted in photographs that were provided to Ma by SSSB intelligence officers. The individuals’ identities were and remain classified U.S. national defense information. Ma confessed that he knew that this information, and the information communicated in March 2001, would be used to injure the United States or to benefit the PRC, and he deliberately engaged in the criminal conspiracy with CC #1 and the SSSB anyway.

Under the terms of the parties’ plea agreement, Ma must cooperate with the United States, including by submitting to debriefings by U.S. government agencies. The plea agreement, if accepted by the Court, calls for an agreed-upon sentence of 10 years in prison. Sentencing is set for Sept. 11.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Clare E. Connors for the District of Hawaii, Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Kevin Vorndran of the FBI, and Special Agent in Charge Steven Merrill of the FBI Honolulu Field Office made the announcement after Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson conducted the change of the plea hearing.

The FBI Honolulu and Los Angeles Field Offices investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ken Sorenson and Craig Nolan for the District of Hawaii, and Trial Attorneys Scott Claffee and Leslie Esbrook of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

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24 GOP Governors Tell Biden Not to Sign WHO Pandemic Agreement
‘These agreements would seek to elevate the WHO from an advisory body to a global authority in public health,’ the Republican governors wrote in a letter.

The World Health Organization (WHO) logo is seen at the entrance of their headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 9, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)


Governors from 24 states have joined together to speak out against treaty negotiations being conducted by the Biden administration, which “would purport to grant” the World Health Organisation (WHO) “unprecedented and unconstitutional powers over the United States and its people.”
In a March 22 letter, the governors stated that they “stand united in opposition to two proposed instruments” currently under negotiation.
“The objective of these instruments is to empower the WHO, particularly its uncontrollable Director-General, with the authority to restrict the rights of U.S. citizens, including freedoms such as speech, privacy, travel, choice of medical care, and informed consent, thus violating our Constitution’s core principles,” the governors wrote. “If adopted, these agreements would seek to elevate the WHO from an advisory body to a global authority in public health.”
The documents they refer to are a new treaty called the WHO pandemic agreement and amendments to the existing International Health Regulations (IHRs), which together would centralize a significant amount of authority within this United Nations subsidiary if the WHO declares a state of “health emergency.”
Governors from the following states signed the letter: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
As the negotiations among member nations move into their final phase before the start of the voting session at the World Health Assembly, scheduled to begin on May 27, the WHO appears to have scaled back some of the powers it had sought in hopes of finalizing a deal.
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The latest IHR draft has deleted a prior provision that member nations “recognize WHO as the guiding and coordinating authority of international public health response” and commit to following the WHO’s directives during a health emergency. The latest draft also states that WHO recommendations are non-binding.
The WHO had attempted in previous drafts to obtain powers over “all risks with the potential to impact public health,” which could include environmental and climate issues. The latest draft seeks to limit the WHO’s authority to diseases.
The WHO has simultaneously launched a public relations campaign, using politicians, celebrities, and religious leaders, to encourage member states to sign the agreements. 
Sovereignty Coalition Holds Summit on ‘Global Governance’ Treaties at WHO

On March 20, WHO ambassador and Britain’s former Prime Minister Gordon Brown praised the efforts of a “100+ pantheon of global leaders” that have come to the WHO’s defense. 
“A high-powered intervention by 23 former national Presidents, 22 former Prime Ministers, a former UN General Secretary, and 3 Nobel Laureates is being made today to press for an urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord, under the Constitution of the World Health Organization, to bolster the world’s collective preparedness and response to future pandemics,” Mr. Brown stated in a press release.
He called for an international effort to “expose fake news disinformation campaigns by conspiracy theorists trying to torpedo international agreement for the Pandemic Accord.”
“No country will cede any sovereignty, and no country will see their national laws set aside,” he declared.
The issue of whether or not to grant the WHO additional powers has become a partisan issue, with Democrats generally supporting the plan and Republicans generally opposing it.
GOP Senators Demand Right to Approve Treaty
On May 1, all 49 GOP senators signed a letter to President Biden urging him either not to sign the WHO Pandemic Agreement and IHR amendments or, if he does, to submit the treaty to the Senate for approval, as required by the Constitution. Senate Democrats have thus far not supported efforts to require Senate approval for the treaty.
“The WHO’s failure during the COVID-19 pandemic was as total as it was predictable and did lasting harm to our country,” the Republican senators wrote.
“The United States cannot afford to ignore this latest WHO inability to perform its most basic functions and must insist on comprehensive WHO reforms before even considering amendments to the International Health Regulations or any new pandemic related treaty that would increase WHO authority,” they continued. “We are deeply concerned that your administration continues to support these initiatives and strongly urge you to change course.”
In the United States, the authority to deal with health issues is largely in the domain of states and outside the grasp of the federal government. States with Republican majorities have been active in opposing the WHO agreements.

Louisiana and Florida recently passed laws stating that state officials will not obey WHO directives, and other states, such as Oklahoma, are considering similar legislation.
Attorneys general from 22 U.S. states also signed a May 8 letter to President Biden urging him not to sign the WHO agreements and stating that they will resist any attempts by the WHO to set public health policy in their states.
“Although the latest iteration is far better than previous versions, it’s still highly problematic,” the attorneys general wrote. “The fluid and opaque nature of these proceedings, moreover, could allow the most egregious provisions from past versions to return. Ultimately, the goal of these instruments isn’t to protect public health,” they stated.
“It’s to cede authority to the WHO—specifically its director-general—to restrict our citizens’ rights to freedom of speech, privacy, movement (especially travel across borders), and informed consent.”

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