Понад 200 людей підозрюють у поширенні даних про роботу ППО та Сил оборони загалом – СБУ

SocNet Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

СБУ «вкотре наголошує на забороні знімати та оприлюднювати відео- і фотоматеріали про діяльність Сил оборони і наслідки російських обстрілів»
…

Наведення ракетного удару по Краматорську: затриманому чоловікові оголосили підозру у держзраді

SocNet Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

Жителю Краматорська, якого підозрюють у наведенні ракетного удару по місту 27 червня, прокуратура повідомила про підозру у державній зраді, повідомляє пресслужба Офісу генпрокурора.

«Наразі вирішується питання щодо обрання йому запобіжного заходу у вигляді тримання під вартою», – йдеться в повідомленні.

Як повідомлялося раніше, підозрюваний – працівник газотранспортного підприємства, який був дистанційно завербований представником спецслужб РФ.

Ввечері 27 червня російські війська завдали два ракетних удари по центру Краматорська і приватному сектору Біленького поблизу міста, спричинивши численні жертви серед цивільних і руйнування.

28 червня Служба безпеки повідомила, що затримала агента спецслужб Росії, який, на думку слідчих, скоригував російський ракетний удар у Краматорську.

Міністерство оборони РФ напередодні заявило, що в Краматорську був «уражений пункт тимчасової дислокації командного складу 56-ї мотопіхотної бригади ЗСУ». На місці, куди був нанесений російський удар у Краматорську, розміщувався заклад харчування.

За останніми даними, через атаку 12 людей загинули, у тому числі 3 дитини, та понад 60 людей постраждали.
…

Biden Refutes Top-Down Economic Policy with ‘Bidenomics’

CensorBiz Бізнес, Новини, Статті, Суспільство 0 Comment

Here comes “Bidenomics,” President Joe Biden’s self-named plan to forge an economic future “for families and communities that have long been written off and left behind.” On Wednesday, he visited Chicago — a legendary city in the nation’s once-booming industrial and agricultural heartland — to introduce Bidenomics to the world. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington. Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
…

Журналісти проєкту Радіо Свобода «Крим.Реалії» оновили інтерактивну мапу військових об’єктів РФ у Криму

SocNet Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

На оновленій карті 12 категорій, 232 військові об’єкти, 63 геолокації фортифікаційних споруд, а також відмічені місця 51 випадку прильотів по російських військових обєктах та логістичній інфраструктурі
…

White House Takes a Bet on ‘Bidenomics’ Amid Americans’ Pessimism on Economy

CensorBiz Бізнес, Новини, Статті, Суспільство 0 Comment

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, the White House is promoting the term “Bidenomics” to make the case that his policies to “grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out” have succeeded in taming inflation and lowering unemployment.

“The share of working-age Americans in the workforce is higher now than it has been for 15 years,” Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Tuesday during a news briefing. “While we have more work to do, inflation has been coming down for 11 months in a row.”

She touted 13 million jobs created since Biden took office in February 2021 and an unemployment rate that has remained below 4% since February of this year.

Recent economic indicators give the administration reasons to be hopeful. While inflation still poses a challenge, employers continue to hire, and consumer prices rose at a slower pace in May compared with the previous year.

But so far most Americans do not share the administration’s optimism. The most recent Ipsos poll shows Biden’s approval rating remaining steady in the low 40s. The economy remains a top concern, and most are pessimistic about the direction of the country, a fact that Republicans have been eager to underscore.

“It’s frankly staggering to me that the president continues to have the audacity to say things like ‘hardworking families are reaping the rewards’ of his policies,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune said earlier this month. “Hardworking families are certainly reaping something from the president’s policies, but it isn’t rewards.”

Disconnect from data

The disconnect between economic data and how people are feeling about their financial well-being may be attributed to the fact that Americans are not digesting the good news, said Ipsos spokesperson Chris Jackson. He pointed to surveys measuring Americans’ familiarity with positive economic developments such as low unemployment and falling inflation versus bad news such as supply chain issues and high inflation.

