You’re fired: Sergei Protosenya, formerly the chief accountant at Russian gas giant Novatek, is the latest to turn up dead, a Spanish news site reports. The 55-year-old millionaire was found dead along with his wife and daughter at a villa in the town of Lloret de Mar near Barcelona earlier this week, law enforcement sources told the news site. Police have not officially named the family, however. His death reportedly took place on April 19—just a day after a former vice president of Russia’s Gazprombank was found dead along with his wife and daughter in similar circumstances in Moscow. Add this to a number of Russian oil tycoon’s “suicides” and “accidents” and you find the KGB, or whatever, has a long reach. Look for more of this as the “war” drags on.
It’s coming: China announced yesterday that it signed an agreement with the Solomon Islands that would allow it to send law enforcement and security services there upon request. The U.S. and its allies fear that this will allow China to establish a naval base or foothold. In September 2019, the Solomon Islands made what is known as “The Switch”: ending their 36-year diplomatic relationship with Taiwan and establishing ties with China. A draft of the secret agreement leaked reveals vague language that can easily be exploited by Beijing to intervene in The Solomons’ democratic process and to achieve its own strategic goals, possibly including docking warships and establishing a military base. I keep saying, Taiwan is next. Probably soon.
No authority at all: Anthony Fauci this week said it is “unfortunate” that a federal judge “superseded the authority of the CDC” by deeming the Biden administration’s federal mask mandate illegal. “I think it’s unfortunate that a court order came in and, I believe, superseded the authority of the CDC,” he added. Dr. Fauxi, the CDC does NOT make law, is not a legislative branch, and sure isn’t part of the executive branch. The CDC. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services. Get that? A PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY. It is inhabited by career (lifetime) employees and does not create policy or law and has no “authority”. So STFDaSTFU.
Next comes no-think: Former President Barack Obama in a major speech on Thursday called for more regulation of social media content, in order to diminish “disinformation.” He described himself as “pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist” but immediately clarified that it (The First Amendment) did not apply to social media companies. The former president delivered a speech on the issue at Stanford University after spending months studying the subject. Remember, he taught “Constitutional Law” at the University of Chicago Law School. First, we have to define “disinformation”. No, that doesn’t work. The 1st Amendment either applies to everyone, or it doesn’t apply at all.
Name spotting: Watching “Law and Order” the other night I spotted a name that means a lot in the New York PD. Well, it used to. One of the actors was named Terry Serpico, who plays a Chief of Detectives on the long running series. In the NYPD, the name Serpico was, for many years, praised or reviled, depending on your opinion. Frank Serpico was best known for whistleblowing on police corruption. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, while he was a plainclothes police officer working in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan. It was because of Serpico the Knapp Commission was started and a lot of heads rolled. Al Pacino played Serpico in one of his all time best roles. It doesn’t appear they are related, but kinda fitting.
Storytellers Blog 