“The bad news, everyone knows about. The good news, very few Americans know about,” he told VOA. “In an environment like that, it’s hard to make a compelling case that you’re doing a good job, when nobody knows anything that’s good.”

The administration is aware of the disconnect. On Wednesday, Biden will be in Chicago to deliver a speech explaining Bidenomics and trying to convince Americans that the economy is thriving under his leadership.

 

The speech is part of a three-week push in which top officials will travel across the country to argue that legislation championed by the president is delivering results for Americans. This includes massive investments under the infrastructure law, the COVID-19 relief package and the CHIPS and Science Act that injects over $52 billion in semiconductor research, development, manufacturing and workforce development.

Republicans believe some of the administration’s policies are too costly and contribute to high inflation. They say that most of the job gains since 2021 were simply jobs that were being recovered from the pandemic, not new job creation.

Still, the decision to brand the country’s fortunes with the president’s name reflects the administration’s confidence that the trajectory is upward, and the economy will not fall into recession – at least before November 2024 when the presidential election will be held.

Last week, the Federal Reserve paused its aggressive rate hike campaign for the first time in 18 months but signaled that the battle against inflation isn’t over. More interest rate hikes are likely, even as early as July.

Move over, Reaganomics

Bidenomics is also an attempt to distinguish the president’s and the Democrats’ agenda from that of Republicans who favor cutting taxes and slashing government spending.

Biden and his aides have often criticized former Republican President Ronald Reagan’s agenda of lowering tax rates, deregulation and slashing spending on government programs. Since the push for Reaganomics in the 1980s, Republicans have credited low taxes with boosting corporate profits and ultimately all workers and the population in general.

“He rejected trickle-down economics, the theory that tax cuts at the top would trickle down, that all we needed was for government to get out of the way,” said Brainard, the director of Biden’s economic council.

“That failed approach led to a pullback of private investment from key industries, like semiconductors to solar. It led to a deterioration of the nation’s infrastructure. And it led to a loss of a path to the middle class for too many Americans and too many communities around the country.”

Brainard said that in Chicago, the president will outline the main pillars of Bidenomics, including strategic investments in critical sectors such as infrastructure, clean energy and semiconductors; empowering and educating American workers, particularly those who have been previously marginalized; and promoting competition to lower costs and provide fair opportunities for small businesses.

Just two weeks ago, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled a proposed series of new tax breaks aimed at businesses and families, a proposal that would reverse some of Biden’s legislative victories.

Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
…

FBI, Homeland Security Ignored ‘Massive Amount’ of Intelligence Before Jan. 6, Senate Report Says

PolitCens Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security downplayed or ignored “a massive amount of intelligence information” ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol, according to the chairman of a Senate panel that on Tuesday released a new report on the intelligence failures ahead of the insurrection. 

 

The report details how the agencies failed to recognize and warn of the potential for violence as some of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters openly planned the siege in messages and forums online. 

Among the multitude of intelligence that was overlooked was a December 2020 tip to the FBI that members of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys planned to be in Washington, D.C., for the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and their “plan is to literally kill people,” the report said.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the agencies were also aware of many social media posts that foreshadowed violence, some calling on Trump’s supporters to “come armed” and storm the Capitol, kill lawmakers or “burn the place to the ground.” 

Michigan Senator Gary Peters, the Democratic chairman of the Homeland panel, said the breakdown was “largely a failure of imagination to see threats that the Capitol could be breached as credible,” echoing the findings of the Sept. 11 commission about intelligence failures ahead of the 2001 terrorist attacks. 

The report by the panel’s majority staff says the intelligence community has not entirely recalibrated to focus on the threats of domestic, rather than international, terrorism. And government intelligence leaders failed to sound the alarm “in part because they could not conceive that the U.S. Capitol Building would be overrun by rioters.” 

Still, Peters said, the reasons for dismissing what he called a “massive” amount of intelligence “defies an easy explanation.” 

‘Everybody failed’

While several other reports have examined the intelligence failures around Jan. 6 — including a bipartisan 2021 Senate report, the House Jan. 6 committee last year and several separate internal assessments by the Capitol Police and other government agencies — the latest investigation is the first congressional report to focus solely on the actions of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis. 

In the wake of the attack, Peters said the committee interviewed officials at both agencies and found what was “pretty constant finger-pointing” at each other. 

“Everybody should be accountable because everybody failed,” Peters said. 

Using emails and interviews collected by the Senate committee and others, including from the House Jan. 6 panel, the report lays out in detail the intelligence the agencies received in the weeks ahead of the attack. 

There was not a failure to obtain evidence, the report says, but the agencies “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners.” 

As Trump, a Republican, falsely claimed he had won the 2020 election and tried to overturn his election defeat, telling his supporters to “fight like hell” in a speech in front of the White House that day, thousands of them marched to the Capitol. More than 2,000 rioters overran law enforcement, assaulted police officers, and caused more than $2.7 billion in damage to the Capitol, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report earlier this year. 

Breaking through windows and doors, the rioters sent lawmakers running for their lives and temporarily interrupted the certification of the election victory by Biden, a Democrat. 

Even as the attack was happening, the new report found, the FBI and Homeland Security downplayed the threat. As the Capitol Police struggled to clear the building, Homeland Security “was still struggling to assess the credibility of threats against the Capitol and to report out its intelligence.” 

And at a 10 a.m. briefing — as protesters gathered at Trump’s speech and near the Capitol were “wearing ballistic helmets, body armor, carrying radio equipment and military grade backpacks” — the FBI briefed that there were “no credible threats at this time.” 

The lack of sufficient warnings meant that law enforcement were not adequately prepared and there was not a hardened perimeter established around the Capitol, as there is during events such as the annual State of the Union address. 

The report contains dozens of tips about violence on Jan. 6 that the agencies received and dismissed either due to lack of coordination, bureaucratic delays, or trepidation on the part of those who were collecting it. The FBI, for example, was unexpectedly hindered in its attempt to find social media posts planning for Jan. 6 protests when the contract for its third-party social media monitoring tool expired. At Homeland Security, analysts were hesitant to report open-source intelligence after criticism in 2020 for collecting intelligence on American citizens during racial justice demonstrations. 

One tip received by the FBI ahead of the Jan. 6 attack was from a former Justice Department official who sent screenshots of online posts from members of the Oath Keepers extremist group: “There is only one way in. It is not signs. It’s not rallies. It’s … bullets!” 

The social media company Parler, a favored platform for Trump’s supporters, directly sent the FBI several posts it found alarming, adding that there was “more where this came from” and that they were concerned about what would happen on Jan. 6. 

“(T)his is not a rally and it’s no longer a protest,” read one of the Parler posts sent to the FBI, according to the report. “This is a final stand where we are drawing the red line at Capitol Hill. … don’t be surprised if we take the #capital [sic] building.” 

‘Determined to aggressively fight’

But even as it received the warnings, the Senate panel found, the agency said over and over again that there were no credible threats. 

“Our nation is still reckoning with the fallout from January 6th, but what is clear is the need for a reevaluation of the federal government’s domestic intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination processes,” the new report says. 

In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Angelo Fernandez said that the department has made many of those changes two and a half years later. The department “has strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing, and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe.” 

The FBI said in a separate response that since the attack it has increased focus on “swift information sharing” and centralized the flow of information to ensure more timely notification to other entities. “The FBI is determined to aggressively fight the danger posed by all domestic violent extremists, regardless of their motivations,” the statement said. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray has defended the FBI’s handling of intelligence in the run-up to Jan. 6, including a report from its Norfolk field office on Jan. 5 that cited online posts foreshadowing the possibility of a “war” in Washington the following day. The Senate report noted that the memo “did not note the multitude of other warnings” the agency had received. 

The faultfinding with the FBI and Homeland Security Department echoes the blistering criticism directed at U.S. Capitol Police in a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Homeland and Rules committees two years ago. That report found that the police intelligence unit knew about social media posts calling for violence, as well, but did not inform top leadership what they had found. 

Peters says he asked for the probe of the intelligence agencies after other reports, such as the House panel’s investigation last year, focused on other aspects of the attack. The Jan. 6 panel was more focused on Trump’s actions and concluded in its report that the former president criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. 

“It’s important for us to realize these failures to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Peters said. 
…

Crowded, Diverse Republican Presidential Field Expands

PolitCens Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

Former President Donald Trump and current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held dueling events in the early primary state of New Hampshire on Tuesday, as campaigning among the dozen or more Republicans seeking the presidency next year escalates.  

DeSantis was on the stump in the town of Hollis, just before Trump spoke 65 kilometers (40 miles) to the north in Concord, the state capital. 

The two rivals’ common target on Tuesday: President Joe Biden, who at the age of 80 is running for a second term.  

“If this election is about Biden’s failures and our vision for the future, we are going to win. If it’s about relitigating things that happened two, three years ago, we’re going to lose,” DeSantis said, standing in front a banner reading “Restore Sanity.” 

His remark was in response to a high school student’s question about whether Trump violated the key democratic principle of the peaceful transfer of power by exhorting followers to disrupt the Electoral College vote count at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

“We’re going to evict crooked Joe Biden. He is crooked as hell,” said Trump, who is the first sitting or former U.S. president to face federal criminal charges, at the Tuesday luncheon hosted by the New Hampshire Federation of Republic Women. “He’s the most corrupt president we’ve ever had,” and “grossly incompetent as head of the United States of America.”  

Trump, who is 77, has stated he will not drop out of the 2024 race even if convicted of any crime. In addition to being indicted on more than three dozen felony charges in connection with classified documents found at his Florida estate, an independent federal prosecutor is also examining his actions to interfere with the 2020 vote counting and the 2021 transfer of power to Biden.  

In the state of Georgia, a district attorney is considering charges against Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 election there. Trump also faces charges in the state of New York connected to his role in paying money to an adult film star.  

Trump, in his New Hampshire remarks, said every time he is indicted, it is a “great, great beautiful badge of honor and courage.”  

Political strategist Stuart Stevens, a veteran of five Republican presidential campaigns, says “this is Trump’s party. And I don’t see any reason to believe that the legal issues that he has [are] changing that. I think in many ways, [they are] just solidifying it.” 

Trump has successfully portrayed himself as a victim of political persecution “and saw his numbers go up when the FBI invaded Mar-a-Lago, so it’s a very strange and usual situation,” Stevens told VOA. 

Trump’s lead over DeSantis, 44, who is in second place, has expanded following his recent federal indictment. 

“Because the public is really smart, my numbers went up,” Trump said on Tuesday, again accusing Biden, without substantiation, of weaponizing the Department of Justice to target him for political reasons. 

“We’re not going to let this election be stolen from us,” the former president said of next year’s presidential balloting. “I’d have to work really hard to blow this one,” he said. 

Trump leading in polls

Fifty-one percent of national Republican primary voters in an NBC poll conducted June 16-20 selected Trump as their first choice in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, followed by 22% who chose DeSantis. Former Vice President Mike Pence got 7%, while 5% indicated their preference for former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. No other Republican candidate received more than 4% of support.  

Another credible survey, the Morning Consult poll, released on Tuesday and which contacted several thousand Republican primary voters June 23-25, puts Trump at 57% and DeSantis at 19%.  

Trump told the New Hampshire women’s group he will continue to attack DeSantis as long as his challenger remains in second place, predicting the governor would soon falter, and then he would target whoever replaces his fellow Floridian in that spot. 

“I think every indication is that Donald Trump is going to be the nominee,” predicted Stevens, who says he left the Republican Party due to its fealty to Trump.  

The newest entrant in the Republican presidential primary field is former Congressman Will Hurd of Texas.  

Hurd, who was a CIA operations officer in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, says in his campaign announcement video, “If we nominate a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump, who lost the House, the Senate and the White House, we all know Joe Biden will win again.” 

Few other Republicans running are as openly critical of Trump, who would be eligible to serve only four years because he is a former one-term president. 

Christie is viewed as the most outspoken critic of Trump, despite his former closeness to him. He is now telling voters that Trump’s presidency “made us smaller by dividing us even further.” 

With the notable exclusion of Pence, many in the race are likely auditioning as a potential running mate, using this primary season as a warmup or hoping for a Cabinet post in a Republican administration as a consolation prize. 

Those with diverse backgrounds presumed to aspire for second billing in 2024 or the top spot on the 2028 ticket include Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. She is one of two Republicans with South Asian roots who is running. The other is Ohio-born entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Another prominent candidate of color is Senator Tim Scott, a Black former insurance agent who grew up in working-class poverty. 

Another recent entrant is Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, whose Cuban-born father also was mayor of the Florida city. 

Suarez, like most of the crowded field, does not directly criticize Trump. 

“If you’re defined as against Joe Biden, that’s a good thing in a Republican primary,” said Stevens. “But I also think that history has shown that when you attack Donald Trump, he attacks back pretty hard. And I don’t think — maybe Chris Christie is an exception — the rest of them are not looking to get into a street fight with Donald Trump.” 

Debate slated for August

For Republican voters, their first opportunity to assess many of those running for president will come when the candidates directly confront each other on August 23 at the party’s initial debate of the primary season, to be held in Milwaukee in the important Midwestern swing state of Wisconsin. 

Stevens, who spent decades electing Republicans at every political level, sees the 2024 general election as something beyond two parties with different ideologies — a battle by opposing groups believing the other poses an existential threat to the nation. 

“We’ve never had that before, not since 1860” on the eve of the American Civil War, Stevens said. “And I think it’s very difficult to guess how that’s going to play out. But I don’t think it’s going play out in any normal traditional sense.”  
…

Zimbabwe Inflation Hits 175% as Currency Continues Crashing Against US Dollar

CensorBiz Бізнес, Новини, Статті, Суспільство 0 Comment

Zimbabwe officials say the country’s annual inflation rate more than doubled from May to June, to more than 175%.  Economists say multiple devaluations of Zimbabwe’s struggling dollar led prices to surge. 

Average Zimbabweans are feeling the effects of the country’s weak currency, known as bond notes or ZWL, which has been losing value against the U.S. dollar. 

Forty-year-old Kathleen Maswera said her salary in local currency has lost about 70% of its value since the beginning of the year. She has been begging her employer to adjust her pay. 

“So, it’s very difficult. Everything is going up, you get into the shop the next time the rate has changed, everything has changed, so it’s tough,” she said. “I take care of school going children, I also take care of my niece, who is not employed right now. So, it’s very tough. I have to work on contracts, all the money that I work is from hand to mouth. So, it’s quite difficult at the moment.”

Taguma Mahonde, the director-general of the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, said the country’s inflation rate remains high and accelerated this month. 

“The month-on-month inflation rate in June 2023 was 74.5%, gaining 58.8 percentage points on the May 2023 rate of 15.7%, he said. “The year-on-year inflation rate for the month of June 2023 as measured by the all-items Consumer Price Index was 175.8%.”

Trust Chikohora, a businessman and economic commentator, as well as former president of Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, said the rising inflation number are because of the local currency, which has been losing value against the U.S. dollar, forcing prices to go up. 

On a positive note, he said the inflation rate may soon start heading down.

“Maybe it will start to even out as we move forward in July and beyond, especially if the government continues to move with measures they have been putting in place now,” he said. “That’s to minimize activity on the parallel market, to have [a] situation where interest rates are higher than inflation, money supply growth needs to be curtailed so that government is not pumping Zim dollar money into the market.”  

That would be surely good news for average Zimbabweans whose wages can’t keep up with the rising prices at the market. 
…